Friday 14 October: New York

New York and surrounding states have received record rainfalls in the past week, with widespread flooding and damage. So it was no surprise when we woke to grey skies and constant rain. We caught the subway to Penn Station to pick up our tickets for Washington. Then to Times Square where we picked up our tickets for the Lion King.

The biggest camera shop in the world. Then we went to check out B&H, who are legendary suppliers of photographic gear, professional video equipment and computers. The place is very big, noisy and crowded. Most of the staff are Jewish and wear skull caps, beards and side-curls. With Paul exercising enormous will-power, we limited ourselves to some small purchases only. After that we headed back to the hotel for some lunch.

Walkin' in the rain. In the afternoon it was still raining. We foolishly decided to see the USS Intrepid museum. This has the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, a Concorde airliner and a Blackbird high speed reconnaissance aircraft. Unfortunately there are no subway stations in close proximity, so it was a long trudge in heavy rain. Of course when we got there all the outdoor exhibits (ie all the interesting stuff) were closed.

With brains totally in neutral we decided to go shopping for shoes. Sue thought Bloomingdales sounded good so we caught a cab to the approximate vicinity. Apparently Bloomingdales is a very famous department store, but they didn't have much in the way of suitable shoes. Maybe a visit to the United Nations would cheer us up? We caught what appeared to be the right train, but ended up in Queens. The area around the station looked pretty rundown, but it was still raining so we didn't explore at all.

By this time we were cold, wet, tired, depressed and jet-lagged so we we got the subway back to the hotel, had a hot shower and hit the sack for a couple of hours.

Broadway: Everybody said we had to see a Broadway show, so we decided on the Lion King. This is on at the New Amsterdam theatre in Times Square - an older style auditorium with ordinary seats and inadequate legroom. The show however was fantastic. An excellent score, lots of African rhythms, great staging and brilliant costumes. It was even better in the second half when the woman with the Marge Simpson hairdo and noisy kid left early.