time to go home 8-(

We are all packed up now. Obviously we have been doing more than just updating this page over the christmas period.

On piece of good new that I have received is that our Frequent flyer points have only just converted to a Business Class trip home. Woo Hoo! A great way to finish.

Although it is is with hint of sadness, both of us are going to be very glad to be getting back home. We miss our house and while Adrienne has been able to make this place our home for the past month, now that everything has been packed up it is empty of emotion again.

There are a bunch of photos and memories of this place that we would like to share, and I will try and get more of them online here whne we get back to Oz. For now though we will finish getting ready for the day, get everything packed and then spend our final hours, downtown in Chealsea.

Both of us are looking forward to seeing everyone again in just a few days....

The day we didn't go iceskating.

We have had a wonderful lazy day walking around the upper west side. We had planned to head down to the Wolman rink in Central Park to ice state while the weather was mild.

We started the day late after a nice long sleep in and a slow start to the day. When we finally stepped out it was just before midday. I decided to try a different way of going to the ice rink and started by crossing the road across our building. Trump Place is right next to the Hudson River, but because of the blizzard weather when we arrived we hadn't explored that side of the street! When we crossed the road we found lovely green parkland and walking paths along the waters edge.

So we decided to wander down to the water and explore a bit. There was a long pier that allowed us to get quite a long way back from the edge of the land. Unfortunately we left our camera at home but the view is the same as the photo posted on the page on the earlier posts below. From there we walked north up along the riverside walkway looking out at the buildings out on the other side and the squirrels bounding around the parkland through fallen leaves on the ground. It was really relaxing and peaceful.

We walked back up to the retail shopping area for a bite to eat. Adrienne spied "Dim Sum served all day" so our lunch destination had been found. It turned out to be yet another "Ollie's" restaurant which hadn't failed us so far. After lunch we continued to stroll around the stores and then grabbed a newspaper and a magazine and walked over to Central Park to find a quiet spot to read. With playing squirrels and leaf bare trees all around us we found a spot in "Shakespeare Garden" and further unwound for about an hour until the temperature began to drop a bit.

As we wandered back we passed some of the ponds and lakes of the park, we saw the local water bird life strolling around and looking for food on the remaining ice floes that were slowly melting in the lakes. It was yet another peaceful place to relax.

Pigeon Poop!

We had a big sleep in this morning, waking to a weeks worth of laundry. So the plan was to do the normal weekly clean up and the head out to lunch. 2 hours and 3 loads of laundry later we headed out to the Streets of Upper West Side Manhattan to find food. Just as we reached the main shopping and café area a surprise arrive from the sky.

If Adrienne had a target painted on her head the pigeon could not have been more accurate! She was very brave and remained largely unphased by the “poop on the head” situation that was hastily cleaned up by a spare tissue.

{Adrienne's Turn...}
After a quick bite of sushi, we left for home so I could have a shower. Had to wash the pigeon poop from my hair.

We had a pleasant afternoon strolling along Columbus Avenue and looking through all the little boutiques. Nick was very patient and even looked for clothes that I might like to try on. Found a great boutique called Theory with some great pieces. Unfortunately, they weren’t great on me. They had a great pair of silver shoes but I really don’t need silver shoes or do I???? I still have 2 weeks to decide. I did however find a tiny boutique with some very cute t-shirts and tops. I bought a very cheeky t-shirt with a picture of a bee wearing a crown. Anyway enough shop talk.

We visited Fairways again to finish our Christmas grocery shopping. Planning to make a rack of lamb with a ton of veges finishing with a crumble and ice cream. Shopping is not an easy task. The shops are small and busy. You can’t simply stroll through and look at the produce and decide what you want to eat. And when you’re in a foreign supermarket, you want to take your time to have a good look. There are even “traffic controllers” at the check outs telling you which check out to line up at. Ahhh the beauty of a minimum wage economy…..

