NYC - full of surprises!!!

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Day 4

we are still waking up early, so breakfast with playtime then we headed out. We headed to Times Square and I lined up to try and get matinee tickets for the new hit musical Spiderman turn off that dark on broadway. While I did this i ended up on a billboard in Times Square - a niffty vodka ad puts the crowd in the ad. So the queue went quickly so I'd gotten our tickets by 10.05am. The kids and Greg returned later from window shopping with very exciting news, They were standing outside the Disney store in Times Square when they approached Kasey and asked her to open the store for them, she got to use the HUGE Disney key and opened the store - very exciting. They also gave her a replica mini key to keep.

So we had matinee tickets for 2pm and then headed off to shop at Macys, when we got there - it was soooooo packed, we realised it was the huge one day sale in Macys. Great bargains but so many people, got some of the shopping done but for me way too many choices!

Headed off to the theatre, Burger king - not great but had a frozen lemonade, mcdonalds way better. Theatre packed - our seats about 6 rows from the front!!! It way great - especially the stage design and aerial stuff they did - music and songs, nothing memorable. So by about 5pm we're back in a much much less crowded Macys, shopping for clothes and luggage. Success on both parts, I then took off on my own with much less sucess - way way too much to choose from. They waited out side and finally we headed home at about 7pm. Chinese takeaway for dinner - again everyone is too exhausted to go out - 10 hour days but no one is complaining.

Day 5

We went to the Lego shop in the morning at Rockefella plaza, the plaza itself was great - very tempted in the NBC shop to get a Seinfeld T shirt! Lego shop had great NYC exclusives - statue of liberty and NY taxi, spent up - at least Lego isn't heavy to pack!

We then headed to the lower east side for our food on foot walking tour. We started with the cities oldest knish store - it's like mashed potatoes, we went by Katzs deli but the line was huge as it was fathers day, then the BEST chinese dumplings - so fresh and 4 for 1.00, the to the donut factory - square donuts, peanut butter and banana cream was one we tried, then to bagels. The pickle guys were amazing - so many pickled things, including pineapple. Finally to a huge lolly shop full of retro american lollies that meant nothing to us at all and nothing really appealed to any of us. The tour was really great - the kids loved it all, recommend it to anyone.

We then headed to chinatown to look for one more bag to take on the next leg of the trip. Success after a little bit of bargaining. It was packedin chinatown andwe were gladto be heading back to Greenpoint earlier than usual at about 5pm. One of the highlights of NYC were the guys that performed on the train that afternoon - they played musicand rapped/danced - amazing, even hanging from the roof -they were so good.



Day 6.

Kids and Greg waking up later and later, I get online early and plan our day - relying heavily on hopstop - the best app for NYC. We went to Central Park zoo - so small, but only 40.00 for the 4 of us, the reptilesand the polar bear were the highlight - plus the petting zoo for feeding animals. After to zoo we took a picnic in to Central Park. The kids spent about 1 1/2 hours playing while we people watched. It was amazingto see so many nannies and children, have seen lots on mannies too (young male nannies0. The nannies are all from black american or other minority backgrounds - so amazing just like "The help" - what has changed?? What kind of people do the kids turn into? there is still such a divide between have and have nots but noone here seems to see it and certainly noone is talking about it.

We left the park to find FAO Schwartz, saw the BIG piano but besides that again too big and too many choices! We kept losing each other, at one point Greg walked by and said he thought he'd just walked into (literally) Ricky Ponting - he wasn't sure it was him but I was off, Cooper close behind to find the man in the purple shirt - not easy in such a huge store. Coopers eagle eyes spotted him down stairs so we ran - really ran down the escalators - we saw him but getting near him was not easy as the store was so packed. We did it! I spoke to him and his very personable wife, she had much more to say than him. He graciously let us interupt their holiday so Cooper could have his photo taken (a few times!)

After the RP excitement we headed to - - - - - ...... TIFFANYs. Ooohh it was so pretty and so old world. It was packed, so amny people/tourists shopping.We did get served fairly quickly and I knew the collection I wanted to buy from, saw fun trying things on and buying!!! Had to wrestle the pretty pale blue bag off Kasey - she treid to claim it immediately. The windows of the store were all decorated in a spectacular Venitian theme.

From 5th avenue we headed to east Harlem - a city of contrasts - we went asfar east as you can go to...... Target NYC. Couldn't leave without going to the only Target in NYC. Huge, selling freah foods and supermarket stuff inside. Also had a starbucks and pizza hut inside. I think we were there for 1 1/2hours - one pair of short just wasn't going to get me through the last few weeks. So many things i wanted to buy and try but common sense prevailed - sort of. Restricted my purcheses yet again until we hit Las Vegas. Did pick up factor 110 sunscreen. Lots of factor 75 and 50 everywhere.

So walked back along 116th to get the subway home - i love being on the subway - it's like TV comes to life - as was every step of our journey in east harlems backstreets. Being 20 minutes from the centre of NYC is great, it's nice to have space and quiet in the suburbs and I relly like the stuff I hear and see on the subway - like a conversation between two women heading out of the city for the weekend that was seriously straight from sex in the city - even when I can't get a seat I love the subway for the experience and for how well organised it is. I picked up dinner on 116th from a little mexican woman cooking outside her house on the sidewalk and from a local mexican deli, all super fresh and authentic.

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Comments

[Michelle]

Love it
Why don't you have your sunnies on ala Audrey Hepburn? Am very jealous and loving that the beautiful girls are at my favourite place (yes you found my happy place!) can't wait to see what's in the bag x