New York Day 6 & 7

Hi everyone, Cara and Polly back again with another travel chapter. Hope you are enjoying reading about our adventures in NY so far. So yesterday (Day 6) we caught the bus after a lovely sleep in (yet again!) to Woodbury Common Premium Outlet..... Think Harbour Town on the Gold Coast times two in size and ten in quality ie. Gucci, Saks 5th Ave, Versace, Prada, Barneys, Michael Kors, and many more! WCPO stocks all the end of line items and has huge discounts at all stores. It's located an hours drive away and we were amazed at how it only took 10 mins to be in the country after leaving the city. WCPO was still really expensive but we managed to find a few good deals and had quite a collection of shopping bags before too long - it was an awesome shopping experience to say the least! We walked in and out and around shops for nearly 6 hours and had to limp out at the end our feet were so worn out.








After the hour's bus trip back to Manhattan we decided to get takeaway pizza for dinner ... Seemed like a good idea at the time but after one humungous slice each we instantly regretted it and had to throw the rest outside in the bin so it was out of sight and out of smelling distance! Basically it had so much mozzarella it was sickly. Mind you, we slept really well that night so maybe it had a sedative effect!!


Hang on though, could also have been the extra good mood we were put in by an unexpected visitor. We were watching tv and heard a loud meow at the garden door and there was a great big - and very friendly - tabby cat coming a-calling on us. We couldn't believe the confidence of this cat who swaggered into our room, took a look around, smooched our bags then jumped up on Cara's bed and waited to be made a fuss of ...which of course we did and he lapped it all up! We named him Dupes and he was quite happy to stay all night but we only have twin beds so there wasn't room for Dupes and Cara to fit in the same bed and Cara wasn't keen on sleeping on the floor so poor old Dupes got the heave-ho after an hour or so! Turns out Dupes lives next-door but has neighborhood rights to go wherever and do anything!





DAY 7: Oops, slept in again! We seem to have developed the habit of waking late, missing breakfast and heading out at noon then staying up till midnight. Today, we did just this again but set a record of not having a proper meal till 4pm as we were so busy shopping and kept finding cool stores on our way to brunch that it was 4pm before we sat down with food, it's crazy!


Today we had absolutely miserable weather. It rained ALL day! Those high rises New York is so famous for were all hiding behind nasty fat wet clouds!





We walked in the rain for about 6 hours as Polly was on a mission to go to her favourite shoe shop Irregular Choice (www.irregular choice.com) and buy herself a birthday present. It was about 25 blocks south and 5 blocks over. By New York standards that doesn't sound much but with the bad weather and all the shops we stopped at on the way it took FOREVER!





First stop was Three Tarts a gorgeous little bakery around the corner (www.threetartsbakery.com). Cara rated their macarons as being nearly as good as hers so that's high praise indeed! Then we went to Brooklyn Industries store (www.brooklynindustries.com) and the two people working there (sorry we didn't get your names!) became our shopping mentors and gave us heaps of tips for where to go shopping in NYC - we repaid their kindness with offloading some of our Three Tarts goodies and this blog address, ha ha! (hi guys, told you we'd mention you here!)


After that there was an interior-homewares store where we took lots of sneaky photos, then vintage clothing and vintage jewelry stores and ...finally...our goal - Polly's fave shoe store Irregular Choice.











By this time (about 4 hours after setting out) we were soaking wet, Cara had counted 30 people wearing gumboots and Polly had photographed 6 scenes of "rain-roadkill" ie, abandoned broken umbrellas! Polly got a pair of very groovy shoes and we headed back into the rain in search of a subway to get ourselves home pronto.








Phew, thanks for hanging in there and reading our blog. More to come tomorrow. Cara and Polly over and out. Night all!

Location:Woodbury Common shopping day trip and walk to Greenwich Village

New York: Day 4 & 5

DAY 4:
Hi everyone, Polly here again. So, onto yesterday and today ...

