February 23 [Sunday]......Grammy Red Carpet
The 45th Grammy Awards returned to New York for the first time in 5 years. We decided to wander down to Madison Square Garden where it was being held to check it out. We approached the entry for normal ticket holders and went as far as we could before security would block us. Next we went to search for the red carpet entry. On the street I went to ask a scalper how much tickets were going for. They were $US500. I am still not even sure if that was for 1 or 2.

Next we circled the block a few times looking for a spot to see something...there were NYPD cops everywhere telling you to move on anytime you got to a promising section. Eventually they allowed us in a baricaded section and we rushed toward the red carpet section with all the other mad people. It was somewhere around freezing outside that night. We got a spot on the top of some stairs maybe 100m away from the red carpet entrance. Still it was too far to get a clear view and the stars only briefly stayed before rushing inside. We stayed there for an hour and watched countless stretch limos arrive. Anh didn't see or recognise anyone the whole time she says, but I had a better view and had the video camera with zoom. People we saw arrive were Missy Elliot, Yoko Ono, P Diddy, Jay Z, Dustin Hoffman & the Dixie Chicks. Maybe might recognise more when we watch the tape back...but Anh still says, she saw no-one. Holding the camera for a while almost made my hands loose all feeling as I hadn't brought my gloves, so we ended with a trip to the nearest Starbucks to warm up.

February 17 [Monday]......Britney Spears in Person!
Today was President's Day holiday and also the 4th worst Whiteout in New York history. It had snowed since last night all through to late this afternoon resulting in between 50-65cm of snow. Boy, was it deep! It covered all the streets leaving the streets virtually empty in Manhattan. We saw taxi's getting bogged in the street. On 5th Avenue where they had used the snowplough the snow was piled up 10 feet in the air on the sidestreet. We saw one person walking along with skis!

We ventured out this afternoon and I took my video camera to film some of the snow. We went to Times Square and noticed a crowd gathered out front of the MTV studio where people were yelling and holding signs. We thought we should investigate and stood in the heavy snow for a few minutes looking at the window before we realised the one and only Britney Spears was inside. She was at the MTV TRL awards as a presenter. With my camera on hand, I have plenty of footage of the moment as every now and then, Britney turned to wave at the paupers (us) waiting and screaming out in the snow on the footpath while the NYPD were yelling at us to get off the street.

February 15 [Saturday]......Daredevil & Times Square
Tonight we headed out to get some dinner downtown and walked down towards Times Square to get the subway. We walked straight into the crowd of protestors against the war which were heading back from the rally being held on the upper east side. Apparently a couple hundred thousand people were there. Times Square was full of police and the central area was completely blocked off with many of the police in riot gear. We were soon turned back from where we were heading.

Later in the night we saw the new Daredevil movie. The movie is based on the comic book and is set in an area of New York that used to be called Hell's Kitchen as it was extremely rough. One of the scenes occurs at a subway stop on 50th Street where Daredevil takes out one of the bad guys. It is also the exact subway stop where I go every morning to get to work.
Going back outside to get home was very difficult as it was so cold, around minus 10 degrees, and your hands just loose their feeling. Down at the subway station at Union Square we were surprised to see uniformed army guards with high powered assault rifles standing around keeping an eye on things due to the rally and large crowds today. I took a picture of them and also of the Empire State Building which was floodlit in the colours of the flag and looked great.

February 12 [Wednesday]......Subway Singers
Whilst there are a few beggars around, most are a little more advanced here and frequently they come into your subway car. The ones in the subway are either homeless and talentless or semi entertaining like tonight when there were 2 guys calling themselves the gospel train, or yesterday when a guy was playing an african drum.

At work today I met up with a manager over from Sydney for the week. It was pretty damn cold today, around minus 6. Terror Alert remains on Orange (2nd highest), they sent the bomb squad to a hotel on 42nd street after a suspicious man ran out leaving his bag.

On a lighter side, take a look at these new photos to see how Anh & I would look if we were guests on South Park....

February 10 [Monday]......Photo's from Chinatown
Today we have had another inch of snow, looks like the groundhog was right about the cold weather.


Photos: see our first photos, including Anh in trouble with the NYPD. Click here......

Funny thing when we took the photo of Anh & the NYPD, one of the cops was really worried he would look too dark and his teeth would be too white, so I had to take a couple of shots before he was happy with it.

February 9 [Sunday]......Sutton Place / Chinatown
Last night we visited with Ellen & Paul Meshnick. Ellen has been penpals with my uncle John for over 40 years, and has an apartment in Sutton Place. We had dinner and then a short walk around the neighborhood which is a very nice area. It is only a short walk to East River in view of Manhattan Bridge and Roosevelt Island.

