And now we resume normal programming

Hopefully that little break has served you well, as it's time to go back to what I've been doing all along, that is filling you in about our daily life in this city.

We never got anything like this in Sydney

So a major even has occurred in that Deb and I have moved into our new apartment. Over the course of the last week the dream of having our own living space in New York has been realised. Thanks to alot of hard work put in by our friends (thanks especially to Dewi, Dawen and Andy) and family, (mum and dad) we've been able to do so quite quickly.

Three trips up and down 24th street to 93rd street later, this is what our apartment looks like. 

We had slowly accumulated little bits and pieces at our temporary apartment, ones that we thought we'd be able to manage with Dawen's minivan move, and obviously, big ticket items had to wait until we had the keys to the new place.

 Box sweet box?

Deb and I have now formed an unfailing tradition of not having mealspaces when we move into new places. It happened at her first apartment, it happened at mine. And as the photos of those memories look on on the shelf nearby, we couldn't break tradition by having furniture to eat on. Don't worry, we have since procured a dining table through the wonders of craigslist. One stressful subway trip later with our mum and dad, we finally have space to eat. Updated photos will come soon.

Next up was a couch, well this actually came a few nights before. But in order of importance a couch is arguably further down the scale. The impending visit of Deb's parents however made sure the couch forced it's way up the list.

NOW you stop to think about it...

We knew we weren't staying for long so there wasn't much use in getting furniture that we could lose out alot on when it came time to go back to Australia. The unfortunate by product of purchasing cheap furniture is of course, production methods having corners cut. Because of this, a leg wouldn't screw in properly as it was covered by a particularly thick layer of paint. So I waved my mechanic's wand over it, threw it at the gas burner cooktop, and manhandled it into place with my manly manliness. After that ordeal, we finally had a sofa bed.

Something that you would expect, and not expect at the same time of cheap furniture makers, was a little inventiveness on their behalf. I'll leave it to you to figure out what this is about.

The little tag says "leg inside"

As we lifted the couch out and discovered no extra pieces, we did wonder for a minute. At least there were no embarrassing phone calls to suppliers to figure out that the legs were hiding in that neatly hidden zip up pouch.

No trip to America is complete without a day dedicated to Outlet Shopping. Those of you that know me best know that in my happier moments I am behind the steering wheel of a car, so the past month being stuck on trains and on foot would of course, leave a longing. With outlet shopping it's just too difficult being at the mercy of public transport. So we rented a car!

Next post, come along with us for a road trip to Woodbery Commons!

Bonus Round!

You go half way around the world trying to escape this infernal feline, but she'll still find you. Granted we were in a store that originated in Japan it was bound to happen, but still. Evil geniusses aspire to take over the world the way this cat has.

This was obviously the mother's idea because the child was scared witless. A nightmarish blend of snowman and kitten head on what otherwise looks like a person would do that to you too right?

Here are some more silly things to share with you all on our voyages around this crazy city.

Homewares shopping can be the bane of your existence if you do it enough, thus finding ways to amuse yourself is necessary to make the time bearable. Enjoyable even.

To everybody else I'm sure this isn't the idea you have when you're looking for a "fish plate" to steam fish with in a wok, at the same token, I'm sure this is what Deb had in mind all along.

Bed Bath and Beyond is a dream come true for you home furnishers out there. It can also be one of those unending nightmares you just can't seem to escape as we managed to miss a scheduled call home with our parents. We didn't think we spent that much time in there... the sun shone and dissappeared in the time we were inside trying to pick matching kitchenware and what not.

You know how you're always told that trolleys aren't allowed on the escalator? In places like Bed Bath and Beyond there are always multiple levels so you accomodate customers by helping them avoid the, buy a bunch of stuff on this level shuffle.

So here's an escalator that people aren't allowed on. With some elegant geometry it will stay upright while it's in transit. Can you tell it's the first time I've seen something like this?

