My friend Abi is heads to NYC… I wish she would take me with her, but her clothes and shoes are far too important and there is no longer space for me in the suitcase.

The view from the top of the rock...

First of all, catch the supershuttle bus from your airport into town.

Then, don’t leave home without your streetwise map! +/- a subway map.  Know your boroughs.
Then get a 7-day subway pass for $28.  And a simcard for about $25 if you wish.  On a solo trip, you may need to make a good couple of local phonecalls.   And lookup Prive,  NYmag and Dailycandy for sample sale news…

Here’s a map Derrik made of our trip.  Create your own map, paint your own picture and discover your own pieces of New York.

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Century 21 – Bargain shopping at ground zero…(I picked up loads of tights, shoes and jeans at slashed down prices here)

Then there’s Sephora/Old Navy/Macy’s/Bloomingdales…or Woodbury Common for the ultimate outlet store shopping trip! (Save an entire day out, book a bus)

B&H – the NYC superstore near couple blocks from Penn Station, for all your electronic needs, also found online, but if you’re curious about the jewish efficiency, and their business process and how smoothly an institution could be run, you have to visit the place.

The Container Store may make you go a little breathless, with its nifty storage ideas and is a little bit cuter than ikea.  Less furniture, more solutions.

Wholefoods for groceries, and Trader Joe’s right next door to it, at the Union Square store.

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Gorgeous donuts found at the Doughnut Plant

Doughnut Plant – 379 Grand Street NYC

…which is steps from Full City Coffee for a sit down and wifi/magazine/books/jazz absorption session…You could have your donut here too, and try not to hug everyone in your hyperglycemic trip.
Everything in manhattan has been licked by the Zagat team, purely because of how self contained the island is.  If it is not zagat rated, it’s probably dodgy.  Or in chinatown.  Or both.

Speaking of chinatown, there are several things you have to do there besides eat chinese food and catch the cheap-bus to Washington/Boston/etc

1. The chinatown ice cream factory, with all sorts of chinesey flavours.  Red bean, Coconut, Pandan, Lychee etc…  You can even get the T-shirt!

2. S1 for 6 dumplings, in a shop tucked away in a corner, your lucky day if you find it, with just a scibbled cardboard sign for directions down the alley.  In the hold in the wall you’ll find three ladies on a dumpling production line, and some standing space.  Pork dumplings, but they smelt bloody delicious, and attracted what i saw to be a discerning crowd of NYC old-timers.

3.  Try to learn some chinese before you go!?  I thought I landed in HK when i rocked up there on my first morning, jet lagged and amidst the 7am market-spree, and despite my chinky looks it wasn’t chinky enough to blend in.

Empire Diner at 10th&W22nd

At Katz Deli enjoying a Kosher hot dog!

Katz’s Deli at the Lower East Side where Harry met Sally.  I stumbled upon that, was overjoyed with the kosher hot dogs, felt a strange familiarity with the diner… then a couple months later it clicked.  Try a pastrami washed down with a cream soda.

Cupcakes at the renowned Magnolia Bakery at 401 Bleeker street.   A must for a cupcake fan!  And I discovered Red Velvet flavour in NYC.

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Check out the usual suspects:  The MoMa, and after that grab a chicken/lamb on rice at the Gyros on 53rd&6th…Only after 730pm though, before that, there are imposter Gyros shops.  It is to die for, and every new yorker must know this.  Beat the Queues by rocking up early, or you will auto-digest by your turn in line, sniffing gyros delish smokes.  I asked for more white sauce…

"More sauce please..."

PJ Clarkes, the best burgers I’ve ever tasted.  After sitting through ‘La Boheme’ at the Lincoln Centre.

Crooked Tree and their buckwheat crepes…near the dumpling man, st marks square.

