So, I set out to hit the streets of New York City. Figured, why stand in the queue for the Empire State Building for two hours when I could go to the Rockefeller Center’s observation deck with no wait and have the obvious bonus of being able to actually see the most famous skyscraper in the world?

At the top, I got a weird feeling that … I’d seen it all before. Not in a bad way, you understand: more like this is exactly how it should look. Plus, the lift has a glass ceiling.

Walked the streets. Passed tons of those Orthodox Jews in the black with beards. Also passed some of New York’s finest in the NYPD. Somehow their presence fills me with much more confidence than British police.

I wandered the streets in the setting sun, which created some fantastic interplays of light and shadow.

Went to Times Square. These photos barely do it justice.

I was going to be all sneery and say “it’s not as good as Shibuya station” but… it’s huge. The screens are everywhere, they tower into the sky, and perhaps most crucially due to the intersection of Broadway and Fifth you get an island in the middle, which makes it totally unlike anywhere else. It makes Piccadilly Circus look like a cheap set of Christmas lights.

I intended to visit this indie electronics store but it was closed, so I wound up at Borders instead. Having left, I decided to return to the hostel, but unknowingly I went south again and didn’t realise until I’d reached 18th Street. (Incidentally, I’d like to compliment New York on its excellent navigatability, which is not a word but should be. Take heed, Tokyo.)

“Never mind,” I thought, “I can catch the subway to save the walk!” I bounded down the stairs, bought a $2 ticket, went merrily through the turnstile, and then realised that I was on the Southbound platform, and I wanted the other one. Wouldn’t be a problem, except that – and I don’t know if it’s a design flaw or me being stupid – to get to the other platform you have to leave, cross the road, and come back in again. And buy a new ticket.

$4 later, I got the train and disembarked at Times Square Station, where some young people were b-boying, or whatever it’s called.

In summary, then: New York is completely insane. Sadly, not in the soapbox mumbling to yourself kind of way, more the way that everybody in the city is constantly grinding against everyone else and their job and their family and the city itself and eventually you fear that a stray spark will ignite someone and they’ll run up to you and bite your ears off, but through some miracle this doesn’t happen.