The rarely updated Blog

Waking up in New York was pretty weird - and so was using the toilets / showers. American toilets seem to be wider, lower to the ground, and the water level is higher in the actual bowl. And the plugs in the basins / showers were also odd (I think I broke one of them in our first hotel room).

After a brief breakfast (with grape and cherry jam - hawt!) we started our first day with a bit of sight seeing. We hopped into a cab right outside our hotel on our way to the tour bus. It was funny, as soon as the cabbie found out we were Australian, he talked about cricket for the whole trip (I think he was a West Indies fan). I hadn't expected that I was going to be chatting to American cab drivers about cricket (or crumpets for that matter).

We got onto our open roofed tour bus, and the first stop we made was to Macy's Department Store for winter clothing - as it was extremely cold. Apparently it was very cold for late November in New York, and we had just come from a nice Australian Summer, so we were freezing. This marked the first time in my life that I have ever worn gloves, a scarf or a hat purely for warmth.


One of the entrances to Macy's - Scooby, Dooby Doo!

While picking up the first of our hockey tickets at Madison Square Garden, we met a couple that had visited Australia previously. They liked our country, but hated the outback - apparently noone had warned them about the flies. Let this be a lesson to everyone - Australia's outback has lots of dirty, stinking flies.

Our next stop was the Empire State Building, which was tall (shock horror). One fact I didn't know is that the building actually has a mooring mast on it for zeppelins. They never use it (too windy) but it's still sitting there. It was cool to be at the top of the tallest building in New York, but the view was basically just a whole lot of buildings. The Coke vending machines were pretty cool though!


I guess the view is kinda cool


But again, the Coke machine was pretty neat

After another McDonald's meal we went back onto the tour bus and drove around New York. The tour guide seemed quite knowledgeable as we drove past things like ground zero, Chinatown, the Chrysler Building, SoHo et al. We got off the bus at Times Square and was just amazed by the size, the lights and the sheer number of people (unfortunately we didn't see any naked cowboys).


The Big 'N' Tasty - Undeniably tasty, yet not convincingly big


This Coke sign was pretty cool - currently in Pinball Machine form


Yet, now it's a Coke can - technology!

We went to the Virgin Mega Store, which was awesome (I picked up some sweet Family Guy figurines - and we bought way too many DVDs). We then had dinner at Planet Hollywood - which had a menu pretty much exactly like the Melbourne Planet Hollywood (fajitas are good). After dinner we went to the Toys 'R' Us store - which was also quite fun. Most New York stores seem to be really, really big - Virgin, Planet Hollywood and Toys 'R' Us were all three stories - but the actual area is pretty standard. There's just more stairs / escalators to worry about.


Toys 'R' Us had a big-ass ferris wheel inside the store...


... with some very cool...


... gondolas


Just bouncin' with my homie

After a visit to ESPN Zone and Ben & Jerry's, we decided to call it a night.


Caught this sign on the way home. A 404 error may not be cool, unless it's the size of a building!