Where's Wally..I mean Toni?

Times Square madness

1 New York Plaza

Battery Park & Times Square

A nice slow start to today for a change, we went down to Battery Park, a beautiful park on the river opposite Izacs work, the weather today is the first grey day we have had here, quite a nice change from the heat. Met Izac on his lunch break and got to see where he hangs out most of the week not a bad view from the 8th floor of One New York Plaza across from the Statten Island Ferry Terminal and the Statue of Liberty. Then it was off to Times Square to hopefully get a cheap ticket to the off Broadway Show Million Dollar Quartet, well we were in luck for the 2.30 show so headed to the theatre. What a fab show it's the story of the night that Johnny Cash, Elvis Presly, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis met at Sun Studios and recorded songs together, the music, performances and story had the audience cheering, it was so good we could have sat for hours, thank you Aunty Phyll for your recommendation. We then went into the madness of Times Sqaure, just for the experience, then off to our favorite Japanese Ippudo for a light meal wandered Soho the rest of the evening, tommorow Brooklyn not enough time here a few days left and so much more to see and do.

Cool place in Central Park

Imagine

Yesterday...all my troubles seemed so far away...

Started off early with a bike ride in Central Park. It quickly became very hot but the cool, lush greenness saved us. Bike riding proved to be a challenge as we circled the same section a number of times. It is a huge park! We were not told by the bike hire people that you can only ride the perimeter roads but the nice park employee said because it was early we could ride the paths but when it got busy with the nannies and their charges we would have to walk on the paths. The nannies can out in force soon after. Oh the life! A guitarist was conducting a music group for the children and their nannies - cant imagine what he was paid! Speaking of imagine, we visited Strawberry Fields and saw the John Lennon mosaic. We then sat amongst the beautiful American elms in the shade and listened to a sax player while we cooled down. We then went to Bloomingdales for the air conditioning and ate a salad at Forty Carrots. No food blogging today as we are having a detox day!

Skyline from "our" bar

View from the Thompson LES hotel private bar

Altered states indeed!

MOMA

Dira and Izac trying to understand minimalist art

Take some cable ties....

...and create a great piece of street art

Ippudo

That cucumber!

Exploring the 'hood

We spent the first afternoon touring the LES Lower East Side, Izac took us for a tour of SOHO which is just across the road from us, very cool area, small cobbled tree lined streets, boutique shops bars and resturaunts, after trapping around found a bar in our area had a beer and said goodbye to Izac for the day who was off to shoot some pool. After resting our tired feet we headed off again for dinner to Ippudo, a Japanese resturaunt which I read about in the New York Times which by the way is a great newspaper. Dinner consisted of cucumber in sesame & chilli, lightly fried peppers in lime chilli salt, crab croquettes and beef with a garlic, mustard whipped butter, this will have to go down as one of the great meals on our trip. On the way home dropped into the live music bar downstairs in which an Irish band were playing, sweet way to end a great day. Day 2 Stared the day with an hour by the pool this morning, as it is very hot and humid. It is Memorial day today so a public holiday though you would not know given that this city does not sleep or rest it appears. After yum cha with Izac the three of us headed mid town to MOMA museum of modern art, spent a while here discovering the 6 floors, then I braved another taxi drive back to the LES. This ride matched my last experience with a twist, apparently driving down the avenues is far more fun as the roads are so long and you feel as though you are in a dodgem car, three lanes of traffic to freely weave through, a relief to make it back home. Short rest then met up with Izac and Akiko for dinner tonight, a nightcap on the balcony on the 7th floor to view the city skyline, up early in the morning we a planning to go the Central Park first thing to ride bikes before it gets too hot.

NYC bound

After leaving Phyl at Colonial Williamsburg (after watching the fabulous fife and drum parade) and Jim at the airport in Richmond, it took us 6 hours to complete a one hour flight and taxi ride to NYC. The plane sat on the tarmac at both ends and the taxi driver must have been an Indianapolis 500 wannabe! The small jet and predictions of storms around JFK did little to soothe nerves either. The flight was smooth although cramped as the plane was only 2x2 across. Smallest plane Dira has ever flown on. This morning we ate brunch at Magador a Moroccan inspired resturaunt which has the " best" eggs. I certainly enjoyed mine - a Moroccan eggs benedct which had spicy tomato and pepper salsa on it, although yet to understand why potatoes are a side for every meal! We then took a wander through the SOHO district and will certainly go back for more browsing.

