More New York City

On Friday we took the second half of our bus tour and got off at the Museum of Natural History.  This is the museum that was featured in the movie "Night at the Museum".  The entrance was being refurbished, so it was a little hard to recognize from the movie.  Besides this being an amazing museum, it has the Hayden Planetarium.   Adam needed to visit a planetarium to finish up the requirements for his astronomy merit badge, and what better place to do it!  The large round structure inside the glass is the planetarium.

We visited a few other highlights in the museum after the planetarium show.  This is an enormous canoe that hangs in one end of the museum.

Bryce wanted his picture taken with this tiger since he is a Gilbert Tiger.

Are we done yet?

 

We walked through many sections trying to find this sapphire - the Star of India.  It was worth the search.

Due to technical difficulties, one of our pictures of the planetarium jumped to the bottom of the posting.  So you will learn about the relative size exhibit at the end. (Sometimes blogger is not too user friendly - grrr.) 

Then it was back to the room for some rest - we needed it.

On Saturday we started out the day exploring Times Square.  Bryce had spotted some music stores around the corner from us, so we popped in to check them out.  He naturally gravitated to the trombone collection.

We took some time to sit and take in the Square.  There are chairs and tables that just sit in the area and you can sit and people watch.  Several "jumbo-tron" televisions show commercials and some show pictures of the crowd - so they were fun to watch.

Watching the screens.

Times Square people watching.

Adam enjoyed the sit down time.

We saw one of our bus tours go by.

Then we walked over to the Rockefeller Center and took the elevator to the Top of the Rock and the observation deck.  That's the Empire State Building behind us.

It was a relatively clear day, but a haze of moisture was starting to move in.

Couldn't get enough pictures of the skyline.

On our way down from the top, we looked for this famous chandelier made from Swarovski crystals.  It was quite spectacular.

There was a variety of shops and eateries in the Rockefeller Center, including Jacques Torres.  It raises the bar in the chocolate world.  They are well known for their frozen hot chocolate.  We didn't have it on this visit, but we came back another day to try it.  Today we just picked up some treats.

While Bryce and Adam checked out the Lego store for pieces they have been seeking, Dan stepped right outside to the rink.  This is where they have ice skating in the winter time and put up the famous Christmas tree.

This is another view of the Rockefeller Center.

Someone Dan works with highly recommended eating at Carmines - a family style Italian restaurant.  It was close by our hotel, so we headed there for dinner.  We liked the food so much we bought their cookbook (one of Michelle's favorite things to collect on trips).

We had another show this night.  It was Cirque du Soleil (Zarkana) at Radio City Music Hall.

Bryce is pretty proud that he is closing in on being taller than Dan.

This is the lobby of the Hall.

This time we chose seats in the first balcony because the show is so big, and it is better to see it as a whole.  If you are up close, you miss some of the show.  The show is hard to describe.  It has amazing feats of acrobatic skill such as a man balancing a two-legged ladder on a piano with a lady doing a handstand on his head.  All with elaborate staging, costumes and music.  There was a high wire act, trapeze artists, a juggler, balancing acts.  Every act was astonishing.  Another great show!

Here is the missing picture from the planetarium:  There was a "relative size" walk around the planetarium in which things were compared in size to the planetarium - "If the sun was the size of the Hayden planetarium then the ball Bryce is holding would be the size of the earth"  There were about 25 comparisons as we followed the path.  It was quite interesting.