US / States / French Canada Tour 09

After yesterday's longish day - we decided to have a bit of touristic/lounging start to the day - I don't think we left the hotel to late morning (past the hoardes of Wushu - aren't they some sort of blacklisted terrorist group or something?).

I had breakfast at (the shameful) Golden Arches because maybe I had one two many Saporros at the Japanese restaurant the other night - but Ant did the muffin thang from the nearby deli-style restaurant at the train station.

We walked downtown to the Olde and Semi-Olde City Hall. The Olde City Hall is a very lovely old style building - and the Semi-Olde City Hall is a Cameron Offices/1970s concrete nightmare. Speaking of concrete nightmares - the Semi-Olde City Hall was designed by the same architect that made the attractiveness that is the UN Headquarters in NY... Holler! Speaking of semi-olde - everything here in Canada seems to have peaked in the 1970s (the CN Tower, the Semi-Olde City Hall)... Sort of feels like the economy might have peaked back then and everything is on a slow decline towards "Dawn of the Dead" apocolyptic goodness...

We headed through Chinatown (which didn't really exist anymore - but not due to some ethnic clensing from the Toronoto City Council) to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was a bit of steep entrance fee ($18 CAD) but it was quite interesting in the way it was put together - very thematic. Sometimes - it would have very "ecletic" art in terms of age or style - but it would always have a common theme and an explantion which would draw everything together. There was a less impressive bit about Canadian Art (come on - who has ever heard of Canadian Art - and no... Bryan Adams or Celine Deon do not count) and some group of eight or something who were all a bit shit. Nonetheless - I think it was worth while checking it out - if not for the cool building which was all new-a-zied and swish in a timber sort of way.

For lunch - we headed to the only other cool building in Toronoto - a Design College (which sort of looked like the upper levels were standing up by several thin straws). I had some more Japanese and Ant had some underwhelming Mexican (more Mexi-can't than Mexican).

We went for a bit of wander after lunch up to the Ontario Parliment House (which is the equivalent of visiting the ACT Legislative Assembly - errr no thanks). We wandered back to the hotel - after which we did a bit of browsing at the shoppes (excitement she wrote at 15% sales tax).

I did another bit of a workout at the gyme (there were hot wushu players in the spa - making it look like hot gay pron). But instead of the crazy Russian Wushu guy from the other night (almost swift kickboxing me in the head) - there was an equally crazy Brazillian guy who seemed to be overdosing on the roids...

For dinner - we headed to (how original) Gay Street (aka Church Street) to the Rainbow Cafe (not affiliated with the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara). Tis a bit hard to distinguish the food here in Canada from the food in the States - portions are still super huge - and most things are fairly calorific. The Rainbow Cafe was no exception (despite it being on gay street and most gay men being fairly body conscious). We called it a night after dinner (which is sorta hard going to bed after a full stomach of calories).

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

There have been a distinct lack of early starts for us these holidays - but today wasn't one of them. Before we left for the States/Canada/French Canada - Ant bought some half price Canadian train tixs including a return trip from Toronoto to Nigeria - and today was that trip.

The ride to Central Station (or whatever it is called) was fairly smooth (considering it was peak time). The Canadians seem to have this weird thing going on about queueing for trains (hours in advance). Probably has something to do with not having any seating allocation. Anyhows - the station was sort of weird because you queue up in the basement - and catch an escalator (only if you have a ticket) up to the train platform.

As the trip to Nigeria is a NY bound train - the train was an Amtrak train (ie: no windows). But it wasn't too much of a hassle because there was not much of a view to Nigeria (very industrial grunge if you like that sort of thing).

The train ride took a couple of hours and when we got out - it was quite cold, miseriable and sort of wet. Arrival at the station was a bit random - we weren't allowed to go into the station from the platform - rather we had to navigate thru several nigara sized puddles to make it out to the street.

Downtown Niagria city makes Queanbeyan look like a busy metropolis (no hyperbole here). I'm sure it would make a great setting for a Resident Evil 6 game. There were random chinese restaurants which looked like they had served their last customer in 1983 and a complete lack of any signs of life anywhere.

We walked for about 30 or so minutes until we saw the US/Canadian "Rainbow Bridge" (I hope they rename it the "Frrwrendship Bridge" to make it sound cuter). This is a link over Niagara between the two countries and acts like a border crossing (duh). Once we got a bit closer - you could make out one of the falls (on the US side). There were also some dodgy looking Holiday Inns and stuff on the US side. I remember commenting to Ant "Trust the Americans to build some much tacky shit next to something of great natural building". However I spoke way too soon - because the best tacky shit was all on the Canadian side. Did I say tacky shit - because I meant to say more tacky shit than Vegas and Reno combined. The Canadian side was full of dodgy casinos, revolting restaurants (aka revolving) and lame arse tourist attractions. I like tack - but tack is not right in some places - including Niagara.

Anyhow - one of the attractions Ant wanted to do was ride the Maid of the Mist (no - she isn't a prostitute, rather some old boat where they hand out raincoats and get everyone abosolutely drenched under the falls if that is your idea of fun). However - everything had the same abandonned look that Niagara Falls City had and the Maid of the Mist was closed from the 25th of October for the winter (we missed it by a couple of days). Dang! (Ant said). Yes! (I said - because getting soaking wet when it is 5 degrees isn't my cup of tea).

We walked over to the Niagara Visitors Center (which is sort of smack bang on the top of the Canadian side of the falls). The falls were pretty awe-inspiring. Volumes and volumes of water gushing past was fairly spectacular. Coming from Australia - you aren't really used to this much water in one place at any given time. Anyhow - you could almost forget about the tack for just one minute standing up close to it.

We headed into the Visitors Center for our first Tom Horton's (hears a who) experience - underwhelming filtered coffee with sugary buns and the like. Although I was really expecting rip-off tourist prices here - they appeared to be normal prices.

We made the call to buy a dubious "Winter Magic Pass" thingy (sounds very peterphile-y)- which gave us entrance to some dodgy Butterfly Park (which we never went to), "Behind the Falls" experience and "Niagara Rage" 4D movie... The whole thing set us back $20CAD (plus tax which is a super rip-off here in Canada - it can be up to 15% sometimes). Apparently we saved up to 45% - woop woop...

Our first stop was "Niagara's Rage" a 4-D movie. We were all given plastic ponchos which had the "Niagara's Rage" logo on the back - superstylin... We were all ushered into a room to be greeted by a 4th-rate Pixar movie about some fat squirrel/chipmonk thing who is teleported back in time (who got detention from an owl) and meets a bear (with a bad Canadian accent) and discover how Niagara falls were created... I made a fairly audible comment to Ant during the first 30 seconds "WE PAID MONEY FOR THIS???!".

After the lame, non-4D (what is 4D anyway) - we were ushered into another room with screens all around and a metal platform on which you were supposed to stand on - which was precariously positioned about a pool of water. The movie then sort of went into "IMAX" mode - with real shots of Niagara (from a helicopter) and occasional blasts of water, fake snow and wind coming from the ceiling. I was more afraid of getting electrocuted from the pool of water beneath than anything else.

After the 4-D experience that was "Niagara's Rage" (I think all that makes something 4-D is if someone switches on a fan or something), we were ushered into the "Niagara's Rage" giftshop - where Ant's urge to buy plush animals was somewhat rising.

After that - we did the "Beyond the Niagara Falls" experience - where you don another sexay raincoat, catch an elevator (with the woman operator who is almost suicidal) and go through a tunnel and see from behind the waterfall. It was quite cool (temperature wise) but all you could see was just a wall of white with the occasional splash back if the wind was blowing the right way.

You could also go out and visit a viewing platform at the bottom of the Falls which was pretty cool and well recommended. Thankfully - when we did it - the weather was a bit dryer and less windier than before - so we didn't get wet.

After that - we had some more "Tim Horton Hear's A Who" for lunch (another ridiculously underpriced meal given the touristic nature of the location). Ant did a bit more "...ummm should I buy this overpriced stuffed animal??" action - but his urge to buy the stuffed animals wained. What these giftshops had in abundence were mini personalised licence plates... Although "Anthony" was a fairly rare name - but apparently - Chastity and Destiny weren't... I repeat - we are out of Bort licence plates...@! Hell - you could even get the "Nicolas" Cage variation of Nicholas...

