USA and Caribbean 2012 Day 15 – American Museum of Natural History and Madison Square Garden

Start of the year and we were spending the day visiting the museum – The American Museum of Natural History. It was located next to the Central park that we ice skated the day before. Checked out of Room Mate Grace and went over a street to Broadway at Times Square, affordable one which had some pretty good reviews. Since it was still early, we had to place our luggage at the reception first.

Hopped on the sub and got off at the station with the same name. From there it was a short walk to the entrance at the same level as the subway. We were pretty early and there was already queues at the entrance to get past the security clearance.

The museum was huge and we started our tour from the top level, a collection of prehistoric bones of the dinosaurs – this was something that tickled my nerdy side, used to love dinosaurs back when I was younger.

There were windows of exhibits showing the different animals available in the US. Placed behind a glass window with a nice backdrop, every of the exhibits looked real.

There was one segment in the museum that featured space stuff, another one to my liking. There was a huge ass rock that was said to be meteorite. Nice ET stuff.

Some exhibits also feature cultures from the other countries, ok to browse through though we were particularly excited. It had been a long day and the museum was huge, and naturally we became tired.

One exhibit that I liked was the huge Dino skeleton (Broncho maybe?) at the main entrance of the museum. That really gave a perspective of how these huge giants used to roam earth and how tiny we are as humans.

Lastly, we also checked out one segment of the museum that featured creatures of the sea. There was a really impressively huge replica of a whale hanging from the ceiling.

Time flew and it was time to leave. From there, we didn’t have much time to our next activity, which was to catch a live NBA match at Madison Square Garden, with the Trailblazers taking on the Knicks. Arrived at the stadium while walking there with many people streaming into the place. There were many memorabilia on sale but we didn’t get any. Since we already bought our tickets online and printed them, getting in was hassle free. Got some food for dinner and drinks and proceeded to our seats.

The atmosphere was electrifying and it felt fun to be part of the crowd. Even though it was ages since we last watched basketball, back in the good old days of MJ, and that we didn’t know anyone of the players, it was pretty obvious from the crowd who were the key players for Knicks, and then we were instantly one-day-fan. P

There were also half time entertainment, such as baby crawl competition, and also times where staff shoots free tees to the crowd. All these weren’t shown on TV.

We were also given long plastic balloons to create noise by waving and bumping each other. Really good fun.

After the game where Knicks lost unfortunately after an intensely anxious try for a turnaround, we left the stadium and headed back to the hotel. Still tired from the lack of sleep the previous 2 days, it was an easy trip to dreamland.