Oh my god, New York has so many different shops that it would take a whole month or even more to visit them all! As I wrote before, I had everything "under control"... I wrote down the addresses of shops where you can buy beautiful, trendy, and affordable clothes... but damn, since we had never been to this huge and terrifyingly crowded city in our lives, finding those very shops wasn't that easy... so we just started going into every one we came across on our way. In general, New York is the perfect city for shopaholics, as you can constantly see signs like "Sale," "Clearance," etc. And September is the peak of these very sales! In some stores, discounts reach up to 80%!!! (though, to be fair, the prices in such stores are unrealistically high). Well, anyway, we decided that we would spend the first day in Upper Manhattan, and on the second day, we would go to Lower Manhattan, since the famous China Town and Little Italy are located there. What can I say, 2 days, for me personally, is just a terribly short time for shopping! You want to walk around, compare prices... what if I find something better!) In my hometown, I can spend a week just looking for a pair of shoes... and here is New York with a bunch of shops that just blow your mind (guys won't understand this =). So Aselya and I spent the first day just looking around, and by the end of the day, we realized that we hadn't bought anything worthwhile... but we were tired as dogs) I've never even been that tired at work) The next day we woke up with full confidence that today we would definitely buy everything we needed. On the first day of our "great shopping spree," we found one awesome store called Manhattan Mall... and that really is a true paradise for any girl. Inside this store, there is a Strawberry department, which has a bunch of awesome and, most importantly, truly inexpensive clothes. But since we found it late in the evening, we didn't have time to buy anything because they were closing. So we decided that we would head there the next morning. Waking up in the morning and packing all our things, we went straight there. The funniest thing was that they wouldn't even let me into the fitting room because I was taking too many clothes to try on). After buying everything we could there, we ran to find the nearest subway (thankfully it was right in that shopping center). We arrived in Lower Manhattan and desperately started looking for China Town. Once we got to that area, we didn't fully understand if we were in the right place, as I imagined it quite differently... personally, I thought China Town was a big market, like a flea market. But it turned out to be the complete opposite... China Town is located right on the street... well, I mean, a whole street is dedicated to it. You walk down the street, and on both sides, there are a bunch of small boutiques with all sorts of things, from jewelry, perfumes, and bags to all kinds of souvenirs. Well, honestly, I didn't like it there at all... I expected something more. It's just that Aselya and I really messed up and didn't buy more souvenirs there right away... we thought we'd come back later, but then it was too late and we had to buy them in Manhattan at triple the price. Never buy souvenirs in regular stores, because in China Town you will find the same thing, but much cheaper! What annoyed me most were the Chinese people... first of all, they are so pushy that sometimes I wanted to tell them to get lost). And they also terribly love money. When I was paying for something, they would grab the money so hard that I was afraid they would rip it off along with my hand! And by the way, definitely haggle with the sellers! I was just interested in comparing the prices of bags there and in regular stores... so I went up to a Chinese woman and pointed at the first bag I saw. She told me that the bag cost 30 bucks. After finding out the price, I turned around and wanted to walk away, but I heard her shout that she could give it to me for 28 dollars... well, I nicely replied that I didn't care, as I didn't like this bag at all. But the persistent saleswoman wasn't going to let me go, and the price of this bag decreased in an arithmetic progression: 26, 24, 22, and by the end, she was ready to give it to me for just 18 dollars)) These Chinese people are cunning folks)) We spent the end of the day there in Lower Manhattan, vainly trying to find at least something before all the shops closed completely. We regretted most of all that on the first day we acted like fools and didn't buy what we liked for fear of making a bad deal. To think we messed up so badly: spend 2 days in New York, have money with you, and not manage to buy what you need) We were lucky that we ran into the J&R MegaStore just half an hour before it closed and managed to buy ourselves netbooks. J&R, by the way, is an unrealistically huge shopping center where you can find everything your heart desires! When it got completely dark, we realized that there was nothing for us to do in that area, as all the shops were already closed... and walking in that area was a bit creepy. So we went back to our "beloved" hotel, as we couldn't imagine how we could spend the whole night at the airport in such an exhausted state.