Today we did Central Park proper. We’d read about a number of things before visiting. The Imagine memorial for John Lennon, a sneaky hidden panther statue call Still Hunt, Bethesda Square and Fountain and a host of others, so we decided to spend a day in the park exploring, discovering and further falling in love with New York.

We enter at around 77th Street and visit the Dakota Building, where John Lennon was shot.

He was shot on my birthday, 8 December. I still feel a pain every year thinking about the horrible and senseless murder of a soft and beautiful person blessed with the gift of writing wonderful songs. I stand for a while at the Strawberry Fields memorial.

We then venture into the Park proper after Strawberry Fields. We wander to Bethesda Fountain and Square. We are amazed by the park, the winding pathways that quickly turn you around, it is so easy to get lost, and lost we got. We were searching for Still Hunt and walked up and down a number of paths to find it, without luck for a time. We saw lots of things of interest in between, but not the one thing we were looking for. As we were about to give up, we decide to wander down a main road, instead of one of the side paths. Mardi then spots it in the distance, sitting, pounce ready on top of a rocky outcrop about 100 meres in front of us. We wander down and are immediately in love with the sculpture. It has been written that many a jogger and passer-by has been caught unawares by the sudden appearance of the panther. It does creep up on you and is partially hidden by shrubs and branches. We admire the sculpture for a while, take some photos and then continue our walk. We wind our way down and back to 59th Street. We sit and watch the horse drawn carriages and buggies come rickshaws in the mid-afternoon autumn air. Its peaceful, pleasant and a wonderful way to spend a day.

I think if we’d ever come back. It is such a long way and we’ve done so much and have plenty of time to go. We talk and call this a trip of a lifetime, which maybe it is. Who knows?

We have developed an affinity in a few short days with the city. We’ve worked out how to get around reasonable easy, our hotel is divine and at the centre of everything and there is so much to see and do. Maybe one trip won’t let us experience everything, but we certainly are packing it in.

We eventually drag ourselves away from the sights of the park and the relative tranquility and hit the bustling 5thAvenue and wander home. On the way we pass St Patrick’s Cathedral. Completed in 1878, the ne gothic church is a magnificent architectural specimen. Even to me, an atheist, I can appreciate the workmanship and beauty of this building: I can’t/don’t accept what it represents, organised and indoctrination based religion. The building looks as if it hasn’t been cleaned since 1878. The spires are covered in 150 years of New York City grime. We continue walking down 5th Avenue. Saks, Gucci, Nike, Apple, Prada…they are all here. The shopping centerpiece of the world many would claim. One of the advantages of visiting New York in 2010 is the positive Australian exchange rate, in essence we are on parity with the US Dollar. Plus, many of the shops we see, and visit are not in Sydney let alone Canberra. UniGlo, Muji, Sephora are some examples. The street is packed with people as we wander home in the now peak hour traffic, both on the road and on the sidewalk.

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