A friend from work arrived in New York last night. He called us today and we agreed to catch up for dinner later in the evening. Nick made a booking at a restaurant called Mix. A junior Alan Ducasse restaurant. According to one review Mix is a restaurant which does not require patrons to take out personal loans to eat dinner there. Well…it was a fantastic looking establishment. Beautiful people blah blah blah. The food however, I thought was a little disappointing and next to Tetsuya’s this was the second most expensive meal I have ever eaten. Unfortunately the food was no where near as good as Tetsuya’s. The service was OK for a high end restaurant. The staff were perhaps a little high brow and maybe they can afford to be as I am sure they earn more money than I do. Ahhh the beauty of a minimum wage economy…..

YUM CHA Comparison

I woke up feeling much better this morning. This cold I have is hopefully subsiding.

Nick and I spent the morning walking Chinatown looking for the Golden Unicorn - apparently this is a great YUM CHA place according to City Search.
Well after a 20 minute walk around Chinatown - which is a huge area when compared to Sydney - we found it. After sampling a few standard dishes, we have to say that YUM CHA in Sydney is definitely much better. More variety and definitely better food. We've eaten YUM CHA around the world now and Sydney is still much better. The service is as expected from Chinese waiters - very poor - so in that respect it compares just as well as Sydney. We're always hoping for better food at YUM CHA but we have yet to find it anywhere else but Sydney.

Chinatown is full of grocery stores, fake handbag and watch stores and restaurants. There are a ton of tourists everywhere buying their fake handbags and watches. Its just as bad as Thailand. Nick was quite surprised at the blatant sale of pirated DVD's of just released movies out in the street here in the county that is home to Hollywood.

After YUM CHA we walked further downtown around the Brooklyn bridge area and went to J&Rs to buy a few DVDs for Gerard. Good to get DVD releases that are not available in Sydney. Our plan after J&Rs was to finish our Christmas shopping.

We decided to visit Bloomingdale's. After a train ride away, we arrive at a busy department store and spent the next few hours just riding the escalators looking at every floor and doing a bit of shopping. Bloomingdale's is definitely not as busy as Macy's which means that we don't have to wait in long queues to buy stuff. New Yorkers are patient people. They wait in line for everything. They wait in long lines to try on clothes, to go to the loo, to pay for stuff etc etc.

After Bloomingdales, we head home via Central Park. We walk pass the iceskating ring in Central Park. It’s beautiful in the park. It’s nice to hear Christmas carols being played in the open air rink and the trees lighted with fairy lights.

On the way home we stop by the Krispy Creme doughnut shop - we buy 4 very yummy doughnuts and run home to eat them.

Nick makes us cups of tea so we have can have doughnuts and tea. Much needed after our long walk today.

Photo time!

There is so much to do here that we haven't had time to update the diary pages however l have now posted up the photos of our first 2 days here. Look at the "New York Photos" link to the right.

Now that I hare worked out a way to get them up there expect some more soon.

A morning in Chelsea

This morning we decided to go downtown to Chelsea to look at the antique flea markets. We caught the subway as usual (a mode of transport that we have become quite familiar with) and climbed out on 23rd Street. We wandered around for a while, following directions from the many books that we are been exploring. what we found was (to my eyes anyway) an oversized garage sale. There may have been some treasures in there somewhere but I wasn't that interested in braving the cold to find them.

There were some star wars figures that were still in their packaging but they looked kinda crumby...

So we decided to wander around Chelsea a bit more. I probably chose one of the worst streets to start on. Chelsea is the heart of the clothing district, not the fashion district. Just lots of clothing. This is where all of the street sellers go to buy their wares, before hauling it all of to the street corners to sell it to the wandering tourists. Unfortunately we landed right in the middle of a wholesale christmas feeding frenzy, where we were pushing through crowds of vendors with trolleys and plastic bags, collecting stuff to sell. A little bit unnerving to be honest.

