PK in the USA

Video Update #1 - Subway Dancers

2011-11-20T00:57:00.001-08:00

For the followers of our blog, I've uploaded a video on YouTube of the dancers we saw in the NYC Subway 34th St station (as mentioned here http://pkintheusa.blogspot.com/2011/11/day-6-nyc-baby.html).

FYI, when the lead dancer gets up and close to the camera, he was directing it all to KN (lol).

Enjoy, will post a couple more of them breaking it down a little. Here's the first clip for now...

Vegas - Finale!

2011-11-16T00:07:00.001-08:00

So our final day in Vegas, final day in the US. The previous day's road trip was a great way to wind things up for us, so on our final day we were happy, relaxed and ready to go home I guess. We had no set agenda, apart from my usual cravings for food!

Naturally, breakfast was in order and the one thing I had in mind, was a dish I had seen (yet again) from Man vs Food. It was this massive Chicken/Eggs Benedict concoction. The place to get it is "Hash House a go go". There's a few of these stores in Vegas, the one we visited was located in the Imperial Palace.

I wasn't disappointed when our dishes came out. KN ordered an omelet of some kind, and even that was huge in proportion.

KN's dish


My beast of a breakfast!

The pictures never seem to do it justice, but you get the gist. To keep mine together, it's stabbed in the middle with a knife and a twig of rosemary. Inside was a juicy chicken breast, scrambled eggs, smashed potato (not quite mashed), biscuits, other bits and pieces I can't remember, topped off with 'griddled' mozeralla cheese and chipotle sauce. No I couldn't finish it, but I did a pretty good job trying!

Full as usual, we ventured back to our hotel room, along the way KN did a bit of shopping while I drifted off to do some gambling at Caesars Palace. Didn't win a thing. I never gamble to be honest, and the most I spent gambling at this point in Vegas, was maybe $80...give or take. I tried a few slot machines, tried black jack, tried roulette. I'd win a bit, lose a bit, as to be expected.

The one thing I definitely wanted as a souvenir, was decks of used Casino cards from each Casino we visited. All the ones we had visited, were sold out! Except for Caesars, I managed to pick up a deck from there.

On my way back to the hotel room, I couldn't resist but try one of those crepes from that fancy schmancy cafe/chocolate store I mentioned earlier. I ordered one of the chocolate fudge crepe's and a latte.

Of course, I failed to pick up a set of plastic cutlery. All I had was the plastic swizzle stick thing-a-me-jig you use to stir sugar in the coffee. That sufficed till room service brought up a set of proper cutlery :).

Checked out of the hotel room, we had a few hours to kill before heading to the airport, so we tried our luck gambling. Well I did anyway. Now you might remember that 'magic' and 'lucky' tiger eye necklace I mentioned earlier, I believe it to be a good luck charm...it helped me win nearly $300 on a 'roulette' slot machine in the Aria casino.

Not in one hit, at first around $190. Then about $90 again afterwards. After that we bailed while I was ahead!!

Lucky money, woo hoo!

On a money high (lol), we decided to grab some lunch. Yes, there was room in our stomach's. There was one last fast food chain we had to try (recommended by some folks back home), called "In n Out Burger". Since we arrived in Vegas, I could see it from our hotel room at night. It was bugging me, so being our last day, and such high rollers, we cabbed it to the nearest In n Out burger joint.

We made our way down there, I had a 'double-double' and KN had the regular cheeseburger. They were nice.. quite a bit of salad in them (lettuce, tomato), but yeah nice. I say nice, because hands down I still think "Five Guys" in NYC/Jersey makes it to the top of my burger list for this trip.

After buying more souvenirs from the In n Out Burger merchandise store, we headed back to the hotel. While waiting at the hotel, I received notification from Delta Airlines that our flight had been delayed. Had we stayed on that flight, we would have missed our connecting flight to Brisbane from LAX.

Organized an earlier flight with Delta to avoid this, so we ended up leaving earlier than expected! It was an abrupt end to our trip, but we were ready to go home. I am writing this on Wednesday the 16th November (Brisbane time), and I am ready to go back to the US!

The flight home from LAX to BNE was a breeze, because we left late in the evening, it wasn't hard to sleep.

So many memories and experiences in such a short couple of weeks, it felt like we were in the US for much longer - and it's a great feeling.

Hope you all enjoyed the blog, I will have a few more posts in the coming days, mainly video compilations for some of the things I have blogged the past few weeks. Stay tuned for some more, till then, safe and happy travels!!

Paul & Kaye-Ann

Mohawk pigeon from In n Out Burger (had to add that in there!)

Vegas Part II

2011-11-12T20:04:00.000-08:00

Today was our last full day/night in Vegas and we had our hearts set on a day trip to the Grand Canyon. Now the TripAdvisor forums has been a valuable source of information, particularly with the planning/preparation of our trip and I’ve read all the tips on the doing tours of the Canyon. When it comes to options and time needed for a Grand Canyon tour, there’s no one way to do it.

At the end of the day, it comes down to what you want out of a visit to the Canyon. For us it was simply the experience of doing a day trip by driving on the highway, soaking in the scenery and fresh air. We’ve been lucky our entire trip weather-wise, couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. We booked a Ford Mustang convertible for the day and it was a nice choice! Sure the brand new Lamborghini or Ferrari would have been nice, but the convertible Mustang was perfect.

We left Vegas at around 8.30am. Traffic was fine; weather was perfect, but at this point too cold to put the top down! As soon as we hit the highway, we were taken away by the views that surrounded us.

Prior to jumping in the driver seat, I wasn’t so sure how I’d manage driving with everything in the reverse (right hand side of the road, left hand side driver seat, etc). But as soon as you sit in the driver’s seat, it’s not bad at all. Drivers instinct probably kicks in or something. Only thing I was doing, was reaching for the left hand side when changing into Drive/Reverse whenever we’d stop.

Those of you that have been following this blog, will know how influenced we are by everything American. Mainly TV and movies. When you see so much of this on TV and movies growing up, being here first hand and experiencing it is something else.

The drive was awesome and everything we pictured it to be plus more.

Back to the drive, about an hour into it, we stopped at a scenic lookout of the mountain ranges. There was also a couple of native american’s selling some handmade jewellery. Had a bit of a laugh as we left, noticing the sign after buying a necklace (see pic below). I bought a necklace made of hematite beads and a tiger eye stone. I believe this necklace has given us nothing but good luck, more on that later ;-).

The sign we noticed 'after' buying a tiger eye necklace. lol

Space missing = my lucky tiger eye necklace!

After a couple of touristy shots with the camera, we went back in the Mustang and we headed on our way.

As you drive along route 93, to get to the Grand Canyon west rim (sky walk), you turn into Pierce Ferry road. Just as you turn into this road, you pass through a small town in Dolan Springs. We stopped into a cafe, noticing the “cappuccino” sign, but were turned away as they were closed and weren’t opening till 11am. (we stopped on the way back, still no go!)

Coffee shop that never opened for us! Nice people though.

We went on our merry way without caffeine. Based on the directions we were given and also after some research on a few websites for the skywalk - we were aware that we’d have to stop somewhere and catch a shuttle bus as the pavement on the road stops at some point.

Being in a rental car, we weren’t supposed to be ‘off-road’ at all. As these things go sometimes, we ended up on a dirt road. This then turned into a heavily corrugated road with loose rocks. About 5-10 minutes on the road, we pulled up into the “Grand Canyon Ranch” to seek some directions in case we’d end up on this road for too long.

It was a nice little ranch that offered lunch, tours and horse-back riding. Horse-back riding was actually another thing we wanted to do, so after asking the nice lady there for directions, we thought about doing this on our way back if time permits. So we were told there was only another 7 miles of dirt road and then another 7 miles on a normal road till we reach our destination.

Tents at the ranch


Jail at the ranch. Yes that's someone hung up there. No it's not real, KN kept telling me it was...

Hung prisoner.

There was no point turning around, so we pushed through for those last 7 miles of dirt road. Those 7 miles turned out to be more like 9 miles, but felt like 100 miles of painful driving. The road got worse, only because we were driving a Ford Mustang rental that was fairly low. I’m used to driving a Toyota Prado 4x4, so driving the mustang on this road – as tame as it might be for an ‘off-road’ track, felt like the toughest road I have ever driven.

Every turn I was cussing, praying the car wouldn’t fall to bits. Poor KN had to put up with this for 9 miles, when we finally reached that paved road it was like heaven. Only I was still regretting the drive back.

Another 7 miles we reached the entry point for the skywalk. A cool set up, the tourist centre is in this complex inside a giant dome tent.

Inside was a store selling touristy gifts, and also the desk for buying the skywalk/tour tickets. One thing I didn’t realise, was that you had to buy a ticket with a package that contained the skywalk. I assumed you could simply just do the skywalk, and take whatever time you like on it. What you are offered instead, are a few packages that include visits to some native American reservations, a few different view points of the canyon, and then the skywalk.

