The Chambers

What we get up to….

Photo taken while staying at the wonderful Sausage Tree Camp, Zambia. Here we are fishing on the banks of the Zambezi, one eye on the River on the lookout for Alligators, another on the lookout for Hippos, another on the lookout for Lions, another on the lookout for Elephants :)

Monthly Archives: November 2008

Day 7 – Black Friday (aka Chris in a Posh Pap Mob)

New York….

Lots to report on today’s happenings, what a great day!

The day after Thanksgiving Day, the stores go on sale here. They call it “Black Friday”. I’m sure there’s a really good reason for it, but I haven’t a clue and can’t be bothered looking it up right now. Some stores open up at 5am for eager beavers to get in and snap up the early bargains. There is another group of people who go, that’s Australians who don’t like crowds! So, me being an Australian who doesn’t like crowds and Kylie being an eager beaver shopper, we were all at Macy’s shortly after 5am…. I have the best wife, she accompanied me and kept Jackson entertained while I had my turn at Macy’s! I found some great stuff and once done shopping, I volunteered to bring it back to the apartment and drop it all off and let Kylie have some peace and quiet from us boys. Kylie spent two hours in the shoe department! Unfortunately it was so busy she only got to try on two pairs of shoes! Lucky she bought both pairs!

Nanny was doing a hop-on-hop-off tour today. I saw her for a couple of minutes after I got back from my outing with Jacko and before Kylie and her headed out. She had a long day touring and I’m thinking tomorrow might be a sleep in day.

While Kylie was in Macy’s and on my return walk from the apartment, Jackson and I went into a big electronics store and a golf shop! The electronics store was very cool, I recommend a visit there if you’re into this type of stuff. BH Electronics Superstore (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/) has two floors, but no working lifts or escalators, so I had to carry the stroller up to the second floor. It was worth it. When you order something, the attendant helping you enters something into their computer system, which advises someone somewhere of an order, that someone then puts the item you order into a container which then gets moved from the storage area to the shopfront along conveyor belts. Nifty! Unfortunately for them, I then decided I didn’t want what I’d got them to send out and I left without buying it, but I’m thinking of going back tomorrow to do the whole thing again, just to see the conveyor belts in action. (Big Al – I picked up their catalogue, which is bigger than the SONY catalogue and full of great stuff.)

After the excitement of that I went to a golf store looking for some new golf shoes. My last pair finally gave up and croaked about a month or so ago after 10 years of solid service. Those shoes saw some great golf courses and they’ll be missed… The sole just came unstuck on one of the shoes and there was no saving them. Anyways, back to the story. I found a great pair of Adidas shoes, but for the amount of golf I get to play I couldn’t justify the cost, so ended up with a sparkling new pair of Calloway shoes. Why do most pairs of golf shoes look like clown shoes? The economy can’t be so bad here, the guy serving me flat-out refused to give me a discount on some golf balls I also wanted to buy to lose later on the trip. Merry Christmas?! Ba humbug….

After this I had to go into Macy’s to find Kylie. We’d agreed to meet at a certain point at a certain time. It was now coming up on 1030am or so and the store was chockers! I had Jackson in the stroller but aborted that plan shortly after getting into the store as I was running into far too many ankles and getting too many hairy-eyeball looks from cranky shoppers trying to get to their discounted items… shouldn’t have slept in, should they!? Kicked Jacko out of the stroller and fought my way to the meeting point. I haven’t ever seen a shop so crowded! It took me 4 minutes (I timed it after I thought I was going to be late and left behind on the battle field by Commandant Kylie) to walk about 40 metres! Once I met Kylie she told me how she’d spent two hours waiting to try on shoes. (booring!) So we decided to come back to Macy’s another day.

Left the Macy’s area and walked up Madison Avenue. Along the way we saw a bunch of tweens camped out to see some guys called the Jonas Brothers. Good for them, I can’t come to trust / like bands with Brothers in their name, Bros ruined it for me…. (remember them?) I went into Best Buy and Circuit City for a look and see and walked out pretty quickly, far too many people….

