NEW YORK TRAVEL DIARY! ♡ Part 1 – Times Square, Empire State Building, Woodbury Common Outlet, Eataly ♡

I know this travel diary has been extremely overdue – but I am finally here with my NYC Travel Diary! ♡ I went to NYC with 3 of my best friends last month and stayed there for 7 days 🙂 This travel diary will be spilt into 4 different parts just because there are way too many pictures and things I would like to share and they cannot possibly all fit into one single post 🙂 You can look out for Part 2, 3 and 4 in the next few days – but here is Part 1! ♡

On a Wednesday afternoon, Melissa, Sofie, Sharon and I landed in JFK after a 6 and a half hours flight from London Heathrow and got out of the airport at around 4pm in the afternoon 🙂 Our hotel was in Times Square and we quickly grabbed an Uber and made our way to Manhattan 😀 The Uber ride was longgggg, mainly due to a LOT of traffic (as expected) but when we finally got to Manhattan, we were so excited that we have finally arrived in NYC after having planned this trip for years! ♡

We stayed at a hotel called Hotel Shocard, which was right in the middle of Broadway and was in an extremely convenient spot 🙂 I would recommend this hotel to anyone who wants a nice little boutique hotel to stay in in the middle of Manhattan! ♡ The hotel rooms weren’t big, but they were definitely not bad for NYC standard 🙂

The first thing we did right after we got back to our hotel was get ready to go out for dinner because we were starving! We found a burger place called Black Iron Burger near our hotel and decided to go there for dinner 🙂 The burgers were really good and the portion sizes were pretty big as well. We were not too hungry so we just ordered two burgers to share and a ‘side’ of fries (the fries were huge!). The food was really delicious and after we were done, we walked around the area and Bryant Park, and then headed to the Empire State Building! ♡

The queue to go up to the Empire State Building that night wasn’t too bad at all (we also pre-booked our tickets which helped!) and in less than 20 minutes we went from ground floor all the way up to the Observation Deck on the 86th floor <3

New York at night is absolutely breathtaking ♡ I fell in love with this view a few years ago when I came to New York for the first time and I have been yearning to come back for this view ever since. I wasn’t disappointed this time around at all <3 Seeing this night view made me feel so alive and it is honestly nothing like anything else I have seen in the world (I find this view even more spectacular than the night views in Hong Kong and London ♡ Although those views are amazing as well!)

After enjoying the NYC skyline on the Empire State Building, we were all pretty exhausted and jetlagged so we headed back to our hotel for some much needed rest! ♡

Day 2 ♡
We got off to an early start on the second day because this is the day we decided to visit the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets! We grabbed some quick breakfast at Pret a Manger in the morning, and then made our way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal which was just one block away from our hotel. We bought our bus tickets to the outlet at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and off we went! The bus ride was only about 45 minutes long so we were at the outlet in no time 🙂

We all managed to find some really good discounts at the outlet and I was really satisfied with all my purchases! Some stores, like Kate Spade, were doing a LOT of discounts. Nearly everything in the Kate Spade outlet was 60% off with an additional 20% off everything! ♡

I ended up picking up some reallyyy cute accessories for myself and my family and friends as souvenirs because the discounts were just unbeatable! ♡

We also spent a considerable amount of time at Lululemon. The discounts there were not crazy but we did manage to find some really nice things 🙂 All their clothing seemed to be about 30% off the US retail price, which is quite a lot cheaper than normal UK Lululemon prices 😀 I also picked up a pair of earphones from Bose because I lost my old ones. I got the Bose earphones for US$75 at the outlet which is great – especially since they no longer have Bose at the Bicester Village Outlet in the UK 🙁

When I got back to the hotel I snapped a quick picture of what I picked up at the outlet – the Bose earphones, goodies from Kate Spade, a workout top with an attached sports bra, a pair of leggings, as well as a plain sports bra (not shown in the pic) from Lululemon! <3

I also found these pretty sandals from Stuart Weitzman for sale at either Nordstrom or Saks Fifth Avenue (can’t remember which store it was!) at the outlet. They were a bit of a splurge but I caved in ultimately since they are so cute and I thought I could definitely wear them all Summer round! ♡

After we finished shopping, we took the bus back to Manhattan and started exploring Times Square ♡

Times Square was packed full of tourists and we headed into Sephora to do some more retail therapy! I did a post all about my Sephora purchases here so head over to that post if you are curious what I bought! 😛 (p.s. I probably went a little tooo cray cray in Sephora).

When we finally sat down at Il Pesce, we decided to get a few plates to share so we could try everything 😀 We decided to go for the oysters, the flatbread with fried soft shell crab, the seared skate, as well as two plates of the egg pasta filled with maine lobster. Everything was absolutely delicious – especially the pasta with lobster! The bill came to around USD$35 per person in the end, which wasn’t the cheapest but it was definitely worth it if you are looking for a nice meal <3

Oysters ♡

Flatbread with fried soft shell crab

Seared skate

Egg Pasta filled with Maine Lobster

That’s it for Part 1 of my NYC Travel Diary but make sure to check back in a few days for Part 2 where I will share our Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Fifth Avenue and crazy milkshakes adventures! 😀

♡