After a few blocks of this we decided to find a place to eat brunch. We found a little place called the Antique Cafe, where we regrouped and tried to work out where to go next. We both agreed that Chelsea was not everything that we had hoped, and we decided to head back to the apartment. On the way back we ran across a huge supermarket called "Wholefoods". This is a big chain but it is a great place, specialising in organic veges and deli foods. Adrienne loves a good supermarket when we travel and this was no exception. We picked up a few supplies and specialties for Christmas dinner then headed home.

When we got back Adrienne's cold returned, so we have spent the rest of the day lazing around the apartment. I cooked cookies! OK, they were not that hard. We bought "Pilsbury" cookies to bake. In total it took about 15 minutes to bake, including 5 minutes to heat the oven. Yum!!

Sadly Adrienne is still not feeling the best so we have rested in at home. We will however be trying out a Yum Cha and shopping at Bloomingdales tomorrow. Yummy!

Day 2 In New York (By Adrienne)

In the process of adding a new post I lost a whole bunch of info so I am going to post something that Adrienne typed up earlier....

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This morning I woke up at 1.30am and could not get back to sleep. Stayed awake till 3.30am before I woke lovely young Nicholas. When he was up and playing with his computer and the TV was on, it was easier for me to get back to sleep.

Woke up at 8.30am with the sun streaming down my face. Looked like a lovely sort of warmish day.
Turned on the TV again to watch the news - as we normally do. Nick got up to make us our morning coffee. Had that in bed till about 9.00am when I thought that it was time for us to start our day.

Left our cosy apartment about 10.00am. The plan was to walk through our neighborhood and explore and to have lunch at a place in Broadway called Jo Shanghai's. We walked for an hour past Pottery Barn. Love Pottery Barn for Chrissy decos. Going back there again.

We walked past the Lincoln Centre to Central Park. Beautiful looking clean snow in Central Park. Started to freeze just around Central Park. We kept walking downtown to Broadway looking for Jo Shanghai's. Couldn't find it. Nick said it was too far from Broadway. So we decided against this restaurant. The last time we were here we went to a cheap Chinese place much like BBQ King in Sydney. Walked around Broadway looking for Ollie's. What a silly name for a Chinese restaurant!!!! Anyway after much walking we arrive at Ollie's at around 12.00ish. Had a lovely Chinese noodle meal. Left Ollie's and went straight to the Hershey shop like all good tourists do. Didn't buy anything though. We thought that it was best to come back when we didn't have theatre tickets.

I was really keen to get to the theatre to see the Boy From Oz. So I hurried Nick along to the theatre. When we arrived, the place was extremely quite - no people. So not like New York where you have to queue to go to the toilet. Nick looked at the ticket and the musical started at 3.00pm not at 2.00pm. Silly me. We were an hour and half early. We didn't hang around the theatre like losers. Nick wanted to go to ToysRUs. So off we went to the humongous toy shop - it has a Ferris wheel in the middle of the shop. We walked around for a while - Nick was very excited. We saw loads of lovely toys - we've got photos. Nick bought a Matrix toy for his office. He is such a kinky boy.

We left the toy shop and I made him go past this lovely makeup shop. Saw the shop the last visit but I never did make it in. This time however, we have time on our side. We went in and I got truly excited. Lovely makeup such as Stilla and Nars are like half price here. Got to stock up. Nick was very patient with me. He waited around whilst I poked and prodded all the makeup. But I had to get off to the theatre to see Hugh so I only bought a couple of things. Definitely will go back there for more.

Went back to the theatre to see the lovely Hugh Jackman.

We were not disappointed. It was such a FAB production. Hugh was sooo beautiful. The chick sitting next to me was also excited about Hugh. The production was not very Australian though…that was the only disappointment,

After the theatre we headed back uptown to our neighborhood. We decide to go to a restaurant that apparently was the best thing in the Upper West Side. The restaurant was called Compass. From the outside, it looked like a little neighborhood restaurant - nothing very special. But we were pleasantly surprised. It was a very trendy setting. Nick had lamb - he didn't quite love it but it was still good and I had some seafood. We had a lovely bottle of sav blanc from the Nappa Valley. The waiter was extremely helpful. Such great service here. We left his a $30 tip!! Ouch but worth it. Dinner was expensive at AUD $220. We can't keep this up so tomorrow night we will stay home for a simple dinner. Perhaps soup??? Who knows.

