Every time one of us goes on a walk around our neighborhood in the East Village, we seem to return with a story of some shop or restaurant that, inexplicably, we’d passed by a dozen times without ever noticing. A week or so ago, Aron was strolling around wearing Hudson for a nap and he came back with the news that he’d just spotted a shop completely devoted to rain gear and candy called Ame Ame (in fact Ame means rain as well as candy in Japanese). This is the other thing that amazes us about New York: there is so much room for business that there are these incredible niche shops everywhere. How many cities could support a shop completely devoted to, say, Peanut Butter? Or The Big Lebowski?
So, last week, when the sky was looking ominous, I packed up the baby and the stroller and started walking a few blocks south to 9th street to check out the Umbrella shop when something resembling a monsoon passed by and we had to turn around! En route to get an umbrella and unable to make it because of rain? Pretty ridiculous.
One nap later, the skies cleared enough for us to duck in and survey the slightly odd (but also kind of fantastic) combination of rain gear and gummy candies. Sugar is actually exactly what I want on grey, rainy days–so it makes sense to me. I took home a bag of fizzy coke bottles (I’m forever on the hunt for the exact variety I used to love as a kid). The selection of boots and jackets and umbrellas was very impressive–including some awesome bubble umbrellas and plenty of purse-sized options with U-handles!–but so much so that I decided I wanted to return another day when I could linger longer and choose that perfect one.
Such a find!
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