We ended up at Rockerfeller Centre for lunch at a restaurant which is right by the ice skating rink. Nice spot and a beautiful lunch. Poor Jacko dropped his glass and it smashed his glass and pink lemonade everywhere. That makes the video as the bit he didn’t like about today – the waiter was very nice about it and helped to calm Jackson down by telling him a story about how he once dropped a tray full of glasses.

We then headed up to my favourite shirt shop in Thomas Pink and despite the terrible AUD to USD rate, still bought a couple of shirts. That can be what my first weeks wage back to work goes towards when I get back. We also stopped in at the Sony store where Jackson got out of the stroller and showed the good people in-store how to play Guitar Hero (or not) on the big screen. We also bought Jackson & I the Crash Bandicoot game for the PSP.

Here’s where the real fun begins!

We’re all knackered, we’ve been up for ages and walking around the city in all kinds of crowds and we decide to take a less travelled path back to the apartment. We cut along 52nd (or something like that) from Madison Ave heading to 9th Ave. On the way I see a sign saying that there is some movie being shot on the road we’re walking along and I think that’s pretty nifty and take a photo of the sign and then we keep walking. We get another couple of blocks along and these cars and scooters (mopeds) come screaming along the road. Horns honking, people yelling for us and other people to get out of the way, so we stop and move towards the building. This SUV pulls up in front of the theatre we’re passing and the guys from the cars and scooters all run to the front of the theatre. I’ve thought this is something to do with the movie which is being shot, so we now stop to actually watch events unfold. The guys running past us all have cameras around their necks. We were still stopped where we were and then I am not sure where the idea came from but I moved towards where the SUV is stopped and get my camera out too. Before you know it I’m in the middle (ok, on the fringe) of this crowd and these guys around me are all snapping shots, so I did too. A woman got out of the SUV with a boy, everyone else was still taking photos, so I did too. Guy beside me says something like “you look gorgeous today Victoria”, I’m still trying to get a photo… Woman walks past me and into the theatre, so I turn around to walk back to Kylie and Jackson. Kylie recognised her as Posh Spice! Victoria Beckham. Then, Kylie says there’s David Beckham, and I turn around and sure enough, there he is. I didn’t even get close to getting a photo of him. So…. Without further adieu, I present to you, my portfolio of shots for my application to be a paparazzi photographer:

You can JUST make out Posh’s head in the last shot, to the right of the nearly blinding flash of someone taking a photo of me from the opposite side of the scrum. Really, you can. It’s partly obscured by the head there. Ok, almost fully obscured… Trust me, she’s there!

I can’t tell you how freaky and bizarre the whole situation was. At first scared we were going to be mown down on the footpath by a moped (and seeing the headline on the Brisbane Times flash into my mind), then seeing a swarm of cars and mopeds come to a screaming holt, everyone running past us and then being in my first real life paparazzi scrum. I feel for Britney Spears… it must be hard living in the middle of that ALL the time. ;)

We stuck around for a few minutes and someone mentioned that the Cruise’s had gone in a little bit before the Beckham’s arrived.

(this is a long update… sorry)

From here we went back to the apartment for a little rest before Jackson and I went to the circus. Kylie went for some retail therapy. Kylie is with Mum at Momma Mia right now, so I don’t know what she bought – but I don’t see too many bags laying around, so I don’t think she bought too much. Although, she is skilled at smuggling in new purchases under the cover of darkness, so there could be lots of new purchases I just can’t see yet. Apparently Dayle Grant is quite good at that too.

Jackson and I went to the circus tonight. It’s the Big Apple Circus, which is an old fashioned circus put together to raise money to fund activities to lift the spirits of sick kids. It was a one-ring circus and a great afternoon out. If you are in New York when this is on – go see it! Jackson giggled uncontrollably at the clowns in some parts, it was great to see and will be one of my most memorable parts of this trip. He also liked the horses and dog acts. The horse act had one Clydesdale in the ring with a Miniature Pony, with the Pony chasing the Clydesdale around the ring and eventually running in and out of the Clydesdales legs. Quite funny (funnier than I have explained it anyway) Jackson did get freaked out at the trapeze acts, but after I told him that they had safety harnesses on and practised a LOT, he was a bit less edgy.