At a minimum you’d need to spend about 2 hours for the tour, so unfortunately we didn’t do the actual skywalk/tour. Instead, we opted to head back and go to the ranch, and do the horse-back ride with lunch afterwards.

So we made our way back after buying some momento’s, back on that dirt road that I was dreading. Pulling over on the side, I had to check the car out and found something that made my paranoia worse. The bottom plastic fender was broken off (not by me), obviously by someone else and they had zip ties to hold it together. I suspect this isn’t the first time this car has travelled this path!

While we pulled over, we had to check out this snow scattered all over the place to see if it was real. Of course it was real. Being the easily amused person I am, I also found some snow on top of some poo!

Snow in the desert!?!

Poo snow!

We finally reached the ranch and booked a horse-back ride, what an awesome idea. It only goes for half an hour, but it’s at a nice walking pace and the views of Spirit Mountain and the ranch were really cool. My horse’s name was Ranger, KN’s was Pinball. A dog named Taco also followed us on our trip, and we had a nice tour guide who gave us the background to the ranch and surrounding area. I love how much personality horses have, it’s been years since I’ve been on a horse and I always seemed to get ones that ‘have a thing’. Ranger’s thing was eating. And just stopping for no reason. Funny thing, after a while he got used to me talking to him and giving him a bit of a prompt to keep moving.

Pinball and Ranger

Taco!

Spirit Mountain. In person, you can view faces on the mountain.

After our horsey ride, we went back to the ranch and got some grub. The whole ranch was like a movie set. I ordered the ribs with mash, beans and corn. KN had the pulled pork sliders with chips. Full on lunch, we bought a few things in the store and headed back to the hotel.

Damn good food.

The drive back to Vegas was just as nice. We stopped into town to pick up a few things from WalMart (peanut butter supplies we lost in baggage claims). Afterwards we drove through the strip at night, then dropped off the car at the rental place.

Actually before all that, we went through a drive-thru car wash. All the dirt from that road to the canyon collected on the back of the car, in the end we returned it in one piece, shiny and clean!!

Next up, our last day and final post. Man vs Food breakfast, chocolate satisfaction, burger satisfaction, early flight back home...

Vegas Baby! Part 1

2011-11-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

We made it to Vegas! Only a short stay here (3 days and 3 nights), so I’ll sum up this blog in only a couple of posts.

Prelude

So why Vegas? This was really my thing and something I planned to do years ago, when I was in my early twenties and still heavily into partying, drinking, going out clubbing, gambling, etc. Over the years I guess it remained on my to do list if I was ever to travel, but now that I’m 30 and over a lot of that partying, when we finally arrived, we were a bit perplexed about what to do!

Especially as a couple (no we didn’t get married, you have no idea how many times we’ve been asked this). So the only plan we had was to see as much as possible, and so here it is....

Arrival and Day 1

We arrived that Sunday night from JFK. The flight wasn’t too bad, over 4 hours. It’s amazing how this city is smack bang in the middle of the desert, seeing it from a plan at night is awesome. The flight itself was interesting, there was a couple fighting that nearly had us grounded/turned around. Didn't hear what the lady was yelling about, but she was upsetting others on the plane. We got there in the end anyhow.

As soon as we arrived at the airport you can immediately tell you’re in Vegas. For example, the placement of pokie machines (slot machines as they call them here) inside the airport! To get to the baggage claim/pick up area, you have to catch a tram to the other side of the airport. We did that, picked up our bags and called the shuttle service that we had a voucher for (courtesy of Flight Centre, thanks Carol!).

One thing I didn’t realise is how close the airport is to the strip, so the ride didn’t take long at all. We had a room booked at the Vdara hotel, a nice place located in the City Centre directly opposite to the Aria in the same complex.

This whole area of the strip (City Centre) is new. Nearby is the Bellagio and the City Centre shopping mall “Crystal” I think it was called? We were immediately schooled on a number of things here, being Vegas newbie’s and naive tourists, but more on that later.

We took a stroll through the strip, not knowing our way around, we didn’t get very far. We had a look through the Aria casino, outside on Las Vegas Boulevard and bought dinner (McDonalds...for a McRib). Walked further up and found the first overpass for pedestrians, and walked back through the city centre shops (all flashy and upscale big brand shops like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, etc).

Had to have another one. The one I had in Jersey was made with a cheeseburger bun.

Tired from the day, flight and walk – we ventured back to our hotel and fell asleep.

View from our room at the Vdara. They also had remote controlled curtains here!

Up and early (body clocks still in tune with the east coast), we decided to try out breakfast at the famous Bellagio buffet. Through each casino, you find connecting walkways to the next one. A scenic alternative to walking outside on the Las Vegas boulevard footpath. Walking into the Bellagio walkways, you’re immediately hit with sensory overload. Naturally the first thing that catches our attention, is a cafe with a massive chocolate fountain thing, with liquid chocolate flowing from the ceiling and down through this contraption like rivers of chocolate gold. I thought of this fountain the entire time we were in Vegas. I daydreamed about opening the glass panel and drinking from it daily.

You can't see in this pic, but up higher the chocolate flows down from the ceiling!

That was just the beginning, we didn’t even enter the actual casino yet. Just near the Bellagio Casino lobby, was this garden area displaying different plants, tree’s, bushes. Reading this you’re probably thinking, boring! But check out the pics, another example of how they take things to another level here.

So much work went into that garden display, with maintenance staff always touching it up, could only imagine how much money goes into that place. After leaving the magical fancy garden, we ended up in the lobby area of Bellagio. Again, another display of wowness.

Directly to our left was the Casino, we strolled right in and made our way to the buffet. There was a pretty big line up for the buffet, but it was always moving. Didn’t take too long till we got in, considering how long the line was. Breakfast buffet was around $15 each (cheap), considering how much food there was to choose from and all you can eat!! I can’t even remember what I ate, but it was a lot.

After breakfast we ventured a bit more into the strip, reaching Ceasars Palace this time. Hit again with the same WOW factor, picking out familiar sites from movies we’ve seen (especially from The Hangover).

Two casino’s in half a day doesn’t sound like much, but with so much walking and getting lost within the Casino’s, it dawns on you how much planning you really need to do for this place.... and more time.... and more money!

It was about lunch time and we were in the mood for seafood. Those of you that have been following our blog whilst we were on the East Coast, will know that we love our food and where we can, we have been trying food we’ve seen from various tv shows. Particularly “Man vs Food”, and today we wanted to check out a restaurant known for awesome crawfish and crabs, “Hot n Juicy”.

mmmmm. We were quickly seated and ordered 1lb of crawfish and 1lb of King crab legs, with corn on the cob and potato. Hot n Juicy is the perfect name for this place, heaps of juice and plenty of spice. I’ve never had crawfish like this before, they look like redclaw that we have back home. Massive heads, and teeny weeny bodies, but still yummy and juicy. The King Crab was my favourite, had always wanted to try it, especially after watching that show “World’s deadliest catch”.

I could live on King Crab. There was a massage place next door, being the naive tourists we were, we walked in to check their prices. I had a bit of a sore neck and back, and the massages back at our hotel were insanely over priced.

After walking through the door, we were greeted by an asian lady, wearing a tight skimpy dress. I asked her for their pricing and she glanced over at KN, with a perplexed look on her face. As though she was thinking, “what is this lady doing here?”. When she told us their pricing, while looking oddly at KN, it was pretty obvious what they specialised in. Ahem, moving on...

We were full from lunch and headed back to our hotel. Along the way, we ventured through the Aria casino and other places.... it’s a bit of a blur to be honest. Not from drinking and partying, it’s just there’s so much to these Casino’s, it is really challenging to soak it all in. It’s like your mind is constantly stimulated by the different themes of the Casino’s, you don’t know what to do with yourself.

A bit of gambling here and there, not winning a thing, by the night we crashed in the hotel. I think we skipped dinner being so full, buggered again we fell asleep.

Coming next, ROAD TRIP!! And our last day...

Day 11 - Last big day!

2011-11-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

Prelude

You may have noticed the blog is a couple of days out. You may have also noticed yesterday’s blog had no entry for my earlier reference to a bar visit in Hoboken (was actually in Jersey City in the end). Well it did happen, we’ve just been sleeping in the past couple of days and back to late starts again!

No it wasn’t a huge night, but a late night for us nonetheless, with a bit of alcohol in the mix. So, apologies for the missing entry yesterday. PJ Ryan’s was the name of the bar and it was nice and relaxing. We also brought some burgers and fries with us into the bar, from burger joint called “Five Guys” that my cousin recommended. Best burgers we’ve had in NYC by far!

