Today I've been wondering round a wet and overcast Manhattan. I got quite damp, quite lost and spent a considerable amount of time on the wrong Subway train.

I did manage to get myself to see some sights though: I started at the Grand Central Terminal. Obviously this is a building that interests me particularly and I had to compare it to the recently restored and quite beautiful St. Pancras International station in London. They're very different. Unlike St. Pancras, the platform area at Grand Central is nothing - it's dark and garage like, but the concourse is palatial:

It's still very much a station, and hundreds of thousands of passengers pass through every day, but it's also been turned into a classy shopping and dining destination. I had lunch in the food hall (bagels) and the choice was amazing.

I also went to Times Square (which is like Piccadilly Circus on steroids), the south side of Central Park (it wasn't really a day for spending time in the park) and the Apple shop on 5th Avenue (I didn't buy anything).

I did go to have a look at the site of the World Trade Centre, but that's definitely a site rather than a sight - unless you like cranes and hoardings. The artists impressions of what they're building there look nice enough though.

I'm not really saving much money by staying at this Holiday Inn in Newark. Although it's nice, the room rate's definitely a bargain and it is very easy to get into Manhattan - it's not cheap. The train fare's about 15 quid a day - could have spent that money on a closer hotel. Strange how I could get all the way from my hotel in South San Francisco to San Jose last year for about a fiver but it costs three times that round here to do a quarter of the distance.