Designer Tempations, Chinese Food, and Sweets Galore

New York - Day 5

Sue and I wanted to check out all the shopping nearby this morning (mainly the giant Bloomingdale's). Megan was feeling tired, so she opted to sleep in a little and meet us later at H&M. It wasn't nearly as cold as previous days, so I was happy to abandon my big down jacket.

This was my first time inside a Bloomingdale's and we entered through the ground floor purse section. Oh, the time we spent drooling over designer bags... I was unsure of venturing into the Chanel section, having had very snobby "service" at Holt Renfrew in Vancouver. However, the sales people here were very polite and asked right away if they could help us with anything. I guess in New York, you don't have to look rich to afford designer things, perhaps something people can learn in Canada.

We were treated with the same deal of politeness on the shoe floor, where I spied a pair of discounted grey Chloé leaf boots. As amazing a find this was, I am not so great at shoe care, and suede in Vancouver is not a good combination. I put the shoe down and we perused some clothes instead.

There was one area in Bloomingdale's where I was completely ignored: I don't recall the label, but the clothes I would maybe liken to Rag & Bone. The sales girls here were younger and chose to ignore me even after eye contact.

Other things I lusted over inside Bloomingdale's: Burberry trench coats, and an amazing black leather Be&D clutch with decorative silver chains that always fell differently because of the magnet inside the flap. Unfortunately, the bag cost more than my flight, so wasn't a justifiable purchase. Sigh.

We traipsed over to H&M where we saw a row of bright pink faux fur jackets calling to us like a beacon. At $15 a pop, Sue was convinced she would have to buy one for me: no convincing needed; I bought one for myself!

After a fruitless excursion into (a rather small) Zara, we grabbed a train to Chinatown for lunch. The name "Excellent Dumpling House" is definitely not a misnomer. I ordered a bowl of hot and sour chicken noodle soup. The soup was not particularly hot nor sour, but the noodles, chicken, and veggies were all perfectly cooked. The bbq'd pork buns were also delicious! The 燒賣 (siu mai), 小籠包 (xiao long bao), and Shanghai style fried noodles weren't bad either. We also ordered some lobster and shrimp dumplings which were very pretty to look at and very pleasant on the taste buds too; almost like superior 蝦餃 (ha gao).

Stuffed silly, we consulted a mini map at the info station to figure out where to go next, but mostly wandered around aimlessly. We found a tiny tea and herbs shop, so I stopped in for some instant chrysanthemum honey tea. Eventually, we found Columbia Park and a large gathering of elderly Chinese men playing card games and checkers. They were all so pre-occupied that they didn't notice me sidling up for a peek nor stepping back to take photos. There was another large group gathered on the other side of the park: elderly Chinese women, also playing card games/gambling. (Probably one of the cutest sightings of the trip thus far!)

Right next to Chinatown is Little Italy. We walked a few blocks through the area - the same route Megan and I are sure we'd taken last time because of the green-white-red painted building and fire hydrant AND the gun shop - then we hopped back on a train to SoHo.

In SoHo, we found another Pylones, another MoMA gift shop with snobby employees, and kidrobot; we wasted too much time in each shop. It was a lot later than we'd hoped by the time we got back to a subway station, so we decided to reschedule the Metropolitan Museum for the next night. Instead, we went back to Alice's Tea Cup for mar-TEA-nis. This time, I had a wonderful lemon poppy seed scone.

With the night still young, we thought some venturing around the neighbourhood was in order and we remembered the giant candy store a few minutes' walk away. Dylan's Candy: two floors of almost every sweet imaginable! I've not a big sweet tooth, so I picked up some things for others instead: a Mario coin box for Penelope, bacon-flavoured gum for Sean (gag), and dust bin chocolates for my parents.

Megan had found some club nights that sounded interesting, but we were in no real state to go dancing 'til the wee morning hours considering we still had to tackle the Met the next day. So, we accepted we were no spring chickens, and tucked ourselves in early.