It was actually on our “to do” list to visit a dive bar in NYC. We see them a lot on TV, naturally we wanted to go to one. This place wasn’t exactly a dive bar, but still a bar. One of my cousins actually chuckled when we mentioned our plan to visit a dive bar, apparently they’re notorious for being dodgy by reputation and getting mugged in?

This place had none of that atmosphere, it was a cool bar. Met some of my cousin’s friends, had I not been sick and tired, we would of had a big night out maybe. It was the first time we sparked someone’s curiosity with our accents since being here. My cousin had a friend who made good attempts at imitating us, funny fellow he was. I should have taken video, there’s something about American’s trying to say the word “Facebook” in an Aussie accent that sounds hilarious.

Back to today’s blog....

We slept in a bit so had a late breakfast in lower Manhattan. The plan today was a visit to Brooklyn, specifically to walk the bridge into Manhattan. So we took the PATH train to 14^th street and found the closest diner we could find for breakfast. We ended up at the "Good Stuff Diner" (109 W 14th St). Another hot breakfast, I ordered the same type of meal KN had at Tom’s Restaurant yesterday and KN had waffles and a sausage?

We’re actually on a plane to Vegas as I write this and I turned to ask KN through my laptop screen because I can’t hear a thing. She confirmed yes, waffles and sausage.

We sat on the stools in the diner and ate away. Food was delicious and I was curious as to the other customers ordering alcohol late in the morning (KN confirms it was Saturday, people with hangovers). I saw two orders of bloody Mary’s go out and another two orders of some kind of champagne with orange juice. I’m sure there’s a name for that, I just don’t know it.

After breakfast, I ordered a latte to go. Didn’t attempt to drink it till we got to Brooklyn, because the gentleman steamed the milk to molten lava temperature. A short ride into Brooklyn, we made our way to the bridge. As usual, I tried to bring up Google maps, but it's so damn slow if you don't have proper 3G access (T Mobile on an Aussie iPhone is basically on the EDGE network).

Just outside the subway, there was a map on a wall somewhere pointing out the Brooklyn Bridge, so we followed that instead. It looked fairly clear on the map, but walking up the road following the streets that were named on the map, we weren’t 100% sure we were going the right way. Another tourist also walking near us, was not so sure either. Interestingly, he asked us for directions first, I replied with a kind, “Sorry this is our first time here, we’re also tourists”. He smiled and went his merry way. We ended up following him for a bit, because we were all heading for the Brooklyn Bridge. As we got closer, the street intersections near the bridge throw you off a bit. So we were kind of following each other for a while, swapping roles of navigation leader after crossing different roads.

We found the bridge with the pedestrian walkway, only to be thrown off by how far away in the opposite direction the entrance seemed to be. So we ended up in front of the other tourist, who disappeared, but mysteriously we ended up at the traffic lights to the entrance, and then he was in front of us?

Near the walkway entrance and said tourist we followed, then followed us, then followed...

At the beginning of the walkway, we strolled on at a steady pace. The weather was perfect again and it was a nice walk. Picture here and there, we approached the beginnings of the bridge. I forgot there was refurbishments going on, so on various sections of the bridge the view is cut off by galvanised steel.

Lovely view, shot taken by KN

You could still see over the steel walls for most the walk anyhow, past the half way mark at the different viewpoints, you have the full view anyhow. Really nice views, could definitely see how this would be a nice walk heading into the evening, walking into Manhattan.

Closer to the other end, you get the locals selling art work (sketches of the bridge), the usual stall for drinks/food, bike rentals now that you’ve already done the walk (they should have them at both ends!), and the random crazy dude contemplating life on the bridge with a mop on his head.

Yes, random crazy dude sitting on the bridge with a mop on his head, I have evidence....

Mop head man

I wonder what he contemplates on the Brooklyn Bridge everyday...

We reached the lower end of Manhattan, same area near Wall St that we ventured through yesterday and made our way back onto the PATH at the World Trade Centre station to go back to the hotel.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the memorial site, but did get a good look at the construction of the freedom towers. For those of you interested in travelling here, I’ll say it again, the Jersey City area is so convenient. The PATH WTC station is still going through some construction work, but is open and running trains. This station is huge, and is only a couple of stops away from where we were staying (Courtyard Marriot – Jersey City).

Back at the hotel, we had plans to catch up with family again. First stop, Hoboken to check out the Cake Boss bakery (Carlo’s Bake Shop), to pick up some cake for my cousin’s kids who are big fans of the show – before making our way to Liberty State Park.

We arrived in Hoboken and this place is something else. The building architecture makes the place stand out and really helps feature all the stores, restaurants, shopping spots, and living apartments in general. Pizza store after Pizza store, restaurant after restaurant, shop after shop, I can see why people choose to live here.

While looking for a parking spot, we noticed a long line of people in front of a pharmacy directly across the road. Which seemed odd, because there was another shorter line in front of the bakery? After finding a parking spot, we made our way to the bakery and lined up in the shorter line. A few minutes later, one of the staff from the bakery comes out to ask if we all have a ticket. Err, no we say. Please make your way to the line across the street and wait to get a ticket!

The line up in front of the pharmacy!

This place was so popular and busy; they needed two lines to serve customers. We made our way to the other longer line and waited. After a bit of a wait, the line all of a sudden migrates across the street, woo hoo!

Forty five seconds later the line migrates back, so we all kind of do this slow shuffle backwards to allow the crowd to move back. Throughout this amusing people shuffle up and down the street, a food cart vendor was making comments to the crowd, about using common sense. Maybe we were all just lost in the line up process, or just daydreaming about cake. Or maybe he was just annoyed the crowd was blocking his food cart.

At this stage it was obvious this line wasn’t moving anywhere fast, so a few of us decided to go for a walk and have some pizza for a late lunch. We settled for a pizza shop that had plenty of choice, right near the bakery. Ordered two slices, one pepperoni and one chicken with this soft white mozzarella cheese. I know I had some pizza at Times Sq that I rated highly and this is a big call. The pizza we had at Hoboken is the best pizza I have ever had in my life. Period.

The base was thin, but not too thin. It had a crunch to it, but was fluffy with texture in the middle. The sauce was delicious, cheese plentiful and delicious, everything all together was awesome. I wish we had this kind of pizza at home. There is a place called “New York Slice Pizzeria” back home, I’ve had it several times. I think I’m qualified now to criticise them for that name. Taste nothing like this, it pales in comparison.

I know its Hoboken and technically not NYC, but still. From what I’ve been told a number of pizza shops here in Hoboken were based in Brooklyn originally and then moved or opened up shop at Hoboken to meet the demands of this growing community. So it makes sense this pizza was incredibly awesome.

We finished our pizza, walked across the road to see how far along the line my cousin and his kids moved, maybe 3 or 4 steps. Maybe that was wishful thinking; I don’t think they moved at all. We called it quits for the time being, deciding to come back another time.

Not far away is the Liberty State Park, where you can catch the different ferries to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Unfortunately the Statue was recently closed for cleaning, so we couldn’t go on any of the tours to see the statue. Liberty State Park however is close enough to get a decent view, ahem, of her backside. You also get a view of Ellis Island, plus the park is HUGE with a massive playground for kids.

Ellis Island

Statue in the background. A lot closer than it looks.

Arriving at the park, we walked over to the boardwalk and took some photos and soaked in the view. I came up with the idea of having a pose with the statue, facing the same direction (back to the camera). I was joking, saying this could be another planking thing (taking photos with iconic statues or people or something else, facing the same direction but having your back to the camera). The photo turned out to be pretty cool, thanks to my cousin’s great photography work.

We also visited the “Empty Sky” memorial. If you haven’t heard of it, it was opened recently and is a memorial for the residents of NJ who passed away in the 9/11 incident. The memorial itself is two walls standing in parallel, facing the same direction and location as the original World Trade Centre towers. So standing in front of these walls, with the skyline in the background, they are in the same position as the original towers.

On these walls, are the names of all the victims from 9/11 that came from NJ. In front of the memorial, they also had some steel frames from the WTC towers.

Getting late in the afternoon, we decided to have an early dinner at an Asian Seafood Buffet restaurant called “Minado”. It isn’t too far from Hoboken, but mix in some traffic and the drive gets interesting. We made it there eventually, step inside, and you can see what makes this place so popular.

We have buffet’s back home and Asian restaurants, but nothing mixed like this. This place had so much choice, from sushi, fried rice, baby back ribs, crab legs, different fried fish, salads, the list goes on. Everything I ate was delicious, another restaurant I wish we had back home. We ate till we felt sick. Not from the food, from being too full.

After the awesome dinner with family, saying a few goodbyes, we headed back to Hoboken to see if we could make it into Carlo’s Bakery again. It was around 8.30pm, the bakery shuts at 9pm, we made it.

They actually had the doors shut and had a few customers inside, but they were nice enough to let us in. My cousin’s kids contemplated over which cake they wanted to choose, while we looked at all the different baked goods they had. So much choice, but still full on food, it was hard to order anything. The girls picked a cake, I ordered a slice of pumpkin pie, a few obligatory shots in the cake shop and we made our way back to the hotel.