Hopefully this post has served to lighten what has otherwise been heavy reading on this blog in recent times.

Here's a teaser of just some of what will be shared in the next post.

The stowaways finally find their new home.

Just a few more sleeps...

My metamorphosis into a true New Yorker is well underway, I write this post as I sit in a Starbucks around the corner from our new place, mooching off the free Wi-Fi. I suggest you do similar, sit down with a nice hot drink (well... for you Sydneysiders, maybe a cold drink) and a comfortable chair, because this will be one involved post.

So I pick up after Chinese New Year. One of the great things about New York is how their comedy clubs are where some of the biggest names in comedy found their feet. Tipped off by friends about a free show at Gotham Comedy Club, we thought there was no reason not to visit as it was across the street from our temporary apartment in Chelsea.

We all had a good night, my jaw ended up hurting from laughing so much, most of it was genuine, some of it was to avoid being on the sharp end of a roasting, and some of it we really shouldn't have been laughing at. But we were at a Comedy Club, and the atmosphere just takes a hold of you.

Later that week we picked up the keys to what would become our new home for the coming year, we savored it in its blank canvas state before set upon it the mess that moving in will inevitably bring. Before we left that morning we had housekeeping stumble in on us at breakfast at our temporary place, wanting to stay out of their way as I headed back to Chelsea, I decided to go for a little walk, and soak up some morning sun despite the cold morning air. I headed to Union Square as it was only two avenues over. I knew there was a little park there to serve as refuge in this busy city, so there I sat and waited.

For a city with so much going on, there was a suprising amount of people doing the same, just sitting, taking time out from their busy lives. The facilities that the city provides do the best they can to assist you in putting your feet up. Really.

My wanting to not be too voyeuristic kept me from taking a closer photo, but those are wooden loungers you see surrounding the sculpture at Union Square.

We walk to the N,R, subway frequently as it's a convenient way downtown, so I've walked past this a few times, this time I had time to take a photo.

Upon first glance, it's quite an excellent way of advertising a restaurant. The presence definitely adding to the Italian-ness. Look at little closer however and you can see it's merely a fixture, the poor little Fiat 500 is sadly derelict, with one flat tyre, bodywork slowly being eaten away by the salty water that inevitably coats a snowy city. The enthusiast in me wants to buy it, restore it to it's former glory, so it can continue its life running around the city as it was always meant to. When everything settles down.

As a born and bred Australian, I have no knowledge of this phenomenon known as Chicken and Waffles. I sat and watched a TV ad confusedly while my wife, more learned of American culture, informed me that it's one of the more ingrained of their food culture, a staple of Soul Food. For my benefit, and education therefore, Deb resolved to take me to a soul food restaurant on the weekend.

Amy Ruth's is where we ended up. Our first voyage to Harlem since being in this city, and if you were wondering what soul food is, this place will give you a good idea.

A big hug, a big smile, just the things that make you feel nice inside. Deb had had Chicken waffles before, so she wasn't afraid to order them. Me on the other hand went with the Yelp recommendation of the Fried Whiting... with waffles (yeah, fish is far less adventurous with waffles). I had to try it right?

While I may look dissappointed, I'm really not. I'm just very confused because all I know of waffles are the with Chocolate, with Strawberry and with Ice Cream kind. I dig in tentatively, and find the fish tasty, very very tasty. Not the heavily salted "my brain is telling me to like this" kind of taste, but light, and fragrant, and not too oily. The fish had a few bones, but being from Chinese heritage, this fazed me not. I did try a few bites with waffle, but my brain just couldn't compute... I'm very black and white like that. Though, that doesn't mean they weren't nice in their own right. They were plain, with none of the sweetness I came to expect, so for a more open mind, they could work together. For me however, I treated them like dessert, and proceeded to draw liberal squiggles of Maple Syrup all over them. And then I knew what it was to eat a sweet cloud, they were just that fluffy.