We arrived home just as Nanny and Kylie were walking out, so I don’t have anything else to report from them yet. Their adventures might need to be in tomorrow’s update.

Here’s Jackson’s view of the day:

That’s about it for the excitement of the day, over and out (snap, snap)

Day 6 – Turkey Day (aka Stuffed Full Day!)

New York City, New York.

Thursday was Thanksgiving in the US of A, so we had a couple of special activities planned. The first special activity was a sleep in! After not getting much sleep the night Wednesday night we slept in until about 7am.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was on Thursday. The plan was to get a cab up past where the parade started and then find a spot along Central Park West to watch the parade. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a spot along Central Park West but we did find a spot in the park close to the street from where we could see the balloons from up pretty close and also hear the marching bands. There were some people in the park who had bought their own ladders, which helped them get up nice and high to see the parade. We could see just fine without a ladder…. The balloons moved a lot smoother than I expected and it was interesting to see people hanging out of windows of the second, third and fourth floors of buildings to see the balloons and for those people to be BELOW the tops of the balloons. The more memorable balloons were Buzz Lightyear, Horton and Kermit the Frog. We’ve since heard that Rick Astley performed a song or two and the Energizer rabbit didn’t follow the true course of the parade, turning left when it should have turned right as part of some PR for Energizer… clever.

The parade finished somewhere between 1030 and 11 and we then went for a walk in Central Park. It was very cold in the park, probably because it is a little more exposed than in amongst the buildings. We saw a LOT of squirrels this visit, which Jackson thoroughly enjoyed.

We had lunch booked at the Boat House for 12. The Boat House is a restaurant on the lake in Central Park. We booked a table for their Traditional Thanksgiving dinner and they had us sign a contract, (A CONTRACT!) for the reservation. I could get use to the turkey lunch, it was beautiful, we all had the Traditional Turkey Dinner, except for Jackson who had about 6 pieces of Penne pasta, told us he was full and then ate a whole chocolate brownie…

We spent the afternoon stuffed full from lunch and hung around the apartment. Kylie did some clothes washing (one of her favourite leisure past times), Nanny had a snooze and I sorted some photos. Later in the afternoon we went for a walk to see what was happening, walking to Bryant Park and through Times Square.

Here’s Jackson’s video update. It’s stretched a touch over the 60 seconds, but still worth the watch (in this directors humble opinion anyway)

That was about Thursday….

Over and out!

Days 4 & 5 (aka Are we at Toys R Us yet!?)

Day 4 was (as Jackson now loves to say) boooring. We flew from San Francisco over to New York. No vomiting this time! American Airlines were kind enough to sit me on the opposite side of the aisle to Kylie and Jackson (I jest) so I had to be content in reading my book, while Jackson caught up on missed sleep (it was a very early start) and Kylie passed the time by keeping Jackson entertained while he was awake. My mum flew in to spend the week with us and we all met up at the apartment in Manhattan. The same apartment we stayed in last time we visited, it’s in a great spot just off Hell’s Kitchen – near lots of nice restaurants – and a couple of blocks from Times Square.

Day 5 Walking, walking, eating, eating…. We’ve got a bit over a week in New York and today we started off with a few sights, some delicious food and the promise to visit a place called Toys R Us….

We headed straight along 43rd Street and across town to Grand Central Station for a quick squiz. From Grand Central we turned right when we should have turned left and did a complete lap of Grand Central trying to find a nice breakfast spot I had been to once before. This cafe is right under the bridge which features in “I am Legend” and they do a good breakfast!

After breakfast we headed up towards 60th St, which was where we were having lunch. Jackson wondered if this was where Toys R Us was? No, we informed him…. disappointment… We strolled for a couple of hours and stopped in at Bloomingdales to have a look and see. Nobody bought anything – we’re waiting for the sales to start Friday (more on that later). We DID visit FAO Schwarz, which is a big toy store that once featured in the Tom Hanks movie “BIG”, when he plays the jump-on piano. Jackson had a fun time in here and got to look at some fantastic toys. He was not happy to leave (as you would expect) and was also at pains to point out that that was NOT Toys R Us and when would we be going there?