KN and I were beat yet again, a long but awesome day, we knew this would be our last full day and night in NYC, so we made one last trip into Times Square to see it all again and do some shopping. The lights, the shops, the atmosphere is something that keeps you going back and definitely wouldn’t get sick of it.

Last hot dog in Times Sq (KN was taking pics of me again shoving food in my mouth).

Even though we’ve seen and done all we wanted to, there’s still so much more to this city we are yet to see. We bought a few more NYC touristy items, shirts and so on. I bought some more things for the kids and I, tired from the day we decided to head back to the hotel.

An awesome way to end our time in NYC, today as I write this we’re on a plane to Vegas. Today, or rather this morning was spent mainly in Jersey City (for breakfast, more shopping and a last goodbye to family). So I probably won’t blog on our short time here today.

In a day or two the next blog will begin in Vegas, for the few days we’ll be spending here. If we can fit it in, we’ll be attempting a road trip to Grand Canyon (renting a car), horseback riding in the desert not far from the strip, and anything else we can cram into the next few days before heading back home! Once we get back home to Brisbane, I’ll also be uploading a few video’s I took on my iPhone, which puts some more context behind some of my blog posts since we’ve arrived in the States.

Stay tuned...

Day 10 - PK occupy Wall St...no not really

2011-11-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

I like how this blog can be interactive, on our tenth day we added the famous Tom’s Restaurant (based on the diner in the TV show Seineld) to our list, thanks to “FiveIron4Life” of the tripadvisor forums for reminding me!

Obviously this was our first stop for breakfast. It was yet agai very good value, very good food. I’m still constantly surprised by how much cheaper everything is here, especially food. I ordered 2 eggs, sausage, bacon and pancakes. Mmmmmmm, that sausage was good!! They served orange juice in these cute little glasses, that looked like shot glasses, you’d almost think they put a bit of vodka in it.

From memory, I think KN had scrambled eggs and corned beef hash, it looked equally delish – apparently it was too. After breakfast, I took up the suggestion of taking a tourist shot in front of the restaurant. Sorry I tried my best to make a ‘natural’ walk-by pose, but failed, so took a stock standard tourist pose.

My attempt at a natural walk by pose (fail!)

Fall back to standard tourist pose :)

Today was a rather random day, we’ve seen and done nearly all the things we set out to do in NYC, so we took our time today and just made random plans. Next stop, lower side of Manhattan to Wall St!

Soon as we got out of the subway, I had my usual hankering for caffeine. As convenience would have it again, there was a mobile coffee shop on wheels! A peculiar looking orange truck, with Love and Coffee written all over it....of course that grabbed my attention! Tried it....and loved it. Another awesome coffee I’ve found in NYC, how you keep track of this one though, I have no idea?!

We hung out for a bit at a public seating area nearby, while we contemplated our next move, drinking my coffee and eating a chocolate donut – while I abuse Google Maps for being so slow and chewing up my iPhone battery. We decided to head into the main touristy area of wall st, and find the Century 21 store for a bit more shopping. Found it at Cortland St (nr Church St) and also found some bargains. Bought a pair of Timberland’s and a whole bunch of business shirts for work. Seriously cheap, same brand/type back home, at one fifth the price! Averaging $20 a shirt!!

Left the store with to humongous bags and stumbled by the area being occupied by....I don’t even know how to describe the group. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what this group is protesting, I do but I don’t. I understand what I hear on the news, with the whole corporate greed and unemployment rates, but being here in person I’m totally confused.

A lot of their signs just seemed like random crap to me and half of them looked either stoned, drunk, or not all there. It was all peaceful I guess, freedom of speech and all, maybe I’m just getting old and don’t get it?

One of the occupiers who spent some time doing his make up today

This occupier was yelling something about something.

Camp site of the occupiers, I was hoping to smell bushfires and bbq sausages cooking

Magic Pimps are also occupying Wall st. This is serious business people!

Moving on, we took a good look around the area, taking photo’s of some cool looking buildings, the freedom tower’s being built and just absorbing it all.

After our lovely tour of the Wall St area, we headed back to Times Sq for some more touristy gawking. Can never get sick of this place! We ventured into Red Lobster and shared one of the platters. Was very good seafood, and at a very reasonable price again. The layout of the restaurant was very flash, and being situated right in Times Sq, I was expecting much higher priced food! Was not disappointed, very pleased, and we tucked right into the lobster, shrimp, fries, salad, biscuits (flavoured with garlic butter, mmm mmmm).

Full up on food yet again, we headed back to the hotel.

Well rested, we felt like watching a movie that came out “Tower Heist”. So we watched it at the Newport Plaza, our first ‘movie’ in the states. My sister had mentioned to me years ago, that in the US, you guys like to put actual butter in your popcorn. Back home we don’t really have that, not at cinema’s/movie theatres anyway. Unless you bring a stick of butter with you. So I had to see it for myself and sure enough, there was a butter ‘flavour’ dispenser!

Yes, I dispensed butter flavour all over the popcorn. And yes, it was delicious. Uh huh, I know I’m eating a lot of crap, but I don’t really care over two weeks for a holiday!!

The movie was pretty good, can never go wrong with Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller. The annoying part was a young teen, talking, ranting, yelling through the whole movie. I wish I totally doused by popcorn with butter, I could have shared it with him, all over his fat head.

Was an experience all together! We’ve really done so much more than we planned to do and it’s been an awesome time. Two more days to go and don’t want to leave!

Tomorrow, Brooklyn baby, Liberty Park, more Hoboken!

Day 9 - All about the Letterman!

2011-11-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

Today was all about the Letterman show. One thing I forgot to mention on yesterday’s blog, earlier in the week KN registered us for the online raffle to get Letterman tickets. We got picked, but had to answer trivia questions which I totally forgot about. I actually missed their call, so rang back and was asked the questions (which caught me off guard). I got them all wrong. Woops!

I was so disappointed, I am a David Letterman fan, but it has been years since I’ve been a solid viewer of the show. The questions they asked were “what store does Letterman go to visit now and then the past 10 years”, I answered “The Pizza Store” – WRONG! It was the Deli. Second question was “what colour hair does the announcer have, who introduces Letterman on every show”. I said grey, WRONG, was red...of course!

So after that disappointment yesterday, the lady from the Letterman show mentioned we could still go in a raffle for tickets the next morning, but we’d have to line up and enter at the box office from 9.30am. Which we did, but first we had breakfast.

A quick meal at “Europa Cafe”, across the road from the Ed Sullivan theatre on Broadway. Another quick, cheap, easy meal – plenty of this around! After breakfast, we lined up at the theatre, filled out a form, and were advised they will make phone calls to the successful applications from 10am – 12pm.

As we had to be around to take the call, and near the theatre if we win, we decided to spend the morning at Times Sq for more souvenir shopping. There’s plenty of these stores around naturally and it’s interesting how the pricing for the same items drop the further away from times square you go.

While shopping around, KN had to get her nails done, so we looked in a nail shop run by the usual Asian nail peoples. The pricing was apparently over the top, interestingly we found a place around the corner who were nearly less than half the price. Conveniently they also did men's haircuts, particularly head shaves for men, which was perfect for me.

FYI I shave my own head with clippers back home once a week, didn’t bring my clippers overseas as there was no point, so always planned to visit a barber shop at least once during this trip. So I had my hair clipped. A young chap by the name of John clipped my hair, was very precise with how he cut it, and styled it up a bit too!

I only know of one place back home that does these kinds of haircuts for men back home, normally it makes more sense for me to do it myself, but this guy makes it such an art form I couldn’t say no. So if you’re ever in town and need your hair done or your nails did, check them out!

While I was getting my hair cut at Cohen’s, I got the call from the Letterman show! Two tickets for KN and I, simply had to pick the tickets up between 1-2pm! There are a number of lists, under the name of the page’s, and all based on seating areas in the theatre. We were on Karen’s “Gold List”. So after our trip to Cohen's, we made our way back to the Ed Sullivan theatre and picked up a couple of hot dogs from one of the many food carts in NYC.

Made it to the theatre and the line was growing already, just to pick up tickets.

We get there, receive our tickets, and the way the system works is they write on each ticket issued in numerical order – and within the colour coding of the lines (Red & Blue). Depending on which list you came under, your seat allocation will either be to the left, middle or right – up close, up back, or upstairs on another platform. Either way the theatre is set up so you are nice and close.

After picking up our tickets, they split us up in groups, where one of the lead page’s hypes up the group and advises us on some of the ground rules. No camera’s, no yelling, heaps of energy, and to come back at 2.20pm and line up in our designated groups.

