What’s not to love about New York, the Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps?

Is it possible to miss a city you’ve only recently been acquainted with? I think so. And I’m already saving to go back.

For reasons unknown I never had any real desire to visit New York and after September 11, assumed I’d never get there.

Then sometime in the last year or so (maybe after the Sex and the City movie?), I was determined I’d get there for my 40th, if not the actual event, then sometime that year.

Yet even as I started planning the trip in February, the itinerary consisted of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.

As fate would have it the original trip needed to be postponed and in re-booking the flights, it cost no extra to add New York – just an extra six hours of flying.

People thought we were mad flying from Perth to New York non-stop with two kids in tow (as non-stop as you can get flying via Sydney and Los Angeles) but we made it, all 30-odd hours, and felt it was better to get the worst flights out of the way first.

New York is one of those cities that like Paris, instantly leaves its mark. We had to catch a Yellow Cab from the airport, despite some dude in a mini van insisting we’d never fit in one and should go with him.

Other things we had to do – eat bagels, visit Tiffany, hang out in Central Park, get dazzled in Times Square.

We didn’t make it across the Brooklyn Bridge or get to a Broadway show but we had a great meal and picked up bargain souvenirs in Chinatown.

I ate cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery and Crumbs Bakeshop. One night I ate cupcakes for dinner.

We shopped at the world’s biggest department store, Macy’s and two of the three biggest toy stores – Toys R Us and FAO Schwarz

In short, we fell in love with New York and were sad to leave after six days – even though we had two weeks in California to look forward to.

In coming posts I will report on my search for the perfect cupcake (a search that continues no matter what city I am in) and upload photos of the food and places that made an impression…