We had to go and meet the lady who's privately renting us her apartment next week. She wanted us to go and visit her at her apartment so she could check us out and vice versa. At the moment we're staying in lower Manhattan in 22nd street and her apartment is in the upper east side by 85th street so we decided to test our subway skills to magically transport us 63 blocks north. If we've learnt one important subway lesson it's to avoid express stations as they have a knack of missing the stop you want because they're on an express route so after learning that lesson the hard way - twice! - we got there in no time. On the subway ride we had the requisite daily "odd" person encounter, this time a guy who made farting noises during the entire trip! Our 'interview' went well and we're looking forward to moving up to 85th as it's near Central Park on the far west side of Manhattan next to the Hudson River and the lounge has amazing views over the water. Another reason is we can't wait to use the kitchen and cook instead of eating out all the time. So we're looking forward to going shopping for some tasty fresh American produce and then eating it up on the apartment's rooftop.

Here are some cute buildings we passed on the way that Cara really loved....









Yesterday we also visited Times Square which to be honest we couldn't wait to escape from as it was so crowded with people and felt so touristy. We'll leave returning there until we want to get some cheap theatre tickets!








After our uptown outing we happily returned to Chelsea and our favorite eatery Moran's Restaurant and had amazing ricotta and spinach gnocchi, pear and cucumber salad (again!) and lemon meringue pie. Next stop, home to pack as we're on the move in the morning...





DAY 5:
After a lazy start (i love having a midday check out!) we moved to our second BnB location in Chelsea which is in the very same 22nd street about 100 meters away at Dupuys Landing (www.dupuyslanding.com). We're in another 4-story beautiful old brownstone and have a gorgeous room on the ground floor with a door to the garden. It's very cute and quaint.






After settling in we went off to walk The Highline (www.thehighline.org) which is an elevated walkway about 10-20 meters off the ground on an old dis-used railway track and now has lovely gardens along the path which runs from 30th street south down to 12th street. The sun was shining and it was a lovely day to do this as the sky was a brilliant blue with all the buildings out in the open and not hiding behind low grey clouds like usually are.
















After the High Line we had a stroll around the gorgeous streets of Chelsea and came across some more amazing buildings and revived our energy levels at a cute little cafe we stumbled onto where we sampled a blonde brownie - delicious!
















We also may have accidentally on purpose led ourselves past and into the Christian Louboutin shop and then very quickly out again once we saw the prices! A very cool shop indeed.






Stay tuned for our next blog after our day trip to Woodbury Common for a mega shopping experience!

Location:Still in Charming Chelsea!

New York: Day 3

Hi it's Polly again just doing quick intro about walking tour I talked Cara into doing today. We started in Chelsea and walked east a few blocks to the Flatiron building. From there we took a punt on a travel book tip to go to City Bakery (www.thecitybakery.com) on cnr 18th and 5th ave. The punt paid off and it was brilliant. Next we went south east to 1st ave and 6th ave to see some community gardens (www.6bc.org) and from there it was south again (our feet are starting to ache by now!) down thru Chinatown and onto Manhattan Bridge (which went forever!) over to Brooklyn. No idea how many k's we walked but would love to know! We did our first subway trip to get ourselves home ..... phew, home sweet home and put our feet up for well deserved rest!

Hi everyone, Cara here. Hope you are enjoying reading about our travels in New York so far - I'm loving it! So today was day 3, it was great and we did ALOT of walking as Polly has mentioned! Our first stop was The City Bakery. This place was really cool and well laid out with the most amazing and varied selection of tasty treats. It had an upstairs seating area overlooking the bakery store below so we could look down and watch people going about getting their breakfast and coffee. I had some delicious French toast! On the way out we both got a mini real hot chocolate, OMG it was amazing!!





After our yummy stop at the bakery we stopped to check out the Flat Iron Building. Wow!






Then we travelled on to explore some gorgeous city gardens, I loved this!


















The last garden we visited was the best, it was beautiful!





















After the dozens of photos I took of the gardens we then made our way down through China Town to walk the very long Manhattan bridge which I must say was a great thing to do! And yes by this time our feet and legs were getting quite sore!










Finally made it to the other side......Brooklyn at last! And got some more beautiful photos of Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge.











For dinner we enjoyed some amazing pizza before heading back to Chelsea on the subway. Pheww... What a long but great day, glad to be back at the apartment!

Xo Cara

Location:Chelsea - Flatiron District - West Village - Chinatown - Brooklyn