Day two of our Christmas vacation in New York saw an early rise in the Upper West side and a couple of blocks walk to our favourite New York diner, Viand. It’s a proper New York Neighbourhood diner, no frills but big portions, nice food and proper booths, oh, and it’s a great place to start the day with pancakes, bacon and more maple syrup than is probably good for you. Oh well, the plan was to walk off the calories.

After breakfast we jumped on the subway and headed down to Hudson Yard to take a look at the vessel, do a spot of shopping and contemplate if we had the kahunas to go up “The Edge”, (We didn’t). After a brief wander and a coffee we headed off to find the High Line. This is our third trip to New York and it’s something we had always forgotten to do before now. The weather was unseasonably warm and it was a lovely walk along elevated trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan.

We left the high line when we saw the iconic sign for the Chelsea Market and headed inside. It was a hipsters paradise. Lots of pretentious coffee shops and eateries, a few shops selling tat and stuff you have no use for. We browsed for an hour and then headed out to the next destination .

Firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company 8, better known as Ghostbusters headquarters was only a brief walk away so we stopped by for a couple of photos before heading on through Little Italy into the Lower East side. Was a shame to see that Alife Rivington Club had closed down, or it certainly looked like it had. For those not in the know, which is probably the majority, it was one of the best streetwear and sneaker shops in New York, if not the world. This was my third visit and I’ve only managed to get inside once as theres no clue that a shop is there unless you know what you are looking for. A quick press of the buzzer and if they liked the cut of your gib they let you in.

Anyway, also down in the Lower East side i was hoping to find Ludlow Guitars (also closed now) where i bought a Gretsch Ukulele from in 2012. We paid a visit to the corner of Rivington and Ludlow which was the original location of the cover of the Beastie Boys Album Pauls Boutique and now features a great bit of street art dedicated to the band. We then headed up to contemplate dinner at Katz ( but it was packed) so ended up walking back up Broadway taking in the shops and ended the evening with cream topped hot chocolate sat outside Maceys people watching.

After 45k plus steps, and being on the go since 9am, we jumped on the subway to travel the few stops back up to W77th and the hotel and called it a night