NEW YORK TRAVEL DIARY! ♡ Part 2 – Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Fifth Avenue, Crazy Milkshakes!

Welcome back to Part 2 of my NYC travel diary! <3 If you haven’t read “Part 1 – Times Square, Empire State Building, Woodbury Common Outlet, Eataly” yet, head on over to that post where you can read about the first few days of our NYC trip 😀 And now continuing from Part 1…

Day 3
We started Day 3 with breakfast/ brunch in Midtown Manhattan ♡ We found a healthy breakfast/ brunch place called Gotan on Instagram and thought that their smoothie bowls look so nice and decided that we have to give this place a try <3 We were planning to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty later on that day so we arrived pretty early in the morning and had a really satisfying breakfast 🙂 Sharon and I got acai bowls while Sofie got a chia bowl and Melissa got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich 😀 They were all delicious and after we were done with our breakfasts – off to the Statue of Liberty we went! 🙂

To go to the Statue of Liberty, we pre-booked our tickets online, and then went to the pier at Battery Park where we had to go through security to get onto a ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. It was a really hot day and the queue to go through immigration was pretty long. We queued for about 30 minutes before we could go through security but once we went through, we got onto the ferry and arrived at Liberty Island really quickly! ♡

It was my second time visiting Liberty Island and Ellis Island but it was Sharon and Melissa’s first time <3 We snapped a lot of touristy pics with the Statue of Liberty, and walked around the Island for a while. You can also see the entire Manhattan from Liberty Island which is pretty incredible! 😀

After taking a lot of pictures and walking around, we got back on the ferry, which took us to Ellis Island. Ellis Island is where the Ellis Island Immigration Museum is situated and the island was the busiest gateway to the US where millions of immigrants passed through up until WWII. We walked through the museum which was extremely intriguing. You get to see how immigrants passed through the inspection station on the island years and years ago to enter the US in hope of starting a new life and it was both sad and heartwarming to see their journeys.

The museum also taught us a lot about the Statue of Liberty – how it was a symbol of hope for many immigrants when they first arrived Ellis Island because the Statue was a sign that they were just one step away from starting their new life in the States where many of their families and friends were already waiting. I would highly recommend giving the Ellis Island Immigration Museum a visit if you are in NYC ♡

After spending the whole afternoon at Liberty Island and Ellis Island, we took the ferry back to Manhattan and decided to have dinner at one of the restaurants we had been dying to try ever since we heard about their crazy milkshakes.

At around 7pm, we arrived Black Tap in the Meatpacking District and joined the queue which had been forming way before we arrived. We were told immediately by the staff that it was going to be around a one and a half hour queue, and sure enough – we ended up waiting for 1 hour and 40 minutes before finally being let inside the restaurant (p.s. it was a Friday night so that was probably why we had to wait for so long – but I don’t anticipate the queue to be any shorter during other weekdays!).

Long story short, we all agreed that the wait was worth it after these CRAZY milkshakes arrived and they actually tasted like candy/ chocolate heaven ♡ I have tried the crazy milkshakes at Cereal Killer Cafe in London before and these Black Tap milkshakes are BY FAR 10000 TIMES BETTER :O The milkshakes were not exactly cheap (they were around the $15 mark for each milkshake – but they were SO GOOD) and the four of us ended up finishing ALL THREE MILKSHAKES! ♡

As if the milkshakes were not enough, all four of us also ordered our own burger – which, you can probably guess at this point – it was just impossible for us to finish all our food! The burgers were still really good nonetheless, and the sweet potato fries were to die for – but as much as we wanted to finish everything – we couldn’t :O That night, we were so full that we couldn’t even think straight after our dinner lol ♡

Day 4
The next day, we woke up extra early as we had a Soul Cycle class booked for 8am in the morning at Soul Cycle Bryant Park. When we arrived in NYC the first day, we saw that there is a Soul Cycle studio just 4 minutes walk away from our hotel so we decided to sign up for a first-timer class as we have always wanted to give Soul Cycle a try while we are in the States <3 The class that we booked happened to be Hamilton-themed and it was awesome! 😀 I have developed a serious addiction for Hamilton the musical ever since then and would love to go back to NYC to watch it if I am ever lucky enough to get tickets to the show 😀

The class was really good exercise (especially after our crazy food adventures) and we picked up some smoothies and juices at Juice Press for a quick replenishment afterwards 🙂

We then decided to head out to explore Central Park and Fifth Avenue for the rest of our day 😀 We arrived at the Harlem side of Central Park and went inside for a stroll. The weather was incredibly hot that day so we couldn’t stay outdoors for long, but we did stay long enough to snap some nice pictures and enjoy the greenery which is so different from the rest of NYC 🙂

We got really hungry halfway through our walk and so we decided to go to the typical American diner place for comfort food – IHOP hahaha ♡ Having exercised in the morning kind of gave us the justification to eat whatever we wanted – so this happened:

Andddd the food was good! 😛 At that point, it was so unbearably hot outside that we decided to take an Uber to Fifth Avenue, and from there we continued our Central Park adventures <3

The contrast of the grass and greenery with the concrete jungle backdrop in Central Park is so undeniably “New York”! 😀 ♡

After our lovely Central Park stroll, we walked back to Fifth Avenue and started tackling shop after shop 😛 Bergdorf Goodman was having the most amazing sales for shoes when we were there (Louboutins on sale everywhere on their shoe floor :O) but at that point I was too broke from all my Woodbury Common Outlet and Sephora shopping to do any more damage hehe ♡

We walked past all the famous landmarks like the flagship Tiffany Store in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Centre etc. <3

Outfit Details:
Top from Zara
Shorts from ASOS
Chokers and Necklaces from ASOS

After a long day of walking around Central Park and Fifth Avenue, we decided to grab some lobster rolls for dinner, and then called it a day 😀

I really hope you have enjoyed Part 2 of our NYC travel diary <3 Make sure to check back 2 days later for Part 3 where we explored Soho, Little Italy, the Brooklyn Bridge, 9/11 Memorial and Korea Town! <3

♡