Hello! I know I haven't been active for a while. I got caught up in the holidays' activities and I haven't sit down much at the computer except for checking e-mail and news (ok, ok... and facebook as well).
What have I been up to? Instead of my usual winter migration, this year F and I decided to stay in NYC for the Christmas holidays. While we have taken the chance to sleep like grisly bears (especially me) and eat like we were about to hibernate, we have gone around the city a bit trying to do the typical Christmas stuff. First observation to make: it's exhausting. The weather hasn't been too cold (it has been well above 0°C, except for today - the wind factor has made it feel like -3°C or so), but it is the crowds. It's no secret that tourism has been increasing significantly in the big apple for the past few years. NYMag recently published an article about it and just few days ago Bloomberg said that about 50.2 million tourists will have visited NYC in 2011.
You can imagine what it is to walk around midtown. I wanted a picture with the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. I balked. Twice. I think we would have to go there at 3am to have a decent shot. I took this picture from across 5th Ave. Can you see the heads of all the people passing by? There are policemen on the corners controlling the flow of pedestrians to prevent them from blocking the streets. Traffic is terrible.
And walking along 5th Ave is still worth it. From what I had read from other blogs and doing a bit of browsing, I made a list of the "not-to-miss" spots and we went one by one. Some were cooler than others, but in general it was a nice experience. You bounce onto tourists that suddenly decide to stop in the middle of the street for no reason, the local smiles at you when you want to take a picture of something that is too much of daily life for them, you get pushed, you learn how to push, and then you miss the crowd when it gets colder.
I made a map that illustrates our main stops. Sorry for not mapping the places to some sort of enumeration system, but I hope it suffices to say that we went from North to South and places are listed in the order we stopped by.
1. Barney's - home to Lady Gaga's workshop. It is fun to see, but the windows are the best (and the craziest). Do not miss all-hair-made Gaga's boudoir (!!!).
2. Bergdorf Goodman - windows full of animals + mannequins with fancy dresses. Our favourite: the moose in the "all white" window.
3. Tiffany & Co. - A bit lame I would say, but a classic nevertheless and pretty jewels.
4. Henri Bendel - mah. Funny mannequin dressed as lady liberty. Going in may be fun. We didn't.
5. Fendi - shiny belts! (there is also Tommy Hilfiger next to it with a huge ribbon)
6. Rockefeller Center - Christmas tree
7. Saks 5th Ave - Just across the street, has a nice set up of a girl that supposedly went into a magical part of the store where she discovers all these wonderfully designed dresses. Alexander McQueen and Ralph Lauren caught my eye. Oh, and also the doll moving around in a mono-cycle.
8. The NYPL doesn't have any particular Christmas decoration, but it had been a very long time since I didn't see it at night.
9. Lord and Taylor - They have a model of Santa with kids, a house with a cooking mom, more kids, a dog. It is prettier than what I can describe here. The moving models are surrounded by drawings of kids that were asked to paint something representative of Christmas. There are some that are very funny (like a zombie-looking gingerbread cookie by a 6 -year old :-) ).
We started our tour around 5pm and it must have taken us about 2 hours. Going when it is dark seemed to us the best time to appreciate the ornaments. A classic NYC thing to do that I am happy to check off my list :-). Here are some pictures of the whole tour. Not super pro, but it gives you an idea.
This may be my last post of the year (yikes!), so Happy 2012 everyone!! I hope it brings us good things for us all. See you next week!
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Saciamorbos/More curious stats:
According to NYC Go, the top 10 sources of international visitors in 2010 came from the following countries:
What have I been up to? Instead of my usual winter migration, this year F and I decided to stay in NYC for the Christmas holidays. While we have taken the chance to sleep like grisly bears (especially me) and eat like we were about to hibernate, we have gone around the city a bit trying to do the typical Christmas stuff. First observation to make: it's exhausting. The weather hasn't been too cold (it has been well above 0°C, except for today - the wind factor has made it feel like -3°C or so), but it is the crowds. It's no secret that tourism has been increasing significantly in the big apple for the past few years. NYMag recently published an article about it and just few days ago Bloomberg said that about 50.2 million tourists will have visited NYC in 2011.
You can imagine what it is to walk around midtown. I wanted a picture with the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. I balked. Twice. I think we would have to go there at 3am to have a decent shot. I took this picture from across 5th Ave. Can you see the heads of all the people passing by? There are policemen on the corners controlling the flow of pedestrians to prevent them from blocking the streets. Traffic is terrible.
And walking along 5th Ave is still worth it. From what I had read from other blogs and doing a bit of browsing, I made a list of the "not-to-miss" spots and we went one by one. Some were cooler than others, but in general it was a nice experience. You bounce onto tourists that suddenly decide to stop in the middle of the street for no reason, the local smiles at you when you want to take a picture of something that is too much of daily life for them, you get pushed, you learn how to push, and then you miss the crowd when it gets colder.
I made a map that illustrates our main stops. Sorry for not mapping the places to some sort of enumeration system, but I hope it suffices to say that we went from North to South and places are listed in the order we stopped by.
1. Barney's - home to Lady Gaga's workshop. It is fun to see, but the windows are the best (and the craziest). Do not miss all-hair-made Gaga's boudoir (!!!).2. Bergdorf Goodman - windows full of animals + mannequins with fancy dresses. Our favourite: the moose in the "all white" window.
3. Tiffany & Co. - A bit lame I would say, but a classic nevertheless and pretty jewels.
4. Henri Bendel - mah. Funny mannequin dressed as lady liberty. Going in may be fun. We didn't.
5. Fendi - shiny belts! (there is also Tommy Hilfiger next to it with a huge ribbon)
6. Rockefeller Center - Christmas tree
7. Saks 5th Ave - Just across the street, has a nice set up of a girl that supposedly went into a magical part of the store where she discovers all these wonderfully designed dresses. Alexander McQueen and Ralph Lauren caught my eye. Oh, and also the doll moving around in a mono-cycle.
8. The NYPL doesn't have any particular Christmas decoration, but it had been a very long time since I didn't see it at night.
9. Lord and Taylor - They have a model of Santa with kids, a house with a cooking mom, more kids, a dog. It is prettier than what I can describe here. The moving models are surrounded by drawings of kids that were asked to paint something representative of Christmas. There are some that are very funny (like a zombie-looking gingerbread cookie by a 6 -year old :-) ).
We started our tour around 5pm and it must have taken us about 2 hours. Going when it is dark seemed to us the best time to appreciate the ornaments. A classic NYC thing to do that I am happy to check off my list :-). Here are some pictures of the whole tour. Not super pro, but it gives you an idea.
----
Saciamorbos/More curious stats:
According to NYC Go, the top 10 sources of international visitors in 2010 came from the following countries:
I haven't read an updated list, but I know that UK is still in first place.
1. United Kingdom 1,055,000
2. Canada 977,000
3. France 596,000
4. Brazil 589,000
5. Germany 528,000
6. Australia 479,000
7. Italy 469,000
8. All Middle East 406,000
9. Spain 388,0000
10. Mexico 384,000
2 comments:
I need to get out more...
...wait.. what were you guys doing at Tiffany? ;)
I should be able to +1 your comment, Rodrigo :).
At Tiffany I was mostly stepped on and bothered by screaming kids. F didn't even get close to the windows for long when he saw such a mess. I had photo-jouranlistic duties, though ;).
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