Not much else to add. I have mostly stayed in to avoid getting a second pair of shoes and jeans wet. Plus the footpaths are all a bit too slippery for my liking. Today is not going well and I think it's best not to tempt fate and end up falling over.
It's not a great weather today. The snow I never got to see at Christmas, I have seen today.
I went to the NY Fire Museum this morning. It was much better than the Police Museum. I then wandered around SOHO and went to Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village.
I got very wet. Walking around in the snow (plus thunder and lightening) without watertight boots and a snow appropriate umbrella doesn't work well. It was fun until my legs got numb.
Waiting to hear something on the Qantas situation. Can think of worse places to be stuck though!
Only one and a half days left!
Tomorrow is going to be interesting, as they are forecasting snow (up to 1.6") after a day of rain. This is big news, or so the constant news updates would indicate.
But let's not worry about tomorrow when I have yet to tell you about today.
Today I shopped a little, walked a lot, smiled heaps and had frozen yoghurt from y new favourite place.
Shopping was shoes: work shoes, weekend shoes and running shoes. I only intended to get the running shoes but I have a shoe shopping problem.
Walking was Central Park as far as 86th Street. I want to go up to the Harlem Meer but I couldn't walk that far today. I think that will be a Sunday morning trip.
Walking was also from the hotel to Battery Park to see the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty fireworks.
The fireworks were great, although I love fireworks so nearly anything would have impressed me.
After the fireworks I attempted to avoid the crowds a little by going to the Empire State Building at night. If what I got was better than during the day, I am SO glad I didn't try during the day.
I have previously mentioned my dislike of tourists. I would like to take this further by expressing an increased dislike of French tourists. Three different groups, and every one of them were loud and had no concept of personal space (most specifically, mine).
Despite the tourists, the views of both the fireworks and from the Empire State Building made me smile lots.
Horrible rainy day today. Not good walking weather - and what I do is walk.
Because of the weather I decided to hit up two museums today.
I started off at the New York City Police Museum. This was a bit disappointing. There was lots of potential but it was pretty poorly executed. Would recommend only if nothing else to do.
Before museum number two, I had a cosy long lunch in the financial district. It was at a Swiss place so I had a Swiss meatball sandwich with a side of mashed potato. Perfect cold and wet weather comfort food.
The second museum was the National Museum of the American Indian. This was much better (it's part of the Smithsonian) but was not big enough.
I really like Lower Manhattan, although the lack of nice blocks and consecutively numbered streets does tend to result in a lot more of me being completely lost. The fact that all the buildings are skyscrapers does not help the orientation either.
I succumbed to the weather and just went back to the hotel once done. Luckily, their forecasting a sunny day tomorrow. I don't care if it's cold, I just don't want any more wet.
All the excitement of the past couple of weeks plus being in close proximity to 9 million people has given me a cold. Insert sniffly sad face here.
Undaunted, I set out to explore the Lower East Side today. This is the area where all the Immigrants initially settled when coming to America, so used to be very multicultural. Now a huge part is Chinese and the rest is Puerto Rican.
I spent a large part of my time at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a synagogue built in 1887 and fully restored very recently. It was very interesting but I couldn't take any photos. Here's the website though: Eldridge Street Synagogue
Once I was done walking I had late lunch/early dinner at a French Cafe in SOHO.
Nothing else of any excitement to report for today.
A tale of two neighbourhoods.
This morning I headed out to Coney Island and Brighton Beach. I was expecting everything to be shut seeing as it's so late in the year. I was also expecting it to be a bit tacky. I got everything I expected and more. I found Coney Island to be very depressing. I think it would be a bit better when everything is open but would still have an undercurrent of cheap, dirty, desperation about it.
I walked the boardwalk from Coney Island to Brighton Beach. Brighton Beach was everything I had heard as well. Lots of old Russians. Everywhere I looked there were old Russian people.
I'm glad I went but definitely would not be in a hurry to go back again.
Once back in Manhattan, I had lunch at 5 Napkin Burger (good burger, even if a little pricey).
Then, because I'm crazy, I decided to walk from 42nd Street to 84th Street along 5th Avenue. It was a great, albeit long, walk. I actually saw a couple of private school kids get dropped off at their fancy building, complete with doorman, by their personal driver. It turns out sometimes what you see in TV is true.