So we headed back into times sq for a bit more window shopping and I decided to try a NY pizza. We stopped at the “Famous Famiglia Pizzeria” in times square. My first slice of NY pizza since we’ve been here and it was awesome. I know a lot of the locals will say there’s so much choice, don’t have to go to Times Sq to taste real pizza, but it did the job for me!

There’s a pizzeria back home called “New York Slice Pizzaria”. It pales in comparison, this pizza was so good. The sauce was so nice, plenty of nice cheese, meat, and the base is nothing like pizza I’ve had back home.

Getting closer to 2pm, we made our way back to the theatre. On the way, we stopped by a cupcake shop we walked past earlier that we had to check out. It’s called “Crumbs Bake Shop”, on Broadway right near the Ed Sullivan theatre! KN ordered a Red velvet and peanut butter cup cakes, were absolutely delicious.

We finally arrive at the theatre for the third time today and get in line as directed. It felt like we were at a line for customs at the airport again. So many checks of ID, tickets, so on and so forth. When they let us in the building, there was another line up before we could actually go in the theatre. The same lead page was hyping the crowd up, laying down the law again, but this time emphasising on how they need the audience to laugh and cheer as much as possible. Even if Letterman isn’t funny, we had to laugh at everything he says. There was so much of this reminder, I felt as though I’d have to force myself to laugh the moment he opens his mouth.

The wait in line felt incredibly long. It was starting to heat up and others in line were beginning to get frustrated. I was feeling even worse (sick) and was contemplating going outside and just bailing on the whole show! I pushed through, finally they let us in and showed us to our seats.

We ended up on the fourth row from the front, and like the SNL studio, we were surprised by how much smaller the theatre actually is. So many lights in this place, the set/background/props look totally different to when it’s on TV, I was literally gob smacked for a few minutes just soaking the place in. Meanwhile feeling like I was going to pass out and dreading the thought of having to leave the show while filming.

But the show was about to start and this is how it works. They have a host/comedian, that warms up the crowd (for the life of me I can’t remember his name). He was funny though and did an awesome job. It’s then followed by another warm up “video”, featuring Alec Baldwin, and other crew from the show. It was hilarious, couldn’t stop laughing through it.

Once that finishes, the band (CBS Orchestra) come out and play a couple of songs, followed by Paul Shaffer who comes out and joins the band. When they’re done, Letterman comes out!

Off the camera, he also warms the crowd up, picks someone from the crowd and starts a random conversation and makes jokes. Someone from the crowd raises his hand for a question, who comes from San Diego, and Letterman works his magic and just comes out with the jokes.

As soon as he’s done with that, he runs backstage, puts his suit coat on – then they start recording on camera and does his usual routine. Starting off with a joke that the viewers from home wouldn’t get (now I do), saying something along the lines of “You know something, here’s a tip, do yourself a favour and don’t have a conversation with someone from San Diego”. Haha, funny guy.

The rest of the show is just as you see it on TV. But during the commercial breaks, it’s cool how they change the sets around as they need, move the props/backdrop, and the band plays a couple of numbers and they’re amazing too. On this show, the celebrities interviewed were Mark Harmon (NCIS), Matt Lauer (NBC Today Show) – he did a skit with top 10 travel tips and it was funny, Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead) and the Eli Young band (a country band I’ve never heard of before).

Once the show was finished, we were beat, and made our way back to the hotel to just hang out and rest. I was still feeling sick, but the Letterman show was definitely the highlight of the trip for me so far.

Tomorrow ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, stay tuned for a “Seinfeld” breakfast, coffee round 2, PK occupying wall street and a bar in Hoboken!

Day 8 - Central Park tour, Katz Deli and....Coffee!!

2011-11-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

Another glorious day in New York City! We headed straight into Manhattan to Grand Central Station, to see the place and have breakfast there. Like every other place we’ve seen so far in NYC, being here in person puts things in perspective in a big way. Grand Central Station is massive. The main concourse is so much bigger than we expected it to be.

Outside entrance into Grand Central

One of the many hallways

One of the stairs leading into the main concourse

Famous main concourse

It’s like the heart of the subway system, connecting all the different lines, it’s not hard to get lost as a first time tourist. There’s also the main dining concourse at Grand Central station where we had breakfast, with quite a few food stores to choose from. We settled for Juniors and had a cheap and easy breakfast.

KN ordered a bagel with cream cheese and a fruit cup, I had 2 eggs, corned beef and home fries. Was pretty good for cheap food again. Yes I tasted the coffee, was just the standard filtered coffee, no need for further comment.

Talking about what to do over breakfast, we thought we’d try Central Park again and ‘attempt’ to find some of the key spots we’ve seen in movies. The thing with Central Park is it is so freaking huge! As tourists you know it is going to be, you see it on a map, yeah it’s big. But when you’re actually here and walk around the park trying to find certain areas, it quickly dawns on you how much walking there is to do. Especially when you don’t know where you’re going!

I think our brains started compensating for the lack of real knowledge of the park and where the movie spots were. Because we were certain we saw locations from a number of movies, till we were schooled by a proper tour guide :).

**Caffeinated Interlude**

Prior to Central Park, I had to ‘try’ and find another coffee shop/cafe that does a good espresso. Not filled with much hope, we stumbled past a place that didn’t really stand out at first, but some uncontrollable force demanded me to stop and look twice. “Cafe K” (8 E. 48^th St near 5^th Ave.). I ordered a regular latte and watched the barrista make my coffee. He knew what he was doing. I tasted it. I felt the chemical imbalance of caffeine in my veins return to normal. Take notes fellow travellers looking for coffee in NYC!

Cafe K. GO THERE!

Back to Central Park....

So we decided to go on a bike tour of Central Park, hosted by a friendly chap with an accent I couldn’t quite figure out. He seemed to know everything there is to know about movie/celebrity trivia in relation to the park and NYC in general, so it was pretty cool. They do the tours in the park on bicycles with a cart on the back. It definitely beats walking around aimlessly, with no sense of direction and your mind making you believe “yes, this is where they shot this scene for this movie”, when really it’s just another patch of grass with a similar looking tree.

Unfortunately one of the main areas used a lot for a number of films was closed, mainly for clean up in preparation for the NY Marathon being held this Sunday. But we got to see a lot of other areas for a lot of movies, too many to list here. We also saw the area with the fountain that they shot “MasterChef” (for those of you back home that were fans and remember the NYC segment).

The fountain from the show "Friends"

Building in the background with two towers from Ghostbusters

Big Daddy scene where Adam Sandler trips over a rollerblader with a stick


John Lennon's apartment where Yoko still lives. Also where he was shot out front.

Memorial at Strawberry fields

After about an hour the tour came to an end, we hopped off at the lower west side of the park, to venture back into town and get inspired for lunch. It didn’t take much to get inspired, one of the places we had on the list to try was a pastrami sandwich from “Katz’s Delicatessen”. Seen this on so many movies and TV shows, it was a must.

Didn’t take long to find the place, walk through the doors, and WOW. Place is as busy and packed as we’ve seen it on TV. They have a system which works, you enter, take a ticket, then go to the counters you want to order food from. One counter for the sandwiches, one counter for food from the grill, and another for fries and soda/drinks. You hand them the ticket after ordering for them to mark, and you pay on your way out when done.

We ordered one pastrami sandwich with mustard and American cheese, with a side of pickles and fries. Sandwich was more than I was expecting, it was incredibly awesome. The pastrami was so tasty and juicy, goes well with the mustard and cheese. The fries were really nice too, I could have eaten more. I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe we should go back before we leave :).

Afterwards, met up with another one of my cousin’s who lives nearby for dinner.

She took us to a place, directly across the road from our hotel, to a very nice Cuban restaurant called “Azucar Cuban Cuisine & Cigars”. Yes, ‘and cigars’! We ordered from the tapas menu, so we could have a wide variety of food. Neither of us had tried Cuban food before, so it was a great idea. Our waiter was very flamboyant, funny, enthusiastic, and constantly had a smile on his face. He was also very persuasive, convincing us to buy certain dishes!

Guacamole with banana chips..it works!

Bacardi coconut flan

Hard to see, but there's a number of dishes there. Croquettes, shrimp, chorizo sausage dishes...

I couldn’t really compare Cuban food to anything else, it’s definitely delicious and something I’d go back for! After a flan dessert and finishing our Mojito’s, we headed back home to crash and burn.

Another BIG THANK YOU to my cousin for taking us out to dinner!! Tomorrow, more midtown, my hair gets a treatment (yes, what little hair I have), and making it into the Letterman show!! Even after failing the trivia questions!!!

Day 7 - Midtown to Harlem

2011-11-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sleeping pattern has stabilised somewhat, woke up at around 8AM, we got ready and decided to settle for breakfast across the road here in Jersey City. Fast, cheap and easy, a place called Seattle Coffee Roasters. We had two breakfast meals with a coffee & latte, for $15. Nothing flashy food-wise, but good enough for the price. But on the coffee...

