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Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

If you’ve been following the last few blog posts, you’ll know that Ashwina and I are in New York and wandered around Times Square at the start of the week. It goes without saying that most tourists have the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on the top of their places to see. And so did we. Let me tell you about our fun visit to see Lady Liberty.

Planning our trip

I spent a good deal of time researching where to buy the tickets – or more like what would get us the best sightseeing deal. We looked at the New York Pass which allows you access to several attractions, but the numbers just didn’t stack up. So, I decided to buy the tickets directly from Statue Cruises, who are the only authorized official provider of tickets to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I realised that they were also the cheapest because I bought the Pedestal Reserve Ticket which gave us access to the pedestal on which the Statue sits.

We got lucky as there was no availability for these tickets for several days except Tuesday! Unfortunately, the Crown Reserve Ticket was sold out. People book these several months in advance.

It’s also recommended to do one of the earliest slots of the day as they tend to be less busy. We booked ours at 10 am, which is the time we needed to enter the Screening Facility. Battery Park is just a short walk from our apartment, so we set out around 9.30 am and found our way to the screening facility well ahead of schedule.

The screening facility is airport-style which means travelling right and light is recommended. We carried only bare essentials knowing that we could buy water on the island. The process went smoothly and we then queued in a completely unorderly fashion for the next ferry to take us to Liberty Island.

We picked the upper deck to get a seat and an open view of the water as well as the Manhattan skyline which was fully covered in fog. The upper deck also tends to be quite full with eager standing tourists during the short ride to Liberty Island. The best way to get your first photographs of The Statue of Liberty.

The Manhattan skyline covered in fog

The Manhattan skyline covered in fog

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty

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Happy New Year 2018!

As most good things come to an end, so must 2017. Browsing through my list of posts for the past two years, I realised that I completely missed out a Happy New Year post for 2017. Can’t miss that two years in a row now, can we?

Happy New Year 2018

Source: xkcd

2017 – A Year in Review

Life…

I began 2017 in India, more specifically being ill in Bangalore where I (as did Ashwina) spent a good portion of the holiday in bed recovering from bad allergy attacks. Apparently I can’t handle the pollen and pollution anymore!

At least it got better when I got back to Mumbai where we were soon well enough to attend a small extended family wedding before heading back to London. Life continued to be fun in February 2017 when Ashwina and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by visiting a lovely National Trust cottage near Wadebridge, Cornwall called Overhaven.

Overhaven National Trust Cottage

Overhaven National Trust Cottage

The cottage turned out to be beautiful located in a place that was equally pristine. We managed to go for a nice long hike around the countryside in glorious sunshine despite being February.

In the glorious February sunshine in Cornwall

2017 was also the first year when we (and by we, I mean Ashwina) decided to go watch something that wasn’t a movie. So, we went to the Royal Albert Hall to watch The Piano Guys. Most people I know haven’t heard of the Piano Guys, but I’d seen their videos on Facebook and completely enjoyed watching them perform.

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Journey to the Isle of Skye – 5 years later

A long long time ago or five years (if you consider that long), a much younger version of Ajay and Ashwina went down to the Isle of Skye. This was pretty much our first big holiday as husband and wife which sparked a whole set of adventures that we have had over the past several years. I’ve usually been reluctant to do the same trip again because there are so many other places to visit and it’s hard to relive the magical experience you have the first time around. However, as her parents were in town and Skye remains one of the most beautiful places in the UK, we decided we’d venture back to the Isle of Skye. We decided to stick with Timberbush who we had booked the tour the first time around instead of Rabbies who we normally book our tours with. I must admit I was really looking forward to visiting the Talisker distillery and picking up a good bottle of whiskey to add to my ever increasing collection. However, that was not to be. What follows is a slow account of our journey to the Isle of Skye…

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Happy New Year 2016

Happy New Year to everyone reading this. I wish you the very best for 2016. It’s definitely going to be more awesome than 2015.

2015 – Year in Review

For a change at the start of 2015, I didn’t make any major resolutions, but instead decided to take the year as it came. What’s the point of resolutions when you don’t keep them, right?

On work…

2015 started out to be a year like any other year, busy and in fact ended as busy as it started. However, that being said a good portion of the year was definitely better with me stepping up my role and desperately fighting to maintain a work-life balance.

On life…

2015 was a great year on the life front.

We started off the year by moving into a new larger flat in the area. It was a long pending decision and we finally took the plunge trading our skyline views for the view of the water, boats, ducks and other birds.

Blackwall Basin

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