Simon and Katie's Amazing Travels

Day 15 - New York City

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:21:15 +1000

The weather wasn’t great when we woke up, drizzly rain and overcast. Still, we decided to make the most of it and set off towards Bloomingdale’s to get out of the rain! Although the colder season has just finished here, we were having trouble finding warmer clothes that we could take back to Australia for winter. We did eventually find some discounted bits and pieces, as well as a nice Burberry scarf for Katie. I found a nice pair of gloves in a shop nearby which will be appreciated while waiting for the train throughout winter!

We then made our way downtown towards the East Village and met up with Kyle, an old friend of Katie’s. Together, we went out for some brunch nearby, then took a walking tour led by Kyle through the East Village, the West Village and the Meatpacking district. We then walked along the High Line, a disused raised railway line that has recently been turned into a park. Katie was very excited at one point during the walk when Kyle told us that we were walking past Liv Tyler’s house!

It was a great walk and was fantastic to see yet another part of the city. We said farewell to Kyle and headed back uptown, back to more familiar territory on 5th Avenue - Tiffany & Co. to be precise! Katie found a beautiful bracelet to remind her of our honeymoon and left the store a happy newlywed.

That night, we had tickets to see a play in the theatre next to our apartment, the Walter Kerr. The play was ‘The House of Blue Leaves’ and starred Ben Stiller, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Edie Falco. It was excellent - quite funny, although a bit dark at times, and we thought that all the performances were fantastic. Between the two plays we saw during the week, this was our pick.

We grabbed some pizza to have with champagne at home after the show, then had the sad task of starting to pack, as it was our last night in New York…

Katie and Ann in Times Square

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:20:19 +1000

Katie and Ann in Times Square

New York Public Library

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:19:28 +1000

New York Public Library

Day 14 - New York City

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:17:38 +1000

Today we headed out for a spot of shopping on 5th Avenue. We picked up a nice bag for my 30th (and another on, just because) and then I wandered around Bloomingdale’s for a few hours. Meanwhile, Simon headed to the New York Public Library and spent some time wandering the reading rooms. He then headed to Little Italy and grabbed a pizza from Lombardi’s. He got a few comments from people on the train as he brought the hot pizza back to our apartment! We enjoyed a bit of yummy pizza before heading to Banana Republic to stock up on some winter clothes for Simon.

We then came home to get ready for dinner with one of my high school friends, Ann Card! She has been working in London for the past two years and is over in NY (and Las Vegas) for a holiday with her boyfriend Luke and brother Dave. I was soo super excited to see her! We went to Ruby Foos for a yummy dim sum dinner then checked out Times Square. They had been awake for 24 hours due to the time difference, so we were very impressed they made it to dinner!

Next to the stage at Iridium

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:40:53 +1000

Next to the stage at Iridium

Grand Central Terminus

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:39:59 +1000

Grand Central Terminus

Katie on the Brooklyn Bridge

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:39:09 +1000

Katie on the Brooklyn Bridge

Day 13 - New York City

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:38:06 +1000

Today we thought we’d tackle the Brooklyn Bridge. The sun was shining and although it was quite crisp, it was a nice enough day. Refreshing is a positive word. :)

We got the train to the bridge and walked across. It has the most amazing views of Manhattan and surrounds. It’s pretty amazing that the Manhattan tower of the bridge is just sitting on sand! Simon is constantly comparing everything to computer games he’s played set in NY. “it takes heaps longer to walk across here in the game” haha. Once across, Simon was keen to find Grimaldi’s, a well know pizza store. On approach we weren’t surprised to find yet another queue. I’m pretty much over waiting in queues. The take away line was the same line as the eat in so there was no escape! There didn’t seem to be much organization to the line and there were some pretty annoyed large groups still waiting for tables an hour or so later. The pizza was good, the cheese probably the highlight but I certainly wouldn’t line up for it again!

