It seems like everyone has been caught in a flurry of activity lately! best friend Sara, who should have a WordPress blog (hint, hint) just got back from a great trip to Costa Rica, best friend Mo (Travels of Mo) has been working two jobs and a super cool apprenticeship, and still finds time to write about San Francisco and best friend Mel just finished costuming a new musical at Theatre 68, which I got to enjoy last Thursday. Have I ever mentioned that I am terribly, terribly envious of people who can sing? There were 20 of them in this show and their voices blew my mind.

Besides reveling in everyone else’s busy life, I’ve been racing through my own adventures as well. I have to admit I love it just a little bit when life is packed with wall-to-wall stuff to do, places to go, and people to see.

New York Toy Fair

Ever since I started working for Tom’s Toys back in the stone age, Ted has been going to the New York Toy Fair. This year he finally decided that three days of walking the Javitz conference center in New York City was too much for him to handle so he decided that I could come along. The show was is made up of hundreds and hundreds of companies from all around the world on two levels of the giant conference center. Every toy manufacturer you can think of and many you’ve never heard of come every year to try and win business and media attention from buyers and press from across the country.

 

Just one of the three entrances on the top floor. I got to write an order with Ty Beanie Babies all by myself (apparently Beanie Ballz are the big new thing in plush). The sales rep who helped me was wearing Mickey Mouse ears and kept running to show me samples ‘I just had to see’. Toy Fair is a strange combination between strictly business and purely fun (because come on, you’re playing with TOYS!).

 

 

This is one of the few pictures I took inside the show. Many of the booths didn’t want people taking pictures of their merchandise so I didn’t want to make anyone mad. This is about half-way through the show on the top floor. The top floor seemed to be where all the big companies hung out and the second floor was kind of a mosh pit with a lot of little companies vying for space. I even saw a fight break out on the second floor! I guess battles over toys can get nasty!!

I felt a little weird about all the vendors trying to be super nice and kid-like to sell their products and that there were a bunch of costumed mascots walking around since the show doesn’t allow kids, but I guess its all part of the experience and all in all it was pretty darn exciting and fun.

Another exciting thing about the trip was my hotel room. Ted had booked us at the Waldorf Astoria because it has a conference rate and the conference bus stops right in front of the hotel. I was expecting the room to be fancier than the type of hotels I generally like to stay at, but I wasn’t expecting them to upgrade me to a suite for free. My room was even nicer than Ted’s!

 

This is just half of my room. I had a desk and even an entryway.

It took me forever to find the closet- it was in a hallway on the other side of the entryway.

 

The desk half of my room. I could never figure out what the little stand on the right-hand side of this photo was so I used it as a coat rack.

Also, to make my stay even more awesome, I was able to see Stephanie, one of my good friends who now lives in Brooklyn for a night. We took a bus to Curry Hill, a part of Manhattan stuffed full of yummy Indian restaurants and ate curries and samosas at a great little vegetarian place called Chennai Gardens. I had curry with a sour cream based sauce- delicious!