Notebook and Pen

If this morning taught me one new thing about New York, it is that the Wall St bull has a stupid name. Three end to end walks up the street and no bull in sight, though an inflatable giant rat holding wads of cash offered some alternative.

It was surprising (and lucky) how short Wall St is, but some good photo spots of Brooklyn bridge at one end and the NY Stock Exchange at the other end made it interesting to walk down still, though probably unnecessary to do three times.

Not far from the top of the street is the Ground Zero site, which a travel website correctly described as having shamefully little to see in regard to the development of a memorial. A building site wall sectioning off the area is all there really is there now, though we were later told if we wanted to imagine the heights of the towers we just had to take the neighbouring buildings and double their size upwards.

From here we took the subway up to Soho, which on first and last appearances is a thousand times better than London's area of the same name (and not just because it's home to America's only Topshop, which, by the way is double the price of the Topshops at home).

During our walk through Soho we found a shop named Evolution, which our Chicago host, Rick told us about and recommended we visit, which we did, having thought we may as well as we'd accidentally found it anyway. Home to real human skulls for sale, five million year old fossils and an entire wall display of real butterflies, plus countless stuffed animals of every species imaginable, it made an interesting visit even if we didn't come out with any gifts to take home.

The one thing about Soho which isn't all that great (apart from property prices, I had to look) is the way it leads directly into Chinatown with zero warning. One minute you're surrounded by designer boutiques and unique bars and cafes, the next, market stalls and men following you until you show some interest in buying fake handbags and watches (why, when the real things are a few streets away?).

Thankfully Chinatown led to Little Italy as quickly as it had appeared out of nowhere, and though we were still being hassled at least now it was by restaurants instead.

Later on the tour of Soho continued, where I treated myself to something I've wanted for a while, and had a slow walk back through Washington Park where it may be actually possible to see every type of dog known to man, before eventually giving up on the walk and finding a subway station instead for an attempt to retrain ourselves to sleep before sunrise.