After playing on Nick's new PC and sending some e-mails, I went to bed at 11.00pm.

Good Night.

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Were Here!! And it is snowing!!

After 24 hours of being on a plane we arrived at JFK International Airport at approx 9pm New York time. We had just landed in the middle of one of the biggest snow storms in New York's history. It was amazing to look out the window and see everything coated in a thick layer of snow.
This of course didn't help us get an taxi to get home. After about 20 minutes standing in a blizzard we finally pilled into a taxi. I have to say though, that standing in a blizzard was very cool (no pun intended). I have never seen anything like it.
Any way after a very slow and careful drive from the airport to the city we made it to our new home. It is not quite a attractive as it sounds when you say "Trump Place" but we do have a doorman but we don't have keys to get it.
Having arrived we dumped our stuff and checked out the place. The windows had been left open and the place was like a fridge with snow and ice on the inside windowsill. 15 minutes later we had the temerature back under control and the windows closed. The next challenge was dinner.
American gummy bears picked up for interim sustenance in LA were not just not going to cut it. This meant that we have to venture out into the blizzard again.

We rugged up and stepped out into the freezing unknown. We had directions from the doorman but it still felt like a leap of faith because everything was white, including the air. After what turned out ot be a fairly short walk we found the a late night supermarket and also discovered all of the coll weather clothing that we would need next time we ventured out into the cold.

The restulting dinner was a basic affair of 2 minute noodles, Sam Adams beers and a range american chippies.

More news tomorrow.

Day 1 in New York

Our first day here in New York started when we woke up at 3am with a phone call from Adrienne's mum. This was actually a good thing since it confirmed that we were in the right apartment. I had actually been having a couple of doubts since we still didn't have a key to the room. It was good to hear the phone number that we had been given actually work.

After getting back to sleep for a few more hours we woke to the second day of the massive snow storm that had hit New York. It is amazing but sooo cold. We made a plan. When we arrived we knew that we didn't have enough warm gear. We also (well me mainly) knew that I wanted to buy a new laptop; the one that I am writing this on actually.

So the plan was to walk up to the nearest metro rail station and head down to Macys then get down to J&R Electronics to buy my new tablet PC.

We rugged up and headed out…. and then cam straight back in. It was really, really cold!! Thankfully the place here has a doorman who helped us get a hire car directly to Macys.

It turned out to be a very good time to be shopping at Macys. There were reduced crowds because of the storm and there was also a 20% of everything sale on. Now "reduced crowds" is a relative term. We still had to push our way through the crowd but there were pockets of space here and there.

We zipped around and collected some head and hand winter protection "fashion" in the form of a couple of scarves and beanies for each of us and gloves and ear muffs for Adrienne. Mission one - Check!

I grabbed a bite to eat (mmmm pizza!!) and then headed out in to the weather to go and fetch the laptop. Adrienne nabbed a taxi that was spilling out a passenger at Macys. On the way to J&R the cabbie told us that we should have been waiting in a line and that he could get a ticket for picking up passengers in the wrong spot. Too bad, I thought, but I was grateful to be in the cab.

He dropped us off at the computer shop and in we went. I bee lined straight for the pickup counter, determined not to have second thoughts about the purchase. Spending $1000's of dollars is not something that I normally do so (at least for me) there is a lot of pre justification and rationalisation that takes place before any cash changes hands. I also knew that this was a purely indulgent purchase that I had been thinking about for over a year. Ten minutes later, invoice in hand I was at the till handing over the bucks.