The view from those chairs...

It was difficult for us to sit there, enjoying a cocktail...

Fife and drum parade

Call that a buffet?

On our last night we went to the country club for dinner. We sat outside for cocktails as the sun set over the river. Many of the people came up and welcomed us to the club and said hello to Phyll and Jim. Moving inside we all had the buffet which was the most amazing food I have ever seen on a buffet. We had roast tomato soup, many salads, lemon flavored crab claws with melted butter, prime rib, creme brûlée, coconut cake, ice cream with chocolate sauce and a fine Barossa red wine. I am trying to get a guest writer (Izac) to do a more detailed description... On our last morning we played bocce with Phyllis as referee,which we needed on occasion. An hour by the great community pool then off to Williamsburg for a parade and lunch.

House in Yorktown, Virginia

This is a house that Jim lived in 52 years ago!

The welcome flags were out!

Chilling on the lawn at Twin Rivers Country Club

Virginia

After smooth flights and smooth connections we arrived at Richmond airport where Jim was waiting for us. Izac and Akiko had arrived 90 minutes earlier. We then all drove to Williamsburg through beautiful green woodlands and across the widest river (the James river) I think I have ever seen. It was exciting to arrive at Governors Land and hug Phyl. She had made us a wonderful dinner of pork, chicken, beans, shrimp and much more. We ate on the porch in the a mild evening air. We then watched a DVD on what took place in colonial Williamsburg to give us a great context to the history of the area. Thursday saw a surprise for Akiko, a horse riding lesson had been arranged for her at a local stable. She had never ridden before but the instructor said she was a natural despite not quite having the appropriate long pants on! It was a beautiful place and P & J's neighbour has a horse there as well. We then went to Yorktown for crab salad lunch, sitting on the riverside at a very pleasant spot. Izac and Jim then played golf with Phyl and Aikiko driving the carts. Dira and I took to the streets on bicycles and loved seeing the beautiful grounds, houses and the marina in Govenors Land. Another great dinner on an even milder night saw some staying up late, laughing and reminiscing about stories from past good times.

Birthday champagne

The Birthday day

Did we eat today! We started Izacs b'day with breakfast at Cafe De Monde in the French market, they only serve beignets, coffee and juice but from what Phyll tells me they are the best in the city and indeed they were. After visiting the museum to see the Katrina exhibition, we ventured up to the top end of Magazine st in the Garden District strolled down the street and ended up at a Mexican for lunch, which is so unlike the Mexican we have at home, small tacos filled with crab, one called duck,duck,goose,and fried fish etc, great guacamole and corn chips. After lunch we walked through the streets of the Garden district seeing the many beautiful homes to catch the tram on St Charles Ave back to our hotel, the heat was something else so a lie by the pool was in order for the rest of the afternoon. Dinner commenced with a bottle of champagne at the Bar De Vin in an old courtyard, a quick taxi ride to the Warehouse district to dine at Cochon, meaning pig in French. This busy bistro is housed in an old warehouse with food to die for. During the day Izac kept teasing me about eating alligator for dinner, so I did order the fried alligator with lime chili mayo, actually was not what I expected but tasted good. Next was amazing smoked pork spare ribs with watermelon chutney now that was wow and I am not a huge lover of the old pork, followed by pork belly with mushroom, another wow moment. We all loved our meals and when we thought we could not eat another thing Izac and I shared the house special chocolate cream pie. This was no ordinary pie, chocolate biscuit base then a light choc mousse topped with a marshmallow lightly blow torched, with a salted caramel sauce and crumbled malt. It is a good thing we are leaving this city tommorow as it is definitely not the place eat lightly, but loved the culinary delights we have experienced.

A more typical small Garden district home

This is known as a shotgun house as the hall runs down one side of the house.

The street music maintains it high standard

Garden district house

While not a "typical" Garden district house, one of our favorites!

