Shopping and Exploring
Jack and I were pumped to get out and explore the city... see all the places that we'd only read about...Greenwich Village, Soho, Tribeca, East Village etc. We started out early (10am or so) and discovered the streets to be quiet...quaint even. In Greenwich Village we were approached by a French woman who asked us where all the artists were. We didn't know. The only thing I could see was Chow, the restaurant found at the start of many a magazine article. For example: 'I'm sitting in Chow in Greenwich Village waiting for Lindsey Lohan. She rushes in, apologizing profusely for the delay. Her Chihuahua has the flu.'
When we got the the shops we had a fantastic time looking around and treating ourselves to a couple of things. I've got to say, I was a bit surprised that we didn't really run across many stores other than the big name stores that we could have seen at Mall of America. We didn't walk down every street but we definitely covered a lot of ground - which required rest stops like this one in Tribeca.
Soon work was getting out and there were suddenly people everywhere. We had to fight through H&M to look at everything, let alone the half hour line up at the change room. By the time we were done my feet were screaming in agony. I was wearing flats but they had absolutely no support and we had just walked all over lower Manhattan. I had to fulfill my mission of new shoes by the end of the day. Luckily I succeed and got some lovely new trainers.Back at the hotel we discover that our shopping trip had made us 110% tardy for our dinner date with G so we had to reschedule. I continued to feel the shock of my trainers purchase. When was the last time anyone saw me in shoes like these? Yet to be honest, I felt like I fit in more wearing these shoes in NYC than I would have in Manola Blahniks. New York is, after all, in America.
We head out into the Upper West Side area where we are staying and luckily find the East Indian cuisine we are craving. Interestingly, the guy at the table next to us was Canadian and our server had lived in Winnipeg for 4 years on Ellice Avenue.

With tasty food in belly we jumped on the train to Times Square. Times Square looks similar to Tokyo, except there's nothing to really do in Times Square. It's a huge tourist trap. There are 2 Applebees, an M&M's store, an Olive Garden and dodgy flyer-hander-outer people. Still I definitely enjoyed basking in the glow of the neon. Nothing gives me more energy than neon.





And then it was good night.