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Carnegie Hall – catch operas, various orchestral performances here.
The Guggenheim a must see, and a traipse up and down the spirals.  Gorgeous to just look at from the outside.  And then a gorgeous all-day breakfast place Sarabeth’s nearby.

www.barbesbrooklyn.com is where we’ve got Stephane Wrembel le french virtuoso, and Shawn vouches he’s the best guitarist, ever.  Park slope, Brooklyn, Sundays.  Probably best after your Di Fara Pizza on the Q line to Ave J.

Shawn lives in Brookyn and will give tours on the weekends, he pipes up.  He’ll drag you to Barbes.

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Last of all, don’t forget to come back despite how much you’d want to frivolously find a job there waiting on tables and baking cupcakes all day.

A fabulous playlist of gorgeous songs from Shawntheplant, who incessantly tries to lure me to NYC yet again. As if i need luring!

Derik charts the trip on googlemaps!

Hanging around NYmag gives me the warm and fuzzy feeling of being in NY. I just want to sip on some apple cider right now. mmm, juice!

A New Yorker’s Guide to London Neighborhoods

Notting Hill = West Village + Fort Greene
Hoxton = Williamsburg
Soho + Bethnal Green = Chelsea
Knightsbridge = Upper East Side
Brixton = Bedford-Stuyvesant
Hackney = Bushwick + Flushing
Covent Garden = Soho + Theater District
Hampstead = Upper West Side
Clapham = Park Slope
Canary Wharf = Financial District + Red Hook
Piccadilly + Leicester Square = Times Square + Chinatown
Camden = St. Marks Place
Bond Street = Madison Avenue

And it figures that my favourite places for nights out are brookyln NY, and Shoreditch, London. My least favourite areas? Times square and its transatlantic equivelents.

The ultimate read for the reluctant londoner and the NY wannabe. (kinda, me.) clic on ze pic.

My flight took me from London Gatwick to Raleigh/Durham to Newark Airport, New York. I would then fly Newark-Boston-Heathrow upon my return to the land of rain and bad wallpaper. And would also piss off taxi drivers, suddenly hopping up from my Canal St. t0 Newark cab ride, yelping “No!!! I need to get to JFK! ” and then checking my ticket and realising I was plain confused.

“Why would anyone fly to Raleigh to get to New York?” chimed a weary passenger queueing at the lengthy immigration line. I knew the only reason why I was there was because of my cheap last minute christmas flight to New York… most flights would cost around £400 during christmas and new year. I hung around the Conquest Hospital computer lab at wierd and wonderful hours of lunch and dinner, begged and borrowed for a decent credit card…(Thanks Pandy!!!) And voila, got myself the last sub-£300 ticket for NYC! I shiver in excitement and apprehension as year-end transatlantic flights tend to soar above £400.

“Why would anyone fly to Raleigh to get to New York?” I asked the man next to me, when I saw the flight map and how we were hovering above NYC on the way to Raleigh/Durham. By choice, never again, but right then that was the least of my worries.

Supershuttle was a welcome entity with their $19 door-to-door shuttle van service. I waited and waited. And met Sam Button, from South Africa, having just arrived from her 2 month stint in South Carolina, to spend 2 nights in NYC before heading back home. She was bubbly company, and we decided to hit MoMa the following day.

Arriving at Cass’ lovely flat in TriBeCa at close to midnight… She had her sofa-bed ready for me to plonk my weary self onto, and even gave me a thorough tour of her flat and its workings. All this with a smile, amidst her semester exams! *ahh*

Aww…. This girl was out one day giving free hugs all over Manhattan, I know cos I saw her a couple of times once at Canal st & Broadway where i took up her offer of a good quality hug. And then again at the union square christmas market.

But what really makes a good hug? The actual hug technique? Or the meaning behind the dispensing and acceptance of the hug?

Good hugs are so important. People who don’t understand that are missing out. The emotions infused in and out of your bodies when hugs are given and received is what makes a hug work. Hugging also creates (noninvasively!) the closest distance between two hearts, better fascilitating this infusion of feelings which are possibly centred in the central mediastinal area.

Go forth! Give a hug! Ask for a hug!