Day 23- Shopping in NYC

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Had a mostly shopping day today! We figured we’d wait until the weekdays to do all the touristy things because we thought they might be busier on the weekends (might be flawed logic but oh well) but we managed to get in quite a few things.

Obviously we headed to Macy’s first. It’s so much bigger than I thought! I had been told it was massive, but I was definitely not expecting to get lost a few times. While huge and overwhelming, and the stock they have is unbelievable, we didn’t really buy much. Which I was a little disappointed about because I desperately need new clothes, but no matter. On the very top level we saw the Santaland display but being February it wasn’t in operation, so I’ll just have to come back at Christmas time.

We then moseyed on over to the NBA store, stopping in at the New York Public Library on the way. Talk about beautiful! It’s an amazing building, although I did feel super weird walking through as a tourist when there were people actually there to study.

The NBA store is something else. It’s so cool. Three storeys with heaps and heaps of jerseys and other merchandise meant we stayed in here for quite a while. Adam didn’t end up getting anything, but he was verrrry tempted quite a few times.

We then realised we were pretty close to the Rockefeller Centre so we headed over there. Another unbelievable sight! What a huge building. We’re still kind of unsure what it really is, but I loved seeing all the flags and the ice skating rink looks fun (it would be almost $50aud to go on though so we decided to just watch- again). However they were in the middle of cleaning the rink and it seemed to be taking a while, so we decided to come back at night to see the ice skaters.

As we walked back over to Times Square, we found a little store called Loft that had a huge sale on, and Adam suggested we go in to see if they had any clothes for me. I was hesitant and feeling defeated (we’d been in so many stores this morning with no luck), but we walked out of the store with two new skirts! A few days in New York and the whole time we’re in LA the weather is supposed to be quite warm, and having not brought anything besides clothing for negative temperatures I figured skirts would be a good option.

Across the street from Loft is Magnolia Bakery, which I’ve heard about a million times. Their banana puddings are world famous, so of course we joined the massive queue to get some! We sat at the fountain opposite the building where they film the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and ate our pudding- it’s incredible. It’s just like banoffee pie in a cup, but without the crust that you push aside anyway.

Neither of us had realised how cold it was going to get today, so we then had to run up to the hotel to grab our big coats. We were only going to have about a half hour rest before going back out at 5, but Adam declared that it was nap time again.

We eventually headed out for dinner at 7pm, which proved to be quite difficult. Staying in such a hub of New York is great in terms of getting around, but we’ve noticed that everything is ten times more expensive than it would normally be (after looking in a few other stores today, we realised that the prices in the Levi’s store we went to last night were super super high because it’s in Times Square). So we ended up walking for quite a while out of the main area to find something reasonable, and we ended up at Mom’s Kitchen and Bar.

I love the theme of this place. When we walked in they said “welcome home” and seated us at tables with Star Wars lunch boxes holding the condiments, and Scooby Doo was playing on the tvs!

After dinner we went for a long walk back through Times Square and over to Rockefeller to see the ice skaters, and it was so worth it. There was something different about Rockefeller at night, and the ice skaters brought a little something extra too- there was a good mix of talent, with one woman gliding everywhere and kicking out her legs, and others barely going an inch per minute. We also had a look in the huge toy shop near the centre, FAO Schwarz. We stock some FAO at work, but this store is absolutely incredible. It’s the best toy store I think I could ever imagine.

We kept walking after this and eventually found ourselves at Central Park! We didn’t go in (probably not a great idea at night time) but we walked along the edge, constantly declining the horse pulled carriage rides and trying to spot the zoo.

Eventually we made it back to the hotel and played cards until bed. Wild Saturday night here in NYC!

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