In week 19 , another memorable experience was meeting Diptarka , and being able to show him around a bit of Manhattan. This little foodie friend was enroute to Sao Paolo with a layover of about 12 hours in New York. When he pinged me from India informing me about his plan , I was over joyed and immediately checked the weather forecast. In USA that’s the first thing everyone checks to plan their day ahead. The weather forecast showed no rains. No snow , that means we can plan a few hours of walk around New York. We were connected intermittently. I asked him to do Timesquare , Rockerfeller Center or Central Park on his own and I shall join him soon .I met him at the station and headed straight for downtown, for the south ferry. The weather being perfect, we could make it quick and boarded the #statenislandferry by 12 noon , the ferry started in next 6-7 mins et voila the clear blue sky , the truant seagulls , the known scene , but ever new.

We saw the lady and just waited to get off the ferry , so that we could take the immediate next return ferry. We reached around 12.27 – 12.28 pm and it was a race against time , but we managed. It saved us a lot of wait time, especially when we barely had a couple of hours in hand.

I should him the famous bull , he did not intend to stand in the line just to take a picture, so we walked around and headed to the world trade center.

Then we took the subway to reach #Canalstreet, he wanted to see #littleitaly , inspired by the movie #godfather . By now I have explored all of #littleitaly and #chinatown , so this is pretty easy for me.

As we did not have the luxury of time and he wanted to have something local, i took him to a local dollar dumpling shop , which I visit often. Being a regular pays, be it in Calcutta, bangalore or Chinatown. We had 3 plates of fried dumplings and hot & sour soup.

I saw him off at the subway (J) and walked back. I walked around a bit more #lafayettte street #broadway #franklinstreet and took a metro back to #portauthority terminal. It really felt like a day well spent. Now I know this area around Chinatown very well.