Anyhows - we had a bit of time to kill to our train back to Toronoto - so (when in Rome) we headed to the Casino... which was surprisingly packed of old people (median age was about 86). It's sort of weird being a couple of thirty somethings and getting carded to go into a casino. Perhaps I should be taking this as a complement - but it appeared as if they were carded anyone who looked like they had a pulse. My favourite slot machine was the "Alien vs Predator" slot machine (when you think of people getting hidiously murdered... wait I mean - when you think of lucky - you think of Alien vs Predator".

We wandered for a bit until we found the epicenter of tackiness in the known universe - "Clifton Hill". It is about a half mile stretch of pure tackiness. Hell - it not only has one Ripley's Believe It or Not - it has two... And several haunted houses including one where it claims to have made 900,000 people wet their pants or something. I really didn't expect anything like this to be in Canada - let alone - right near Niagara Falls - but it was... and we took some pictures. After a very underwhelming experience at Wendys (where I ordered a thickshake (emphasis on thick, with a dollop of whipped cream and cherry on top - vomit) - we spent $5 on tokens at the "Great Canadian Midway Center" - where we played those ticket machines for about half an hour (you know - the ones where you throw basketballs into a hoop for tickets which are redeemable for really lame prizes). We did the whole Simpson's cheating thing (you know - two fully grown men passing each other balls to score maximum points) - and managed to get about 82 tickets - which only equated to a dodgy Mickey Mouse keyring and plastic head thing (which is too lame to talk about).

We headed back to the station and it either was pissing down (or it was mist from the falls pissing down on us). Either way - we were really really damp and miserable. I felt really underdressed for the day (just wearing jeans and a light hoodie) which sort of added to the effect of being depressed in Niagara.

The train trip back to Niagara was fairly harmless - it gave us a chance to recoup and dry ourselves (my socks were damp the whole day) :-(

We chilled for a bit at the hotel and tried to avoid the Wushu players as much as possible (Damn those Wushu!!).

We headed back out to gay-ville for dinner and we had Japanese/Thai confusion. Ant thought it could be a decent mix - because those two countries hadn't been to war with each other. Japanese food here is hella cheap (when compared to Wagamama) and usually comes out at the same time (unlike Wagamama). High Five...

I sort of felt a bit tired and Ant felt like going partying in Toronoto - so I headed back to the hotel whereas Ant went out and had a bit of an underwhelming Toronoto gay bar experience (or two)...

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

After the fairly unsatisfying lunch - we hit the streets to the gay part of town (aptly named "Church" street...). Toronto has a fairly bigish gay scene and it was used (X-Files style) to shoot the Queer as Folk US TV series. Things didn't really feel happening (cause it was mid-afternoon) - but there was one club packed to rafters - full of retirees or something.

It sort of felt like Toronto had been beaten rather hard with the ugly stick. There was some gawd awful architecture to be had, and everything was rather flat. Ant made the comment that Tornoto reminded him a bit of Melbourne - flat, with trams...

Anyhows - we did some walking down Church Street in the direction of downtown Tornoto. We checked out the main train station (in order to work out where we had to catch the train to Nigeria falls the next day). Everything felt rather dead - lack of people, lack of shops (a lot of closed down things about) - perhaps it is the GFC at work here?

From the station - we travelled down the "Sky Walk" - a fairly gawd awful Cameron Offices / Belconnen Bus Interchange vintage above ground concrete pedestrian overpass which wouldn't look too out of place in a zombie/apocalyptic movie. Again -there was a complete lack of people which added to the errie feel of the place.

The Sky Walk links the train station to the CN Tower - the world's largest free-standing structure... or something. Sort of think like the Telstra Tower or a Communist Communications Tower (which are sort of the same thing) - and you have the CN Tower. At the base of the tower - there were plenty of "Ticket Offices" and some bizare "eco herb farm" - but no tourists or open ticket offices... We managed to find an open ticket office - and forked out $28CAD for a ride up to the tower and the "Sky Ball" (no it isn't a porno - rather an extra lift up to a higher observatory). We bailed on the "3D ride of Tornoto"... We may be tourist suckers but aren't complete tourist suckers...

It all felt really dead quiet (ie: no tourists) and felt like this could be a bit of a money-losing operation. Let's hope they could afford the upkeep on the lifts. After the ticket guy (who seemed a tad gay) commented on my negative body language - we made our way through the 2 mile queue area (sin tourists) before heading up the lift. At the observatory level - you got to see a fairly decent view of Tornoto and surrounds - pity that Tornoto was raped by the ugly stick tho...

Of interest was the "Glass Floor" - where you could walk out over a "glass bottom floor" and look at the ground. I did a bit of dancing around and jumping (to freak Ant out). After 5 minutes - Ant finally found the courage to walk out by a couple of inches onto the glass floor (but he had to hold me and was somewhat shaking violently the whole time).

The Sky Ball was another lift ride up - with even less tourists - but funnily enough - it was the sameish view.

We headed back to the hotel - when suddenly there was a bit more life in Tornoto. Probably had something to do with it being 5pmish.

It was sort of hard to find differences between here and the US (except for the funnier accents - "It's aboot dignity. It's aboot respect."). The food seemed the same. The shops seem the same. The TV sort of seemed the same... Oh well...

We made our way past the Wushu hoards to chill for a bit at the hotel. I've been on a fitness kick ever since the calorie-horror that was NY - so I did a bit of a gyme session at the 27th floor gym where I almost got a swift kickbox to the head by a Wushu competitor from Russia or somewhere who was going a little bit too crazy near me while I was on the exercise bike.

For dinner - we headed back out to Church Street where we went to a sort of "Mod-Oz" restaurant which doubled as a bar. I had a pizza, Ant had a steak and the 50 yr old woman who served us (who looked a little out of place working as a waitress at a flashy club) was super friendly and very interested in our itinerary (just like the Canadian Immigration peeps). Until next time... XOXO...

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

We caught a shuttle for $7.50 Canadian (which was a bit of pain because we had to have the exact change and the ATM machine machine only spat out $20 bills). In order to get to downtown Toronto (which appeared to be a very long distance from the airport) - we had to catch this shuttle bus to a nearby subway stop - then transfer onto a subway till we got to the Yonge Street station. The trip was longish - about an hour and I was still venting about the Canadian immigration to myself.

At the subway station - it was sort of weird because you had to walk through a foodcourt and mall in order to get out on the street. We had no probs finding our hotel (Delta - not affiliated with the airline). When we checked in - Ant was a bit pished that we weren't given a single bed (hotwire bookings seems to do this to us a fair bit) - but she was fairly apologetic by saying the hotel was full... The room itself was pretty good - sort of a similar standard to the Doubletree - but you know you feel kinda lame when your room is on the fourth floor of a 27 storey hotel...

There was a bit of strange mob in the hotel lobby. Apparently - the "Wushu" Martial Arts World Championships were being held in Toronto and that the Delta Hotel was the "Official Hotel for competitors". Never really heard of Wushu before although it does sound like the name that Paris Hilton would call one of her toy dogs... (Come here lil wushu!). I've subsequently checked out wikipedia and it all appears to check up... although it ain't an Olympic sport and Ant did spot an Australian team - who aren't endorsed by the AIS... or something.

Anyhows - we wandered back to the Food Court for lunch and I had (the shame) some calorific Taco Bell monstrosity. Not only do you get the badness of french fries - but here at Taco Bell - they pour that plastic liquid cheese and some dodgy mince all over it for that added calorie effect..

XOXO

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

Amazingly - we have been into this holiday for a week and a half now and we have, today, had our first early morn start. We had plane tixs from Boston to Toronto and the plane was due to leave about 10am-ish - so we had to set an alarm (with that hideous Sony Ericsson "Pop piano" ringtone thing) for 6ish.

I thought we were functioning quite well considering we had been rather sloth like for most part of the holiday. Hey - we never left the Boston hotel before midday previously.

We headed back to the Hospital for our breakfast. Thankfully - Ant had spotted porridge (aka oatmeal) the other day - so I had a bowl of porridge.. ahem oatmeal instead of all that sugary muffin crap - which hit the spot.

We went back to Hooker Central (aka Doubletree Hotel) - grabbed our bags, checked out and were on our way to America's most terrorised airport - Logan International. It was good because you could get a $2.50 subway ticket to a stop near the airport - then catch a complementary shuttle to the airport - probably the cheapest airport transport I've seen for a while. No wonder Al'qaeda choose Logan...