Today was a trip to Chinatown and a lot of walking. We went with a fellow JPMorgan employee, Linda, who is a friend of one of the Adelaide based (former NY) employees. Linda took us around Chinatown to show us the grocery stores and other stores that she is a regular at. We had yumcha amongst the continuing Chinese New Year activities and lion dances.
On the way back we stopped at "The Coffee Shop" located at Union Square, a rather trendy, coffee shop.... It's where you will find many "aspiring actresses / waitresses".
One of the other delicacies we enjoyed during the afternoon were some Hong Kong cakes (20 for $1.. they're tiny) which are cooked and sold on the side of the street (they are like little waffle balls).

February 8 [Saturday]......MTV Host Last Night
We had MTV on this afternoon and when one of the hosts came on, we realised it was one of the women that was at the Fashion Show last night. The woman was SuChin Pak who you can see here....... We didn't know it at the time but had been standing next to her before we went in to be seated and she had a very funky hairstyle. Unlike us, she had a front row seat. Unfortunately I didn't have a spare Dexter Jones CD on me to slip to her.

The best sport in the world, Slamball, is on tonight. Slamball is a new sport here which is a extreme basketball sport where there are 3 huge trampolines built into the court inside each of the areas within the 3 point arc. Contact is allowed and the players wear padding like rugby. Check Slamball out here.... It is quite amazing as the players will jump from behind the 3 point line, bounce once on one of the trampolines and then do an amazing slam.

February 7 [Friday]......Fashion Show & The Snow
Last night a cold front moved in and brought a lot of snow with it. By this morning there was a blanket of snow covering the ground and it was snowing quite heavily. The snow continued until around 2pm and there was around 5 inches or so by then (easiest way to tell is by looking at high the snow has built up on the car roofs). The snow shovels and bulldozer style ones were out in force to keep some of the roads and pathways clear.
Anh was due to drop off a form at East 45th (say 4th avenue), but somehow ended up at West 45th near 10th avenue, which is about as far away from each other as you could be (opposite sides of Manhattan island). Still some learning how to read the map.....

Tonight we met up with Anh's cousin, Thuy Chiem who lives here in NY around the Grammercy area. Thuy moved from San Francisco a year ago to work in the fashion industry here. Luckily for us, Thuy got us some nice tickets to a Fashion Parade, the launch for Carla Dawn Behrle's Fall Collection. This was the first show as part of Fashion Week here in New York which is a big event here. Here is an article about the show here....
The event was a catwalk show in a big studio on Broadway (Times Square area) where one of the morning tv shows broadcasts from. For once we were the people inside sitting next to the catwalk, instead of the goons standing at the window on the street trying to see what is going on inside.
Following that we had dinner over at TGI Fridays and then took our gift packs home that we got from the Fashion Show.

February 5 [Wednesday]......Man v Machine
A slightly lesser known event happening in New York at the moment is the Chess Championship, of the World (human) champion, Garry Kasparov, against the computer called Deep Junior. Today is game 5 in the series of 7 matches held just off Central Park and the series is currently drawn.
Went into Tower Records last weekend, and the Kylie concert DVD is number 5 in the top 10 dvd's here.

February 4 [Tuesday]......Gunman Incident
Who said New York wasn't safe? Down in Brooklyn today there was an armed robbery and a gunman on the loose. They still haven't caught him, oh yeah, it was right near my work. You could see the cop cars from our window.
Anh went down to the new apartment building and found out that we have now been approved for the lease.
Tonight the Osbournes and Anna Nicole show are on, it's reality shows almost every night here.

February 3 [Monday]......First Day At School
Headed off today to Wall Street, down to 1 Chase Plaza where I had to get an i.d. card. Kinda got a little lost after making 2 subway transfers there (one too many) but got there eventually. After a quick stopover at Starbuck's it was off to Brooklyn and the MetroTech Center where the office is.

By the way, there is a busker at the Times Square subway station who plays a drumkit. Surprisingly, it still gets above the level of the subway cars constantly passing through. He must have difficulty getting those drums there everyday, and even more trouble playing when his hands would be freezing. Seems to be taking a bit of cash though.
Anh holed up in the apartment all day.

