31st December - New Years Eve

Surely today can't be as shopping oriented as yesterday? Wrong. Caroline was on a mission so we went to Sephora (Zzzz) and then the Nike shop. I bought shorts and socks for BMF (can't wait for Saturday - first time in 4 months am surely going to die on the Common). Caro bought a whole new wardrobe.

We then went on a wild goose chase to find "Eastern Mountain Sports" the only purveyors of North Face rucksack in the Tri-state area (or so it seemed). We walked for miles until we got back to Times Sq where people were already queueing for tonight. It was gridlock and very stressful. I took one woman out by mistake and Caro was her Parisienne best and leaving a path of battered shoppers and party-goers in her wake.

Hunger set in at about 1pm so we hopped on a tube (oops, "took the subway") to Chinatown. After a 15 min walk to find a restaurant that didn't have dead chickens hanging from the rafters we ended up in a Shanghai restaurant just off Broadway and Lafayette. We had pork balls, shrimp, beef, pak choi and tea. And it was mighty fine.

It turns out the sports shop was just around the corner and within 15 mins I had my new rucksack. Revisited Banana Republic to buy trousers for tonight and back in the hotel by 5pm.

Tonight is New Year's Eve and we are off to the Meat-packing district for dinner and festivities at Vento. We took the subway to 13th and 8th and had one drink in "Gaslight" - 4 beers = $24. Great. We then went into some posh winebar place (forget the name). Thankfully not my round so I went for pint of Brooklyn Lager - $11.

Ventos was a pretty cool restaurant with amazing women falling out of their new Xmas dresses. We had to spend a minimum of $90 but the menus were reasonably cheap and lots of choice. I went for clams, followed by pizza and then pork medallions with risotto. Shared a bottle of wine with Caroline. The food was really good, the company excellent and before long it was midnight - not celebrated NY during a meal before so I put fork down at 12, sang Auld Lang Syne, kissed a few girls, shook a few hands and then straight back to it. The only downside in a very enjoyable night was me breaking my camera - the door to the memory card now doesn't shut.

We foolishly left the restaurant at about 1ish and then strolled the streets of NYC to find a bar. We did find one very London pub and had cheaper beer. The gang wanted to leave at 2.30 but I am at the end of my holiday and a 2.30 finish on NYE wasn't going to be enough so in true travelling fashion I stayed by myself in the bar and befriended the table next to me. The ringleader of which was called Britney Smith and she was celebrating the New Year with her friends while her boyfriend and their 11 month old son were at home.

At about 4.45 I left the bar and took in the early morning air by walking the thirty or so blocks back to the hotel. There were lots of party-folk milling around and a lot of coppers so it wasn't likely I was going to be added to the annual murder stats in the city. I got in around 6 having taken a number of photos and marvelling at "The Garden" on the way back.