Anyhows - we checked in for our American Eagle flight (apparently it is like Qantas Link - eg: cheaper nastier version of AA if that was possible). After a fairly underwhelming security search (not surprising because it is America's most terrorised airport) - we made our way to the Admirals Lounge where we made use of the free internet (finally made a new entry to this blog) and had to hostage negotiate us some free drinks at the bar.

Despite the flight being run by American Eagle - it wasn't too bad - we did manage to get a whole can of tomato juice. Pity it didn't come with something to eat...

Arrival to Toronto was sort of weird - because we were let onto the Tarmac to our own devices (well almost), we let ourselves into the airport, and had to open (ourselves) the door into the customs area. It all felt random. Speaking of random was the Immigration into Canada. Ant walked up to one immigration person - who just asked Ant about the Ashes and whether he follows the Rugby. He got through no probs. I on the other hand - managed to pick Ms Grumpy Pants - who instead of asking me irreverent questions about irreverent Australian sports, started asking me 20 questions about my life, my job, my intent of coming to Canada, my previous visit to Canada... blah blah blah. She then did some sort of "colouring-in work of art with a highlight" all over my customs/immigration form and handed it back to me and let me pass through.

Ant and I then walked down a corridor to another immigration woman. Ant handed in his form - he got through. I handed in my highlighted form - and was ushered into another room (sin Ant) which was full of other immigration officers. High-five... Secondary screening. Anyhows - another woman saw me (one who wasn't Ms Grumpy Pants and had a bit more common sense) and she does the whole 20 questions routine. She wanted to vet whether I was a valid tourist and asked for an itinerary... Unfortunately - Ant organises this and carries all of info in his purple bible folder (...I just rock up). Anyhows - after a couple of minutes - I think she realises that Ms Grumpy Pants wasn't really onto anything with me - and they let me through. It's a bit bizarre. I've been to loads of places (and I've seen Border Security a bit as well) - and I've never had any problems like this before. It's also a bit annoying that Ant was AOK without the 20 questions - yet I'm subjected to all of this crap. Thank you for coming to Canada...

XOXO...

US / Canada / French Canada is the only Canada Tour 09

Another day in Boston - another somewhat lazy start to the day. In lazy start - I mean I hit the gyme for an hour (the Y was full of random school kids running amuck on... funnily enough.. the treadmills). We headed over la hosptiale for breakfast (again some sugary muffins and mediocre coffee).

Today - we hopped on the Boston metro for a ride out to Harvard - probably the best uni in the states, if not the universe or something. Harvard is situated to the north of Boston in the district called Cambridge (not to be confused with the uni in England like I did). As soon as you step out of the metro stop into Harvard - everything feels really different. There weren't as many homeless guys/gals on the street, and it felt a lot more WASPy (a la New Canaan). Everything was fairly tweed-like, and I can't remember the ANU having "Body Shops" in their union.

We wandered into the actual university - which feels very swish, prim and preppy (students look like they have stepped right out of a Abrecombie and Fitch catalogue or store). It was very green (huge big trees and stuff) and the buildings all looked rather ye olde. There were masses of tour groups roaming around the grounds - they put on free tour groups but you have to tip the guide at the end. We weren't being cheap skates - but Ant and I decided to skip the tour because it didn't appear as if they walked around any great distance.

Harvard seemed to make ANU look like some cheap and nasty ghetto. Apparently - tuition fees cost about USD 40K a year - so you had better have a rich mommy and/or daddy (or your own crystal meth lab) in order to pay. Harvard felt a little religous-y cause there were several ye olde churches around the place (can't remember any ye olde churches at the ANU) but they were prruwdy so I took some pics. We wandered past the ye olde Harvard Law School and the Coop bookshop (which was fairly impressive) before we both decied to head back to town via foot down the riverside.

The walk into town took a bit more than an hour and was quite enjoyable. We could see the Harvard Business School (which is on the other side of the river from the rest of Harvard), the Red Sox stadium (Boston's local famous baseball team) and Boston Uni (which is like UC compared to the ANU or something).

We had lunch at the Prudential Center - Boston's big tall building - which is ugly, world trade center ugly... According to a big billboard outside the mall underneath it - it was "New England's premier site for shopping and food" - however I think Belconnen Mall and the Tuggernong Hyperdome are probably better - which wasn't saying much for the Prudential Center. Everything felt a little quiet - like the area is suffering due to the recession in the States. None of the shops were busy and there were a few vacancies around the place. Speaking about the GFC - it sort of felt like most people in shops around NY were actually tourists not locals...

After lunch we headed down to the nearby Newbury Street - which is really Boston's premier shopping strip. It was quite picturesque, quaint and full of more upper-end concept stores. We walked past "Johnny Cupcakes" - and Ant couldn't resist himself. However upon entry - Johnny Cupcakes don't sell cupcakes rather tee-shirts and undies. It was a cute store (T-shirts displayed in fridges and cupboards) and the sign had "Zero Calories, Zero Fat" - but there were definitely a lot of confused people walking into the store.

It was quite enjoyable walking down Newbury Street - but I had to go and spoil it by buying a smoothie from Starbucks. Memo to Starbucks and Boost - you don't make a good smoothie by using a tonne of tasteless ice~! Grrrr...

Anyhows - we wandered back to the hotel and surfed the free internet where I wanted to go see "A Serious Man" - the latest by the Cohen Brothers - so we headed to the nearby AMC to the 5pm session. I really enjoyed the film (which was about a jewish guy whose wife was divorcing him) - it was very quirky but Ant thought it was a bit so-so...

After the cinema - we headed out to the Little Italy district for dinner. The restaurant we went to was fairly cute, the food was good but the service was a bit patchy (seems to be a theme of this holiday - I thought 15% tips were supposed to encourage good service?!).

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09


We had a fairly restful sleep at the Doubletree - we couldn't complain about the big room and comfy bed. However we were yet to find the prostitutes as alluded to by the tripadvisor review.

Thankfully - the Doubletree had a fitness centre (well - it had a YMCA next door that you could use). Due to the horrible amount of weight we had been stacking on in NY - we decided to hit the gym first. YMCA downtown boston - where you can hang out with all the elderly chinese women...

Don't say that Ant doesn't take me to classy places - but we went to some bakery across the street from the hotel in the Hospital lobby for some stale-ish muffins (just to undo the work from the gyme) and some weird asian-bakery-esque random bread rolls...

After that - we headed down to Boston Common - where we stumbled upon some weird Halloween Dog Fancy Dress parade thing... where there was one dog dressed up as a "BUSY BEE...!" (Where's the busy bee?! Find the busy bee! Agggh!) High-five. There was also some other Glee-like band playing some unfortunate songs (Bust a Move).

From here we made tracks to the "Freedom Trail" - a touristy trail that leads you through a lot of historic sights associated with the revolution in the States. However in true american style - a lot of people weren't walking it - rather they were getting driven around in Ducks (half bus/ half boat) and mock-federation trams. I must admit - I'm not a big American history fan - so a lot of this stuff on the trail sort of went over my head. We were also sin guidebook for Boston - so we had to resort to some free tourist map from the hotel for information on things - which wasn't very informative.

We wandered around an old grave site which had Benjamin Franklin there (another dead president or something). We did our best to avoid the screamy tourguide - dressed in ye olde hat and pantaloons (you can't buy dignity) and went to a museum where something to do with the independence of America was declared or something - someone help me out with this American history please...! I made use of the ye olde toilets (where an american was bitching about the state of the ye olde basins) and we headed out to the Market area (something else I vaguely remember from my last visit to Boston). T'was full of ye old fast food shoppes and stuff.

We continued down the Freedom Trail (wouldn't it be funny if the States became a communist country and the "Freedom Trail" would be renamed to the "Revolutionary Trail" or something?) and headed through Little Italy (which looked rather cute with cobblestone roads and touty Italian waitstaff) and headed over some bridge - when we went to the U.S.S Constitution - a still "commissioned" navy ship from the ye olde times. Getting into the ship involved almost doing a strip search by navy staff (sounds hot) and going through an ye olde giftshop (complete with such patriotic items such as Rosie the Riveter action figures (which was made by the people who make "Jesus Action Figures" and "Librarian Action Figures" - not sure if the gift shop knows about the camp kitsch appeal of Rosie the Riveter or the fact that you can find her in most gay pop shops everywhere).

