Ready, set, shop

This morning I was politely asked to leave the hotel breakfast room because I was not wearing shoes. It's a health and safety hazard, you see. Even though all the plates and cups are disposable and there is no glass in sight. I had to go back up the lift and put some on before I could eat, slightly bemused.

Then we went to see the iconic department store, Bloomingdale's. There is a doorman in a suit who greets you in the marble foyer and shows you around, they check your coat and give visitors a discount voucher. Everything is white, shiny, impeccable and expensive. The street level is all women's accessories, handbags at the front and shoes at the back. They are organised into open plan mini-stores - Fendi, Ralph Lauren, Marc by Marc Jacobs- staffed by attendants in suits and women wearing a lot of makeup. They are all incredibly helpful and the shops are amazing, the smell of leather and perfume is everywhere and the bags are works of art. The Louis Vuitton store is two levels, with softly lit cubby holes in the walls - one item in each, no prices on anything.
There was a sale section where I eyed up a few wallets, but I'll definitely wait and see what else is around.
 the second floor, womens clothing, had some really nice things and some were reasonably priced. There is massive selection here, from designers that we see rarely at home.

I went to Daffy's after that, which is a big discount designer store. The shopping experience was miles away from Blomingdale's - the racks were disorganised, it was hot and too brightly lit and had a very cheap feel. The staff and clientele were all middle aged Italian women, and the clothing selection definitely catered to that market. It was mostly Italian and French designers that I hadn't heard of, and there was some really ugly and over the top stuff. They had some really nice shoes, but nothing here comes in my size - American shoes are narrow, and it's hard to find anything relatively big.

It rained heavily in the morning but as I walked home down Broadway blue sky was showing and the sun was glinting off the Chrysler building. It's not hard to find nice things to look at in this city, if you only know where to look.

For dinner we went down to Chinatown, and had very authentic Vietnamese in a little place with broken English on the menus. I had a spicy soup with various vegetables and mussels floating in it, which was fairly nice in a strange way. We walked home through the fish markets, hard to believe this chaos and dirtiness and haggling is only two blocks from the groomed, upmarket shops and people of Soho. Some of them had live fish swimming in containers, and all manner of huge eels. There are street stalls selling knock-off fakes of the bags, watches and belts which you can buy from the genuine retailer in 10 minutes walk. Fantastic.