We scoffed down our pizza at a port under the Brooklyn Bridge then thought about how we were going to tackle our next mission: to get Craig some chocolate from the Mast Brothers’ factory in Brooklyn. After wandering along the water not really knowing where we were, we thought a taxi was our best bet. We found the chocolate factory in an interesting part of Brooklyn. The guy serving us was very ‘happy’ and his mates were outside playing on their skateboards. Life’s good for them! We got the choc Craig requested then strolled through a suburban part of Brooklyn looking for a metro station. Simon loved the contrast from the hustle n bustle of NYC. He found a bagel store (hard to resist) before we finally found a train headed for Manhattan.

Once back, we decided to go check out Grand Central Terminus and surrounds. I hadn’t been to Bryant Park before - looks like a nice place to relax and have an after-work drink. I know it of course from Project Runway and fashion week. :)

We then rushed back home in time to get to the Iridium Jazz Bar where we had booked a table for the night. It was a dimly lit, underground jazz bar- very fun! We saw Marc Ribot and band play from our front-row seats - they were very good. Great night and looking forward to some shopping tomorrow… hope the shops are open! :)

I thought Katie was joking when we dropped by the gift...

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:49:19 +1000

I thought Katie was joking when we dropped by the gift shop…

Day 12 - New York City

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:47:14 +1000

Today’s goal was to get out to have a look at the Statue of Liberty, so we set off all the way downtown to the ferries at Battery Park. There was a one-hour queue for tickets, followed by a two-hour queue for security, which were a bit daunting until Katie had the good idea of one of us lining up in each queue at the start - genius!

After queuing like cattle for a few hours and going through security, we finally ended up on the ferry heading out into the bay. It was a foggy day, but still gave us great views of the Statue as we arrived at Liberty Island. The weather cleared a bit as we were wandering around the island and we took plenty of photos of the Statue and the Manhattan skyline.

A few hours later, we were back on the ferry that next stopped at Ellis Island. We decided not to stop off there as, once again, there were queues to get on and off the ferry. We stayed on and were soon back at Battery Park.

All trip, we were looking forward to the evening and our booking at Daniel, one of the five three-Michelin-starred restaurants in New York. We ventured into the upper-east side and found the place easily. The restaurant was beautiful, decorated with flowers throughout and was arranged like a big dining room with plenty of service and no music. We had a corner seat and could look over the whole room.

We started with some champagne, although they no longer served Katie’s favourite, we managed to find a pretty good replacement with the help of the sommelier. We settled on the three-course option, but everything on the menu looked amazing. The appetiser from the kitchen was an ‘homage to peas’, including a pea puree and a small lobster salad. That was followed by our entrees: Katie had the peekytoe crab salad and I had the wild herb ravioli with ricotta. Then the main event: my ‘trio of milk fed pig from Quebec’ was outclassed by Katie’s ‘duo of beef’ - although both were simply amazing and were accompanied by a beautiful bottle of Corton-Pougets burgundy. Dessert, though, was still to come… I ordered the blackberry and fromage blanc vacherin, while Katie ordered the ‘warm guanaja chocolate coolant, with liquid caramel, fleur de sel and milk sorbet’. In addition to these amazing dishes, the kitchen also offered freshly-cooked madelines and a range of tiny flavour-infused chocolates with our coffee and espresso martini. Pretty much a perfect meal if you ask us!

We reluctantly left Daniel and headed south, wandering down Madison Avenue. We didn’t’ get too far before we thought we’d drop into the bar at Gilt for a nightcap or two. A couple of cocktails later, we continued window-shopping down 5th Avenue until we got to the theatre next to our apartment building. There was a crowd gathering out the front, so we had a look to see what the commotion was - Ben Stiller was just to leave from the stage door and we hung around for a few minutes to watch him come out to his car and sign a few autographs on the way. We’ll see him in action when we go to see his play on Saturday night!

T-Rex!

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:42:35 +1000

T-Rex!

The Roosevelt hall at the Museum of Natural History

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:41:10 +1000

The Roosevelt hall at the Museum of Natural History

Apparently, this is ‘contemporary art’. I think it...

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:40:01 +1000

Apparently, this is ‘contemporary art’. I think it could also be ‘litter’…

Warhol at MoMA

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:38:41 +1000

Warhol at MoMA

Day 11 - New York City

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:32:21 +1000

Today, Katie and I decided to divide and conquer with her tackling some more shopping and me hitting the museums and galleries.

