Hi all!
I know this post is super late and I'm very sorry, but I had so much fun on July 4th that I couldn't help, but share my adventure with you!
So on that morning, I went with some friends to watch the matinee show of The Amazing Spiderman, which by the way, was freaking AWESOME! I actually was not planning to watch it because it just felt weird to have Spiderman without Tobey McGuire. With that in mind, I went to watch it anyway and it turned out that I loved it; Andrew Garfield didn't do too bad of a job after all! (lol) I loved it because it told the story from when he was little. As the audience, I got more of Spiderman's background, like how he came to live with Aunt May and Uncle Ben. I also liked the story between Peter and Gwen more than Peter and Mary Jane. Although I think that's because I like Emma Stonemore than Kirsten Dunst..
I definitely give it a 4.5/5. Because this one involved more of Peter's beginning as Spiderman, there was more emphasis on his web-swinging, doing flips, etc (compared to the other Spiderman movies). I watched it at the 34th Street AMC theatre which was packed that morning with people watching Spiderman. Some of us got there an hour earlier to grab good seats and there were so many people there watching the 3D one. I don't know how the 3D one was, but I feel like the 3D would take away from the movie itself. I think 3D is best for animated movies or else they have to have done an extremely good job. We rushed upstairs with along with the big stampede of people thinking that all the good seats would be taken, but it turned out that the stampede was headed for the 3D movie (lol) and there was only like 3 people in our theater when we got there (haha!). We were able to secure two good rows in the center!Yes!(lol)
After Spiderman, the group split into 2. One sought after food in KTown, the other went on a journey to Midtown Comics and of course I would be with the group going to....THE COMIC BOOK STORE! (haha..) They had some pretty neat stuff there and since it was July 4th, there was a 20% off discount on everything (I think the sale is still on,until July 10th!). Then we headed for Haru in Times Square for a late lunch^^. So yummy yummy yummy... I'll do a review next time.
At 4:30, I met up with one of my best gfs, D and we walked towards the piers to get our spots for the fireworks. As we were walking, the cops were already blocking off parts of the piers and not allowing people in unless they had tickets, so we walked faster (which is our regular NYC pace..lol) and walked towards the bigger numbers. When we reached 44th or 45th or so (between the Circle Line cruise and the Intrepid), we found a street where they were still letting people in, so we took our chance and slipped in. It wassoooooo HOT, so we were looking for a nice place where we could sit for the next 5 hours with some shade.
We did NOT want to get heat strokes! We ended up choosing a nice spot by a tree that gave us decent shade from the sun. At first it was hard to find a good spot because there were already quite a big amount of people waiting already, but the cops started telling people to move their blankets because people were just spreading out big blankets and taking up so much space. Thank God for that 'cause that's how we got a better spot! (lol) We sat down and chatted for the next 5 hours and finally saw the sky going dark and the park lights turned on.
Around 7:30 or 8, all the cruises and boats were lining up on the water preparing for the fireworks. An FDNY boat started spraying red, white, and blue water(which was actually pretty cool). A group of helicopters flew by in a V formation.
The sunset was so pretty! And seeing the Intrepid lit up in red, white, and blue was amazing! It looked so nice against the sunset.
Although my pictures didn't come out too good, we were still able to see pretty much all of the fireworks from our spot. It was my first time actually going in person to see them and it's just so different from watching it on TV.
There were smiley faces, spheres, hearts, and so much more. On the right is the herd of people leaving altogether (lol). It was crazy trying to get back to 9 Ave and they wouldn't let people walk on certain streets. Thank God we weren't heading for the train because I can only imagine how crazy that would've been! But as bad as it was, it wasn't as crazy as when I went to the Lunar New Year festival in Hong Kong just this past January (haha..).
She is one of best girlfriends, my partner in crime for the weirdest things I've ever done and some of the most hilarious days I've ever had. She's the only one crazy enough to last 5 hours with me waiting for the fireworks in that incredible heat. Those 5 hours were definitely worth the wait. Watching the fireworks in person is just so different from watching them on TV. The waiting, theanticipation, the excitement, the people, the applause, the "Oohs and Ahhs".. and the list goes on. It's like watching it in HD with super surround sound, with the Boom! of every firework and the lights of every spark, the thumpingof your heart from the loudness and excitement. It's absolutely an incredible experience to watch the fireworks up close! I'm so glad I did it this year^^