February 2 [Sunday]......Groundhog Day
For anyone that has seen the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day", one of today's top news story here was that today is Groundhog Day. In the town Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania they bring out a famous groundhog called Phil who predicts the upcoming weather.
"An ancient legend handed down through many cultures and generations says if the groundhog comes out of his winter home on Feb. 2 and sees his shadow in the sunshine, winter will go on for another six weeks. A cloudy day and no shadow means spring is on the way."
Unfortunately the groundhog Phil saw his shadow and thus there will be 6 more weeks of winter.
Read an article about it here

February 1 [Saturday]......WWE Live!
Tonight I had tickets to go to the WWE wrestling show "Ruthless Aggression" at Madison Square Garden. Wrestling at MSG is the greatest as it is one of the homes of wrestling in the US so the atmosphere is electric. Show was great as it had many of the current top stars performing and we had a excellent view from our seats.
Afterwards we headed down Broadway looking for a shop Anh saw the other day. We covered over 50 blocksof walking around and was out for almost 2 hours. Who said New York isn't safe after midnight? Eventually we got the subway from 8th street back up to 50th.
Huge news story today was the Space shuttle Columbia which exploded on route to its landing this morning.

January 31 [Friday]......World Trade Center Site
We caught the subway downtown and headed to the Wall Street area & Financial District, had a walk around and saw the big Bull statue there on the street. Walked for awhile down toward the Bowling Green area on the southern tip of Manhattan, then across to Battery Park City. We then walked toward the WTC site, a long walk indeed. Saw a building nearby on the way with a "Plan in Progress" sign. Thought it might be interesting so we walked in and it was where all the WTC redevelopment displays were for public viewing. It had 7 designs for the site with huge model displays, video presentations etc. This is only open for another 2 days so it was perfect timing for us, pity I hadn't taken my camera.
Next step was to walk over to the site itself, we walked 3 sides of it in total, it is an enormous site, just a huge void which seems very strange. One nearby fence has a public memorial with notes, signed shirts etc from people and another side has a display from the city showing huge photos of the World Trade Center before & during the initial construction, then from 1970's till 2003.
That night we went down to Chinatown as it was Chinese New Year's Eve. Lots of people there, we ended up eating at a Singaporian cafe.

January 30 [Thursday]......Brooklyn
Took a trip over to Brooklyn on the subway to see where I will be working. Brooklyn of course is where Posh & Becks stayed and they named their son Brooklyn after it. Probably got off at the wrong station as we walked through the 'hood to get to the building (didn't have a map to find it). Stopped there for some lunch, had a "power bagel" and soup.
Weather here for the last week has been sub-freezing constantly until today where it getting up towards 3 degrees or so. There have been around 3-4 days where we have had snow, one in particular was for most of the day and it is quite a weird feeling walking out in it for a long time.
Late afternoon we picked up the Paul Frank skatedeck that I bid for on eBay early January and waited till now to pick up in person from near Times Square.
That night we got tickets to "The World" which is a WWE wrestling owned restaurant / venue. We had dinner there and watched the live broadcast of the show. One of thewrestlers was there to host it & we got to speak to him & get autographs toward the end of the show as he comes around to each of the tables.
After that we came home, I had been carrying the skatedeck all night which one of the guys on the street who was selling tickets to a comedy show said something funny about.

January 29 [Wednesday]......Chelsea Tower
After apartment hunting the last 2 days we decided on the Chelsea Tower, which was actually the 2nd place we looked at on the first day. It is on West 26th Street in Chelsea. The building is just being built with the first batch of apartments ready March 1, when we will move in (we are on the 17th floor). Have a look at it here...
http://www.chelseatower.com

Chelsea includes landmarks like Empire State Building, Macy's, Madison Square Garden and Chelsea Pier (where the Titanic was due to dock, but instead the Carpathia & survivors arrived instead). It is also where Sid Vicious murdered his girlfriend, and Bon Jovi wrote a song about the area called "Midnight in Chelsea". Chelsea also includes the Fur district, Flower district and Little Korea. The apartment we have rocks cos it has huge window views including a fantastic view of the Empire State Building.
That night we got the subway down to Chinatown and had some Vietnamese for dinner.

January 28 [Tuesday]......Bloomingdales Visit
The day started with more apartment hunting. The areas we covered today were Greenwich Village, Union Square, Lower East Side and Upper West Side. Today we saw a combination of apartment buildings and a few more apartments without facilities (thus supposedly cheaper) - some in a small 4-5 storey building. Quality varied a lot more this time, we saw a couple of nice apartments with a brickwall directly outside the window...nice.
Anh liked a place on Upper West Side however it was a walk-up, no facilities and your bed would be simultaneously touching 3 walls, it is that cramped. Some places we saw today had the famous lounge room / kitchen style where along one side of your living area is the kitchen.
We made a trip to the social security office to apply for a card, it had only been a minute before the security guard was telling me to get off the heater where I was sitting while in line. Only takes 6-8 weeks before they mail me a card!
That night we headed over to Bloomingdales. Anh looked for a Burberry scarf that wasn't to be there, while I bought a long coat to wear over my suit to work. Winter clothes are 30% or more off most places as it is deep into winter already.