On the upper east side I checked out a frozen yoghurt shop I had heard of (it's OK to have frozen yoghurt for dinner, isn't it?).
And then, because I was very tired from all my walking, I went back to the hotel.
Not too much to report for today, as today was designated shopping day. I caught the PATH train to Newport in New Jersey and spent a large proportion of my day in the mall there. It was definitely much easier than shopping in NYC. There were no crowds and I'm pretty sure I didn't see a single tourist.
Today i did a self guided walking tour of Greenwich Village. This took me down Bleeker Street and to Washington Square Park. Then, to contrast, I headed into Times Square and hit up the tourist spots. I still hate tourists!
I headed to the Chelsea Market for lunch as I seen that there was a dumpling truck parked outside. The dumplings were OK. The ice cream I got at the market was even better. I won't say it was home made but it felt pretty close.
Next I walked along the High Line park. It was so much more crowded than last time I was there. They've also extended it about 10 blocks so I got to see some new parts. Apart from the fact that it was crowded it was nice.
My legs were feeling fairly tired by now. I decided to catch the train downtown (and sit down for a while) and have a look at the 9/11 memorial.
Huge mistake.
There were so many people there and worse still, the Occupy Wall Street thing is right next to it so I got caught up in that too. I hate tourists. They were taking photos of the protesters and blocking the footpath while doing it.
And you can see nothing at the WTC site.
On the way back to the hotel to regroup, I got off the train on 7th Avenue. I need to go toward 8th to get to the hotel but because I have an appalling sense of direction I ended up heading toward 6th instead. Lucky!
6th Avenue was closed off to traffic for about 10 blocks and there were street stalls set up. It was so cool. I wandered along there for a while.
After all this excitement I had developed a headache to go with my achey legs so just went back to the hotel. This is where I spent my evening, after picking up a sandwich from a local deli.
Overnight: I had a much better sleep last night. I think the rowdy "youngsters" left, thank goodness.
5.00am: Not my first choice of wake up time for holidays but necessary for the Rock n Roll 10km. I caught the subway to Prospect Park. First I went uptown to 42 St to change trains. The first train was pretty empty and the second one was full of runners.
7.30am: Race start. The description of the course was "beautiful, tree-lined...flat, fast and festive". And it was...if by flat they actually meant rolling hills. And the worst part was because the course did two laps, I knew they were coming the second time. Despite my lack of interim running, I felt good and was sub 7.00 min/km until about 8km in when my stomach turned against me. This is definitely something I have to work out because I would really like to be able to improve my times. My legs are OK and my breathing is OK but my insides are certainly not. The end result was a finish time of 1:10:xx by my watch. And I am happy with that.
8.40am: I got my medal. It's so pretty! And it weighs a tonne.
10.30am-ish: back to the hotel, ready for a shower and planning the rest of the day.
I love New York City.
Got to Chelsea Lodge about 10.00pm, my room this time is not as good as my last visit. Plus there are (I'm praying this is soon to be were) some very rowdy people on the floor who woke me up quite a few times last night).
I started off my first day in NYC by getting my traditional Starbucks grande soy cappuccino and croissant. I then got myself a metro card for the next seven days (I love the NYC public transport system). And then met my NY Greeter.
We caught the subway to West 86th Street and then a bus across town. We walked along the East River up to East 96th Street and then back west to Central Park. Finally, we went through Central Park and down to 59th and 5th.
Pat, my greeter, was originally from California and moved to NYC four years ago. She is very knowledgeable about the city and gave me so much information, including a list of her favourite restaurants, a copy of Time Out New York and a marked up map with suggestions of places to go. I will definitely recommend this program to anyone else visiting New York.
After my tour I went to pick up my race pack for tomorrow. I thought it would take much longer but all went pretty well.
The other highlight of the day was a marching band performing on 8th Avenue, at 8.00pm at night. It was great.
1. Paying a little extra to travel business class - totally worth it
2. Train food is not great and they run out of the good stuff very early on the trip
3. Thirteen hours on a train (in business class) does not feel as long as 13 hours on a plane (in economy)
The weather well and truly turned on my last day in Toronto. It's been windy and rainy and generally yuk.
The plan for the day was fairly laid back, St Lawrence Market and the waterfront.
I made my way to the market first. I wasn't that impressed, it's essentially the Queen Vic Market/South Melbourne Market but maybe smaller.
