Manhattan in the Rain/Snow

Saturday, Dec 5th Stevo & I took a charter bus from his college (Stevenson, formerly known as Villa Julie, right near where I work) up to Manhattan.
Fun times!

The bus left at 8:15am. It was lightly raining in NYC when we arrived around noon. By 4pm that had turned to snow (big flakes) but never stuck to the ground, which was soaked.

We got dropped off at 46th & 6th, and Steve & I walked down to Herald Square (Macy's), as Tannen's Magic Shop is near there (34th).
Popped into Tannen's... nice to say I've been there now, but nothing special about it really ,except the history.
Steve wanted to take a cab from there to Canal St to Chinatown, but I convinced him to take the subway. That saved us about $20, and Steve got to get comfortable taking the subway.
We walked around Chinatown, Steve bought a couple of watches (haggled of course) and I bought the standard white "I <3 NY" T-shirt, for $3.
Then we wandered, with Steve's map, looking for the Ghostbuster's firehouse. We found it! =)
After that we got back on the subway (missed the 2 hour mark on our metro cards by just 2 minutes!) and took it up back to Times Square.

We met up with 2 Australian guys (in their late 30s?) whom Steve knows from his guild in World of Warcraft! The 4 of us were lounging in a coffee shop for somewhere between an hour and a half to 2 hours. At first it was a little awkward I think, but once we started talking about the common ground -- WoW -- the conversation was never-ending. ;P
On a side-note, I can't find the name of that coffee shop anywhere online. I thought it was something like Gregory's Caffe & Bakery, but it was only a few blocks from Times Square...

After that, we set off to walking around more... up/down (?) 5th Ave... we went to Rockefella Center to see the Christmas tree (by this point it was ~4pm and snowing) and I was able to snap a few good photos of the lit tree.

Then we headed to the south-west corner of Central Park, where the apt building used at the end of Ghostbusters is... That was neat to see.
Following that we backtracked and popped into The Shops at Columbus Circle, spending a good deal of time at Borders. At this point my hat was dripping wet. >:-/

We killed a hour or so in that mall, then headed back toward Times Square, looking for a place to eat dinner on the way. Decided on Applebee's if the wait wasn't too long, and it was only 10-15 min (and we only waited like 7 min). That was a mere 2 blocks from where the bus would pick us up at 8pm. Applebee's in Manhattan was much more expensive than anywhere else -- I didn't expect that... appetizers were 2x normal price, and entrees were +$8 or so above normal. Despite being packed, service was fast -- we probably waited less than ever for our entrees.

When we arrive back at 46th & 6th and saw a bunch of other people from the bus, we knew we had more fun than anyone else. ^_^ Of course, we were soaked thru-and-thru all day [I don't think I've been more wet, even in the shower...!!], but that's because we walked around all day in the rain/snow... and didn't wimp out and stay indoors/in cabs all day -- we had an adventure!
>8:-]

I was texting with my sister off and on all day -- getting her weather report of the Baltimore area, so I knew to expect to come back to 4-5" of snow. That was fun, everyone getting off the bus and scrambling to clean off their cars. And that wasn't powdery snow, oh no, it was icy snow. Safe drive home though.