It’s only our second day here in NYC, but what I’ve noticed so far, is we are spoilt for choice when it comes to coffee back home (Brisbane, Australia). I was surprised at how hard it’s been to find a decent espresso here. Since arriving in the US, including our time in NYC, I find Americans in general are contempt with the straight coffee (filtered/instant, whatever you want to call it). All the cafe’s here evolve more around the food/choice, rather than the coffee, then food next.

The closest thing I could find, although only being here two days, is Starbucks. Okay so I’m a coffee snob, it happens when you work in the Brisbane CBD for 10 years or so, if only American’s (New Yorkers in particular) knew what they were missing. It would be a business opportunity here for sure, got me thinking about it.

Anyhow, my point is this has been a bit of a food mission for me and it still is (to taste/eat/try all the foods I know of we don’t have back home), but on the mission list now is to find a decent espresso! To start off day two, at “Seattle Coffee Roasters”, was another failure for me..but i’m determined to find a decent coffee!

After breakfast, straight into the PATH station to catch a train into Manhattan. First stop, Rockerfeller Plaza to do the “Top of the Rock” observation deck. For those of you who don’t know, you get a decent 360 degree view of NYC. A lot of history with the Rockerfeller Plaza that I didn’t know, so it was cool and educational.

View of central park from TOTR

Meter actually ran out, KN insisted I pretend to look through the thing, lol.

Back downstairs to do the NBC studio tours, another side mission was to find a toilet/restroom, also another challenge for convenience in NYC. We found one, booked our tickets, and went on the 1.15pm tour. Turned out to be a small group of 7. They start off the tour with a video on the history of NBC Universal, and the group is hosted by a couple of NBC Page’s. If you’re a fan of the show “30 Rock” which we are, you’ll know what the NBC Pages are. If you don’t, they’re basically post-grads that work on placement programs for NBC for jobs in news, entertainment and production. Part of their program is hosting tour guides in the studio.

Skating rink at the Rockerfeller Centre

The tour was pretty cool, highlights would have to be seeing the studio for Saturday Night Live, and the end of the tour where they have a small set up with camera’s and a green screen where you can read a mock up news story and have it recorded on dvd, and a photo op at a news desk.

I only saw one celebrity that I recognised on the way out, a well known drummer called “QuestLove” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questlove), who has produced music with a lot of RnB/Hip Hop artists. He had the whole Afro with comb in hair going on. I tapped KN on the shoulder and pointed out to him, and he looked at me, pretending to not notice he’d been spotted.

Unfortunately we couldn’t take any pictures with a camera, but I took some mental images like the guy from the movie “Hall Pass”, sorry can’t share. But you can use your imagination.

After the NBC Studio Tour, I had a hankering for some soul food. A place I’ve heard of plenty of times before and also featured on the Australian TV show “Master Chef”, a restaurant by the name Sylvia’s. Tried a cab uptown instead this time, wasn't too bad, didn't take long and totalled $20 inc tip.

I ordered the bbq ribs, mac n cheese and collard greens. KN had the fried chicken, potato salad, and candied yams. It was all delish! Waiters were nice and friendly, took a while to order, but was worth the wait. Interestingly there was another group of Aussie tourists behind us, could hear them talking with their accents, and we lost a bit of tourist coolness as we were in the proximity of another group of Aussies.

You can't see the cornbread coz I ates it all, so good!

Full on soul food, we exited to replenish our tourist coolness, moving away from other Aussies. Caught a train back to midtown I guess, to check out “Serendipity3”. Along the way we stopped into another cafe, ordered a latte. It tasted like hot milk, that’s all, another disappointment for me. I’m still determined to find a decent coffee. Back to Serendipity, a well known place featured in a number of chick flicks that I’ve never seen.... Okay maybe I saw bits and pieces of ‘some’ of the movies, when KN was watching them. One in particular stars Michelle Pfiefer, can’t recall the name.

I saw other customers with these massive Sundae’s, packed with so much ice cream and fudge, it’s crazy! We were still full from Sylvia’s, but for strange reason, I ordered a “Can’t say No Sundae”. I read the menu, and said NO. But when the waiter asked for our order, the words from his mouth said “Excellent Sir, Can’t say no Sundae”. Damn those over-sized hypnotic menu’s with subliminal messages through wavy funky fonts. The menu’s were so crazy, reflected by the decor of this restaurant, that KN couldn’t even find the list of frozen hot chocolates. The waiter eventually pointed it out, she ordered an original frozen hot chocolate.

I have the iPhone 4S, the flashy new camera caters for guilt trips. That Sunday is actually freaking HUGE!

The best part of that Sundae was the 'humble pie' inside it, which is basically the same peanut butter stuff you find in peanut butter cups, mmmmmmm.

After finishing our dessert (the small portions of it), we tried to walk off our indigestion to the subway and retire to our hotel room. Full of food, dessert, and tired from walking throughout the day, we finally made it back. A short while later, we decided to venture into the Newport Mall to pick up a few things, but also to take a sneak peak.

Another big mall (Simon Mall – Newport Plaza) and so convenient to this hotel. I’m surprised this place isn’t more popular than it already is. After a quick look through, we did call it a night, passed out again like a light. This city has it all! But decent coffee... or will I be proven wrong tomorrow?

Day 6 - NYC Baby!

2011-11-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

We finally made it! And we also slept in!! Our body clocks seemed to have adjusted and wanted more sleep to catch up. Hotel room is nice enough, bed is very comfy, and the curtains definitely black out the room. We woke up at nearly 9am and quickly got ready to head into NYC.

Those of you planning on a trip here and want convenience but at a good price, staying in Jersey City is definitely the way to go. We're here at the Courtyard Marriot (Newport Jersey City) and it's directly next to the PATH station which takes you right into Manhattan in 10 minutes. Directly across the road is a big shopping mall too!

So we headed off into NYC, first on the list, breakfast at ihop.

I ordered a breakfast special with smoked sausages, eggs, biscuits (for the aussies reading this, will explain shortly), 3-stack pancakes, hash brown (to share). KN had 2 eggs, bacon, french toast and pancakes. Was pretty good, average pricing. The biscuits we were keen to try. Back home, biscuits are more or less 'cookies' (as Americans would call them). So naturally, seeing a menu for breakfast, lunch or dinner with 'biscuits' is amusing. When they came out, we saw that they were more like our 'scones'. Very fluffy, melt in your mouth. Depending on the quality, they can be quite starchy. These ihop biscuits were starchy. Had much better ones later in the day from another food chain :).

Yummy yummy in my tummy

To get to ihop was relatively painless. The subway system makes a lot of sense and I was finding myself using this iphone app "Hopstop" all day to figure out which trains to catch to which destinations, very handy. Google maps on the other hand has been rather slow and buggy, sucking my battery dry whenever I use it. Moving on, we decided to head into the heart of the city - Times Square.

Checking the trains/times, I found my phone decided to start using "WebGuard", which is T-Mobile's internet content filter. It basically started blocking all the important websites, like.....Facebook. And uh...erm... Facebook. So I couldn't check in anywhere, oh my god how painful it was, not being able to leave evidence of our travel destinations. Naturally our next stop was a T-Mobile store to get it unlocked, because the only way to do it online was to provide the last 4 digits of your social security number. Being Australian and not having one, my random entry of 1234 or 4321 failed to work. And so we arrived at the T-Mobile store.

The gentleman who served us, clearly displayed his frustration at this request. Whilst on the phone to the operators who remove the WebGuard, we found this was his 40th request in 2 days, since they turned the feature on - all of them tourists not from the US. Poor fella, we were on our merry way once done.

We decided to go to Central Park first, being such a beautiful day. Typical tourists, we got excited seeing a squirrel come right up near us, digging the ground for something. Of course we took pictures, it was a cute looking thing.

There was still some snow scattered around the place from the other day and a lot of fallen/broken tree's and branches. Moving through the park, we found a couple of spots we recognised from movies, including the ice skating rink. We also paid a visit to the Central Park Zoo. That was pretty cool, not as many animals as we thought there would be. The seal we saw smelt fishy and he/she had one eyelid shut the whole time, as if it was winking at us permanently. We were also meant to go to a 4D movie about penguins, but never made it.

Fish breath Seal

After our trip to the zoo, we headed out and made our way to times square. Walking out the park on the southern end you find a number of gentleman lined up with a horse and carriage, with plenty of horse shit for you to smell. They have these clever bags hooked up underneath the horses ass which catches all the shit. I'm surprised this hasn't caught on for tourists to wear, with the lack of public toilets around the place. You could literally walk around and just shit as you please... Yeah, maybe a bit too much of a convenience, excuse that disgusting thought (don't worry no pics).

I lie, here's a pic. No poo though.

