Around 6am this morning I realised I wasn't going to fit it all in. The list is still way too long to fit in the few remaining hours. Love this city!

FAO Schwarz have this WotNotWorkshop where the kids design their own Muppet and then their puppeters build it for them. It was our first stop this morning, the process was awesome. So much fun doing Max's one that I started trying to convince Emerson to give up her Build-a-bear or American Doll slot and do a Muppet instead. Normally I can't convince her to do anything, she naturally assumes I'm scamming her, but this time it was clearly so much fun she couldn't resist. We now have a New York Yankees (actually Pigeons) muppet for Max and a Lady Liberty one for Emerson, neither have their final names yet, the puppeteer said they needed to develop their own characters over the next few weeks.

Last nights Rangers game was such a blast Max and I wanted to get jerseys. We headed up 5th towards the diamond district, to the street where Alastir grew up. Only one Kosher deli these days, its mostly Brasillian and mexican on 45th now. We found the NHL store and suited ourselves up with the blue jerseys since the rangers were in blue last night. How cool to get matching jerseys a few blocks from The Garden the next morning. Meanwhile Gab and Emerson were down the street making Emerson's "I Love New York" Build-a-Bear. I didn't go but Emerson was telling me all about how you kiss the heart before you stuff it into the Bear, inspiring stuff.

So we're in Times Square again - the sun is out and so is a howling chilly wind - but there in the middle, guitar in hand, the Naked Cowboy. I've seen a few people in short and t-shirts this week, most people have 5 layers on, but this guy just in undies? I've freezing just looking at him.

Where to for lunch, Katz's deli all the way downtown or Times Square Americana? TGI Fridays won the toss, nasty! I'm a fan of the idea of American food but after 5 days of it I'm feeling sick at the thought of most of it. White Castle was some nasty food, you could get it out of a microwave in at a Shell. TGI Friday was fresh at least but not much better.

Back to re-living my teen years, next stop was Lids in Times Square to get the kids embroided baseball caps. Fiddy-Grub on Max's and Bella-Boo on Emerson's pink Yankees cap.

Gab had us hop a subway ride to Grand Central Station, we're litterally just here to see the station. Down on the platform this is a nasty looking place but a few turns later we're walking down a beautiful hall and to our right are the whispering corners (Garry reminded me the other day). No kidding we're here for half an hour whispering sweet nothings or nasty brotherly/sisterly rivalry to each other. How spooky is it? Somehow Max's voice is drifting up from below me as I stand in the opposite corner to him. And then the grand hall, I didn't see anything like this in our few Euro train station stops. The surpise of the visit was the Apple Store right in the middle of the action. Whoever does property for these places has got a fantastic gig.

We hop the train up to 33rd to get up the Empire State Building as our final tourist thing in the city. There is a massive queue at the door just trying to get into the security check. I'd read about an express ticket that would cost us an extra $80 for the family but would jump queues all the way up to the top and back down again. If you ever come here you have to do it. We got a good 2.5hrs back in our day today by jumping all the queues, fantastic. But not as fantastic as the views. When we visited Top of the Rock it was crystal clear night - gret views but a whole lot different to this clear afternoon view of the city. We can see further than we can interpret the geography. It was great to visit at the end of the week when we have our bearings and can relate our week back to what we see. Its a manual lift between the 86th and 102nd floors. On the way up the driver stopped the lift to show the kids that it was manual. On the way down he let them have a go of holding the controller. We overshot the landing by half a floor :)

We hop a cab back down to The Plaza and pick up the kids Muppets, they are over the moon, frankly I am too. Gab goes off to say goodbye to 5th Ave while I take the kids back to the hotel for a bit. On the why a lady makes a passing comment about the muppets as she tries to pass us in a hurry. The kids are so wound up they start telling her all about them, introducing them and telling her all about how they are made. She got the full wrap all the way to 6th Ave, I made an excuse for her the poor thing.

Tomorrow we're out of NYC at 7am :( I leave here still wanting to live in London over everywhere else, I'd visit Paris again over New York, but when I get back here I still have a fortnight of things that we didn't get to do, awesome city.