Anyhow - we had to wait a little bit in a holding pen - until we were allowed to board the "commissioned" U.S.S Constitution (praise the lordah!). It sort of looked like the "Bounty's Revenge" ride from Sydney's Wonderland (you know - ye olde pirate ship) - and it had some sort of great cultural significance to the States because it had never lost a battle or something. The tour was taken by several actual US Navy people - including a woman from Mississippi who I'm sure could do a deadpan impression of Britney Spears' voice ("hey y'all - I had to poop for a week to look this hot y'all!"). God bless Britney.

We headed back to the direction of town where we stopped by the market for some ye olde fast food (pizza) and perused Borders for about an hour.

We chilled for a bit in the hotel room - catching up on some Home Land Network action and Fox News of course! We sort of left it a bit late to find some dinner because we sort of forgot we weren't in NY anymore where people eat at 11pm at night. We wandered around an alleged eat street (from Ant's recommendation) - but it was either too eccey or too crappe. We wandered around for a bit more - and found some gay clubs which looked rather ye olde tragical-ee. We wandered around a bit more thinking - shit are we going to have to have the Golden Arches - when we walked back to Chinatown and settled at a Malay/Chinese (con)fusion restaurant for some sort of mediocre Char Kway Teow which was a little suspect because it made Ant feel super queasy afterwards.

After dinner - we decided to hit the Under Club - a ritzy sort of nightclub that did a gay night once a week (Sunday night of course). It was at the basement of the Sheraton (of course!) and was quite swick but the DJ's were a little random in their choice of music. One minute - they would be playing a Beyonce crowd favourite - the next - they would be playing some gangster rap (and everyone would clear the floor) - or playing some third rate mashups with Britney Spears background music with the Killers signing "Somebody Told Me"... que? The crowd was a bit odd - very preppy but that probably has something to do with Boston being a big uni town (hello Harvard). There were also a few randoms in costume - perhaps they got the date for Halloween wrong (it is next Saturday duh!). I was a bit bored - so I headed back. Ant stayed (for a little bit) before his Char Kway Teow wanted to come back up through his mouth - and he headed back to the hotel.

US / Canada (Fake States) / French Canada (Fake France) Tour 09


After our really big phos, we headed in the general direction of downtown Boston. The shopping strip felt a bit underwhelming (after being completely spoilt in NY) and a whole lot more quieter than NY too (we were spoilt for people watching choice in NY)..

I had been to Boston ages ago with my parents - and I didn't really remember much except that everything was cold, icy and I was sick. I remember seeing the "Cheers" bar (excitement she wrote), doing bits of the "Freedom Trail", and having a really subdued NYE (hey - I seem to remember that my best NYs as a child was being stuck on a houseboat in Northern NSW with no TV or radio reception and falling asleep by 9pm - yay).

Anyhows - when we walked past Boston Common (the big park in downtown Boston) - I started to remember a bit more of Boston.

We check out a nearby AMC (US version of Hoyts - or is that Greater Union...?) to have a looksee on what is on. We didn't really know what half the films were because there were no posters or synopsises anywhere. Ant choose "Astro Boy" - one of those CGI animated films. It wasn't that bad - but I admit I prefer the 80s cartoon.

After the movie we chilled out at the hotel and caught up with some crappy American TV. Amercian TV has a lot of channels to fill with content - so you get a whole lot of rehashed news stories (like the Bubble Boy) over and over again. Admittedly - I was getting addicted to all of those shock jock right wing news stations (a la Fox) - this is more out of a morbid curiosity than me believing in anything they say. Tis funny at the moment - Obama is steadfast reviewing to be interviewed by Fox News - nor is he inviting them to press galleries. This is sort of big news - and it has the Fox News of the world up in arms. I would have thought they would have toned down their retoric since Obama got in but apparently not. They even had 2 one hour specials "RX Nightmares" - a "fair and balanced" report on the Obamacare legislation.... And I found out the other day that that Gretta woman is member of the church of scientology - woop woop. I was also getting addicted to some other weird channel "HLN" - Ant called it "Home Land News"... LOL... Until next time xo xo...

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

The Margaritas and beer from last night were sort of catching up with me the following morning and I had to do some panadol. Chris, who is currently working at U-Haul, had to leave really early on Saturday morning (stepwid early) – so we didn’t have a chance to see him again.

At about 9am – Ant tried to make contact with Samara via text for her to come pick us up (she was living with her mum at New Canaan so she would need to drive over) so we had a bit of time to kill.

It was a really beautiful area, lots of big foliage and colours and precipitation. Lots of precipitation. Chris bitched last night that about 4-5 days per week is raining.

We let Izzy go mental for a bit out in the woods near the house. Although it was very pretty – it also felt a bit sinister in a Friday the 13th sort of way. You could imagine some homicidal manic waiting in the bushes with a machete whilst you were taking a shower or something. Also - I swear I saw multiple squirrels getting rapped by each other in the bushes.

Samara came to rescue us (again) around 10ish – and we drove for a little bit. Ant had confided in Samara the night before saying “your driving scares me shitless”. She took this on board and said “I’ll pay attention to my driving!”. Although there were some slight improvements in her driving – I still think Ant was fairly close to wetting himself.

We drove to a diner (which felt like in the middle of nowhere Friday the 13th style). It was quite busy and had to wait for a table for about 5 minutes. Once seated – the menu at the diner was typical diner fare – calories with saturated fat. Samara did her thing of hostage negotiating with the waitress (who was fully deadpan) some alteration to the menu. I just kept it simple by ordering a “He-Man” (French toast with bacon, eggs and sausages… I’m sure He-Man wouldn’t look so hot if he kept eating this on a regular basis). Ant the American way by also attempting to alter something on the menu but he was very intimated by the old dead-pan waitress and somewhat scared.

After breakfast (which was good in a fatty/calorific way), we did a bit of a car tour of New Canaan. As Samara described it – New Canaan was full of shops selling bits and pieces for your home. Because you had a super-sized mansion around New Canaan – you had to fill it up with stuff. The mansions around New Canaan were big and everyone around here are millionaires. Of note -someone out the front of their house had a “Obamacare is Suicide” billboard (Americans are totally crazy about this health care debate at the moment. The right and Fox News are worried that Nazis might ride on dinosaurs with lasers if Obama passes his health care reforms).

Anyhows – we headed to the station around 1ish (as Samara had an appointment to get her roots done). It was really cool catching up with Chris and Samara if only for a really short amount of time. I hope it isn’t that long until we catch up again – and wish them both the best for the future. Hugz.

We caught the train back in the direction of NY – to nearby Stamford where we bought an Amtrack ticket to Boston (our next destination). Stamford sort of seemed to have the same vibe as Campbelltown does with Sydney… ghetto baby. On a grey Stamford morn, another baby is born in the ghetto… In the ghetto…

Anyhows – our Amtrack train to Boston (although sort of delayed) was fairly comfortable and relaxing and about 3ish hours.

There was lots of foliage to see in this part of the world. Speaking of foliage – local news stations have a “Foliage Report” as part of their weather report – reporting on the state of foliage around the area and where it is most prettiest.

We arrived at Boston early evening. I was feeling a little flustered because my backpack was giving me spinal injuries due to the amount of NY shopping. It took us a bit of time to get our bearings at the station and how we were going to get to our hotel (Doubletree Downtown). We hoped on a subway (which was sort of confusing because it would have a “Silver” line and “Red” line – but everything was in an 1970s futuristic orange colour.

Anyhows – we made it to our hotel which was opposite a big hospital near Chinatown. We had booked this hotel with Hotwire (the website where you don’t know what you are booking until you have paid for it with your credit card) and it had some pretty bad Tripadvisor reviews. One was talking about it being really sleazy with prostitutes everywhere. But sometimes you need to take Tripadvisor reviews with a grain of salt – because it wasn’t sleazy at all and the hotel room was really big, clean and nice.

We headed out in the direction of Chinatown and had dinner at Pho Pasteur restaurant (a Vietnamese restaurant). The service was a bit rushed but the food was really good (big bowl of Pho for about $6US) and it hit the spot. Until next time - xoxo...

