this adventure left me speechless (aka July 4th at Coney Island)

That's right. Jarom and I went to Coney Island on July 4th to see the Hot Dog Eating Contest... and the rest of the freak shows. This is one of those "you have to do it once while you're here" activities and July 4th is the perfect day to go to Coney Island if you don't mind crowds and have a cast iron stomach. We didn't have a great view of the stage, but luckily (or unluckily) they had several huge TV screens around broadcasting the contest live, so we got a good view of it anyway. It was pretty unbelievable. I actually gagged multiple times during the event because it was so disgusting, yet at the same time, fascinating and riveting.

Next, we walked around looking at all the rides, booths and interesting people. Jarom decided to brave The Cyclone (the world-famous roller coaster built in 1927, and to my eye, still the same as it must have been back then...) and we both went on the Wonder Wheel (much safer!) where we got an amazing view of the whole place. After that we decided to brave the insanely long lines to get a famous Nathan's hot dog (well, Jarom got one. I ate fries and washed them down with Nathan's famous lemonade) which we ate on the surprisingly lovely boardwalk. The boardwalk and pier were my favourite parts of Coney Island, aside from the ferris wheel.

On our way back to the subway station, we saw a real live freak show host and a couple of the "freaks" from the show. There are no words to describe my feelings on finding out there is still a real life freak show at Coney Island, so I'll just leave it at that.

Overall, it was a fun way to spend the day and I would recommend it to anyone who is in New York if you haven't done it, but I never want to do it again.


Click on the image to see my pictures.

Coney Island on July 4th 2009