Liberty Calling

Call me an urban wimp if you must, but it felt real good to be back in New York. Granted that the Big Apple is a bit intimidating for someone new to the City, but once you're familiar with it, the smooth flow of the City, the way it works - the subway and the buses and cabs, the street food, the 5 boroughs with their peculiarities, everything on time and everybody moving so fast, so many options for anything you want to do - Its a treat for visitors, and a source of pride for New Yorkers.

As far as beaches are concerned, the situation in NYC is slightly better than Atlantic City, where the beach is the poor second cousin among an array of dazzling attractions. But only slightly better, and only because NYC has so many people and tourists, so there had to be some who prefer the neon lights of Times Square to the twinkly lights of the oceanfront, the sound of the waves to the pulsing beats of the nightclubs, and the quirky things washed ashore on the beach to the age old things in the MET and MOMA museums.

Point being that since I'm here to survey the beaches, I'll have to skip the usual touristy stuff. As it is, this is going to take a couple of days, and New York hotels cost more and more everytime I visit. A 3 night stay is going to set me back about $550, and that's only because I'm getting Sunday free. Anyway, one of the beaches I'll be checking out is the one at Coney Island. It probably won't be as attractive as before, since the Astroland Amusement park closed down. But still, its one of the most popular beaches in New York City.

Other beaches I'm planning on spending time on include Brighton Beach, Rockaway Park, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Robert Moses State Park, and Jones Beach. Course this is just a plan, and NYC being what it is, I fully expect it to go haywire. There's so many new restaurants to discover, which have opened since I was last here. There's some new attractions too, like the NYC Waterfalls.