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

It was our last day in NY and one of the reasons we had come here was to shop. And shop we did… and then some.

I went to a nearby H&M (which Ant thinks is torture) and Zara combo. We fingered some merch at Zara, whilst I bought a couple of Tees, a shirt and a new belt for about $60USD at H&M. Of note – I had brought about 7 items into the changerooms and I gave a pile of stuff to the attendant on the way out where she screamed at me “These are supposed to be on the hangers!!”. She then made me stand there whilst she was slowly sorting out the merch. If I had more energy I would have just dumped the stuff on the floor and scream “Deal with it bitch!” but I didn’t. I had the mind of complaining about her behaviour to the checkout but I forgot to.

I continued to subject Ant to more torture by taking him to Best Buys across the street. I perused the movies this time for about 20 minutes and decided to buy a couple of Blu-Ray movies. I had bought a PS3 when we were in Singapore a couple of years ago – and whilst it plays Australian PS3 games, it doesn’t play Australian Blu-Ray or DVDs or PS1/2 games. It is supposedly in the America/Asia zone for Blu Ray – so these are a bit hard to come by in Australia. Touch wood they work when I get back home.

We headed in a downtown direction on 5th Ave where Ant “Spotted” a Gossip Girl Cupcake store – “Crumbs”. Ant, being the cupcake aficionado that he is, couldn’t resist himself and bought a couple of $4USD cupcakes (white choc and choc fudge). He was nice enough to get me the choc fudge one. Just to spoil the moment, I went to the nearby Starbucks and got an underwhelming caffe latte (which is a Flat White).

From here – we decided to split up as Ant wanted to queue up for an Asics Store foot measurement/assessment doodad, whilst I wanted to shop for more clothes. I headed by foot to Macys which is apparently the biggest department store on the planet. It was having a “One Day Sale” on the Saturday, and because it was Friday – it had a “preview sale” today… whatever a preview sale is. That said – it was super busy and it took a long time to get to the change rooms to try things on. I ended up buying a pair of Levis and a shirt for about $100USD. The other day – we signed up for a visitors Macy’s Card – which gives you the ability to get 10% off the price of most things – including if the good is already discounted. Most things at Macy’s seem to mysteriously end up as less than the ticketed price at the checkout for some reason. Sort of feels like Myers back before those pesky Sth Africans took it over.

I then went over to (the shame) K-Mart which was across the road from Macy’s and Madison Square Garden. There wasn’t just one, not two, but three levels of clothing you wouldn’t want to be seen dead anywhere… I bought a cheap coke (coke is super cheap here - $1.75USD is the going expensive rate for coke – and it can be cheaper than this) and yet another PS3 game (which again are super cheap compared to Australia – US$60 for a new release game).

I met Ant back at Macy’s – where he had been assessed by Asics as having one normal foot and the other having a high arch. Not only had he been assessed by Asics – he bought a pair of them (they are really cheap again - $120USD for high-high end runners) and was given a free pair of socks just for the heck of it.

We continued some more shopping at Macy’s – where I bought a couple of retro tees for about $30USD each and a pair of gym shorts. Ant bought a couple of tees and some sports apparel as well.

From Macy’s – we headed down to SoHo in an attempt to find the Brooklyn Exchange store. It was super cold and freezing – feels like there had been a cold change because every other day in NY was nice (except for the first). We made a pitstop at Starbucks where I had to make use of their disgusting facilities (whilst Ant did something sacrilegious and bought a Hot Chocolate).

We ended up finding the Brooklyn Exchange store – which Ant had spotted the other night and thought it looked OK. I walked into the store thinking to myself – I’ve bought enough and I don’t need anything else. I walked out with a “Future Fierce” t-shirt and a hoodie – Ant bought a few t-shirts and a man bag.

We walked around outside for a bit more around SoHo where the weather appeared to be closing in and I was only dressed in a light hoodie so I was frreeezing. We walked into a Hollester store (it is an exact clone of Abbrecombie and Fitch, owned by the people that own A&F – with half naked guys and girls plastered all over the walls, and the same shit clothes but instead of “A&F” it says “Hollester” instead). They also have another store called Reuhl which is a clone of Hollester which is a clone of A&F… genus! It was quite hilarious walking in because they have half naked door attendants who say “Wassup?!” as you walk past. Do you come with the jacket? Anyway – we did a quick lap of the store and made an escape to the next door Zara – where I walked away with a $150US jacket (despite me not wanting to buy anything else).

I think we were well and truly shopped out in NY – and it was sort of getting dark so we made a bee-line to the hotel, did some repacking (where my bag was in danger of exploding with all of the stuff in it).

We were catching up with Chris and Samara who moved from Australia to Connecticut about 6 months ago(?). For those geographically challenged like myself – Connecticut is just north of NY and they live right near the border.

We booked some tickets on a train at Union Station for about $14USD each. It was giving me flashes of the series Mad Man where the man character commutes to and from Manhattan to upstate NY via train back in the 60s. It had felt like the train hadn’t been renovated since the 60s either. The more upstate the train got, the more WASPy things felt. There was this group of African American girls sitting next to us – and I couldn’t work out if they were heavily pregnant or heavily obese (or both). It was sort of like a bad racist stereotype – as they were chowing down on fried nuggets and grape Kool-Aid.

Anyhows – the train to New Canaan took just over an hour and we didn’t really get much of a view of outside (because it was dark outside). When we arrived at New Canaan station – we were a little anxious as our ride hadn’t arrived… and it was pissing down. There was the added bonus of the station not really providing any shelter to the rain. High-five. Anyhow – we waited for about five minutes when Samara finally arrived in a big f##k off SUV to save us.

She gave us a quick tour of New Canaan which was where the Stepford Wives movie with Nicole Kidman was shot… if that gives you an idea about the place. (ie: big white houses, big white picket fences, white people).

We drove to a nearby Mexican restaurant – which was aptly named “Tequila Mockingbird”. There was definitely an emphasis on Tequila – with the restaurant serving over 100 different types of Tequila. We waited for Chris to join us by drinking a margarita except for Ant that was wanting to have a quiet detox night by sticking to “beer”.

Chris shortly arrived - and there was more Mexican food and margaritas to be had. Sam was funny by doing the American thing of negotiating with the waiters to order something a bit different (margarita in a big glass hold the salt)… although they kept serving them maragritas sans salt.

Anyhow – about $300USD later (I think there was four or five rounds of maragritas) – we left to a (as Samara puts it) WASP bar. It was definitely getting all WASPy up in my gash tonight. Samara thought it would be funny if Ant and I kissed which might clear out the bar in no time. Anyhows – we had another drink – and then called it quits for the night. I’m not sure how anyone drove back home sober – but everyone drove back nonetheless.

Chris took us to his place which was about 20 minutes out of New Canaan. It was a three storey (if you include the attic) house which sort of felt a little isolated and Friday the 13th creepy. Izzy – their golden retriever was there to greet us in normal dumb happy golden retriever style.

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

Although I had set the alarm for 10am (we had to check out this morning by 11am) – I woke up around 9am and stumbled down to Starbucks for another underwhelming parfait and coffee. When you are dazed and confused and suffering from lack of sleep – what better way to kill time than to walk down 20 city blocks to Best Buys and splurge on video games…!

Anyhows – meanswhiles – Ant woke up around 10am and was slightly concerned that I wasn’t around and we had to check out by 11am. I had attempted to text Ant saying I was on my way – but his phone was turned off – so he was freakin out.

Anyhows – I got back around 10:30am and started to pack my bags (leaving it really late).

We checked out (with 15 minutes to spare) and we decided to catch the subway to our new Hotel (in Midtown but closer to the Rockefeller Centre than our current hotel). We found the hotel – but we couldn’t check in because we were way too early.

We left our bags and I took Ant to a nearby deli for him to have breakfast and try and recover from his hangover. During breakfast – we decided to do a bit of “relaxed sightseeing” and catch a train to Coney Island (which is located at the southern bit of Brooklyn). I had a bit of a burning desire to visit it – somewhat due to the grungy kitsch factor but mainly so I could mark off another “Wiz” shooting location. (I luv the Wiz. 40 year old Diana Ross playing Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow – need I say more!).

The train trip was about an hour – and we could use our subway tickets to get there. The train went from subway to above ground during Brooklyn so you got to see a bit of it. Everything feels a lot more spread out compared to Manhattan – but everything is fairly built and dense still.