By this stage my phone had full internet access again *sigh of relief* and we made our way to times square, to see it in the day first and venture back in at night. On the way, we got out of the train in the subway and got pulled into a group of dancers performing. A group of African American dancers, promptly reminding you they're black throughout their show and their expectation of tips before we leave...also reminding us of their blackness and they can run fast - if you choose not to tip.

They were really good dancers and their 'lead' dancer was pretty funny. He seemed kinda gay, which I found interesting. He had an alpha male persona, but was charismatic and flashed his hands around with peculiar facial expressions. He clarified this for me, when he randomly mentions to the crowd that he's not gay. Okay then. After the show, yes we did tip, and continued on.

Said non-homosexual dancer

**Update** I actually had a whole section here that mysteriously disappeared, so I'll have to attempt to rewrite what I had here. ***Update #2*** I just updated my udpate, and this damn blog site keeps deleting it!! Try again...

We arrived at Times Square, and were immediately drawn to all the sights, shops, scenery, everything. Back home, you see this all on TV, but you can never appreciate the full scale of it till you are here. You quickly realise where the tourist traps are, after the fact. Like getting sucked in by those cartoonic characters you grew up watching as a kid. Mickey, Minnie, Elmo, how you took advantage of me. Innocently walking by, we saw them, and naturally being first time tourists - you take a photo with them.

As you start to walk away, these warm, welcoming characters quickly change their cartoonic voices to deep manly desperate calls of "TIP, TIP!!". At which point you go, "oooohh, okay", and tip them :). Tricky characters, lucky I didn't tickle Elmo, who knows what he would have asked of me next.

"You there, unsuspecting tourist!"

(Mickey/Elmo) .oO(Suckers)

We were so surprised by how much bigger this place is, not just the city itself, but Times Square. Back home, you see it on TV, you know it's big, flashy, lights and all. But you never realise the full scale of it till you come here. After countless times of checking google maps, I soon realised that it stretches from 42nd to 47th Street, along Broadway between 5th/7th Avenues. In this entire section, is shop after shop, store after store, billboards everywhere and restaurants galore.

In my absent minded tourist gawking at all the sites, I got sucked in by a local rapper, telling me his spiel of his demo CD and officially naming me "P. Boogie". That is now my official NYC name, according to....."Square Free". I think that's his rapper name. Anyhow, I got a signed CD, and tipped him. Was worth it for an official NYC name, I think P Boogie will catch on.

We spent a lot of time going up and down times square just looking in shops and absorbing it all. After all the walking and sightseeing, decided to head back to the hotel room for a much needed break. Although we adjusted our body clocks sleeping patter, our eating habits have been somewhat askew. Late breakfast, late lunch or no lunch - replaced with dinner.

Once we were rested enough, we headed back into midtown to look at it all again, and get some grub!

First stop was the "Original Soup Man" store. For the Seinfeld fans you know what this is about, those of you who didn't watch Seinfeld, shame on you - NO SOUP FOR YOU! Although not the actual original store, it was from the same owner and relocated to W 55St & 8th Ave. We both bought a lobster bisque, but I ordered a special with a T-Shirt and a large bisque. Mmmmm, was soooo good, hit the spot. We actually brought it with us back to times square, then ate it at one of the public seating areas in the square. An awesome idea, sit back relax, eat/drink and soak it all in again - this time with bright neon lights.

Lobster bisque, also came with bread, halloween chocolate and a banana!

Sensory overload, it's such a cool thing. I wonder what it would be like walking times square drunk... No we weren't drunk in these pics, but here's a few around Times Square at night.

After the soup, we looked around some more, and decided to visit another junk food spot on the must do
list "Popeyes Chicken". It was actually a bit of a mission finding it, I blame Google maps. We were following directions for a store that was permanently closed. Eventually we found one and it was worth it for me. It's a bit crunchier than our KFC Hot n Spicy, but tastes different. In a good way. The fries are awesome too. And, the biscuit was better than the one at ihop :).

Crunchy and juicy chicken. mmmm.. Definitely going again.

We were beat after this and decided to call it a night. Back to the subway, and back at the hotel. Passed out like a light and slept in a bit again the next morning! Things I've learned today:

Learn the subway well, it pays off, so convenient
Keep your phone charged, try to research areas you want to visit first
Be aware of being absent minded while gawking at the sites, especially at night
Further on the above point, if you have a drifting girlfriend, consider one of those kids leashes attached to a vest/bag. I kept losing KN! lol
Don't fall for the tourist traps if you can help it, you'll find yourself handing out cash too many times at the end of a day
Prepare for sore feet, legs and back

Night folks, more tomorrow!

Day 5 - NJ & Seaside Heights

2011-10-31T19:19:00.000-07:00

We awoke to a beautiful day, sun shining bright, and white snow still scattered everywhere. The deceiving sun always catches me off guard. I always think it's nice and warm outside when I see it so bright, forgetting about the ice cold wind.

After 5 days, I still found myself now and then, having mini freak-outs about driving on the right hand side of the road. There's other little differences I've found here too:

They have these mini-mall set ups, where all the department stores like Target, clothing stores, etc are all in one complex - but in separate buildings. Rather than the smaller shops/malls we have back home in a self contained complex.
The hot and cold water in showers are all operated with a single handle (not separate hot and cold)
The toilets in general are longer in forward length, and they flush differently, lol.
Food in general is cheaper, much cheaper
Fuel/Petrol is cheaper (works out to be around .95c/ltr back home - compared to what we know it as being $1.45 roughly)
The money is a bit trickier to manage in my wallet, still find myself digging into my wallet when paying for things, trying to find the right notes/bills
Target has sells hot food (Pizza Hut, and other junk food) and also has a grocery section

That's about all I can think of for now...

Anyhow as I was saying, was a glorious day, so KN and I decided to play in the snow before it all melted.

Our first snowman/lady (I have the uncensored version up on facebook)

Snowilicious

After our morning play in the snow, we basically rested at home for the morning, then spent the rest of the day with family hanging out and catching up. We did end the afternoon however by taking a trip to Seaside Heights.

For those of you in the know, that's where they shoot the TV show "Jersey Shore". Here's a couple of pics for the notorious Jersey Shore house and the T-Shirt shop they worked at!

Some very classy shirts and under-garments to be found here


		The Jersey Shore house

After our little trip to seaside, we went back to see the family and see the kids in their halloween outfits! Very cool time of the year to be here. Oh, and we fit in McDonalds on the way, and ate a McRib! They're back here in the US, been years since we've had them back home! Although I got ripped off, and they ran out of the McRib buns, so they slapped it in a cheesburger bun!

Still McRib-licious!!

On a full stomach, we headed back to pick up our luggage and head straight to Jersey City (across the river from Manhattan), to check into our hotel. Ready for the main agenda tomorrow! Was a very long day, and again a BIG thank you to my family for taking us around all day. Lots of driving involved and it was nearly midnight by the time we settled into our room and crashed!

Day 4 - Old Bridge, New Jersey

2011-10-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

Prior to leaving the Showboat hotel/casino at AC, we had a nice breakfast in their restaurant. I ordered eggs, pancakes and bacon. KN had an egg omelette that was easily made with 1/2 dozen eggs. Nice and full, we left AC and the weather was fierce. Really strong wind and cold rain. There's a road that leads up to the AC casino's, and the weather was that strong, it was pushing water up onto the road. Parts of it were flooding already and we left just in time.

Drive to Old Bridge NJ from the AC is about an hour and a half. It was a very interesting drive back.

Prior to leaving Brisbane, in the lead up to our trip, I recall a conversation with KN where I said - you know what would make this trip awesome, if it would snow. Unlikely as that would be, the forecast today was actually snow. Apparently it is very rare for it to snow in these parts in October, but it did just for us!

Was cool to watch the rain gradually change to snow, the closer we got to NJ.

It was a laid back restful day when we arrived. Did some more shopping at a nearby mall in NJ. Bought the kids some clothes, cool hats and other things they'll love. And I got myself a new pair of jordans for only $60, a jacket and other clothes that I failed to pack for this cold weather!

For dinner I had to try Wendy's to check it off our "Junk food to do list". I ordered a 1/4 pounder burger, it was nice and juicy. The drink it came with was huge. KN took a photo, the drink on the far left is the equivalent to our large size!

After the mall, we stopped by a Target to pick up some Halloween candy and a few other things. Interestingly the Target stores here have a grocery section and a canteen type area where you can buy pizza and other hot food.

Called it a night, and spent the rest of the night blogging! Next up tomorrow, our main agenda, NYC!!

Day 3 - Part II - Atlantic City

2011-10-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

We quickly headed to Atlantic City from Gilbertsville, Pensylvannia. A couple hours drive maybe, we reached our destination. From what we've been told, and what we could see, AC is basically a smaller version of Vegas - not as hyped up though. Was just a short overnight stay, courtesy of my Aunt who had this awesome suite booked.

