San Francisco

Well we were a week early for the tree lighting ceremony as it turns out so we will have to wait till tomorrow night for that....oops!

We have been in San Francisco for a little over a week now and have spent most of our time here getting to know the city. We are staying in Fisherman's Wharf which in hindsight was a bit of a mistake. This is tourist town and most things here are a bit mediocre. Luckily we can walk to North beach were things get more interesting and there is a lot of public transport around although its almost as bad as Sydney's public transport system. There are street cars, trolleys and buses that you can catch from almost every corner which will take you anywhere in the city. Now while this sounds like it would be a great thing it's actually not, it means that they stop at every street corner to let people on and off so just travelling a few kilometers will take you more than 20mins...very frustrating.

Aside from the transport woes we have found San Francisco to be a great city, the sun has been shining most days (there is a lot of foggy mornings too), the people are super friendly....and they have real sourdough bread! We have had my favourite San Francisco food three times already, Clam Chowder in a bread bowl....yummy! You can get Clam Chowder from pretty much every cafe and restaurant in the Wharf but we thing that Boudin's is the best especially since they make their own sourdough!

San Francisco is home to the largest Chinatown outside of Asia and not surprisingly it reminded me a lot of Central Hong Kong with it's narrow alley ways lined with discount stores and Asian green grocers. We went there in search of Dim Sum but had to bail out after an hour of walking around and only finding one empty slightly dodgy looking place. After some quick research back at the hotel we found that in actual fact Chinatown is not the place to have Dim Sum in this city....go figure!

We have also visited North Beach which is 'Italian town' and had really good Pizza and Ricotta Cannoli. Haight-Ashbury which used to be home to the hippies and while there are still a few around its mostly just interesting places to eat and alternative clothing stores not to too dissimilar from what you would find on King St in Newtown.

We took a walk along the Presideo admiring the coast line, and headed through Golden Gate park. It's very different to what I was expecting, I guess after spending so much time in New Yorks Central Park I thought it would be similar, but its not like it at all.

San Francisco has really been a bit of a rest stop for us. After the buzz of New York its nice to finally catch up on some sleep and chill in a Comfy Holiday Inn Bed.






Us in Golden Gate Park





A store named after us?






Just a slight incline


Houses in Haight-Ashbury


Yummy Clam Chowder!!!

Someone really Loves Coke

San Francisco - First Impressions

We woke up at 4:45AM on Monday (Jannie promised to be grumpy and did not disappoint) for our flight to sunny California. And just in time too to avoid a major cold snap on the east coast with "flurries" and temperature no higher than freezing (the newscasters blame Canadian air for this). Our last week had been unseasonably warm - was it any coincidence that this was the week that NY really came together for us and that we realised just how fantastic it is as a city?

First impressions of San Francisco - deserted, quiet, super friendly and warm. The first few days we must have still been wearing our NY faces (lots of people told us to smile more) and we were certainly still psychologically back in Manhattan as we could not believe how quiet SF was. "Where are all the people?" we kept asking. "It's soooo quiet!"

San Francisco has a reputation for being expensive, but we've already discovered a local bar that has $2.50 cocktails (good ones too!) and free pool, and no meal has been more than $30 so far, which qualified as a "cheap one" in NYC but here is delicious and filling and seemingly the average.

So we are really enjoying it, and staying in a hotel means it feels like a holiday for a change and we just did a 16km trek from Sausalito across the Golden Gate Bridge and about to head off to a Christmas tree lighting ceremony so this blog post must be a short one...

Culinary Delights

Although New York can be cheap there are a lot of not so cheap things to try. Since this is such a culturally diverse city one of the things we wanted to do was try the myriad of cuisines available at our doorstep (one of the perks of living right by Hells Kitchen as it turns out). Our first adventure was Ethiopian. Jack had already tried this before but for me it was completely new and I have to say I loved it. We ordered the vegetarian and non-vegetarian tasting plates. You get about 6 different curries brought out on pancakes called Injera in a big plate that looks like an up turned sombrero hat. You then just rip the pancake and dip it it the curry, it's like pick and mix curries....Delicious!