When we got to Coney Island (which technically is not an Island) – it was quiet and the train station felt shiny and new.
Once you got out onto the street – there was a “Dawn of the Dead” vibe from the place. Like someone had left off an A-bomb and zombies were lurking in boarded up shops (these existed!) waiting to eat your brains.

We walked onto the main broadwalk where there were these middle aged biker guys with no shirts on having really loud conversations about “banging unconscious chicks” with frequent course language. Klass. Speaking about klass – there was a gang doing a drug deal half way down the pier. Suddenly – I’m getting these flashbacks to the Requiem for a Dream movie (which was semi-set around Coney Island). Well – the real Coney Island seems to keep with the vibe of the Requiem for a Dream heroine junkie vibe.

Everything (or just about everything) was shut. There was a shut amusement park (which was also giving me Grand Theft Auto 4 vibes) and a “Shoot the Freak” sideshow where you could shoot a real “freak” with paintball bullets – but that was shut too. We walked down to the rollercoaster (which appeared in the Wiz) which was also shut. But it was sort of interesting because they had some info about the history of the rollercoaster – which was almost going to be demolished with a plan by the nearby Aquarium to purchase the land – but the locals protested and the roller coaster has remained.

We had lunch at the LP recommended “Nathans” – which sells hot dogs and german sausages. It was about the only open thing in Coney Island but it was very busy. We had to queue up for about 15 minutes for hot dogs – which were much better than the Central Park dogs – and put your faith back into NY hot dogs. The chips were excellent as well – but calorific. Speaking about calorific – all fast food items have their calorie amounts displayed in NY. So now a visit to Krispy Kreme is not completely guilt free.

Despite almost everything being closed – I really enjoyed going out to the grungy kitschy apocalyptic site that is Coney Island – and would recommend it to others just for the thrill of it. It would be interested to see what it would be like in the height of summer – school kids going on not-quite-safe rides mixing it up with junkies and middle aged biker rapists.

We headed on a “N” train back in the direction of Manhattan – but we stopped off at “Downtown” Brooklyn to visit the MTA (Mass Transport Authority) Museum. Downtown Brooklyn felt a bit more spacious than Manhattan – and maybe a bit more grungy – but still interesting. The MTA museum was in a very interesting location – a decommissioned subway station. You walk down a set of stairs to the ticket booth (like an old fashioned entrance to a subway station) and make your way around exhibits about everything you could think of about MTA (buses, trains, subway, tickets, money trains (minus Wesley Snipes), etc). Even more interesting was that you walk down another set of steps out onto a platform which contained a set of old subway trains – all of which you could walk around. I’m sure train spotters would love it – but I enjoyed all of the old advertisements in the train. There was one about Women not having the right to vote, but they do have the right to buy laundry detergent! Women’s lib ahoy. Because we got to the museum really late – we didn’t have much time to see everything – but it is well worth the trip over to Brooklyn for it.

We headed back to Manhattan – where we finally checked into the Best Western Hospitality House. We totally lucked out with this hotel – it was a one bedroom apartment (which equals one huge bedroom, one classy bathroom, a kitchen (full kitchen not kitchenette) and a big lounge room – all in Midtown Manhattan). Our only complaint was that it wasn’t in the Upper East Side. This hotel totally s###ed all over the Thirty Thirty Hotel – and the strangest thing was that it was about the same price… Happy happy joy joy…

We chilled out for about an hour or two at the hotel before heading out to Fifth Ave in an attempt to shop (cause NY has zero sales tax on clothing). We attempted to walk into the Diesel Shop when the door woman was giving me the “slit throat” gesture… probably meaning that the shop was closed but you’d expect that level of service at Walmart not a Diesel shop. We had the same thing happen to us at an Adidas store where the guy shouted at us that the shop was closing.

We caught a subway near the Home Alone 2 hotel in a downtown direction to SoHo (South of Hudson). SoHo is a fairly ritzy shopping area – not ritzy like uptown Fifth Avenue (where we were with the female guard slit throat action) but sort of uber edgy cool. That said – just about everything was shut. We stumbled onto a pizza place for dinner which kept up with the tradition of bad service for the evening.

Given the crazy night we had last night – we called it a night and headed back to our hotel to sleep.

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09


Wake up again at a Latino Time – either we are on a Latino Time zone or we are just not getting used to the NY time zone…
Breakfast at Starbucks again… How original yet unsatisfying.

Keeping in concert with the theme of this visit to NY – we wanted to go somewhere different so we walked on foot from our hotel to the UN Headquarters – the headquarters of the most relevant political body on the planet… ahem cough.

On the way – we stumbled onto a filming of either a bad sci-fi movie or bad sci-fi TV show. There was this guy who ushered Ant and I off a footpath – and around the street corner – there was a mock protest with people wearing balaclavas holding up signs saying “Back off Clones” or something. It felt a bit half arsed and straight to video or bargain basement bin. A few cars then drove past – and they finished filming and let us through. Speaking about film shoots – the other day we found a poster on 5th Ave saying that you could not park in a particular area for three days due to the filming of “Wall Street 2”… wall street harder… Also of interest – we spotted a flyer stuck to an apartment entrance which pretty much said “Ugly Betty is an emmy award winning series” and “we are looking for loft apartments to film in and if you are interested ring 555xxxxx…”.

The UN Headquarters was built in the 60s and had been unrenovated since the 60s. At the entrance – we had to do an underwhelming security screening in a tent (felt like a 911 afterthought). When we finally gotten into the HQ – it felt very Thunderbirds. I felt Thunderbird One might blast out of the visitors centre and the eyes on the portrait of Kofi Annan might flash or something when he is needed to launch Thunderbird Three.

We bought some tickets to a UN HQ tour. In true UN style – they had all different languages available but we had to wait thirty minutes for the next available engrish tour. While we waited – we read through the meeting agenda for the UN today. Excitement she wrote – I couldn’t wait for the “Rights of Woman in the Internet Age” at 10am chaired by the People’s Democratic of China.

When our tour started – we all were given visitor passes (this is just like work) and did a quick tour of some of the gifts given by member countries. Tackiest of them all was a tapestry given by Belarus which depicted in tacky 80s style the nuclear fall out from Chernobyl. There was this gay / captain planet-esque who was half naked and was supposed to represent something (which was lost on translation). Ant and I thought it was a scream and I had him take a picture of me in front of it posing.
Our tour guide was this really nice African (African African not African American) who was super diplomatic and tried to explain how relevant and important the UN is. We liked throwing in curb balls about why the US hasn’t paid its membership fees during the George Bush Jr era, which "China" was she talking about and other shit stirring tid-bits.

We visited the General Assembly Hall (you know – the one with all member countries). It was very tacky with some horrible murals on each side painted by some blind kids from Korea or something. When we asked what they mean – the guide said they were painted in a manner where you can interpret what it means by yourself… or something.

It was kind of funny how they assign seats in the General Assembly each year. They do a ballot and pull a country out of a hat (or powerball ball dispenser) and that country gets to sit in the front. And then all the other countries get to sit in alphabetical order from there. This nearly always means that Iraq, Iran and Israel always sit next to one another. Hey hey hey! We spotted Australia (third row from back) and took some pictures. Also of note – the seats had the most crummy interpreter equipment which makes a Sony Walkman from the early 80s look cutting edge technology.

The UN is fairly broke – and I guess that is evident by the state of the building. But the US is going to start up its membership payments so they have commissioned renovations for the Security Committee room and something else which escapes my mind.

We might have saved the best UN part for last – after the tour we went down to the basement for the… you guessed it… the “UN Gift Shop” – where you can get all the tacky UN merchandise that you would ever want (or never want). Ant bought a “UN To Do List” post it note magnet thing. UN Things to Do… “Buy milk, blow up Iran…” There were UN T-Shirts (hot hot hot), UN Spoons, UN Stamps (not food stamps), UN bears, and flags. Shit loads of flags. In fact – there was a flag for every UN member country… and yes – you can get flags for Nauru and North Korea. And there was a section for each country in the store where you could pick up tacky country-themed overpriced crap (Akubra Hats… etc). Speaking of overpriced – even though the UN Headquarters is officially on international territory – they still charge US sales tax. Basterds.