Well that was the plan anyway. I had provided the same credit card that we had been using at Macys only to find it had been declined. Now I knew that there was not a limit issue, but this sort of response always leaves a sinking feeling. Loosing access to the primary holiday credit card was not an event that we wanted to face so early in the trip. We hadn't even finished day 1 after all.

Not to be slowed on my primary mission I dug out credit card #2. No problem (Yay!) Another 10 minutes in the pickup queue and the laptop was in my hands. Mission 2 accomplished.

We ventured out of the shop to try and get back home. No cabs. Damn. We went to get some food for Adrienne, who didn't indulge in the pizza. The little delis here are great. Adrienne bought yummy warm soup and a couple of sushi rolls. We planned our getaway… Head towards the Subway station and then get a cab if we could find it.

The subway it was. We grabbed a couple of 7 day metro passes and hopped an express train with all our booty from downtown to up town. Easy. The last 3-4 blocks of walking were hard. The snow was blasting and the wind was blowing. The closer that we got to our building the harder the wind, to the point that we were nearly slipping backwards on the icy pavement.

When we finally made it back to the building we were covered in snow. Adrienne's eyebrows were covered in snow too. Very cute!! After this Adrienne was on her own in the apartment for a while as I unpacked my new toy. Hmm new laptop. Meanwhile Adrienne was home making with fresh smelling cinnamon Christmas candles.

After an hour or so we made a dash for the grocery store and picked up a few more supplies and came hope for a quiet night in. Dinner was couple of baked potatoes, red wine and cable TV.

I played with my new toy that Adrienne has now christened "baby" until around midnight, and that was our first day in New York.

This time next week....

Nick called New York this morning to confirm our apartment booking. And for those that have our address and telephone number - yes its the correct one! This time next week, we'll be arriving at our new abode for 1 month. Can't wait. First thing I am going to do is to buy a ton of Christmas decorations so that I can have the cheesiest Christmas ever. Never had a white Christmas before! Its always been a hot one with salads and seafood. So cooking hot food will be an experience on Christmas day.

It is the last weekend before we go. We watched the Macy's ThanksGiving Day parade on the Today show yesterday. This time last year we were there watching it live in the flesh. It didn't look as cold as it was last year. That may ne a good thing, but we still want a white christmas is possible.

I have only 3 working days to go and it is feeling like a mad panic to get everything done in time. I hope that I can do it. At the end of the day the world will still turn without me so i can't get too stressed.

I am still hoping to get my christmas present of a New Tablet PC 8-). Toshiba have just released a new version so the price has gone up now. The biggest challenge will be to get one delivered in a reasonable time frame. I don't want to wait too long once we get there.

You've Got mail!!

Last night we hired "You've got mail" because it has a commentary on the upper west side of New York. How kinky is that?

Boy From Oz

Yesterday Adrienne booked tickets to the Boy from Oz!! In New York, on Broadway, with Hugh Jackman!! Woo Hoo. Aparently we are near the front of the stage with a great view of the show.

Still 38 Days to go....but now we have tickets!!

I picked up the tickets to day!! So now it is real! I also had a look at the address of the place we are going to be staying in. Here is a picture..

From what I can gather from the websites about the place it is a fairly funky residence. It is listed on the Wired New York site because (I think) it is one of a number of apartments that has Internet as one of the standard utilities like electricity or gas.

So the big question for me is still whether or not to buy a Tablet PC when I get there. I am tracking some google new about the state of play for Tablet PC's. I want to make sure that they are not another apple Newton.

The countdown...

Well here we go.. the countdown has begun. There are only 38 days to go till we go to New York!!

I would like to think that between the two of us we can keep the world update on our travels. The trick will be getting net access while we are over there. I hope that the apartment that we are staying in has cable internet other wise we will need to be visiting a lot of Internet cafe's over there.

Any ways this is the first post so I'll keep it brief. I am also hoping that Adrienne will contribute to this site as well before too long. We'll wait and see.

good Night(morning)