Ok, so, the updates stopped. Even my mum thought I was dead, murdered by a crazy New York gangster, but, I wasn't. I was just bloody busy. Busy, and tired, in cycles.

I went out for a quick look around when I arrived - even though I had been awake for 20+ hours by that point, to fool my mental chemistry into accepting the time-delay. This proved to be a great idea, for two reasons - 1) I have no jetlag at all, now, and 2) I found Smiths Bar, a couple of blocks from Times Square.

I like to think that I'm not the 'regular' tourist - sure, Times Square is pretty neat, but it's a tourist trap ready to suck the dollar bills out of your pocket as just as soon as it can. I don't really understand the notion of going all the way to New York to go to franchised eateries like Planet Hollywood, or movie-spinoff-moneyspinners like Bubba Gump Shrimp where you'll eat some godawful microwaved shit served to you by a waitress that's getting minimum wage and providing minimum effort. So, I went out on Thursday night and had a bit of a 'recce, just to help me get my bearings.

On every street corner in Manhattan, there is, at least 1 hotdog stand - around Times Square, that number is closer to 5 or 6. Of course, I had to sample something - and I picked a beef kebab - which was served to me in a hotdog roll with barbequeue sauce. It was pretty grim. $5. Of course, I learned on Saturday, that the further you get away from the hustle and bustle, the more the price drops and the more the quality improves - certainly I proved this on Saturday, where I picked up a hot dog, with onions, relish, mustard and ketchup for $1.50 - 75 pence, from a stall nearer 30th Street.

Anyhow, Smiths caters to locals, and, I guess, to touristfolk like me, who manage to escape the neon and noise of Times Square. While I'm sure it's hardly a hidden New York watering hole, only frequented by locals, it's a nice little place where the staff and clientele are friendly, and the live music is pretty good. They have a number of beers on tap, nothing great - obviously - but I have to say I'm getting quiet partial to the Sam Adams lager that's sold round these parts, even if it is weird fizzy bitter! Anyhow, I like the place, there's something of an uneven kitsch about it - part dive-bar, part tourist hole.

American beer is funny, really funny. Of course, there's your American staples, like Budweiser, Miller and Coors, but a lot of these bars also have stuff like 'George Killian's Irish Red', which is about as close to an Irish ale as Madonna is to English nobility (fizzy reddish-brown beer with a bittery aftertaste), and a 'Belgian-style' wheatbeer (the name of which I can't recall), which leans way, way too heavily on the coriander flavourings leading to a very strange, lingering, lasting herby flavour. Maybe it'd go well with Indian food, who knows. Leffe, it ain't, hell, it's not even close to Hoegaarden. Of course, no one here gives a shit, because no one here knows any better! :)

Anyhow, I stayed in Smiths until around 2am (the covers band was really, really good!), localtime, which was - well - about 7am UK time. At over 24hrs+ uptime, it was definately time to call it a day.

On Saturday, I got up, dressed, and decided to wander as far as my legs could take me, with the general aim to do some shopping and get some bits and bobs, generally soaking up the atmosphere. So, I wandered round with my camera, and took a load of photos all throughout midtown, but mainly round Chelsea and the garment district. I walked, in a very haphazard fashion (eg, not straight down broadway or 7th avenue) from 50th st to 14th st. I stopped for a bite and a drink or three at 'Flight 151', a little bar on 8th avenue, by 17th St. It has a (very) loose 'aviation' theme, but don't let that put you off.

The idea was to get a quick bite here, and maybe a beer or two, to cool down from the uncharacteristically warm October sunshine. That was the idea. The reality was that I got chatting to the barlady, Justine, and another drinker, Bullen (no, really, it's even on his driving licence)- a Northern Irish ex-pat plumber, over here making a fortune fixing New York's sewerage system - and my 30 minute stop ended up being three hours and a hatful of beers (at least half of which on-the-house), chatting away setting the world to rights - at 2 in the afternoon!

Anyhow, eventually, I did indeed leave and made my way down to the former World Trade Centre site via the subway - not really for the 'spectacle', but more that I'd heard about Century 21, allegedly a great place to get discount designer clothes and stuff from. My advice, don't bother - it's TK Maxx, but with more people and less decent gear.

The former WTC site is indeed an eerie place - there's something hellishly crass about the fact it appears as 'Ground Zero' on tourist maps, and it does feel very strange indeed - seeing a whole city block just....missing, with a construction fence surrounding everything. I don't much like it, to be honest, and I decide to head back uptown to the Rockefella Centre to view the city skyline from the 'Top of the Rock' observatory.

