What famous tourist spot DOES live up to the hype?

Current Maui resident, moved away from New York after 10 years - I still miss it.

-I would say you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere in the world where you can spend more in 2 hours. I'm sure Dubai has us beat on this one - but seriously, if there was a game of "who can spend 1 million dollars in 2 hours flat", (excluding purchase of real estate), New York would be right up there. I do not count this as a good thing.

-Walkability: you can walk from a Polish neighborhood, to a Puerto Rican neighborhood, to a Hasidic neighborhood, then through Chinatown, onward through rich-people-land, through Korea-town, and if you're feeling crazy you can keep going through frat-land, and even end up in little Hungary. I have done this, and picked up blintzes, Jewish pastries, baozi, overpriced coffee, and ended with the best damn Korean barbecue. I spent like a billion dollars that day, but burned my calories in walking. It was glorious.

-Hmmm. Maybe more of a personal example? I was a brokeass college student looking to drink. At the time, there was a fantastic website called openbar.com, which told you about every open bar going on in the entire city, so you could drink for free. There were always at least 10 or so (this, I assume, particularly being a unique New York feature - the density). My friends and I got ready to go out and needed to eat for dirt cheap, so we headed down to Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown and got Soup Dumplings and beer for a grand total of $8 per person (after tip and tax). Mind you - these soup dumplings are world famous for being some of the best. We ambled on up to the LES to check out wherever this open bar was, get there and it's just a barber shop in the front. Disappointed, we go up and down the block trying to find our free booze. No luck. We go back to the original address, and we watch as some people smoking near us put out their cigarettes, go into the barbershop, nod to the barber, and push aside the wall, to what appears to be flashing lights on the other side. Obviously we follow, and there's a raging party on the other side, complete with killer 1920s decor, a full bar filled with people dancing, and free Reyka vodka being served all night. It was great.

The thing about New York is that you can literally get the best of anything in the world, if you have the money (that last part being important). The best sushi, the best Cantonese food, the best french, the best art, the best fashion, the best cars, the best whatever. It's literally a capitalist explosion of joy. On the flipside, because of all this competition, things are actually reasonably priced when you consider what you're getting. A ticket to the MoMA is expensive, $25 a pop. However, if you have studied art, it's literally like walking through the entirety of your art history textbook, all there to be observed in it's entirety. You can get a killer prix-fix meal by some up and coming chef who is considered the next whoever, for $150. Comparing this to Maui, and I have felt a stark comparison - the best restaurant on the island charges an eye-watering $70 a plate, $30 for appetizers, $20 for cocktails and drinks. And it's good! But it's not as good as it would be in NY - because, it doesn't have to be.

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