The Purse Experience--NY Day 2

This morning, Brian got up first and got ready, headed down the the breakfast and went to his meetings. I got up a little bit later, got ready, went down to breakfast, then headed to the spouse's meeting. In my meeting, we basically just did introductions, then they had a NY travel guide tell some ins and outs of NY and answer questions and basically give us some ideas of what to do while we are here. After the meeting, Brian and I went back to the room and tried to figure out how we'd spend our day. We decided to do a bus tour through CitySights. We booked our tickets on-line and got a $5 discount, then we picked up our tickets just down from the hotel. The kiosk was inside Madame Traussad's, which is a wax museum. Out in the lobby, there are three of the wax figures--Morgan Freeman, The Rock and one of the Rockettes. Talk about freaky!! Morgan Freeman was the best. I was just waiting for him to come alive any minute!!



We got on the bus and took a downtown tour. Basically we went all around downtown Manhattan and learned so much and saw a really great overview of that area. I am so glad we did the tour. We saw so many things--shopping on 34th St., Empire State Bldg., Soho, Greenwich Village, Ground Zero, Statue of Liberty, Battery Park, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Trump Tower, UN building, Rockefeller Ctr. and more. The pictures aren't great because it was though the top of the bus.

Tiles that a lady turned into a tribute to victims of 9/11.

Bull on Wall St.

Wall St. It's called Wall Street because originally NY was New Amsterdam and it belonged to the Deutch. They built a wall to keep out the Indians, so they call it Wall St.

Empire State Building

Madison Square Garden

We got off at a stop and walked through Chinatown and through Little Italy. Both are true to their names--in Chinatown, there were stores and stores of fish on ice, fruit and just really random stuff. In Little Italy, it was restaurant after restaurant. We made our way to Canal Street where I was really excited to hunt for purses. I had looked it up a little bit online before we went and how people will take you into back rooms and such to show the purses, so I knew a little what to expect. But here is what happened. There are "store" after store of people selling purses, glass, jewelry, perfume, etc. The purses in those spots look really, really fake to me...like the "C" on a knock-off Coach bag is really a "G". So those weren't something I wanted. Then all along, there are oriental ladies quietly saying, "Coach? Gucci? Prada?" etc. I said no for a while because I was kind of scared...like where would they take me. What would they do to us when we got there, etc. Then we figured--how could they keep doing this if people really got hurt or something. So we said yes to one lady and she took us through a door, up some stairs, through a bigger empty room and in a small room with lots of purses. As we were going up the stairs, I was praying the whole time, "Please help us to be safe." We saw other people go in and out, so I thought we'd be okay. We looked around and I really didn't see anything I wanted. I was kind of afraid to say no thanks, but I just said, "Not today," and we left. We went back onto Canal Street and we decided to try one more. This next lady took us a couple of blocks around and back where we met another lady who took us into her store. I felt a little better here since it was just in the back of her clothing store. We were back there and there was another couple in there getting some purses. I wanted to buy a few--the intent was to get some Christmas shopping done. He told me the price for one purse I really liked, but I didn't want to pay that, so I asked what kind of deal he would do if I bought 6 purses. So I picked our 6 that I liked and he told me the total, which of course, was too much. Then we heard someone knock on the door and talk fast in Chinese. Then he got a little beep on his phone. He grabbed a bag and was going to put the purses we wanted in them and throw us out of there, but we told him we only could do a certain amount. He declined our offer, opened the door really fast, then another door and got us out of there quick. I think they have to watch for police or something--I didn't think that would happen! I was bummed because he had some really cute purses that I would have loved to get. But it isn't worth the scary adrenalin rush to me!!! From there we stopped into Daffys--kind of like a TJ Maxx type store. Then we headed back to our bus stop--I did snag some D&G glasses for $5. Oh and we were FREEZING today! A local said this was the coldest day so far this season. Perfect! We had planned on about 40 degree weather, but today was about 24. The bus was a double decker and enclosed on the top, but it was still COLD!! We got off near our hotel and went to our room and thawed out. I smoothed out my hat head, then we went down to a lobby area. One of the product partners on our trip--from John Hancock--took seven couples out to dinner and we were lucky enough to go. We went to Bond 45--an Italian Restaurant in Times Square. It was great! It's definitely not somewhere we would have eaten at if we were paying, so it was a nice treat! I had the Rib Eye Steak with potatoes and Brian had seared tuna. It was all delicious! We finsihed up with dessert--Brian had these pastries filled with gelato and when they brought it to the table, they covered in chocolate. I had the chocolate mousse. It said on the menu it was for 2 and they weren't kidding. It was huge! And it had a huge dollop of whipped cream next to it. It was so good. Everyone laughed at me since I had a huge rib eye (although I didn't finish it all) and a huge dessert. We sat by a really nice couple from Austin, so it was great conversation, too.





After dinner, we hurried back to the room--for good this time--no more cold today!!