January 27 [Monday]......Apartment Hunting
We met Sharon, our apartment hunting agent this morning. We visited around 6-8 apartments today between Greenwich Village, Chelsea and the Upper West Side. Quality and prices vary considerably. Looked at mostly apartment buildings with a doorman and gym facilities today.
That night we went down to Times Square and saw the new movie "Just Married".

January 26 [Sunday]......Superbowl Sunday
Headed up to look around the Upper West Side. Took a subway to around 72nd and walked past the Lincoln Center. Headed up to H&H Bagels, one of the most famous bagel shops in NY where we picked up a selection of great bagels. Walked around the Upper West Side for an hour and walked over to the Hudson side (Riverside Park). You can see the ice in the Hudson which happens rarely but it has been so cold. Some ferry routes have been stopped due to the ice.
It snowed again today with continued sub-freezing temperatures.
That night was the NFL Superbowl, Tampa Bucaneers v Oakland Raiders. Tampa won easily in a blowout. The cable we have in the apartment has like 85 stations or so.

January 25 [Saturday]......The new Stool
Caught subway from 50th down to 14th street and took a walk through Greenwich Village. Anh got a limited edition Paul Frank bag at Alphabet store. Walked toward Soho & Little Italy and ended up on Mulberry Street at the Paul Frank store which Anh had looked forward to for awhile. We bought a Paul Frank funky stool which we couldn't get in Australia for a healthy $us180.
Walked back via Washington Square Park early evening and stopped at a Pizza shop to get some "Pizza Pie". Caught subway back to Times Square (42nd st) to the biggest internet cafe I've ever seen, it must have had 300 pc's or more over 2 levels, full of people. Quick stop at Starbucks for late night coffee and an even later midnight grocery shopping session.

January 24 [Friday].......Soup Nazi & New York Knicks
Made our way to 55th street to the International Soup Kitchen. This is famous for being the soup man who Seinfeld turned into the Soup Nazi on one episode. For the uninformed, you have to stand in line, money & order ready, state your order, hand over money and move to one side, no other talking at all. Anh didn't believe it and almost got us banned by standing in the wrong spot. We had the Shrimp Bisque and Seafood & Corn Chowder. Cost is around $US10 for take away soup, but you have to believe it is the best soup ever. True to Seinfeld, the soup guy is just like the soup nazi on the show. We walked to Central Park and sat on some benches to eat the soup, in sub-freezing temperatures.
Caught subway back to 34th street, checked out Empire State building from the street before walking to Madison Square Garden. NY Knicks were playing basketball there that night, by the time the 20th scalper asked if we wanted tickets I finally bought some. We saw Knicks v Dallas Mavericks and the seats were not too bad at all. Dallas won 101 - 90. Had some late night pancakes on 53rd street.

January 23 [Thursday].......Letterman / Cabaret
First stop was to get a NY Bagel. Walked around Broadway and stumbled on a lineup of people which we decided to join. Found out it was for David Letterman show, so we stepped outta line and saw a guy on the corner block for a pass to come back later in the day to collect the tickets. Took our first subway ride down to 34th and visited Macy's department store (famous from the old Miracle on 34th Street christmas movie).
Weather was frigid, around -14 degrees while we waited for Letterman. 40 mins outside in that was excruciating. Finally got in and saw the show being taped, guests were nobodies unfortunately.
We raced from that taping around to Studio 54 where we got tickets to the Broadway show "Cabaret". It had doogie howser in it and the dad from Happy Days. Supposed to have Molly Ringwald but she took the night off.
When we came back outside around 11pm it was snowing and it hit -17c .... that is damn cold. Headed over to Ellen's Stardust Diner on Broadway for dinner. It was a 50's themed diner with singing waitresses.

January 22 [Wednesday]......Leaving Adelaide
Left Adelaide at 8:20am for what would be a 25 hour trip until our final destination. Weather in Adelaide was set for the mid-30s. Business Class flight all the way on Qantas made it bearable, along with some ok movies. First stop was Sydney where we had a 2 hour stop and customs clearance. Departed International terminal at midday on route to Los Angeles. Arrived at LA where we went through customs again. Another short stopover before leaving for New York. Arrived at JFK international terminal around 6pm local time. Weather was freezing and windy, sub-zero temperature. Where did I pack my coat?!
Took a cab into Manhattan via Queens to our apartment at The Gershwin (named from George Gershwin & opposite the Gershwin Theatre).
Despite the temperature being around -5 or so, we took a walk around the neighborhood (Midtown) and grabbed some chinese food.