Well, this post should've been written on Monday, but I got so much pending blog entries that this got pushed to now.

Devmann's friend from California, Olivia, came to town and we took her to New York for the weekend. We got in at noon, Saturday, and went back on Sunday night. Manhattan was an urban furnace. Never in my life had I felt such miserable existence than when I had to wait for the train in one of those underground saunas disguised as subway stations. It was plain horrible. 90F something heat plus high humidity -- 80% at least! I never thought that I would say this, but it was worse than Jakarta, or Surabaya, or even Singapore!

So when we got on Broadway to frequent the stores in Soho... we ended up making this survey of the temperature at the stores in Manhattan. We couldn't walk on for more than a couple blocks before having to take refuge at an air-conditioned retail. So what started as a shopping trip, ended up being a census of A/C's in Manhattan retail stores.

Coming on top with an A plus unlimited pluses is Cole Haan at Fifth Ave. When we opened the door, there was this nice, chilly arctic wind blowing out from the store. It was actually so cold that we were freezing our asses off within minutes. It was such an interesting sensation when we got out because we actually welcomed the tropical Manhattan air after that Cold Haan episode.

At the other end of the list, enters Soho GUESS. While other stores were at least somewhat cool, this Soho location of the question mark retailer was above the pretense. I really don't think they put on any A/C, perhaps some exhaust fans were running but no cooling agents could've been at work there. To complete the ambience, they paneled the wall with wood, giving the store an authentic sauna look. Fabulous! Well at least the models on the wall seem to have dressed appropriately, but hey it's GUESS, they always seem to dress for the Bornean jungles.

Close calls with heat stroke aside, I finally managed to have dessert at Chikalicious. After three failed attempts in the past year and a half, I finally came to New York when they are open. I was really surprised to see the sidewalk filled with people waiting for a table, because the last time I went there it we got seats immediately. Well, they do deserve this popularity though, so... good for them!