<========= Yes, that's a little TV in the bathroom

SEE!!! ----------------->

Picture doesn't do it justice, but the room is massive and has access to a balcony outisde with a view of the boardwalk/ocean. And there is a remote for the curtains. Yes. A remote for the curtains. Yes. We used it when we woke up in the morning. Pure awesomeness.

After settling in the room, we took a sneak peak at a live show that was on in the casino. It was apparently one of the lead guitarists from the band KISS. We lasted maybe 3 minutes. His guitar kissed my ear drums goodbye, after the torture from jet lag, his insanely loud guitar riffs made me temporarily deaf. We didn't take any photo's, but this story is true.

Returned to the room, then headed downstairs for dinner. Awesome food, I ordered kobe beef sliders, KN had a crab salad, and I shared the fillet mignon my cousin ordered. Best steak I have ever eaten, it melts in your mouth!

Eat me NOW, i'm full of kobe beef


Okay mr kobe beef slider. nom nom nom

After dinner, I gambled a bit. By a bit, I mean $20 in an electronic poker machine. I actually won $20, but failed to hold the cards and drew another deck. That ended our night, i'm such a high roller.

Day 3 - Philly (Part 1)

2011-10-29T20:17:00.000-07:00

Part 1 (Philadelphia)

It was a bright sunny morning, waking up on Friday. The sun here is very deceiving, waking up nice and warm, not realising most houses in this area of the US have centralised heating systems. I was telling my cousin and his wife, "yeah we didn't need an extra blanket, wasn't cold at all". Duh Paul, they have centralised heating, it was about 3 degrees celcius that morning. I also used to think the winter in Brisbane brought some cold wind. Till we arrived in Philadelphia that morning for a tour with my cousin, and it felt like beign smacked in the face with sheets of ice.

Was a beautiful day however, just very cold, for a couple from Brisbane. The agenda for the day was to be typical tourists and join a duck tour group. An informative tour of the Philadelphia CBD, covering all things American history and movie facts for films shot in this city. All this inside an amphibious vehicle, captained by a bemusing comedian who strategically plants jokes to coincide with his ipod playlist of tacky music - themed to his jokes. It was also an 'interactive' tour, as he called the lame jokes, the tourists had to quack like ducks, if you wanted to earn your prize at the end of a tour (a duck quacking plastic contraption). But a funny chap he was, despite the lame jokes.

After the amusing tour, we headed to the Reading Terminal Market. A place we saw Adam from "Man vs. Food" eat a pulled pork sandwhich that looked irresistable. A few blocks away, we walked and entered the market, full of food stalls and a huge crowd of people. My cousin found the name of the food stall that served the sandwiches, we found it, along with a long crowd of waiting customers. While my cousin and I waited, KN went on the hunt for Philly's infamous "cheese steaks". Which is basically a steak roll, packed with a huge amount of chopped up thin steak and drizzled with american wizz cheese.

Finally got served, ordered the sandwich with greens and provolone cheese (totes awesome), sat down and ate away.

Pulled pork sandwich ---------------->
(Delicioso)

<------------- Cheese Steak
(delicioso)

After filling our bellies with Philly's fine food, we headed our way out, but quickly stopped by an amusing meat and veg stall. Operated by the Amish! They were dressed in their traditional outfits, beards and all (both men and women...just kidding). Took a quick pick of their 'stuffed pork chops'. Personally, I don't think they stuffed it enough.

Said Amish peoples

There's hardly any stuffing in these pork chops!

We then exited the market, headed back into my cousins car, and did a quick lap around Philly to take obligatory photo's with the famous "Love" sign and with the statue of Rocky and those stairs he runs up in the movies (I swear in the movie there were a lot more stairs).

After all that, we had to rush back to my cousins house, get a few things organised so we could head over to Atlantic City to meet up with my Aunt. Was a jam packed day, and a BIG THANK YOU to my cousin, his wife and family for accommodating us. An awesome time in Philly!! Next up, Part II (Atlantic City).

Day 1 & 2

2011-10-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

Day 1

Flew from Brisbane to Sydney relatively quickly, wasn't bad at all. Flight from Sydney to LA was horrible. Never been on a long haul flight before, and didn't think it would hit us so bad. Was watching the main monitor with the live map of where the plane is, felt like it was in the middle of the ocean for days. Both of us started to get all sore and congested in the ears, headaches, and generally feeling like crap.

Once we arrived at LAX, thought it was going to be a huge relief, but I felt even worse. Felt like a zombie. Feeling like crap and being jet lagged, uggghhh. KN spotted two celebrities however, one was Australian (Rebel Wilson), the other was covered in some kind of disguise covering her face and had a bodyguard with her.

Bought a few things for the kids at the tourist shop, drank some water, contemplated having McDonalds but changed our minds feeling like crap. Right now KN is commenting on how exciting this is, ooo drank some water, woooow. I know, boring, but it highlights the point of how I had no idea such a long flight would make me feel like crap.

From LAX to JFK, took about 4.5 hours. Felt like an eternity. Once we landed, my cousin picked us up, took us through Manhattan for a quick tour and we had some hot dogs at a place called Gray's Papaya (as featured on "How I met your mother") in Greenwich Village. $4.95 for two hot dogs and a drink.

Also had a sneak peak at the skating rink in the Rockerfeller Centre, will definitely be going next week!

My cousin lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. About 2.5-3hrs drive north of NY. Before we left, I 'guesstimated' 1.5hrs and told KN "yeah he only lives about 1.5 hours". After nearly 24hrs in the air/travelling, the thought of a 3 hr drive feels like an eternity.. Woooops.

Day 2

Today my cousin took us around Philadelphia, needed to get a prepaid SIM card for my iphone, which is hard to get. Unlike back home, the phone companies here don't really offer pre paid sim's for iphones. TMobile works, but you have to get the sim card cut to micro-sim size. Bought one from Best Buy, later we went to the mall and this phone shop/cart guy cut it for me.....for $15! They even have a tool that does it in 1 second, but charge $15 for it. Couldn't believe it, anyway it worked.

This all might sound boring to everyone back home, but i'm easily amused. A lot of little things we wanted to try, see, experience that we don't have back home. Like Taco Bell, so cheap. A Taco and Burrito combo with a large drink was $6 US. Seeing a red barn on housing properties (lol). Eating a churro from Costco for $1 (the guy at Southbank is ripping us off). Shopping at a 'Wal Mart', and seeing banana's for 30cents a kilo. Also bought some food we don't have back home...junk food/snacks.

Went shopping at an outlet mall, spent a lot more than originally planned in one day. The place was huge, had an outlet store for so many major brands (just like harbour town).

Back at my cousin's house, weather got pretty cold, it's also snowing here on Saturday!

Tomorrow the plan is to see Jersey Shore and do the touristy thing then head to Atlantic City.

Countdown restarted!

2011-10-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

Won't dwell on the details, but health complications set our trip back a couple of times. On the road to recovery now, so trip is back on. Departure date 26th October, returning home 11th November. Wish us luck!!

Countdown begins...

2011-09-23T00:32:00.000-07:00

A week to go now, and the excitement is building up rapidly. Taking a look back over the past few weeks, our dollar (AU) has crashed again below parity with the US (really bad timing), and I've been sick with the flu the past week. I'm slowly recovering, although I don't know how well the Aussie dollar will.

That aside, the most important thing is we only have a week to go!! So very excited. Keep any eye out for more posts in a week's time.

PM

4 weeks to go!

2011-09-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

With only four weeks to go the excitement is building up! In the past few weeks, all sorts of crazy things have been happening. The stock market has plunged and recovered, therefore the aussie dollar has been up and down, NYC felt a minor earthquake, NYC felt the wrath of a major hurricane, hopefully it all settles down now before we head over there.

After this post, won't see/hear much from us till the day we leave. I will be updating the itinerary and also adding a page that will list all the research material/online resources we've used to plan our trip. Bit boring till we actually go somewhere, but stay tuned nonetheless.

PM

Introduction

2011-08-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

Two first time travellers to the US, my name's Paul, 30 years old and never traveled beyond the shores of Australia. My lovely partner Kaye-Ann is xx years old (I dare not reveal a woman's age), and has traveled some years ago to the Philippines, but both of us have never taken a proper holiday.

We are essentially travel virgins, and coincidentally flying "Virgin Australia" to the USA. New York City and Las Vegas to be precise.

I decided to blog about our travel plans, to put a bit of a story behind the photo's, rather than dump them all at the end of the trip on facebook. Am also hoping this will be somewhat informative for anyone else planning to travel, as I haven't found too many decent travel blogs to NYC/Vegas myself, that isn't written from a professional journalist.

So here we are, first blog, first time traveling, and hopefully plenty of stories to tell with photo's to paint the picture. Prior to actual updates while overseas, you'll see our our rough itinerary, or rather "to do list" for places we intend to go, things to do, food to eat, so on and so forth. Stay tuned! PM.