After this I ran across the Occupy Toronto protest site, an unplanned sight on my list. I felt a little bad for those camping out there because the weather was pretty bad and not what I would want to be out in.
Because of the weather and the fact that my leg has been a bit sore (same old, same old), I called it quits on Toronto and headed back to the B&B. I've got a 10km race coming up soon!
To get back to the B&B I walked along Queen Street and checked out the shops and then along Bathurst Street. On Bathurst there's a hospital and directly across the road is a large funeral home. I'm not sure that a funeral home across the road really inspires confidence in the capabilities of the hospital!
After an afternoon nap and lots of home show watching on cable, I braved the elements and had pasta for dinner.
I need a break from my holiday! My legs are so tired from all my walking!
Today I did a walking tour out of the Lonely Planet which took me through the PATH network, with highlights of the CN Tower (I didn't go up as I just couldn't justify the price), the Hockey Hall of Fame (for someone who doesn't understand the game, I found this pretty interesting) and the Gallery of Inuit Art.
After all this, I walked up Yonge Street and back to the B&B.
While this doesn't look like much, it took about 7 hours all up.
I chanced Indian in Korea Town for dinner. There are approximately 20,000 Korean restaurants nearby but I went with what I know. I'm really not a very brave traveller.
Wow, I can't believe it's been over a week already!
Today I caught the train from Ottawa to Toronto. It was an uneventful trip, good news for me.
I had a lovely taxi driver from Union Station to the B&B. He waited to make sure that I had the right address and there was someone there to let me in.
The B&B is just off Bloor Street in Korea Town. I didn't get in until around 2.30 and I didn't really have a plan for the day, so I walked pretty much the length of Bloor St this afternoon. That took me through Korea Town, The Annex, past the University of Toronto and through Bloor-Yorkville. The things I have on my list to see are all in a different part of the city so that walk covered my sightseeing for the north part of town.
On my last day in Ottawa I headed out on my own to the National Gallery of Canada.
As always, we had to start the day with far too much food. Today's excursion was an early lunch at The Works. This is a burger place with a ridiculous number of burger options. Don't believe me? Check out their website.
I really enjoyed the Canadian and Inuit sections of the gallery. It never ceases to amaze me how long you can spend just looking at pictures and the odd sculpture.
This was a fairly quiet day and I didn't do anything else.
Dinner was Asian in Chinatown followed by Toffee Apple Cheesecake back at the Byward Market.
I'm pretty sure I don't need to eat for most of my time in Toronto after all that I had in Ottawa. It was great to see the city and certainly was a different experience having a local there to show me everything and make me try all of their favourite things.
As the weather forecast was continuing to threaten bad weather, we decided to head to the Gatineau Park in the morning when the forecast looked least wet. The park is in Quebec but not too far from Ottawa. Before heading out we went to Cora's for brunch. I liked this place because nearly every meal comes with fruit salad. I had a bacon and egg crepe with lots of fruit.
Once again we were very lucky and the weather held out so that we could go to the Champlain Lookout and then hike the King Mountain trail. I got a very good spread of Fall foliage and some very good views.
After our trip to the park we drove to Wakefield and had a little look around there. It was dry but cold and windy so just toured the town in the car.
On the way back to Ottawa we stopped at the Casino du Lac Leamy.
For dinner we went to Fat Tuesday's, which serves Louisiana style food. I had Shrimp Creole, a very tasty choice. For desert we had Timbits from Tim Hortons as this was another "thing I had to try".
It looks like the weather gods were on my side. Despite it raining nearly the entire train trip, by the time we got to Ottawa it had stopped.
Caroline picked me up from the train station and then we went to her house where i dropped off my bags.
Next stop was a tour of downtown and the Byward Market. We started off with Danishes and coffee in the market, then wandered around and saw:
> Parliament Hill - this is a pretty impressive building
> Bywater market - not quite the same but the best comparison I can think of is Queen Victoria Market. Being Fall, there were lots of lovely looking apples and plenty of pumpkins
> Downtown - I visited Caroline's work and had a tour of the shops
After the walking, we stopped for lunch which consisted of Poutine. I was a great disappointment because I didn't really like it. I like chips. I like gravy. I like cheese. I do not like all three together. We ate on the steps outside the EY Ottawa office as Caroline has a friend who works there, he came down to say hi and I exchanged business cards with him. Good thing I didn't take them out of my wallet at the airport!
