New York!!! Sunday

I think Sunday was the hardest day to wake up and get going…at least for me. There had been talk about a storm coming so I was a little on edge (it didn’t actually come until about midnight :) ).

We started the day by heading to Staten Island –side note here: SI is OLD!!! And just a tiny bit scary…or quite scary…mostly because it is OLD!. After a wonderful ferry ride we waited around for a bus and went to Snug Harbor Gardens.

After some frustration navigating through some old decrepit buildings we finally found the gardens. There was a “Secret Garden” which could only be gotten to by going through a castle and a maze:

There was a huge walk-way/forest with a lake:

And then there was the totally awesome plant tunnel!!! Isn’t it the coolest?! Just like out of a princess fairy tale?! I loved it!!! It led to some individual little gardens.

And last of all the Chinese Garden. It was beautiful. Little walk-ways everywhere; waterfalls, fish, plants, rocks. I loved it. Absolutely loved it.

Unfortunately Lyd’s allergies started getting out of hand-she was very brave but Sav and I decided we’d better bail so she could stay alive.

Back on the mainland we made our way back to Times Square and went to the Bodies Exhibition by Discovery. It was AMAZING!!! Whole bodies and body party and body systems and arteries…and EVERYTHING! Fetuses; a mother with a baby inside…EVERYTHING! If the exhibit comes to your hometown I highly suggest going. Very educational-smokers lungs; cancer in different parts of the body. So cool. We couldn’t take pictures inside the exhibit, so here’s a cheesy one on the outside. 

After some dinner…

we made our way to the Manhattan Temple. Well, we thought that’s where we were going…I think we were closer to the Bronx. It was a scary, scary neighborhood. People were in groups just eating out of Little Ceasars Pizza boxes. eew. Anyway. We corrected ourselves and made it to the right part of town and to the temple. So strange! So different! No grounds- just a building among other buildings…but the Angel Moroni was there, and the name of Christ on the building. I loved it. Julliard, the Phil Harmonic Symphony, and many other things beautiful were all around. Definitely the neighborhood a temple would be found in. There was a definite feeling of complete opposites from the two places we had gone that evening.

We made it back to the hotel in time for the storm to hit. Thunder and lightning and rain just pouring down. That’s ok. We were safe and it was gone by the time morning came.