Day 2 in the Big Apple

After surviving a fairly tame but pleasant New Years Eve celebration drinking imperial stouts and watching the Time Square fireworks from Hoboken Pier we spent the next day recovering and planning the next few weeks of our trip to come.
On the 2nd January 2013 we braved the hustlin' bustlin' Big Apple again. First on the list of things to do was Time Square. The streets of New York were littered with chinsy tat shops selling everything from bling necklaces to spaghetti wigs to every imaginable animal hat!! Needless to say I was extremely excited. Had to ration myself with just two hats... A green parrot and an unknown creature with big bug eyes and floppy little arms... If you know this animal please shed some light!!

After fastening the unknown creature hat securely to my head, we kicked on to Time Square. A massive bustling area coated floor to sky in LED advertising signs. I'm unsure what I expected, but I was certainly sickened by the blinking adverts that were being crammed forceably down our throat at every angle. Escaping the epilepsy-inducing frenzy, we popped into Toys R Us (The biggest in the world, of course) only to be welcomed by an almighty Ferris wheel, roaring Tyrannosaurus and woman telling us to smile for a photo. Maybe it's just me but I can't quite understand why you'd feel the desire to "eternally capture the moment" of being in a massive toy store. Maybe I really am getting old. Or possible the stouts are making me bitter.

We bailed from Advert Square and headed off to the Rockefeller building to see the massive Christmas tree and ice skating rink. And obviously the great bloody big building that these two were in the foyer of. Atlas was kickin about there as well but seemed a little obtusely carved... with double kneecaps and abs smaller than mine. I guess if I had to carry the entire world on my shoulders double patellas would probably help.

After both realising our toes were incomprehensibly numb we nipped into Starbucks to thaw with a Gingerbread latte and embrace the first sit-down of the day.Once our toes were giggling and mailable we pressed diligently onto Central Park. Spooky nude trees around frozen lakes gave off an eerie vibe. But the neurotic, rabies-riddled squirrels and people with balaclavas demanding you hop in their tuk-tuk bicycles for a hefty fee to whiz you around the park helped us stay tied to brutal reality.

We left Central Park and caught the Metro across town to the Chelsey Markets and High Line. Chelsey Markets is a bohemian industrial organic shopping center which was very different to the grease-laden streets of New York.

In ye olden times freight trains used to go through New York delivering goods and whatnot. However too many pedestrians and motor vehicles were pureed by these unstoppable trains. Thus the High Line came about to decrease the deaths on New York streets. Once NY became too fashionable and expensive for the noise and disruption caused by the trains, the High Line was closed. Fortunately, a bunch of hippies wrote to the council (or something) and asked to turn the High Line into a park. Which they were successful with and have subsequently done. Nice sunsets and view of the Empire State poking it's cheeky tip into the adulterated NY skyline