Yesterday was another stunning day. I went to Central Park, enjoyed a book, picnicked, marveled at the designs at the Cooper-Hewitt (a post for another day), got gelato with my cousin and walked 70 blocks back home. Our walk back to the apartment had a couple detours, the longest of which was an almost hour-long jaunt into the world-famous toy store, F.A.O. Schwarz. The place has been redone in the past few years, and in 2009 it was bought out by Toys ‘R’ Us. It is the country’s oldest toy store. It’s more modern, more sleek, but still chock-full of amazing toys: walls of stuffed animals, $1,000 plush wildlife (me as a scary bear), candy (this soldier is built from jelly beans) and more dominate the first floor. There’s even a muppet workshop where you can DESIGN YOUR OWN MUPPET. It can look like this. Ok, so it’s $130, but how awesome is that!?

Upstairs, there was an entire Barbie section, where it had vintage Barbies, but also even a little runway with Barbies on it. A wall of Playmobil almost gave me a coronary, I was so excited. Lego (Chewbacca made of Lego!) and books and Harry Potter products, oh my! Plus, the big piano, made famous from the movie, Big, is upstairs. You have to wait in line and you have a few minutes to play on it–we saw a gaggle of toddlers running around on it, and then a trio of young guys played the theme song to “Rugrats.” Everyone seems to find their inner child for the time they spend in FAO Schwarz.

You can see we had a fun time. Sorry the photos are poor, I took them from my phone.