Supersize me

...and that's a tall glass of water sitting between my jar of Diet coke and Izac's Marguerita!

Taxi!

Ah, the wisdom of taxi drivers.... We have jumped in and out of a few cabs in the past few days, from the speed freak one who argued with us about how fast he wasn't going as he overtook a car in a narrow street doing 40 mph to the man who had the most lulling southern drawl and had been driving a cab for 50 years. We could have paid him just to drive us around to show us his neighborhood and listen to his stories. There was also the one who lost his mobile, swerved all over the road looking on his seat then asked us to call it for him. Aside from the swerving he also had no suspension left in his cab. Most memorable though was the Pakistani born, New Orleans raised man who told us about his family losing their house in Katrina. He said they had 17 feet 3 inches of water in their home. It was completely ruined. He then said he has the insurance money to rebuild it in the bank but the state government wanted him to rebuild from scratch while the federal government wanted him to use the existing foundations and this argument saw him renting an apartment for $1200 pm until it was sorted out. He also spoke about how some parishes (council areas) had been rebuilt because there was a high level of disadvantage amongst the people but their state of the art housing (solar etc) had done little to change the way they lived. I guess this sort of resentment could come easily when you are tied up in red tape. He also said that the rebuilding was complete for areas where the money came in (French Quarter, CBD etc) but not outside these areas. He said the services provided were concentrated on making those areas safe also and a 911 call in his district took at least 30 mins to get a response! We couldn't argue with him on that one as we have seen Police everywhere in the Quarter.

Tanya and Dorise

Two of the coolest and most beautiful music makers we have seen in NO! Reminds us of Annie from the HBO series Treme.

Balconies in French Quarter

Izac and Akiko on Royal Street

Saturday night in NO

Izac and Akiko arrived finally after missing their connecting flight from Atlanta, booked into La Petite Grocery a great resturaunt in Magazine St. We had beautiful crab beignets little donuts filled with blue crab and mascarpone cheese, beet root and shrimp salad and great wine. Early night as we were all tired, up this morning and walked to the French market, listened to some great street music and Toni and I then headed up St Charles Ave on the tram to see the most amazing homes and found Uncle Jim's university. Had another great shrimp luncheon at the Palace Cafe, followed by Chinese foot massage for tired feet.

NOLA

Here we are in New Orleans. Thirty one hours Sydney to NO with smooth flying all the way and only one delay leaving Auckland which was made up along the way. Our blog title is already living up to it's name. We have both had a little trouble adjusting our own state of mind, me because I have bronchitis and Dira has jet lag. So as a result we have been laying fairly low. We did venture out for dinner and of course went to a tourist spot where the food was ordinary but looked down from a balcony the length of Bourbon St from there we saw some of the other altered states that people enter into in this city. We saw many, many people (tourists) whose sole purpose was to drink large amounts of alcohol out of large plastic cups and other shaped containers and this was at 7 pm! The two fully Mardi Gras style feathered Indians looked a little tattered in the early evening light, posing for photos with (drunk)tourists for a donation. The tap dancing boys were seriously harassing of anyone who even glanced at their dancing feet, for bills to be placed in their cardboard boxes. A brass band then came out of a resturant followed by a whole wedding party! They stood in the street waving their serviettes in the air. They were then escorted by the police to march and dance their way around the block. The bride was having a ball! This morning we went to Royal St which is a block from Bourbon St and could be a million miles away. Jewellery and antique shops abound and we found a nice cafe for breakfast, Dira got her fruit and yogurt and I tried a beignet which is like a doughnut but nicer. Izac and Akiko arrive this afternoon!

Farewell to domesticity!

Well here we are again... next big trip.  Dira has had a nasty flu and now I have it. We have 3 more days before we 'gonna take a ride on a big jet plane!"  H & G are also counting down their departure, 6 days after us..but they are off to Europa for..ever (well 3 years at at least!) 
All arrangements are being made, Ginger is moving in to mind Milly and then stay on to complete her degree, Jac is all set to live the good life in Amaroo and Eagles Nest and we are practising to pack light. 

Looking forward to meeting Izac and Akiko in NO, some heat (finally) and food that comes with a reputation.