We had lunch at the nearby Union Square with some overpriced premade sandwiches.

After lunch – we headed to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) which we had tickets for from the other day with our “Top of the Rock” tickets. It was big, large and had lots of art from the Impressionists onwards. I think we had managed to get a good deal with the $30 Top of the Rock / MOMA double ticket because entry to each attraction was $20. Although the MET is the bees-knees when it comes to NY art galleries – MOMA was still pretty good and beats a hell of a lot of other galleries. We had a bit of a browse at the MOMA shop afterwards. I liked the “DIY Stencil kit” which taught you how to stencil like Banksy – and even gave you stencils you could use to spraypaint grafiti or decorate a birthday cake!

From MOMA – we did a bit more walking around Midtown and Times Sqaure. We were contemplating going to another play or musical and we were walking around the front of “West Side Story” when a tout tried to give us merchandise. We ignored him (like we do to all touts) and he then screamed out “you are ignoring me because I’m black isn’t it! All you south Africans are racists!” – to that we just laughed and headed across the road to the TIXS booth.

We started to contemplate going to the “39 steps” – the Hitchcock comedy spoof play thinking it might only cost us about $30 each – but they were going to charge us about $90 which was a little step and we passed on it.

We headed back to the Hotel where we did some hotwiring and booked us a new hotel (for about $220US for a night) because we wanted to stay an extra day in NY. Unfortunately – we couldn’t book another night at the Thirty Thirty hotel – because they were full.

We headed by subway to the East Village district. When Ant and I stayed in NY last time –we stayed at here at the East Village Bed and Breakfast which was really cool because the woman that ran it was super friendly and it made it feel like you were at home. She took care of me whilst I had my “worst ever” hangover last time (which I will get to shortly).
Taking the L train to the East Village brought back memories of our last stay in NY (mostly good, but sometimes I would remember the rats crawling around the train tracks). Speaking of rats – I finally spotted my first rats this visit. (Spotted. R at the L train.) I think the MTA have been introducing better pest control – so the rats spotted counter has been a lot lower than our previous visit.

The East Village (like all districts in NY) has a distinct feel – a much grungier, artsy feel which is cool. We decided on a going to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Ant collected most of the fake spider web decorations getting to our seat (Halloween is next week and NY seems to be totally decked out with pumpkins and ghouls and corpses hanging from window ceils, etc). Dinner was really yummy – Ant had some Udon noodles and I had my fav dish – Katsu Chicken Curry. It was super cheap too – tastes the same as Wagamama but at a third of the price of Wagamama. And the service was three times better than Wagamama.

After dinner we headed to a bar called “The Cock” – and before your mind goes to the gutter – there is a picture of a giant rooster at the front. This bar used to be the sister bar to the “Hole” – where we went last time we were in NY and I had the worst hangover ever. But before you judge me – the Hole had a $10US cover charge and a free bar where you could order anything. Before you know it – I had befriended the bartender and he was pouring half cokes, half vodkas and vola – I had passed out in the gutter. Klassy with a K. Now the “Hole” has closed down and the “Cock” is now at the former “Hole” location. The “Cock” was a lot grungier than the “Hole” but still had the $US10 deal – although you had to stick to bottom shelf sprits and some weird beer. Anyhows – we had a great time and didn’t have a repeat performance of the “Hole” but didn’t get to bed til 4am.

US/Canada/French Canada Tour 09

We decided to take a subway down to Downtown to the TIXS office (instead of going to the Times Square TIXS office) in an attempt to beat the enormous queues at the Times Square office. However - upon arrival at the Downtown TIXS - there wasn't anything we really wanted to see and there was a bit of queue for tickets. Last time in NY - we had great success in buying cheap tickets from it (we saw a preview of "The Boy From Oz" with Huge Jackman in it (the irony of seeing this in NY), and "Take Me Out" (some gay play about baseball complete with full frontal shower nudity). But we were finding it hard to find really cheap tickets this time around.

After having a sugary muffin for breakfast at a Deli (which are a cross between a 7-11 and a Brazilian buffet/weight restaurant), we decided to hop on a subway train and visit Harlem. This time in NY - we both wanted to visit places we hadn't necessarily been before and I wanted to see if weave shops existed... which they did and I took a picture of one.

Harlem was a bit different from what you would expect it to be... Gone are most of the old buildings that you would expect to find - everything feels shiny and newish... Although Harlem is very afro-centric - it is undergoing heaps of change and it was a bit unfortunate that most of Martin Luther King Ave was full of strip-mall esque shops and stuff. The Apollo Theatre was still there and we took some pictures - but nothing else was very recognisable. Although it was a bit of a treat overhearing old grannies shouting "that N####r owes me 10 bucks!". Hey hey hey...

We headed off the main drag of Harlem and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of rich rich people around driving Jags and stuff... The housing was all old-style but probably renovated to an inch of its life from the inside. Maybe all of the working class have moved out of Harlem and perhaps off the Island altogether?!

We visited some exhibit (which you could see from the street) which documented notable african american politicians up until the very minute with Barrack Obama. There was this weird Western European tourgroup which looked so out of place here (as did we). We decided to avoid them and head on the subway to the Central Park North station which is on the South side of Harlem (for those geographically-challenged).

We made our first mistake of the holiday - ordering a half cooked Hot Dog. We had reasonable experiences ordering street food in our last visit to the States (I remember ordering Hot Dogs at Wall Street) - but my stomach felt really queasy about 10 minutes after eating this one... And to top it off - it didn't taste all that great either.

On the topic of visiting places that we hadn't really done before - although I've been to Central Park a couple of times - I sort of wanted to walk the whole thing - which is what we did. The northern side of the park is a lot more deserted than the Southern side (which is in Midtown). The Northern bit had lots of "deep dark old rape bridges" which reminded me of the Ashford & Simpson "Solid" video (favourite Singstar song ever) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKKJgJfwKY

We traversed around a big lake (which you had to do in a anti-clockwise fashion otherwise the police might arrest you) and reached the Jackie O Reservoir (not to be confused with the Kyle and Jackie O show).

The MET (which is the only building in the Park) was nearby so we made a byline for the MET gift shop (which we didn't have any time to visit the previous day). I bought a large coffee mug with an Egyptian Hippo done in a Andy Warhol pop style, and Ant bought a pencil holder MET bag (as you do) and a book on Impressionists. Apparently the MET shopping bags are "icons" or something and Ant could overhear people attempting to get them for free.

We headed back to the Park and continued our trek to the South side. We bypassed Strawberry Fields (the Beatles ruined rock music) and made a b-line for the Home Alone 2 bridge and hotel (Ant's favourite movie of all time behind Dave and Mrs Doubtfire).

We made our way out of the park and walked to the Midtown area where we decided to climb the Rockefeller Center. I've been on the Empire State a couple of times (and the now-defunct World Trade Center) so I though it might be a bit different to do the Rockefeller instead for a different perspective on the city. We bought a $30USD double pass which gave us entry to the Tower and the sister museum - MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) which was established by Mrs Rockefeller back in the day.

Of course any visit to a stewpidly tall building wouldn't be complete without the obligatory green screen photo. For the Rock - you had to sit on a steel beam (a la those iconic photos of builders sitting on the beam). I did my patented next top model fierce posing and got the photo guy all excited - who started laughing and screaming out "Yo Yo Yo! Pop it!".

The elevator up to the top of the Rock was kinda trippy and cheasy - it had a clear plastic roof so you could see out of the lift. Everything had trippy lights and there was an overhead projector beaming out images. It was like your own little rave party minus the drugs and half naked people.

On the top was very prewidy - you not only get to see great views of Downtown (including the Empire State) but also of Uptown and Central Park. It wasn't overly crowded and was is recommended as an alternative to going up the Empire State. We checked out the gift shop which had a book about the Art of the Rockefeller Center. You might know about the infamous mural Diego Rivera was commissioned by Rockefeller to paint. Being the communist Rivera was - he painted a very communist mural including pics of Lenin. And Rockefeller being the staunch capitalist he was - he got Lenin removed out of it - but you still get the sense that everything looks communist.

