Bagel-ing in Brooklyn

Jeff and I had our hire car until 9am (from the previous day's trip to Woodbury Common Outlet - the Mother of all Outlets I might add) so we thought we'd get up early, avoid getting toed by NYPD (you wouldn't believe how narrowly we escaped) and drive over to Brooklyn for some breakfast. Why not.

(oh how I love a side thought in brackets)

Check out the scenery looking back at Manhattan on the drive over...

I'd heard of a great breakfast spot in Williamsburg, called Egg. Alas, when we rocked up at the fresh time of 7.15am we found out that they don't open until 9am on a weekend. Dang.

After we asked if ANYTHING was open for breakfast at that time (these yanks don't open up shop until quite late) we were pointed in the direction of The Bagelsmith.

Now, I must back track a little and say how I'm loving the bagels here. I am a fan of ANY bread & cheese products so putting the 2 together is heaven. The people at The Bagelsmith were so friendly, they're open 24 hours and they have a gazillion flavours of cream cheese. Bacon and scallion looking particularly good. Being all geared up for a cooked breakfast though, we could resist a toasted Everything bagel (www.theeverythingbagel.com) with egg, bacon and cheese. D.Vine. I best go back soon.

Madison Square Garden. 2 days, 2 ways.

Jeff and I spent 2 school nights in a row at Madison Square Garden this week.

Tuesday night we went and watched an NBA game. The New York Knicks Vs the New Jersey Nets. Lets be honest, these teams are not the greatest in the league but the NBA always puts on a good show... the entertainment, dancing and dudes running around yelling "hot dawwwgs, get your hot dawwwgs!"

Wednesday night took the cake though. Sorry NBA. I bought Jeff tickets to see Phoenix for his birthday. Madison Square Garden was completely transformed, almost unrecognisable from the night before. Phoenix are one of our favourite bands but you could of pushed Jeff and I over with a feather when the dimmed lights revealed Daft Punk on stage during the end of Phoenix's encore performance of 'If I Ever Feel Better.'

I can be quoted as saying "Is this a G-up?!" That's right, you can't take the Aussie out of the girl. Oh dear. But seriously, what an epic surprise. Especially considering Daft Punk have not performed live since 2007. It could of only gotten better if they'd busted out a rendition of 'Happy Birthday to You' for Jeff.

Back to Phoenix and lead singer Thomas Mars. Talk about epitomising the coolest of cool rockers.  This guy blew me away. His voice was amazing and looked so so effortless. And he loved us too, he kept randomly popping up in the middle of the crowd while singing and didn't hesitate to jump back over into the masses for a little crowd surfing later in the set. Did you know he's married to Sophia Coppola? A little random trivia for you.

Rewinding a little, Phoenix started out their set with 'Lisztomania' and after about an hour of playing through last year's album 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,' and a few of their earlier classics, they left the stage. It couldn't be over yet. Surely. Next moment a bright spotlight in the middle of crowd and up they pop, amongst everyone, to serenade us with an acoustic version of a 1960s French folk song. So Frenchy, so chic. Little did we know at the time, this was to distract us from a new set-up taking place on stage.

Enter Daft Punk.

Now I know words can't really describe it so I've scoured YouTube for the best footage I can find for you...

If I Ever Feel Better
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9TAclxkMdU&feature=player_embedded
**Jump to 2:00 for the moment Daft Punk appears and slowly roll into Harder, Faster Better Stronger and Around The World.

Then they both contributed to an extended version of Phoenix's 1901. My highlight...

1901 part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N664ZHm1xIw&feature=player_embedded#!

1901 part 2 - with a few special Daft Punk touches
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZNvRHXTpJk&feature=player_embedded#!
**Jump to 7:15 to see them all take a bow together.

Madison Square Garden

Thomas Mars

Just popping up in the crowd for a little ditty

A French full house on stage with Phoenix & Daft Punk

Job well done, take a bow boys!

It's a pumpkin time of year!

Halloween is fast approaching and it seems the topic (and flavour) on everyone's lips is the humble pumpkin.

Carving them, eating them, decorating them, searching for the perfect one and I've even heard word of albino pumpkins!

I'm not really sure how much pumpkin one person can handle in a day's worth of eating but it you fancy, at this time of year, you can have it at every meal. Pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin cream muffins, even pumpkin ice cream and milkshakes. And just in case you haven't had enough pumpkin... why not spread your toast in the morn with a little pumpkin butter?

I'm pumpkin-ed out!

We built this city, we built this city on acronyms

I love the way they name some of the different neighbourhoods in Manhattan. I hadn't even realised they were acronyms until recently when a tour guide enlightened us. A bit of an ‘aaahhh’ moment I thought I'd share.

By way of background... in the 1960s, Chester Rapkin, a University of Pennsylvania professor and urban-planning expert, had the idea that in New York City you can essentially call a neighborhood into existence with sheer will, imagination, and a catchy acronym. And that idea went viral. It all started with SoHo, originally South Houston Industrial Area.

