I Take a Walk in the Morning

I took a walk about here and there in the morning.

There were people,
who bought doughnuts and had a quick bite,
who were walking swiftly with newspaper in their hand,
who were aimlessly gathering and chatting.

I think that subway was far less crowded than that in Tokyo at least in the morning.

I Hop on a N.Y.C. Subway Train

Penn Station 34th Street is the nearest subway station to our hotel.

New York City's subway system was as clean and safe as that in Tokyo and well developed.

After being accustomed to pay and to change trains, it was very convenient to move around Manhattan area.

I rode a subway train once in the States exactly one decade ago in downtown Los Angeles with my daughters and wife. Time really flies.

We Stay at Wolcott Hotel

We stayed at a Hotel just 200 meters from Empire State Building located in the Midtown New York City. 

The picture above was taken through the window of the room we stayed.

Since the hotel had been built more than 100 years ago, the appearance of the chocolate-colored building told us years of unwritten story and history, though the inside the hotel was quite neat and clean.

The scene from the window perfectly overlapped my image of N.Y.C. buildings.

Fly to New York City from Minnesota

We could not get in the originally planed flight due to the delay of our international flight and an unnecessary paper work; my boarding card was not correctly issued at Haneda airport so it took about an hour to make the ground staff of the airline company to re-issue it.

Anyway, about three hours flight brought us to N.Y. C. safely at night.

A restaurant at New York City LGA airport welcomed us with every table had a tablet computer on it.

But they did not offer free WiHi service in the airport area contrary to Minneapolis airport did so.

My wife and I tried to go to the hotel in the downtown of Manhattan island by public bus and subway system as we had previously planed.
A couple minutes after we got in a bus, I found that we left one of our bags behind in front of the bus station in LGA airport.
We hurriedly got off the bus at the next bus stop; it actually took about ten minutes to the next bus stop; I felt as if it were one hour passed after I noticed it; after getting off the bus, we asked a person where bus stop was near by; we hopped on a bus heading back to the airport.
The bag held a note PC, two digital cameras, Japanese currency, two credit cards and else. No doubt it was very precious to us.
In the bus going back to the airport, I was thinking lots of things. I had to stop credit cards but card information was in the PC. How could I find those info.?
I could not spend N.Y.C. without a camera, so the second thing I had to do on the first day in N.Y.C. , following stopping credit cards, was to buy a camera.
No, No, No,  the first thing I had to do tonight was to go to a police office at the airport after getting off the bus,,,.

After stepping out of the bus, a few steps walk, surprisingly I found the bag was there.
I was told and most of Japanese have a stereotype idea that it was very dangerous and unsafe places in the U.S.A.
We were so relieved that we lost words for a minute standing with our mouth open.
Then, I rushed to open the bag and frantically checked in the bad, found that nothing was missing.

I said biiiiiiig thanks to New York citizens in my mind for leaving my bag stay there.
One thing was very clear that if the bag had gone, our memory of the trip to N.Y.C. was completely different one.

Saying Goodbye to Hibiscus, We Are Heading to Minnesota

Leaving hibiscus flowers behind, we left Japan for Minneapolis. I once stayed in Minneapolis for a week more than twenty years ago on business.
This time, it's a trip for vacation and Minnesota was a stopover state to New York state.

We footed on Minneapolis International Airport after about ten hours flight having taken off Tokyo Haneda International Airport.