Too much choice can make you sick!

As I stepped out of the subway onto the streets of Times Square, I heard a combination of Matthew Dix and Hannes Otto’s voice in my head saying “S@!T BALLS!”Before me was a sensory overload like nothing on earth. Flashing lights, bright colours, billboards towering over you making you feel like one of the kids from “honey, I shrunk the kids.”

The place is just, if not more insane than it looks on TV, and again I found myself amazed by the fact that this place really DOES exist. Nothing stands still (pictures, lights, cabs, people) and in a few seconds, it wasn’t hard for me to see why they call New York the city that never sleeps. Especially in Times Square!

After visiting the M & M store (an overload in itself with 3 floors of M & M themed merchandise and over 30 different types of M & M’s to choose from), strolling past the hardrock, Madame Taussards  (yes, they have one here now too), countless stores, restaurants, production houses and souvenir stands, I decided to head down to Madison Square Gardens to check out Macy’s, which I thought would be marginally less overwhelming – BOY WAS I WRONG!

By this stage, my feet were sore to the brink of tears, I was dehydrated and miserable and THEN was faced with 8 floors of what is supposedly a shopper’s paradise. I’m not much of a shopper so it was anything but paradise and the clearance sale made it all the less appealing!  

Macy’s sells everything you could possibly think of wanting to buy from suits, dresses, fragrances, food and coats to bags, shoes, lingerie and pretty much every type of clothing imaginable. Determined to rescue my feel from their discomfort, I began to sift through hundreds of shoes from the 65-75% off sale, which was absolute chaos. When I eventually found the perfect shoe, the corresponding shoe was nowhere to be found! Another hour later, I had only looked at one floor! So I decided to save myself from the rest; feeling physically ill and overwhelmed by my surroundings.

 Just a block down, I found my real saving grace – a pair of combat boots from Steve Madden, also drastically marked down that saved my feet from impending doom.

Although shopping is not a love of mine, I’ve realized that it is part of the inevitable in New York. There are shops on every block and the sad truth is that shopping here is like our beach or Lion’s Head back home: it’s what people do for recreation! Having said that, I know to be better prepared next time: wear comfortable shoes, eat and drink before and in between shopping and DON’T try to do everything in one go!