Day 15 - Empire State Building, Street Vendors, Toronto Canada

This morning, our last in New York we get up early and head to the Empire State Building to the observation deck. At 8:30am there is no queue to be seen (by the time we walk out it is snaking through the foyer). The outdoor viewing deck is on the 86th floor with another higher indoor deck on the 102nd floor. The amount of buildings in New York is quite unbelievable, looking uptown Central Park is a large green oasis in the middle of a busy metropolis.

As we move around and look downtown to the financial district where the Statue of Liberty looks but a blip out on the water to the right hand side. We also note the absence of World Trade Centre which would have towered over the skyline of lower Manhattan until 2001.

Back at Times Square we sit down to relax and take in the view and it's quickly agreed that New York style hot dogs for lunch here sitting amongst the organised chaos of Times Square is the best way to farewell NYC.

Deliciously unhealthy.

As our departure times get closer, we head down to 34th street to a diner for lunch desert (could you imagine anything better). It is conveniently located near the bus stop for Tim, Enrique and Vanessa to head back to Boston and Penn Station for me to catch the train out to Newark Airport.

I researched flights from NY to Toronto and stumbled across an airline called Porter. They are a smaller carrier flying around Canada and a couple of cities in the USA close by including New York and Boston. The thing that attracted me was in Toronto they are the only ones that fly into the city airport which is a ferry ride across the water to the centre of town compared to the main international airport which is a train+bus journey out of town. View from the airport below.

The island with the airport isn't connected to the city via bridge, so you take the 1 minute ferry ride across the water.

On the other side, I meet up with Warren who's come down to the airport! We head back to his place via the train.

Warren is awesome, he even brought along a map of downtown and the trains for while I'm visiting! We discuss that Toronto is known as "the city of neighbourhoods" by its distinct areas and the strength of the communities built around them. From Warren's place We go for a bit of a walking tour and pass through 'Koreatown' and 'The Annex' where we stop for a coffee. I find out Toronto too has trams or 'Street Cars' as they are known here. I took the following picture and aside from being on the opposite side of the road, it could have just as easily been taken in Melbourne.

We end up down in Little Italy for dinner and pick a spot with a nice rooftop dining area.