We came across a little Chinese place in the village which turned out to be pretty good but very different to what we get at home and not so spicy. We had Thai twice, once at Chelsea Markets from a little hole in the wall shop which I think was very tasty. I can't be sure just how good it was cause I hadn't had Thai for about 2 months and it is my favourite cuisine so I think I would have loved even the worst Thai food in the city. The next time was in Hells Kitchen again and it was way hotter than I expected but still OK now that I am no longer a chili wuss. The funny thing was the Green Curry was milder than the Pad Kee Mao (which is usually the milder option). We had Moroccan at a place that was supposed to do belly dancing but I guess we got there too early or on the wrong day cause there was no dancing to be seen. Also we were their only customers for most of the dinner so that may have had something to do with it. The mint tea was delicious and the lamb tagine was pretty good too. We had Dim sum in China town which in my opinion wasn't as good a the one we go to at Greenwood plaza. Oh and we also went to a Greek place on the upper west side with Jack's cousins friend Giles.

It wasn't just international food that we tried we had plenty of American food in the form of Burgers, Pizza, Brunch and BBQ. My favourite would have to be the two brunch places we went to with my old school friend Anna, Cook shop where the bacon was to die for and Good where I had a sensational frittata and biscuits. Biscuits are fantastic and something I'm really going to miss about America. They are similar to scones but much more crumbly and buttery and go perfectly with bacon and eggs! One of Jacks favourites would probably be Rub a Louisiana style BBQ place that seemed quite authentic, well as authentic as a place can be to two Australian people who have never been to Louisiana. I'm not a huge fan of smokey BBQ flavour but I did enjoy the fried green tomatoes and the ribs I ordered were quite tasty too. Jack ordered burnt ends, pulled pork, baked beans and onion rings which I think he enjoyed judging by the amount he had on his face!

The other things we tried which don't warrant much mention were Caribbean Jerk Chicken, Mexican Nachos in Brooklyn, Bagels and Coffee, and probably a dozen other things which I can no longer recall.

We also thoroughly enjoyed the home cooked roast chicken dinner made for us in up state NY by my lovely cousin Charlotte. Her place is amazing there were even deer in the back yard! It was great to see all my family again.

That's it for New York we will defiantly miss our time here. This post has made me hungry so I'm going to go eat!

NY is Cheap as Chips

So, if you exclude accommodation (or maybe if you live, really, really far away) then it turns out that you can have a really good time for very little (something that we are increasingly interested in given the aussie dollar is now the prototypical little aussie battler).

Even accommodation can be cheap if you are willing to stay in the gritty old school Manhattan as we did (and then put up with intemperate heating and construction on three sides). But I digress.

The best way to save money is to not spend any at all. There are a surprising number of venues that do not charge cover, and give away free alcohol and food. We went to Chelsea Markets twice to see free indie shorts and were shouted free beer. Free movies and beer - a winning concept if ever there was one.

There is a website that lists the bars that are giving away free alcohol each night. There are also gallery opening nights that routinely give away free stuff. If you get really desperate, every bar has happy hours with drinks around $3. So clearly, paying for drinks in this town is for suckers.

Food wise, you can still get a massive cooked breakfast from a really excellent diner for $5 (includes orange juice and bottomless coffee). Prices seem to be going up fast though, so these "old school" prices are probably from people that haven't gotten around to printing new menus.

Most delis, Whole Foods, etc have great salad bars where you can get tasty fresh food (healthy too) for around $6, which is cheaper than going to a supermarket and cooking at home (the supermarkets in Manhattan are soooo expensive). The salad bar at Whole Foods is the best, Jerry, the best.

The met has a policy of pay what you want. The suggested amount is $20 per person, but we decided to pay $2.50 each.

Guggenheim, MOMA and Whitney are some really excellent galleries that are pay what you like on Friday nights. We decided to pay $1 each for both of these (suggested amounts are both around $20). This is seriously good value, as the collection at Whitney is mind-bogglingly good and of course MOMA has just about every piece of popular modern art in existence.

