New York City.  Those three words evoke a wide range of adjectives, exciting, Fast-paced, bewildering, and amazing. No other city in America stirs the imagination more for no other city has as much to offer.  My first trip to New York was all these adjectives and more.  Having gone to WashingtonD.C. just a week earlier, I was hoping to see more in New York than yet another museum flooded with tourists or actually any place flooded with tourists. 

I decided to search the internet and found many different kinds of tours. I really had a hard time to decide how to pick one. After reading a few forums and having an afternoon free, I decided that I was going to take a walking tour. There are many New York City walking tours but I think the best ones are the small private tours that take you and a group of friends on a personal walk.

I took a tour with this company called Blue Panda Tours that took me around Soho, Little Italy and Chinatown. The guide was great! It was kind of strange since I was the only person on the tour but it was so much fun. It really didn’t feel like a tour at all. The guide not only talked about historical places, but he also took me to eat some of the best fluffiest cheesecake I ever had. Since I was in Little Italy, I knew I had to have a New York pizza, and the guide knew of a famous you-can-walk-right-by and miss it kind of place and I had the crunchiest tastiest slice ever.

Before I knew it, the afternoon had flown by and I was ready to meet my friends after they got off work. Since the tour was to end in Chinatown, I had them meet me there for dinner. The guide explained that there were many types of Chinese cuisines and not just the stereotypical beef and broccoli or chicken chow mein that we always think of. Since China is a huge country, there are foods from all over, even places I never even heard of. Even though it wasn’t part of his job, he dropped my friends and I at this great fresh seafood restaurant that apparently Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon likes to go to.

I never did get to see the Sex and the City cast, but just knowing that they were right smack in the middle of the neighborhoods I was walking in was really exciting. On second thought, after all that food and desert which went straight to my waistline, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to see them!

After we finished our dinner, my friends and I took a short walk to digest and relax. Though it probably wasn’t a good idea to bother the guide, I called him to ask him for directions to the spa that he had mentioned during his tour. He told me that it was a hidden spa that not many knew of that gave great inexpensive massages. What a great treat!

For sure, if I were to go back to New York, I would take one of Blue Panda’s tours again. It’s not only a different way to see the city; it’s unique because the experience is so personal and fun.