Boxing Day? ...Draws a blank. That's an English thing that means nothing here.

Our Boxing Day plans were just to do a bit of a wander. I started the day with a chilly, but excellent, run around Central Park (19km). Once the girls were poked out of bed, bed started our walking tour of New York. We wanted to wander through a few districts and just soak up the atmosphere. We covered a decent distance.

Central Park was the first target for a brief wander, then down to Times Square for a look. Insanely busy, but that place is tiny! A million people on New Years? Stacked 5 high, maybe. It was crowded enough at midday, and there wouldn't have been 10,000 there.

Of course the gils found a shop in there - Sephora - Makeup and related. Sarah and Danielle had a coulour matching session with the attendant and came out with their wallets a little lighter. They were very happy.

We then hit the M&M store. 3 whole floors of just M&M stuff. Cups, towels, plastic stuff galore. Quite fun to look at (And place carefully back on the shelf so you don't need to pay the inflated prices for damaged goods!). The M&M wall was impressive, with giant tubes full of different M&M's that you could purchase in exchange for a body part or two. The Hersheys choloclate shop across the road was only two floors, but smelt overwhelmingly of chocolate, our primary diet for two days, so we scarpered quickly.

Wnaderings then took us to an elevated park. That was an excellent oasis in the south west corner. It was an elevated Goods Railway that one lone campaigner saved from demolition and managed to get millions spent making it into a lavish parkway up amongst the rooftops. It was crowded (Which was good to see) and gave you a fantastic peek of the city - architecture, Empire State, Statue of Liberty etc. It's quite long, too, and helped take us to our next ares of focus - Chelsea Markets (Mostly foods/cakes), the meatpacking district (Not sure why the attraction - much of it it is still awaiting revamping and is rather smelly!) then on to Greenwich Village, which has lots of boutique shops and food.

Grabbed dinner there, then wandered back towards home until the cold got the better of us. Subway ride home (An early night for us, getting home about 8), then packing ready for Niagar Falls in the morning.

Overall a plesant, wandering day. Clear skies, but very chilly in the wind. Ski jackets, gloves and scarves the order of the day. We went to a department store just near 'home' and spent an hour or so in there - and I came out with some stuff! (Yvonne didn't!). Designer belts and shirts $10, and running socks of course! We're bulging at the seams, so have to limit purchasing for now. From my perspective it's the first time I've seen mens clothes at bargain prices.

PS Photo upload is busted at the mo, so just using stock images. Will refresh later