Suze had a Hangover and I was Lazy

Yesterday was Friday and I didn't do much. Woke up at 12.30pm. I did however achieve greatly as I found a much-needed shoulder bag at Beacon's Closet for $14.

I did go to the place that sold the Vegemite and bought some. US$6.50 for a small tub. Ouch! The shop was actually a cheese store and had a huge range of funky (definition 2-1) cheeses that I'm very keen to check out.

I also sat on our roof and took some sweet photos of the Manhattan skyline, a nearby water tank and our cats. I could while hours and hours away taking photos. Unfortunately I can't show them to you because my digicam USB cable still hasn't arrived.

We got latenight hungry at 11pm and went for dinner at a Thai restaurant. I got some Massaman curry and then asked for the rest to take home and it made a really good breakfast this morning so I'm pretty satisfied with that one, hey.

Today we're going to go to Manhattan...but not downtown (omg! that's different!!). Wanted to go to Empire State Building but they're asking $20 each. Pfft!

P.S. A cute little squirrel lives in the tree outside of our apartment and I'm going to try take photos of him. He has a bushy tail.

James Buys Clothes And Does Some Other Stuff

On Thursday we were going to go on a free walking tour on the history of downtown Manhattan but were a little late with getting ready and then didn't know how to call a cab so we just decided to go shopping (again).

We wanted to head to Barney's New York where they were having a sale on jeans, in particular, Cheap Mondays. Barney's is a very expensive store. The first item I looked at was a side bag...it was $375. No thanks. Anyway, I found what I was looking for - some cheap Cheap Mondays black skinnies for only $29. Sold.

We walked around Chelsea for a bit but didn't know much about the area and weren't coming across many decent shops so we headed back over to the east side of Manhattan to East Village. It was here I decided to have a craving for Dunkin' Donuts. I got a Lemon one for 99c. It didn't really look like a doughtnut (no hole) and was filled with some (lots of) sweet lemon sauce. I should've taken a photo. It was sickly sweet but completely fantastic sans holding my stomach for the next hour.

On the way home we stopped by ANOTHER second hand clothing store, but this one was different; I actually found some stuff I liked and went home with these for $40.


Decided to go out (finally) and bought a liter of Smirnoff for $20 beforehand. The bar we went to was called Barcade and no points for guessing that it's a cross between a Bar and Arcade. I was expecting it to be a bar with a few more gaming machines than normal but was surprised to find it filled wall-to-wall with arcade machines. I only played Mario. I'm not very good at it. Lucky it was only one quater for 4 lives.

(lots of dogs in shops and bars here - though not where food is served)

After Barcade we decided to follow some people hoping they were going to another club I knew was in the area and wanted to check out. It was called Union Pool and one of the select NYC clubs you can dance in. So we danced. Met some Asian-American guy, chatted for a while and then walked home. On the way home we came across a big budget movie filming.

Here's a dodgy photo of where the filming was taking place:


And here's some directors chairs:

There were a LOT of trailers in the area.

Edit: Okay, so I just did some very quick research and am going to assume that the movie is Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman). The movie stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman (as 'Caden') and Michelle Williams (as 'Claire') and is currently filming in New York.

Oh, and in exciting news I found some vegemite in a shop window on the walk home.

Wednesday

So Wednesday was pretty damn hot and humid (89% according to Google), I wasn't coping well and after yesterday's hot stint in the botanic gardens I wasn't keen on doing it all again. So we had a quiet day.

I went to the supermarket and bought a lot of things I didn't really need. And then later in the day I went to the bottle shop to get a bottle of port and a bottle of vodka. It was a tiny bottle shop but they had an overwhelming range of vodka brands and bottle sizes. So much so that it was all too much and I ended up with just a bottle of port. I'll probably go back and get a small bottle of Ketel One. (I haven't seen a single premixed spirit since I've been here. Will investigate more.)

We went back to Teddy's Bar & Grill for dinner. I got a veggie burger but it tasted like a beef burger and was really fucking foul.

Darren Hayes @ Canal Room

Last night I went to this much-looked-forward-to gig. It was easy to find as it was in SoHo, where we'd spent our previous day. We arrived early (8pm, still light) and thankfully so as it was a particularly early gig.

We were directed to some sweet lounge and tables on arrival with table service. I ordered a Vanilla Vodka & Ginger Ale. It cost me US$11 (inc. tip), though that wasn't so surprising. Drinks are very expensive in NYC, especially in nice venues like the Canal Room. And it was pretty schmick.

The supporting band (who I still don't know the name of) started just before we arrived. They didn't really interest me that much and had a goofy frontman, but I just sat back enjoying my drink and the air conditioning (still feeling the effects of the hot day).

Then Darren came on in his signature white suit looking schmick as usual. Three songs in I tired of the annoying industry types we were sitting with and left the lounge area for the floor. Despite being at the back I still had a great view as it was a really small venue. As expected, a similarly great show to the one I saw at Alhambra in Brisbane with some amusing between-song (and within-song) banter. It's hard for me not to love this guy.

(Darren and his 3 man band)

(Regular keyboardist, Justin Shave)

(He's quite an animated performer)

Much love and thanks to Darren for letting us go. It was great.

Brooklyn Botanic Gardens

We picked a bad day to go to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It was the hottest day since our arrival so spending it in the sun didn't prove fun.

The garden was quite large, with specific sections. Shakespeare garden, Fragrance Garden, Cherry Esplanade, Rose Garden, Japanese Garden, Bonsai Greenhouse etc etc.

