2012 Vacation Day 6 - Wednesday: forever walking...

Up early, as we have lots to see. This morning we caught the uptown loop, and we are lucky to get a great tour guide, which really makes a huge difference. He knew his history of the area and his delivery was excellent.
We had planned to hop on and off more frequently today, but he was so good we stayed on almost the entire loop. So many unique neighbourhoods with such diverse history, architecture and residents. It is facinating.

love how the building can almost blend into the sky...

We got off at South Central Park and made our way all through Midtown and down to 34th St. to get a close look at Grand Central Terminal, it is beautiful. Massive expanses of marble, from floors to walls to stairs. Considering the 500,000 people that walk through here every day, the place almost looks new. A testament to the people who maintain and clean this great building.

My favorite building of all was the Chrysler building. An architecturally impressive building that is wonderful to explore visually. Designed with an automotive theme, it gleams with stainless steel, granite lobbies and unique visual cues. Everywhere your eye wanders, it is met with an interesting detail. As well, it is impressive in statue. What it lacks in height to the Empire State, it more than makes up in facinating fascade. Truly an iconic New York city building.

The Chrysler... my favourite building... awesome!

Dale explored Macys while I walked over to B&H Photo. B&H was an interesting retail operation, it contains all things electronic, from cameras to TV's to high end sound recording devices...  and lots of it. The unique part is the conveyor belt system that runs everywhere. Incredible inventory control. You talk to a sales person and examine the article, and if you decide to buy, they print out a pickup receipt, and they drop your item into a green bin. This makes its way to the pickup area, where after you have paid for it, you go there and pick up your bagged items. No one is walking around the store with merchandise.

I purchased a small mouse for the new netbook, and I had not moved 10 feet from the display before someone had approached me to confirm if I wanted to make a purchase. It was back out of my hands and into their control system within about 10 seconds. An interesting store concept, but I can't help but wonder if the whole theory behind it is to eliminate shrinkage or improve the customer's experience. The other noticeable thing is the surveillance. Not only is the time your hands on product virtually zero, I did feel I was being closely monitored, almost bordering on creepy. Still, it was an impressive operation to watch, and the staff were very helpful and polite.

We were relying on our phones to link up back at Macy's, but discovered that my phone was not allowing me to roam. What a panic to be in the world's largest dept store of 2 million sq.ft. and no way to find each other. By pure luck I found Dale in amongst the crowds of shoppers. I guess that was our miracle on 34th Street!

Got back to the hotel and chilled out. The feet are a little sore, and a couple of blisters have made their presense well known. Not surprising given the distance we have covered, comfy shoes can only help so much. Tonight we are off to another recommended restaurant, a Chinese place called 'Chin Chin' on 49th Street.  It was good as well, the crispy beef with orange was excellent and was plentiful, as was the Tung Lo chicken with grilled peppers and ginger. Another excelent day in New York.