Ashley Takes Manhattan–Part Deux

After less than 24 hours, I was already in love with the city.

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to take a little solo adventure. I threw on a dress and some sunscreen, did a little google-mapping and headed to Chelsea Market to visit One Lucky Duck. While I knew that I was going to be having dinner at Pure (squeal!!), I was still looking forward to visiting One Lucky Duck for some yummy breakfast and some treats. While everything looked AMAZING I opted for some cinnamon crispies, macaroons and raw granola in a sweet pink tote. And a spanking of the smoothie variety of course!! Fresh coconut, blueberry, banana, cashew milk, cinnamon and vanilla blended together to make sweet sweet love in my mouth. It was stellar. Feeling giddy and full of deliciousness, I was fuelled up for some shopping in Chelsea which included a stop at Anthropologie where I found an amazing dress and skirt on sale for so much less than it would have been at the Canadian location.

I was thrilled for the next stop on my adventure, which was a tea date with the beautiful Sheryl!I can’t even remember how I found Sheryl’s blog, but it was certainly one of the first Weight Watchers blogs I started reading back in 2007-2008. It has been incredible to follow her weight loss journey and I think I cried when she reached her goal weight. It sounds so corny, but it was a dream come true to finally meet her in person and I loved how easily our conversation flowed and how much we had in common. We stopped off for iced tea and coffee at Starbucks before wandering around, ogling sailors and taking a speedy trip into Trader Joe’s because I had never experienced one! The two of us received lots of compliments on our outfits and Sheryl’s awesome Hello Kitty bike garnered lots of attention too.

Our time together also included a trip to Lula’s Sweet Apothecary. Oh. My. Gawd.

It was like I had died and gone to heaven in a sea of vegan ice cream. They had a huge selection of vegan ice cream, including soft serve! It was so hard to choose, but I opted for the cashew based peanut butter chip over a gluten free vegan brownie. I wish I had words to describe just how amazing this was, but it really made me long for something similar in Toronto.

I met back up with Jer and spent the afternoon wandering around Soho doing some shopping. My favourite stops included Cafe Kristall / Swarovski store where I purchased an amazing Swarovski ring (on sale, no less) and the Harney and Sons tea shop.

Jer and I had been texting when I was out with Sheryl and he let me know that he had found “tea heaven” for me and the Harney and Sons store did not disappoint! After falling in love with some of the Harney teas, I didn’t even know where to begin once we were in the store. They were sampling a variety of iced teas, which was a great place to start. I absolutely fell in love with the decaf hot cinnamon tea, which has taken on the title of the sparkle tea amongst my Tea Club gals. I also picked up some Paris tea and Peach Ginger, both of which I love. The person who was helping us at the counter was incredibly knowledgeable and obliged my many requests to smell and sample many teas. After I told him about my love of tea and about our little tea club he let me know that he was actually Emeric Harney, grandson of Mr. John Harney. How cool is that?!? Cue more skipping and squealing.

Stay tuned for part three… which will include my visit to Pure Food and Wine!!