By the time we made it to NYC, it was lunch time and we were hungry. Also, it had started to rain, and we had left Richard behind to wait for his friend Tim. We decided to make our way up 6^th Ave (Avenue of Americas?) and across 42^nd St towards Grand Central Terminal, stopping along the way if we encountered any good places to eat.

We came across one of those arts & crafts in tents festival things and stopped for a bit, Pauline got a corn dog on the street for $5(!!?) and Victor and Ben got bbt for $6 (although it was fairly large and from fresh fruit so I guess that is worth it). We then came across a TGIF and decided to go there for lunch. Unfortunately for them, their window display lied about a lunch menu and the prices were too expensive so we walked out. We finally made it to Grand Central Terminal, and while walking around aimlessly trying to decide where to eat in the dining concourse, Richard and Tim caught up to us.

We decided on Junior’s (sidenote: it’s famous for cheesecake? who knew?). Pauline and I split a Swissburger with Sauteed Mushrooms, Onion Rings & Steak Fries and a Deli Delight – Split Pea soup and a Smoked Turkey half-sandwich. Kitty’s friend Judy also joined up with us at the time.

After lunch, we took the subway from Grand Central up to 86^th St. The plan was to take a look at the Guggenheim, but unfortunately we found out that its facade was under construction and skipped it. In retrospect, I probably should have spent the 5 minutes to loop around to the front and lobby for a look. We proceeded down Museum Mile until the Met. At this point, we split up into two groups, with most of the people going into the museum except for Ben, Victor, Pauline and me. We continued to walk down Fifth Avenue, past Central Park until the Apple Store.

It was starting to rain harder so reaching the Apple Store was very useful. We used their washrooms, I checked my email & facebook, and took some pictures. It’s kind of funny that I always end up at Apple Stores when it rains in order to wait it out; same thing happened in London. The rain hadn’t subsided, so we went next door to FAO Schwartz, the huge toy store. It was neat as there were a ton of cool stuffed animals such as an octopus and a hippopotamus. We watched a demonstration of various well known ditties played on a monstrous keyboard by a pair of dancers. That would have been cool if DDR did not exist. There was also a huge Batman crouching on a gargoyle made with Lego. Ahh toys.

After wasting something like two hours in those two stores, we continued down Fifth Avenue towards Rockefeller Center. We split up to do some random errands, shopping for Pauline and Ben, photo taking for me, and Nintendo World. My wandering around the Rockefeller area was very annoying. By that time, the rain had increased to a point where it was difficult to walk in without an umbrella. I didn’t bring one, but I had rain gear which I was too lazy to wear. Plus, at the street level, I couldn’t figure out how to get back down to the concourse. There weren’t a lot of things to photograph anyways, aside from the Statue of Prometheus and the Radio City Music Hall.

Our original plan was to meet up at Pier 83 for the Circle Line Harbor Lights Cruise. But seeing how the weather was now shit, we had re-org’d via text to meet at Starbucks in Rockefeller at 5:45PM. Once there, we decided to split up again and meet again at 7:15PM. Pauline and I ended up going to St Patrick’s Cathedral to take some pictures. It was a pretty nice church, although similar to European ones. We then went to Saks Fifth Avenue for a bit. It turns out that while we were gone, they bought 3 Nintendo DS Lites, meaning that between the 8 people on the trip, there were 5 NDS! After that, it was back to the hotel to drop off our newly purchased goodies.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: diary, nyc07, travelling