It was pretty disappointing to be quite honest. I wanted to see pretty flowers, but all the pretty flowers were dead. I still haven't tired of seeing squirrels and there were still some really nice spots that I would have liked to have taken the time to sit down and enjoy.

All but two of the photos I took are on my digicam and the usb cable hasn't arrived.

This was on celebrity path, containing the names of Brooklyn-born and Brooklyn-'flourished' celebrities. This was my favourite. There were a lot of more credible celebrities which I ignored.

This is the Japanese Garden.


I will probably add more photos to this blog when I can.

Checking out Soho

On Monday we decided to check out Soho. Soho is short for South of Houston and is a well-gentrified artist neighbourhood.

Before we left I got peckish and went down to Bedford Ave to grab brunch. A cream cheese bagel and creaming soda. It was pretty great, best creaming soda ever.


Soho is too low in Manhattan to have the luxury of the well-named Nth St and Nth Avenue roads and so we had to buy a map to avoid walking around in circles (there was a lot of 'haven't we been here?'). We went over a week in NYC without needed a map. Pretty good effort.

We stumbled upon the Magnolia Bakery. It supposedly featured heavily in Sex in the City. You have to lineup to get into the (small) store.

They have chocolate cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes. I got a chocolate one and suze a vanilla one. But we were fooled! The vanilla onces have chocolate icing and vice versa. The the cup cakes weren't that great, but they looked pretty...well mine looked pretty until I picked it up.


We came across this:

A heap of individually-painted post-9/11 patriotic tiles mounted on a fence.

These car parks fascinate me (walked past this twice because of our lack of map):



While walking in a specific area I noticed there was less (but still some) honking...and then I saw this:


Walking around makes me hungry so we decided to eat at a cute Indian restaurant that had some lunch specials. I ordered a Vegetable curry and Susan a Chicken Curry (about US$5 each). Not long after ordering, a small plate came out each of curry soup and something deepfried. We were a little confused. 'Is this is it?'. 'Did they screw up our order?'. 'Will we have to pay for this?'. Anyway, we ate it and before long confusion was cast aside and the main meal turned up: The curries + 3 different condiments + a plate of rice + naan bread. Holy shit! We ate that and before long they'd brought out dessert! We were a bit 'surely that its'. And then they brought out tea. Phew! It's not often you get more than you expect at a restaurant. We tipped well. (The bill came out on a plate of scented stuff with a spoon, we had no idea what to do with it).

I didn't really buy anything the whole day except one more snow dome to add to the collection.

Losing my Laundromat Virginity

So I ran out of clean clothes (and once-worn clothes). The laundromat is about a 20sec walk from the apartment.

Here's me looking incredibly stupid in the clothes I least wanted clean and my dirty clothes back pack:


And here's the laundromat:


I didn't have washing powder so I asked the lady. She said, 'Sorry, I speaka no English', so I had to duck off and grab some washing liquid from a corner store.

The small washing machines took 6 quaters:


I didn't want to use the dryer but I need clothes to wear that day. These are the instructions on the dryer:


There was no childrens in my dryer:


I ended up with one more sock than I took.

Pool Party #1

The first Sunday afternoon pool party of the summer was yesterday and +/-, Oakley Hall and Superchunk were playing.

When arrived it looked like this:

We grabbed some food and sat in the small amount of shade. The New Yorkers are all like 'yay it's summer...we love the sun' so there was plenty of shade left for us.

This is what the crowd looked like during Superchunk:


And there was a slip-n-slide kinda thing going on for people to cool off:

The Glass

A band that I'm mildly familiar with, but quite like, was playing a free show in the Lower East Side at a small bar last night.

The Glass were due to start at 11pm, but didn't until about 1.30am. I was really drunk and tired, suze went home, I fell asleep sitting up I don't know how many times and then the band played a really short set. The set finished with my favourite song of theirs so I was satisfied.


I was surprised with how little fan base they have here in their home town. The small room was reasonably full, but mostly with drunk girls (and boys chasing them) who didn't seem too familiar with the band.

Bar Hopping in East Village / Lower East Side

We had a couple of hours to spare between a art/toy release 'party' we went to and a gig later that night. Suze and I decided to go random bar hopping and came across some interesting places.

The most notable was a place called 'Mars Bar'. Hands down the most dingy, dirty bar I've been in.


We came across an Australian eatery (but didn't go in). On the menu was a 'Chook Sanga' (that's a Chicken Sandwhich in case you aren't versed in Australian).

In another bar we noticed the bar guy had a funny accent. And that that funny accent was Australian. Now, given that I've spent 21 years around Australian accents I wouldn't have thought it'd be so noticeable. He sounded like Mick Dundee and I just don't understand it. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that that's how we sound to others. Gawd.

Coney Island Mermaid Parade

The only time I'd heard of Coney Island before was as the on-location setting of my favourite film (Requiem for a Dream). From what I'd read it has a reputation for having a certain kind of character. I kinda wanted to check it out, and what better time than at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

It was a long, packed train ride out to Coney Island and when we arrived moved through the huge crowd and started snapping photos of the bizarre parade while getting sun burnt on the nose.















This guy (not in the parade) had some pretty amazing hair:


This is the 'world famous' Cyclone roller coaster. It's made of wood.

On the subway ride home we came across a pirated DVD stall:


edit: I forgot to mention that Adam Savage from Mythbusters was the King of the parade. The Queen was Patti d'Arbanville.