It’s very handy too - using this system the name of an area also tells you right where it’s located. In the massive metropolis of NYC that’s certainly very helpful. Here's some of the most common...

SoHo
South Houston - the area below, or south of, Houston St (pronounced House-ton). Hence NoHo is North and LoHo is Lower.

NoLIta
North of Little Italy - pretty self explanatory

TriBeCa
Triangle Below Canal - it’s a triangular shaped area below Canal St. Simple stuff.

DUMBO
Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass – a little neighbourhood in Brooklyn located as the name suggests. I read that Jerry Seinfeld once joked that they added the ‘O’ on the end so as not to have an area called DUMB.

And there’s a new acronym'd neighbourhood trying to catch on...

NoMad
North of Madison Square Park – a newly coined area, home to the Ace Hotel and not much else at present. If memory serves you from my blogging tales, the Ace hotel is where I found coffee perfection at Stumptown Coffee Roasters and ate breakfast at The Breslin.

Ace Hotel...

...and it's witty charm

An indulgent weekend

The sun was shining on NYC after a miserable grey, drizzly week last week.

I was up for some pampering and I had read about this place in Soho that specialised in brow threading. I made a call and booked it in.

I thought I'd make my way to Soho via the Flatiron district for some shopping en route. I only have a limited time in this city after all! 5th avenue runs along one side of the Flatiron building and there's some good shopping around. It was ok, a lot of the chain stores like H&M, Zara and Club Monaco. Always goodies.

The threading was interesting. If you haven't heard of it, it's an ancient method of hair removal where they use twisted cotton to pluck out rows of hairs at a time. I think this is good for brows as you can get nice straight lines. Good result! Not that I really had much to shape, my damn brows won't grow. It's cheap too, only US$15. Check it out...

While I was in Soho, thought I go back and visit my little nail place again and get a mani/pedi. It's so unfair how cheap it is here. US$55 for both. How could I not. Really.

Dinner and drinks out on Sat night. Lots of fun. Around rocks Sunday. A little hungover so thought I'd get some food and hit the shops again and lazily wander around. Can you see a theme developing this weekend?! I went to Union Square and the ever impressive DSW (Designer Show Warehouse) and then payed a little visit to an old friend, Century 21. I think I wandered around that place for about 2 hours. Best way to do it though, it's big and you need to hunt.

Here's some purchasing evidence for those interested. Ray Ban aviators, plaid shirt, a felt hat and a DKNY cosmetic bag (which will now be known as a clutch)...

The Met

We started out with brunch and a walk through Central Park. Destination: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Located on the east side of Central Park at about the half way mark, near the Great Lawn and Turtle Pond (yes, there is real turtles in there).

Set aside some time for this one, she’s a bigg'n! An absolutely stunning building and one of the world's largest museum/galleries with more than two million works of art.

The Roof Garden up top has great views of the of the city and Central Park and a massive bamboo sculpture at present, think Swiss Family Robinson style tree house a la Asia, you can climb up for an even better view!

We took one of the free guided Museum Highlights tours which was a great way to see several of the collections and featured pieces as well as get a bit of background info. Took me right back to my high school art history classes. Keep up though, the guides dart around quickly. We nearly had a lost Mum incident!

I saw Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Warhol, Pollock and the list goes on. One very impressive place...

Doing as the tourists do

Mum has arrived for her visit. Fresh as a daisy and ready for action. I think she travels better than I do!

As all well organised travellers do, she had sussed out some little tours to get her bearings in the big city. On Sunday we set out on, not one, but three, open-air-double-decker bus tours. Complete with a guide up front, sprouting off info about the relevant things we passed by.

While I imagine the locals look up at us and think “would you people in that big eyesore of a bus please leave my city” (ok maybe not that politely, they are New Yorkers!), I really must admit, it is a fab way to get a snapshot of the city in a short amount of time. I saw a few little neighbourhoods that I’d like to go back and explore more, it’s great for that. Interesting too, that the cool folk of Bleeker St in the West Village have managed to get the bus tour guides to turn their microphones off while passing through so as not to disturb. Tres cool.

8th Ave and 34th St, Midtown

Bleeker St, Greenwich Village

Broadway, Soho

On Manhattan Bridge looking left to Brooklyn Bridge and the Financial District

My favourite, The Chrysler Building

We did a Downtown, Brooklyn and City Lights night tour. On the latter, in Brooklyn, after looking back at the twinkling Manhattan skyline by night, the bus driver got lost and had to keep getting out of the bus to ask randoms for directions. Hilarious! He was going through narrow back streets where tree branches were hanging too low for the bus and we all had to duck down and dodge them or risk being left hanging in a tree in Brooklyn for the night.

Needless to say, Mum and I lived to tell the tale.

Dodging branches in Brooklyn