We had breakfast in the apartment, then as Katie headed towards Banana Republic and Victoria’s Secret, I set off for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). I have to be honest and say that I’m not that much of a fan of modern art, and even less of most contemporary art. Still, there were some interesting works and the Warhol/Dali/Magritte pieces were particularly good.

Next up was the Metropolitan Museum of Art which has a simply obscene number of amazing pieces. Every square inch is crammed with bits and pieces. The armour and weapons section was pretty interesting and I got to check out some old art to balance out the modern stuff. I was looking forward to seeing the drawing section, including bits from Leonardo, but this was unfortunately closed for works.

At this stage, Katie had shopped and was starting to queue for Broadway tickets at the TKTS last-minute booth in Times Square, where you can get tickets for shows that night, although there may not be much choice about where you get to go. After a very long wait, she managed to get tickets to ‘Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo’, starring Robin Williams - not bad at all!

My last stop for the day was the Museum of Natural History, across Central Park from the Met. This place was great - stacks of interesting exhibits and lots of things for the kids running around everywhere to do and poke at. The dinosaurs were amazing, as were the dioramas and models of global landscapes. The space section and the models about the development of the galaxy and Earth were also very well done.

Katie had made it to the Metropolitan Opera for some more shopping for Tiina by this stage and we were both pretty pooped, so were rendezvoused at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel - at the bar on the 35th floor that has a great view of Central Park. We had a couple of cocktails while thinking about how hard we have it, then dropped our stuff off at the apartment before heading around the corner to see the play.

Robin Williams was excellent as the titular tiger and the rest of the cast were also really good. The story revolves around two American soldiers based in Baghdad and the effect that their deployment has on them, their translator and the tiger that they are guarding in the Baghdad Zoo. The play itself was quite interesting, with some really good ideas and funny lines; however, I think that the whole was much less than the sum of the parts, with some aspects, particularly the comedic lines given to the character of Uday Hussein, missing the mark by quite a distance. All up, it was a great night out. We also managed to secure tickets to a preview show of ‘The House of Blue Leaves’ later in the week, which will be a chance to see Ben Stiller on stage.

Katie dressed up in our apartment, ready for dinner at...

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:32:32 +1000

Katie dressed up in our apartment, ready for dinner at Balthazar.

Day 10 - New York City

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:31:36 +1000

Another early start today - no flight this time, but discount shopping instead! We were heading to Century 21, a designer discount store, and Katie insisted that we get there early (it opens at 7:45). We joined the rush hour crowd and passed by the site of the World Trade Center towers and made it to C21. There was loads of stuff in there and being early was a good idea, as it was packed by the time we left. Four hours later, we’d bought a new suitcase and had already filled it :) We spent a lot, but saved more than we spent on the retail prices, so that’s like making money, right?

Anyway, shopping had made us hungry so we made for a restaurant close by the apartment for lunch, Pigalle, then went home for a siesta.

Later in the day, we got back on the subway and headed down to the top of SoHo, Prince Street. We had a look through many of the shops on our way to our dinner reservation at Balthazar, a great French-inspired place that was busy and bustling. Dinner was good (Katie’s trout was the day’s special and I decided to see how American lamb fared against Australian), the French red even better and the crème brûlée was fantastic. To top it off, Balthazar just happens to be around the corner from the SoHo Apple Store, so we dropped in and I picked up a new 13” MacBook Pro from the particularly happy Apple staff - very exciting stuff.

Getting off the subway again at Times Square, the Hershey’s store was too much of a temptation to pass on the way home, so we grabbed some late-night snacks from the slightly strange staff there before returning to the apartment and finishing a fun, but expensive, day.

Katie in front of the Empire State Building

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:50:43 +1000

Katie in front of the Empire State Building

Looking north over Central Park from 30 Rock

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:49:58 +1000

Looking north over Central Park from 30 Rock

That thing from Tony Hawk 2…

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:48:52 +1000

That thing from Tony Hawk 2…