Free events abound - I went to a two day semantic conference for nix at NYU (and where else in the world would you find 200 people interested in the discovery, use and organisation of semantic knowledge).

Movies are $6 before twelve every day of the week, and of course this is the place to see those limited releases that might never be released to the cinema in Sydney.

And there is endless entertainment just from walking about Central Park, catching the subways (buskers do their bit, and there are some really good ones) and just walking down the street. There is a strange sense of evident truth, an unfiltered insight into the human condition that is both stimulating and provocative. When you take every culture in the world, add in some rational civic sensibility and an overriding courtesy that stems both from a feeling of equality and a fear and uncertainty of who you might be sharing a street with, you get the opportunity to understand the world as a whole.

And when you can get all this for next to nothing, it really is something to celebrate. To use a well worn phrase, We Love NYC!!

Orlando, Florida

My cousin Ben and his wife Karen were in Florida for Karen's brother's wedding at the same time we were in New York so we decided to fly down for a visit. Karen's parents made us feel very welcome by bathing us in American Hospitality - as Karen said, "this is the land of plenty".

The weather was a treat too for our ice bitten faces with warm sunny days and cloudless skys. We arrived on Wednesday evening and were welcomed with margaritas and mexican. We were interested in the Florida concept of enclosing the back yard of the house with mosquito net - which meant that the house becomes very open, and the back patio an irritation free extension of the house.

The next morning, after staying up all night talking and watching movies, we headed to Universal - Islands of Adventure. After not being on a big rollercoaster for some time, I had genuinely forgotten just how much fun they are!

Due to the season and possibly the economy, we found the place empty. Along with the fabulous weather we were in for theme park heaven! Every ride said there was a five minute wait time, but it really only took a few minutes to walk through the miles of roped off areas where on a summer day you might find yourself waiting. It was scary for some rides just how much waiting there might have been.

The first ride was The Hulk. This one starts off with tremendous acceleration up a ramp, before flinging you out on an open track in crazy upside down loops. Talk about starting off at the deep end!

We quickly progressed to the water rides section. Lucky for us it was so warm that it didn't really matter that we were literally soaked at this point. My favourite ride was a water ride - Dudley Do Right - that has you in a log, bobbing about a water track and then falling a ridiculous distance down waterfalls, with resulting enormous splashes. If you don't get wet enough doing this, there are water pipes that onlookers can fire at you from a bridge. (These are placed at face level, and you are strapped into your seat, so you only have two choices - eyes or ears).

We were drenched from these rides and spent the rest of the day with soggy underpants, but it was still way fun.

Because of the lack of lines, we did all the rides in the park by lunchtime and so upgraded our tickets and hit Universal Studios for more of the same. The Simpsons ride was great - it belongs to the "4D" category whereby you don't move all that much but you get a really strong sense of motion, due to tilting and looking at an enormous screen that projects movement.

So in one day we did both parks and had an absolute blast. We finished up with more margaritas and hamburgers before paying a visit to Karen's brother to drink draught beer and play Rock Band 2, where I found I was unable to play the drums AND hit the snare drum pedal with any coordination (maybe margaritas and draught beer aren't so good for coordination, despite all the advertising to the contrary).

The next day was more laid back, we ate a large leisurely breakfast, sat around talking, finished a jigsaw puzzle and had a look at the free parts of Disneyland (which are not as much fun as the expensive parts). During breakfast, Ben and Karen told us to put maple syrup on our "biscuits" with eggs and "sausage" and watched with the kind of anticipation that Australians reserve for people that have never tried vegemite. (Australia wins in the unexpected tastes at breakfast department).

Disney had decided to create a lagoon with white sand and beach chairs so we had a drink on that to catch the last rays of lovely Florida sunshine before getting to the airport for our flight back to New York, which was cold and rainy but felt, in just a small way, a little like home, which was both interesting and surprising.

So big thanks to Ben and Karen for showing us around, and big thanks to Linda and Chase for their hospitality. Sometimes you do need a vacation, even when you are on vacation.