The walls were decorated with mirrors, and on those mirrors were some squiggles of a Jazz/Swing band playing, and lovers in an embrace. I thought it was very special and unique.

We had bought some cheap homewares in Chinatown as we knew we weren't here for the long run. We didn't expect to get a chopping board so poorly made that it would split after the first wash... we tried our luck returning it that morning. Unfortunately no dice on an exchange. Them making excuses about us having dropped it or other bologna. I don't know what we were expecting, but needless to say we won't be going back there...

Either way it must have been destiny that brought us there because try as we might to avoid Chinese New Year celebrations in the city, (Deb having experienced and as a result warned against the crush of people), we still managed to find our way right into the middle of it. We stumbled across two small lions, blessing (taking money from) nearby stores;

You can probably just make out the second one on top of Deb's head. We would also run into what we guessed was the main Lion making it's way through the street. This one was quite impressive, as you see this one is still some way away.

Anyway, this feels like an appropriate place for a break. Tune in for the next post as we gear up to move into where we will live for the rest of our adventures in New York.

Getting ready to move again... again... again?

Well, this will be our second move for 2013. But it's not as big a deal as last time when we up and moved country, this time we're just moving from our temporary accomodation to what wil be our home for the next year and a bit.

So my Chinese New Year post left abit of a gap in our diary entries, as it was big enough to warrant its own post. So this one serves to fill you in on what happened up until then.

Friday we had organised to meet up with friends at Grand Central to participate in the centenary celebrations. When we arrived we could never have expected this:

I've been told Grand Central is busy, but this? The big draw of the day was that the businesses in Grand Central Station were offering items for sale at the prices they were 100 years ago, and it obviously worked. "New Yorkers will queue up for anything!" a crotchetty old guy exclaimed. Just happy to be part of the novelty of it all, we had (a few) 12c Cups of Gelato, (also a few) 8c packs of French Fries, and attempted to pick up an 8c loaf of bread, but that just ran out way too quickly for them to have enough supply.

Dewi and I enjoying our food from the early 1900's

Later that night we also were due to meet up with friends for a free music act at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or the much more catchy, BAM cafe. Unfortunately the music wasn't really to our taste so we left our seats to other people who might enjoy them more and went for our first late night snack with friends.

Right across from the academy, was a place called Berlyn. As you can guess, it served German cuisine, with Wurst and Pretzels being the main events. As we went in, we were greeted by possibly one of the cuter things we would see in our stay here.

That's right! A plushie pretzel. The place was very nicely decorated, with tonnes of little knick knacks for you to visually sort through. Unfortunately it was a little dark to take some nice pictures so, on to the food.

As Deb and I had had dinner earlier, we decided to share a pretzel, the sweet potato chips and a bowl of mussels.

The pretzel was a little on the salty side, as you can see it was liberally salted. But after brushing off a little excess, it was deliciously fluffy and still toasty on the inside. The sweet potato chips were very tasty, with the kick of paprika melding well with the mellowness of the blue cheese sauce. The mussels with white wine and cheese sauce was one of those "damn, there's none left?" dishes. We just wanted more. Our friends also had a nice selection of dishes that tasted just as nice. Overall we heartily recommend Berlyn for comfort food that's also classy.

The rest of the weekend was concluded with a trip to the Columbus Avenue street markets on the Upper West side. And my first visit to Shake Shack! Somehow it had gotten in my head that Shake Shack was a mass market, Wendy's or Donut King type of joint (well, how they are in Australia anway). But as with a lot of things here, they sometimes take a different meaning when they move abroad.

We had a Shackburger, a Smokeshack, and smothered it with a Peanut Butter Milkshake. The Shackburger was a nice step up from your typical fast food burger, not too greasy with a flavoursome patty. The Smokeshack built on the Shackburger but added some spiciness via a spicy sauce and some chilli, and how could one forget the smoky bacon. The Peanut Butter shake was a revelation and is definitely recommended, just make sure you leave room in your stomach as it's quite thick. The Smokeshack was a very nice way to warm up on an otherwise cold cold day, it just didn't seem enough for Deb.

Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year is very dear to our hearts, having grown up in households that were very proud of our chinese heritage, we would celebrate every year with family without fail. With new surroundings come the opportunity to start new traditions of our own.

With no family with us, we invited some friends over to dinner to celebrate New Year the way only Chinese people do, with a feast!

But let me start at the beginning of the day because it started with abit of a spectacle. The day before we went to Bowery st. to help outfit what was to be the kitchen we would cook with for the next two years.
Contrary to what anonymously authoritative internet advice will say, the humble wok forms an essential element of the kitchen arsenal that is arguably on par with cups and plates. At least for Chinese people.

There is a certain rite of passage for the budding chinese chef, and that is the "seasoning" or "opening" of the wok. As it was Chinese New Year's day, we thought it would be auspicious, fortuitous, and probably necessary if we wanted to cook for our friends that night.

The particulars of this process are plentiful, as Deb will attest to, so if you'd like to find out more a simple google search should sate you. For us, after various incantations, holding her tongue the right way, and hopping on one foot, beseeching the correct heathen god, the job was complete. Even with the door ajar a little, and the window open to -7 degree ambient temperature, the process generated enough smoke to warrant attention from neighbours and a security guard. Said security guard decided to visit our apartment and at the same time, the concierge buzzed up to see what the other residents were complaining about. It was just a little smoke...but we were more than a little red-faced.

We hadn't done anything very holiday like in New York city as we were busy taking care of the administrative stuff. After the ordeal we decided to visit Central Park as it had snowed heavily on the preceding nights making it one of those things that you could miss out on as it quickly melts away.

It was a boiling pot of activity with the Manhattanites taking advantage of the snowy scenery. People jogging, strolling through the park, kids being dragged around on toboggans, budding photographers thoughtfully snapping away, all mixing with the tourists, enjoying the spectacle of snowy central park.

Here's us by Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, a big area of it had turned to ice.

With that ticked off the list, we headed home to prepare dinner for the night. Now, with the wok suitably prepared, Deb could could steam us our new year fish. To make the proper chinese new year feast, we also roasted a belly of pork, and steamed some veggies. Our friends brought a portion of roast duck, and ice the metaphorical cake, a box of egg tarts.

We think we did pretty well, because we polished most of it off, add a bottle of fine wine, four cups of tea, and a crash course in eating/drinking Tim Tams the aussie way, our Chinese New Year feast was done.

Just Having Fun

There hasn't been much to report in the last few days, we've been running around East and Westside Manhattan looking for a place to rent before Deb starts work soon. The story of the apartment search is a pretty boring one, but we've seen nice places, horrible places, plenty in between. So many so that we've started to lose count of them, they're all melding into one monstrous all-consuming thing from the abyss that is the NY rental market. This isn't particularly unique to Manhattan. If you've ever been on any apartment search yourself, I'm sure you know what I mean.

Everything in New York is more audacious, the people, the pets, even the wildlife. While Deb was busy talking to another broker about our cause, I hear a chirping in my ear and turn to see a little sparrow hopping around the skeleton of a little tree. It was only about a metre away from my head. This would be pretty boring to most of you, but I got some nice photos of it. As the Sydney born and raised boy that I am, I found it fascinating, becuase the only wildlife that ever gets near you is a seagull, and only if you're holding a chip.

I found it most funny that in a city so commercialised, animals are still so hospitable. It was after all in my first visit to NY where squirrels would play in Central Park at a similar distance to you, happily posing for photos (that's what I like to think they were doing anyway).

At the time we were up at one hundred and something-th street, and Deb pointed out that the diner that they so often used as a backdrop for Seinfeld scenes was up here. With time to spare, and having a metro nearby, we headed up, using it as a chance to explore the area as well.

 Well, here I am! I didn't go in, but it was nice just to go there after all those years growing up with American TV.