After the Rock - we headed to the theatre playing "Wicked" the musical (which was a few blocks away from Broadway). Thinking we could easily get tickets - we were confronted by a loud usher guy screaming "tonight's performance is sold out. If you want tickets you need to line up in the "Cancellation" line"... Cancellation what?? Anyway - we did what we were told and we got to the front of the queue after waiting about 10 minutes and unfortunately - they shut the "Cancellation" window. We were told to wait because they weren't sure if they still had tickets. We ended up waiting for about an hour for them to reopen the tickets. The first half hour of this wait was completely boring but the second half was rather interesting in that we were watching the masses of human traffic coming into the theatre and attempting to get tickets. One lady (in a wheelchair) was informed that she couldn't go see the play because there was no wheelchair access to the theatre - this pissed her off something big time because she said she was told that it would be OK when she bought the tickets....

Anyhows - after waiting for about 1 hour - the Cancellation line reopened - and we managed to get two full priced tickets (@ $110USD). Cause we had just been in daggy clothes all day - we felt a little underdressed for a night at the theatre. But we didn't have any time to go back to the hotel and change because we had about five minutes till the play started.

Our seats were fantastic - row G (6 from the front) and very close to the centre. We seemed like we were sitting in the "Cancellation seat" block - because to our left and right were other couples who were in the cancellation queue as well.

Wicked was great - Ant had seen it before in Melbourne (the week after Rob Guest had died) - but he said the broadway version was better in terms of the music and staging. The Melbourne theatre only seated about 500 people - but our theatre seated about 2500 - so the stage was huge and the staging was better than the Aus version. The plot is very clever (not to give it all away - but I guess you think the Wicked Witch of the West is evil but after watching this - she is just misunderstood) and is quite adult-oriented (not really aimed at kids). It was definitely worth the $110USD for the seats and would recommend it to those visiting NY.

We headed back to our hotel and got changed and headed straight back out to Chelsea - another gay ghetto in NY. We attempted to follow LP's advice and go to a diner called "Empire" - but it all looked shut when we got there (apparently - it was supposed to be 24 hours) - so we headed up the street and found another 24hour diner. I had ordered a pasta dish (which was absolutely huge) and Ant thought he was ordering the light option when he ordered a pastrami on rye - but it was very greasy and also huge. What is it with America and ridiculous sized portions?? Quantity definitely rules over quality in the States.

We headed to a bar called "G" (not to be confused with my alter ego "The G.B.H"). All bars in the states seem to have "Go Go Boys". Ant made an accurate observation that Australian bars don't normally have these - and they seem to be a very much Amercian thing. Is it because Australian guys are better looking than Amercians and we don't have to resort to watching go go dancers?! I also noticed that the music in NY bars aren't very hand-baggy (a la Cube. God I hate that place!). XOXO

US/Canada/French Canada Tour 09

I'm way behind schedule writing this so I'm going to keep it twitter-y short and sweet.

This is sort of embarassing but we had coffee for breakfast at Starbucks. Beggars can't be choosers in a country where coffee is fairly consistently shit and Zagat's number one rated coffee is Starbucks - well go with the flow.

We headed down Fifth Ave from Midtown and walked past the Chrysler Building (which is probably the most attractive NY skyscraper) to Washington Park (which is at the end of Fifth Ave) where we were pounced on by a sprucker selling "pick-me downs" as you do.

From there we walked back to the Village attempting to go to the shop which sold (amongst other things) Rod Stewart t-shirts... (My mum has wet dreams about Rod...). But alas it was shut.

From here - we walked down Christopher Street till we hit the West side of the Island. Some freaky druggy guy enjoyed playing frogger (would pretend to jump out in front of trucks and SUVs which were speeding about 60 miles an hour on a freeway). Although maybe his sense of self preservation kicked in when, at the last minute, he pulled back.

We wandered along a newish looking park along the Western side of the Island. So did the Frogger guy who we did our best to try and avoid his antics. New Jersey was visible across the river - it looked a lot less dense than Manhattan - but it did have a "W" hotel which is one up than Australia.

We headed down to Ant's favourite site in NY - the World Trade Center ground zero site (in Downtown). Last time we were at NY - it was only a couple of years since 9-11 and the site was still in a bit of a mess. However - it seems as if they are finally constructing a new site (a split between new office buildings and memorial parks). Everything was covered up so you couldn't really see much of the site from the street level. Anyhows - after "paying our respects" - what better way of following that is to shop at Century 21 (a big department store right next to ground zero). $5US 2-Xist undies - high five.

We had lunch at Battery Park (a newish/90s development on the western side of Downtown) and had a greasy Panini.

We continued walking down the southern most tip of the island was - the Staten Island Ferry terminal where we caught a free ferry to Staten Island and back. I hadn't done this since I was first in NY back in the 90s - where I seemed to recall the ferry terminal being really run down. However it was all ritzed up with big f### off LCD monitors displaying ads for gender reassignment surgery. The Staten Island Ferry is a free way to ride past the Statue of Liberty (Hollywood's most blown up statue) instead of forking out $30USD for a trip to Liberty Island. We did our patented "push old people and children out of the way" to get the best seats on the back of the ferry - and we were treated to some excellent views of the Statue and Manhatten Island (mind the smog).

It took a bit over an hour to do a round trip to Staten Island (we had to faff around at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal for a bit) and when we got back - we headed into Downtown and did a bit of shopping at NY's "JB Hi Fi equiv" J&R. It was a bit like the downtown Melbourne JBs (with shops specialising in different things all over Downtown). I bought some cheap games and perused the CDs and DVDs and avoided the urge to buy "Creepizoids" on DVD for $6.

We did a few sights around Downtown (ie: Wall Street, City Hall) and then headed over the Brooklyn Bridge and followed the masses of tourists (and crazy cyclists) over the bridge to Brooklyn. It was very pretty (around dusk) and slightly dangerous in the way that cyclists shoot past pedestrians. We also had to navigate around an annoying pack of russian teens who seemed hell bent on making our walk unenjoyable.

Once at Brooklyn (which was sort of a first for me to get off the Island) - we found a little Pizza place in DUMBO (Down Underneath the Manhatten and Brooklyn Overpass) which served great NY style pizza. Luckily we got there before the hoards of Russian students. High five.

We wandered around DUMBO for a bit which was sort of pleasant - lots of nice organic supermarkets, cafes and artsy stuff. It had felt like this place had been gentrified somewhat (could imagine it to be fairly grungy 10-15 years ago).

We headed back to the Island on the nearby Manhatten Bridge (just north of the Brooklyn Bridge) - although this bridge was fairly un-touristy as it was a lot louder and ear drum destroying than the Brooklyn Bridge with several trains going past at high speeds...

Once you get over the Bridge - you arrive in NY's Chinatown. Although not as iconic as say San Fran's Chinatown - it isn't without its charm. Right next door to Chinatown is Little Italy (of course!) full of touty restaraunts and shops with Godfather and Sopranos posters and stuff...

We headed back to the hotel (quite late) and dumped our stuff and headed back on the Subway (our first trip of the day) to Chinatown. Although when we got there (around 11ish) most things appeared shut. We stumbled onto a busy Chinese Restaurant where we had to wait for a table for 20 minutes. The wait was worth it. Thankfully we got our own table because for the most part - they made you share your table with other people. Also thankfully - we didn't have to share our table with the local serial killer who was sitting on a table near us (sort of had the whole Dennis Ferguson pedaophile look down pat).

US/Canada/French Canada...

After the MET (and after taking a "sitting on the stairs of the MET like Gossip Girl" photo except it was pi$$ing down) - we wandered for a bit around Park Avenue and the Upper East Side. All very swish, expensive, ritzy (as Kath N Kim would say) and very Gossip Girl.. Ahhhh!

That night we headed down to the Village (the gay one) for dinner and drinks. I have to say the subway station there is a bit weird - combining my Dad's first name and second name or something. We headed to a "fusion Thai" restaurant down Christopher Street - and had Thai Tacos for an entree (or an appetizer as the Americans call it) and some Pad Thai for our main (or entree as the Americans call it which makes no sense because entree means beginning...). Of course everything is Supersized in the states so we could start to feel the carbs and calories count up with every taco bite...

After dinner (which was about 11pm because I think we are still jet lagged) we headed back to the bar area around the Village although nothing was really pumping. We went to a bar called "Pieces" which was decked out with meat cleavers and plastic sheets everywhere (sort of like a Dexter episode). I had to check the bar in case someone was going to jab me with a syringe and then disembody my corpse.