A Great Week to be in New York

A lot has been going on this past week in New York. It all started on Thursday, wathcing Chicago on Broadway. It was okay, but tired - probably due to running continuously since 1996! (In fact it holds a record for the longest running musican revival on Broadway).

Friday followed with Halloween. We went to watch the Parade but were a little too late to get a good spot. There were literally millions (two) of people crammed along the streets all dressed up in their costumes and it was really exciting to see. Even though we couldn't get right up close to the parade we did manage to see a little of it. We spent the rest of the evening walking along the street watching everyone in their costumes all getting a little crazy. It a bit like the atmosphere on NYE in Sydney only 10 times as many people and every one is dressed up. It was a fun night and we topped it off by eating a Ben and Jerrys Ice-cream Sunday before heading home. Yum!

The NY marathon was held on Sunday so we headed down to the park to watch the runners cross the finish line. It was so inspiring to see everyone who had just run 40 km still look so full of energy. Having said that there were some people that looked like they were about to pass out. Apparently a couple of people died later that evening, which isn't an unusual occurrence!

We had planned on spending Monday wandering around Astoria in Queens however after getting on the subway heading in the wrong direction we ended up at Battery Park. Instead of trying to go back in the other direction we decided to catch the Staten Island Ferry. Since neither of us have any interest in visiting Liberty Island this was a good way to get a view of Manhattan from the water. It's free to ride the ferry and sails right past Liberty Island on the way a much better idea in my opinion than spending the $20 to get someone to leave you stranded on Liberty Island with nothing to do.

Then of course came Election night on Tuesday. The city was buzzing all day. Buskers were working the name Obama into there songs which seemed to work a treat for the guy that got onto our subway car that morning. He must have got at least $7 just from our car for the one song he sang. We took the 7 train to Queens as far as you can go to check out the "International Food". It's interesting how in about 20 blocks the area can change ethnicity not only in the people that inhabit the area but also in the ambiance. Our first stop was Flushing which is home to a rather large Korean and Chinese population. We were told that this would be the place to get authentic and cheap Chinese food. One subway station further were Mexican restaurants everywhere and I especially liked all the music playing in the street. One interesting observation was that the street sellers would be speaking perfect albeit heavily accented Spanish and then immediately switch to perfect New Yorker accent when speaking to a non-Mexican, what was even more interesting was that a lot of the sellers were not Mexican at all but African-Americans. After walking out 30 blocks we came to an Irish neighbourhood and after having just been in Ireland it was funny to see pubs that look almost identical to the ones we had see over there. We stopped here funnily enough for some Thai food which was pretty average but very inexpensive (I guess that's what you get for eating Thai in an Irish neighbourhood). We continued to follow the train line where the scene then starts to change into India, the Mexicans and Irish disappear only to be replaced by women wearing sari's and the smell of Indian food. I bought one of the best samosas I have ever had before hopping on the train back to the city.

We arrived home later that day and watched Colbert and John Stewart cover the election. At about 11pm it was announced Barrack Obama had won the election. The streets erupted in a roar of excitement which we could hear even from our apartment even though it is set away from the street. The city feels like it has just been injected with hope, and I think I have even noticed some smiles on peoples faces instead of the usual straight faced look directly at the ground New Yorker.


NY dresses up for Halloween




Jannie forgets to depresss button - complains that there is always a three second delay when using her camera

NY Reveals Wintery Goodness!!

From walking about and wishing we were wearing shorts on Sunday, to the iciest, nastiest cold snap where it started snowing around the city on Tuesday...what a change icy cold wind can make to a city.

I guess you can say Jannie and I are fair weather fans, as exploration in this kind of weather is just impossible. Just walking to the end of block is uncomfortable even in jumpers and jackets and multiple layers (your face freezes, if nothing else). Thermals are great outside but, of course, the heating inside each building is set to barbeque, so thermals and all layers need to be quickly divested.

Luckily the weather is warming up again now, but if that is any taste of winter, then we both decided that we will be happy to leave it for the locals.