What did we have for lunch instead? Well, I can't tell you, I just have to show you.

Excuse the slightly deranged look. The cheese had already gone to my head. It was delightfully crispy, and with the relatively sensible portion of cheese on top (for the surface area), not actually that oily. The only downer was the tinned mushroom, but hey, it's cheap for a reason. We had ONE piece between the two of us, with a bottled drink to wash it all down. And it cost less than $8. How many ways can I say I love thee NYC.

After the lunch that filled our dietary requirement of guilt, we visited a few craigslist appointments to net ourselves some cheap homewares/furniture. Who would have thought we would run into fellow Australians.
From Sydney.
From near where Deb grew up
and where I went to school...
It really is a small small world. We got to talking as it looked like they had already worked their way into a bottle of wine. They made it seem like they were heading back just for Bondi. As we left their apartment with a shelf and a clippy light, we were very jealous indeed.

No matter, then it was off to meet Hilda at Eolos for dinner, a lovely, rustic and intimate little place specialising in Sicilian food, or so the menu seemed to indicate.

 

Deb is here looking wistfully at me, wondering what she's done to turn me into such a glutton, especially after my showing at lunch.

The decor of this place was just so thoughtful. One could easily pass time just noticing all the curios scattered around the walls, and pillars. And as their lights wound down for the night, we ventured out into the cold, and called it a night.

So long... Sydneysiders!

So my day to day recounting doesn't really work... because realistically, not everyday is that interesting. I'll do my best to bring you the fun and interesting bits from our adventures, or when significant events occur.

So fast forward a frantic month and now we've packed up as much as we can, sold off the rest and found ourselves headed for New York!

Claude, (that's the name we've given my Clio) is actually quite a useful mover, belying his diminuitive stature.

 This picture is him loaded up about a day before we leave. Moving some of our possessions back to my mum and dad's place.
He's still for sale if you're interested /shameless plug.

So then came the day that we were due to fly out for New York. We tried to pack light but Deb insisted on trying to take one more souvenir with us.

As you can see it was a little case of wishful thinking there. But Deb had really wanted to visit the duckie before we left and we had a little time before our flight, so why the hell not?

Because of all our big luggage, my side of the family couldn't come with us in the car, but they made the trip to come see us off all the same.

Thus began our journey on the plane. Here we are looking all travel chic, bright and cheery.

We were flying China Airways via Taiwan and also Osaka. All up about 27 hours in transit, with 4 hours worth of stop-over on top of that... not an enjoyable experience, but not one we'll be repeating anytime soon... so we survived it.

The flight was quite pleasant, plenty of space with modern amenities, which was great for the price because we paid a similarly for the United Airways flight for far less comfort.
 
The food wasn't that nice on the first leg, very bland, on the other legs it got better, the fruit was very tasty. Service was so so, but they skimped heavily on the snacks and drinks. You get about one drink option for the whole flight with no other choice but water or chinese tea the rest.

At our stop off at Taiwan there was an "interesting" art display, describing ethereal inhabitants of the Taiwan airport called "No Mens".

Here you see me doing my best impression.

 The rest of the trip is pretty much a non-event. We were a little confused in Taiwan when our flight was described to go through Osaka, we must have forgotten that part of the itinerary. But it was dispatched with typical Japanese efficiency, until we got to the gate we were told to go to. At which point we were prompted that the plane was moved to another one for boarding, which was weird because up until the first gate there were plenty of signs posted to tell us where we were supposed to board.



So fast forward a few better airline meals, and inaudible english PA announcements, we arrived at New York, to -9 degree weather. At least it was sunny? Coming from 30+ degree Sydney averages it was a pretty hard pill to swallow.

We eventually made it up to our temporary home for the month, thanks go to Dawen and his brother Alvin for giving us a lift. In the door... and we promptly fainted.

So right now we're lounging on the couch, with the heater blaring. Planning for the days ahead.
So long Sydney! We'll see you soon.