Coney Island, Baby

A little behind on posting about my weekend excursions. So on Saturday, September 11, my crew and I headed out to Coney Island. Not because it was 9/11. But because it was a lovely Saturday. The weather was still pretty warm. I'd always heard about Coney Island but had never been, so here was my chance!

We took the D train, which is supposed to be Express (something I learned...Express means it doesn't make every stop, Local means it does. Not sure why they would use the word Local which doesn't make any sense to me just hearing the word, but hey, now I get it. But more on that some other time). Anyway so we took the D train and it took an hour to get there. We arrived around noon and it was pretty dead. Some places hadn't even opened yet.

None of us felt like riding the roller coasters, which seemed slightly fancier than your average traveling carnival or county fair, but still not as fancy as an actual amusement park. Not sure though, since I didn't ride anything.

First stop was world famous Nathan's hot dogs. Now I can check that off my list. It was decent, but certainly not as good as Pink's in L.A. (or even a Dodger Dog, for that matter). I did like the bagged potato chips a lot though (see picture). It was the perfect amount of salt for me.





Then because there didn't seem to be much else to do, we went to New York City's only aquarium, the New York Aquarium (also the nation's oldest aquarium). We had to "wait on line" to buy tickets (see picture...for those of you not following me on FB, more on that later) and got suckered in to buying a "Total Experience" package. For an extra three bucks (or four?) we saw a special 4-D presentation of Planet Earth. 4-D means they blow air and spray water on you. It was only 10 minutes long. Oh and they blew bubbles too.


The aquarium was ridiculously small, by California standards (hello Monterey Bay! and Long Beach!). You could tell it was the oldest aquarium in the nation. We watched a rather anticlimactic show of...you guessed it, California seals. And then navigated crowded halls of screaming children to look at equally crowded fish tanks. (Here is also where I heard the most number of people speaking with thick Brooklyn accents. e.g., mom: "'ey, kids, come 'ere, take a pictcha wit the wahl-rus")

Then we headed to the beach and did some jumping shots (not posted!) and headed back to the boardwalk. I had some good fried shrimp (a bit pricey though - $8 for 5 shrimp!). And we were pretty much on our way. Thus concluded our 7-hour Coney Island excursion.