In the evening we went to an Ice Hockey game - Ottawa 67s v Brampton Battalion. This was just an OHL game but still enjoyable. I think I got the Canadian hockey experience out of it. Before the game we had pizza at La Favorita and at the game I had Beaver tail.
You may be getting the impression that I all I did in Ottawa is eat. And this would quite possibly be right.
To finish off my trip to Montreal, I checked out the downtown area and the underground shopping malls. The main downtown strip is Rue Sainte-Catherine and it's pretty much just a big shopping strip with old churches wedged between the new buildings. Once again, I walked and walked and walked until I had to give up because my legs are just too tired to keep going.
Being a shopping strip, there are no location photos for the day. I did come across this "urban garden" made from recycled materials though, which I thought was pretty cool. I can't get the photos to load properly, so here's a link to them on Photobucket.
I also managed to receive two compliments today - one was in French so I didn't realise I'd received it until I pulled out the confused tourist face. I'll be glad to not use that quite so often.
Dear Canadian weather
As I am on holidays and it takes at least 24 hours for me to get here from Australia, I would really appreciate it if you could please stop raining.
With love
Chris (is traveling)
By the time I'd had lunch it was around 2.00pm and my legs were getting a bit tired but I still wanted to check out the botanical gardens. I was going to catch a bus but decided to act like a local and ride a bike. Montreal is a great city for bikes and cycling. They have a rental system with pick up and drop off stations all over the city. It's a bit like the one in Melbourne but I think better priced and easier to use as helmets aren't required here.
I paid five dollars and for that I can use the bikes for 24 hours for up to 30 minutes at a time. So, I take a bike, cycle to my destination and return to a bike station. After I'm done at that destination, I take another bike and ride it to wherever I want to go, repeat. Although helmets aren't required, I didn't want to ride on the road, so stuck to the dedicated bike bike paths throughout the city.
Of course, within about 10 minutes of being on the bike my cardigan tie came undone and got caught in the chain! I had a few moments of panic trying to get it untangled. Got there in the end but not without some swearing.
Didn't end up going into the botanic gardens - by the time I arrived there was only another hour before they closed PLUS entry was $16.50 ($14.00 if I was a local) and I thought that was a bit steep form some plants.
Instead I just got back on the bike and kept exploring. I forgot how fun it is to ride. Montreal is very flat, which is possibly why I enjoyed it :)
Not sure where I'll head for dinner tonight yet. I'm thinking I should try French as this is such a French city.
It's 5.40pm on day 2 and I'm pretty tired. Big day with lots of city seeing but not too much sight seeing.
Breakfast today was a leek and feta quiche, which was quite nice but a bit much after my five course (tiny plates) dinner last night. In the interest of remembering as much of this trip as possible, the five plates were:
Yellow beets tartar with smoked salmon and feta cheese (yum)
Dual of fresh marinated crab and shrimp with pepper (yum)
Quintet of grilled vegetables (yum)
Braised beef cheek served with potato (yum)
Seared foie gras on a bed of lentils with a reduction sherry vinegar (foie gras OK and lentils yum)
After all that food lots of walking was definitely in order. Today I headed up Mont Royal to check out the panoramic views of the city. The track up toward the top is a pretty popular running route based on the number of people I saw out and about this morning. Unfortunately, the day was a little hazy so missed out on perfect views but it was still pretty good. The round trip took me about two hours. After that I wandered along Rue St-Denis and had some lunch (chicken baguette, nothing too exciting) and then wandered some more.
After making it to bed at about 3.30, I set the alarm for 8.00 to be ready for breakfast by 9.00. I had a good night's sleep; the area is pretty quiet and the bed is really comfy.
Breakfast was banana pancakes. Despite my dislike of banana I ate them - I used plenty of maple syrup which covered the banana taste :)
I spent the day in Old Montreal, visiting the Musee d'Archeologie et d'Histoire Pointe-a-Calliere, Basilique Notre-Dame, the Bank of Montreal and wandering for hours.
After an afternoon nap (which I really needed) I went to a local tapas restaurant for dinner. It was all amazing and I tried foie gras (not something I'll be lining up for again but can at least say I've had it).
