The Worlds of New York City

I just realized I never elaborated on Pop Tart World! We decided to spend our one full day in NYC at the brand new Pop Tart World! After a little trouble finding it, since none of the articles gave a specific address other than "Times Square", we saw the multicolored door full of Pop Tarts leading the way to the Pop Tart mecca.

Now, I'm a fan of Pop Tarts after growing up eating them for breakfast, but I'm no where near the fandom that was crying out for this world to exist. Was anyone really? Inside you can make a box of your favorite assorted flavors, customize a t-shirt, and enjoy a slew of Pop Tart infused junk food. KT and I were going to get a box to take home, but they didn't have any new or unusual flavors. It was all the flavors you could find in the store, you just could mix & match them in one box for your conveience. Well, at $1 per Pop Tart, we decided to skip it.

We did order from the Pop Tart bakery where they had a surprising big menu full of baked goods, ice cream sundaes, and somewhat real food with a Pop Tart twist to choose from. We both got a piece of Pop Tart Sushi, since that got the most press from the opening. It was definitely interesting. Consisting of mashed up raspberry Pop Tarts wrapped in a thin slice of Fruit Roll Up, it was sweet, but not as mushy in consistency as expected. At only $0.75 per piece, you gotta try it to get the full Pop Tart World experience. I also got the Mocha Fudge Brownie, which was like a normal Mocha Fudge Brownie, but with bits of Chocolate Fudge Pop Tart crumbled throughout. It was a rich and delicious brownie, but not nearly as Pop Tart infused as I was expecting. KT got a Smores Stick - 3 marshmellows dipped in chocolate with Smores Pop Tart crumpled on top. I'm not a marshmellow fan so I didn't try any, but KT seemed to enjoy it. This was maybe the first time I've ever seen him not finish a desert because it was too rich. So compliments to Pop Tart for using quality chocolate and good sugary marshmellows.

After Pop Tart World, my twitter friend recommended we check out Nintendo World. While Pop Tart World has been all over the press, I had never heard of Nintendo World even though it just opened in May. It was filled with Nintendo merch that if I had the money/space, I would have bought so much! Unforetunately, they also didn't have a lot of sizes since it was a Monday and I'm sure they had a busy weekend. KT bought a shirt for himself and I settled on just taking photos. We also got to play various games at all the stations and see some classic Nintendo products in their display cases. This was definitely an NYC highlight for me!

After all the worlds fun, we went to meet up with my high school friend Taryn to check out her neighborhood. We walked around Washington Heights and the neighboring park, but it soon started to rain so we caught the train back to Brooklyn to grab a delicious Indian dinner with KT's parents. Once again, ethnic food was soooooo good after the long streak of American food all the time throughout the South.

I've uploaded photos from the trip, so be sure to check out facebook to get a visual for all these great places. Stay tuned for more on Philly and now Chicago!

Jellies, Sharks, and Sting Rays, Oh My!

Our last day in Baltimore was spent visiting the Aquarium and the Inner Harbor. We tried to go to the Aquarium on Saturday, but the crowd proved too much. Luckily, Sunday was much better because it was rainy and grey so it was practically deserted. The Baltimore Aquarium is one of KT's favorites and he'd been many times as a kid, and now I totally understand why! There's a large shark and sting ray pool in the center that the rest of the exhibits encircle it so you can see it from nearly any point inside. We had a lot of fun searching the exhibits for the hard to find animals - like the poison dart frogs that are about the size of a quarter. They also had a neat rain forest exhibit that was like stepping into Malaysia for a second. There were monkeys, spiders, and birds all around practically roaming free in the rain forest room. It even rained on us!

After the Aquarium we went on a quest for me to have my first crab cake. I just recently started eating sea food and discovered that crab is probably my favorite. So how perfect that we were in Crab Central Maryland! After searching around on yelp to no avail, we just went with Phillip's Seafood right on the Inner Harbor. There was a guy walking around in a crab costume for them and since we got our picture with him we got a free appetizer! We got a crab cake appetizer and I got the crab macaroni and cheese while KT got the shrimp scampi. Delicious all around and we had a great view of the water. I can see this place being incredibly busy during peak hours and sunny days.

After the harbor we had to head up north to The Big Apple. We relied on my iPhone to get us there and that was probably a costly mistake. The iPhone Google Maps app does not give you an option to avoid toll roads, or tell you when a toll is coming up. So, we start the drive and encounter our first toll - $5! Then we continue driving and there was another one, making it $9 just to get through Delaware. We wise up and start looking online for cheaper routes, but it's too late. We're pretty much stuck on the highway the rest of the way and by the end of the trip we had spent $22 just to drive from Baltimore to NYC. We're definitely going to try to find a different route for our drive to Philadelphia!

Once we got in to NYC it was a breeze, KT's parents found a place for us to park for our duration here. We're staying at their condo in Brooklyn which has a great view of the skyline, if only it weren't so cloudy and grey. We're spending today out in the downtown area with no set plan except to check out the new Pop Tart World. We'll be sure to give a full report on that attraction!