The 'Top of the Rock' costs $20. A lot, really, for a ride in an elevator, but the views truely are spectactular - everyone crows about the view of the Empire State Building (which does look magnificent lit up in green, red and white), but I somehow prefer the view from the back, across Central Park - it just seems an ocean of tranquility amongst all the city lights lit up in skyscrapers all over the city. It's worth $20, certainly - and remember to look up when you get in the lift!

I ended up the night drinking and eating in Smiths, and meeting new people. You can't not meet new people here - it seems people always want to talk to you, which I thought I'd find really, really irritating, but I didn't - at all. In Britain, you speak to two types of people in a pub - 1) people that you already know, and 2) people you want to sleep with. This does not happen in New York, people just want to talk to you.

People like Lucy - who bumped into me at the bar, with her bags of thrift-store shopping (one purchase was a tacky, plastic baby doll - which she says she bought because she liked the pink clothes it was wearing). She was pretty well oiled, and judging from her demeanour, and smudged lipstick and sunglasses-at-night fashion-sense, this was probably a pretty regular thing - the booze had stolen quite a few years from her, she was probably no more than 25, but she looked 35. She spoke about her family, and her fall-out with her parents, and how her sister moved away to California, leaving her here alone, telling me her crazy stories - initially I thought she might be homeless, but she said she lived in the Bronx. Who knows? I hope you're ok anyhow, Lucy.

Then there were the brother and sister from upstate New York, out for the weekend to celebrate the brother's 21st birthday. I'm sorry that I've forgotten their names - the sister was older - by 15 years, and was taking the brother out to see a broadway show - Spamalot, and for a night on the town. Wish my sister would do that for me! :)

They were really good company, always telling stories - about her two kids, and how her brother had helped lots since her husband passed away. People always have stories here. It's fascinating. Anyhow, I while away the wee hours and wander back to the hotel at around 1am. I decide the music tonight isn't so good - in fact, at one point I asked the barmaid if it was Karoke night. She found that hilarious, the bar manager - who overheard - wasn't so impressed.

This morning. Jesus H Christ, my feet are killing me. Even my blisters have blisters. I guess I walked too much! It's seriously sore, but I don't have time for moping around the hotel, so I have a shower and try and cool off my aching feet, before subjecting them to another day of Manhattan.

It's another warm day - around 22 degrees, so I decide to go for the shorts I packed, instead of jeans - and that I'll give the Brooklyn Bridge a visit. I left the hotel around 11am, and got to the Bridge at about 12:30. I got lost on the subway, like a dolt. Took the wrong train and ended up heading in the wrong direction - easily rectified, by getting off at the next stop and turning back, but still a silly fuckup. Nevermind.

The view of Manhattan from the bridge is supposed to be brilliant - and it is, kinda. If the suspension cables weren't there, it'd be awesome, but if the suspension cables weren't there, the bridge'd fall down! It is a good mile or so across the bridge, and it's very busy. When you get to the other side, you're deposited into Brooklyn, where buildings are considerably less vertical, and the hustle and bustle is virtually non-existant. I find a subway station and make my way back to Manhattan.

I was disappointed at my shopping spree yesterday, Macys is basically the same as Debenhams, or Selfridges, and - like those stores - doesn't cater for those of us with, *ahem*, a few extra pounds. I'd heard of a specialist 'big and tall' place, just a few blocks from my hotel. That place is 'Rochester Clothing'.

Holy crap, I think I just found my Mecca! I hate going shopping for clothes. There's never, ever, ever, anything that fits. If you're fat, then screw you, you can wear a bin-bag, because no fat guys want to wear nice clothes. None. Really. I think that's what clothing retailers think, anyhow. Not Rochester. It's a very upscale, professional, place - not the ducking and diving of Century 21 at all - 3 floors of decent fat bastard clothes. The sale section was quite big, but it seemed to feature items which were, way, way bigger than me - 5X, 6X etc. I bought some jeans and couple of shirts and trundled on.

My feet were completely on fire by this point, so I decided to find somewhere to take 5 and chill out. Somewhere preferably within about 30 seconds walk. The Hilton hotel's lobby bar was that place! Absurd pricing - $9 for a beer, but 'only $11' for a bloody mary. I stay for a couple and head back to the hotel, to have a shower and change into my new clothes for another night out. And, I guess, that about brings us up to date. More tomorrow!