We had lunch at this place called Serendipity 3 (http://www.serendipity3.com/main.htm and their menu http://www.serendipity3.com/food.htm. Famous for its desserts, we had lunch in reverse order with dessert first then mains. Keep an eye out for the photos, this place is decked out with lots of interesting objects. Frozen Hot Chocolate was first (seriously). This was served like a chocolate sundae, very rich! Jackson and I had a foot long Hot Dog each – neither of us could finish it – Kylie had that ol’ American faithful in Meat Loaf and Mum had a delicious looking sandwich. (Kimmy, this is where we tried to get into last time, but couldnt, you should go here one day!)

Jackson was sure we would be going to Toys R Us now! Nope, not yet…. Disappointment…

From lunch, we jumped in a cab and rode across town to the American Museum Of Natural History. Our cab cut through Central Park and I reckon I saw a few Law & Order crime scenes along the way. (Is Toys R Us in here?) The Museum is fantastic, I think one of the more enjoyable and interesting things I have seen in the city. The displays are done so well, with so much effort obviously put into the design of each display, but also a lot of thought into the placement of each part of the exhibition. The highlight for me was the animal displays and watching Jackson enthusiastically run from one display to the next. I took lots of photos and will be loading up some photos from the trip tonight.

We spent a good four hours in the museum and afterwards went outside to see the inflation of some of the balloons which will be in the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. They start “blowing them up” the night before. Jackson was horrified at the thought of us going to watch the “blowing up” of balloons… we tried to explain what inflating meant, but it didnt click for him until he saw it with his own eyes. The crowd was full-on, which is nothing compared to the crowd at the Parade, but we did get to see up close a couple of the balloons.

We’d left the apartment about 730am this morning and it was now coming up to 5pm or so, so we got in a cab and headed back to the apartment. Jackson feel asleep in the cab and when he woke up to find we were back at the apartment he was most distraught, as this clearly was NOT Toys R Us….

Upstairs for a quick freshen up and then back out for another stroll to…… Toys R Us! Interesting decisions kids make. We told Jackson he could pick out one toy, which wasn’t too large that it wouldnt fit in our luggage. He walked past Ben 10, Diego, Star Wars (silly boy), Iron Man (boooring) and a whole bunch of stuff. He was obviously thinking very hard on what to pick out. Of all the toys in the store, I was surprised he picked out a small two pack of Transformers. He was very happy with it, very happy!

No video recorded from yesterday yet, I will do that later today. No doubt Jackson will believe the best bit of today will be Toys R Us and the worst bit how long it took to get there!

’tis now 3am, have been asleep, but woke up and have had some trouble sleeping tonight. Best try to get some shut eye.

Happy Thanksgiving.

cc, kc, jacko and Nanny.

favoured marketing messages

While travelling around I’m keeping my eye on the various marketing messages for ones of interest. The ones which have caught my eye so far are:

A large billboard in San Francsico by the Israeli Tourism Board encouraging visitation by pronouncing “A Different Israel from the news”. Interesting….

This would be my favourite so far:

I did also see a billboard on the way to the airport in San Francisco by United Airlines which was about door-to-door lugagge service. I need to look into that!

Day 3 – Yosemite day (aka, My arms are tired)

Day three was a great day. It was a long day, but a great day. We’d booked onto a tour to the Yosemite National Park with a company called Extranomical, who were recommended on tripadvisor. The day was to start about 620 am and we’d be on the tour for about 14 hours, which included 3 and a half hours travel in each direction plus a half hour stop in each direction at a large grocery store for lunch and dinner breaks. So, with the PSP and the iPod’s all charged up we were down waiting outside the lobby at 620… it was cold!

I can recommend the tour highly, it was a long day and we didn’t get to spend a lot of time at each stop but it was a great day out. The scenery was spectacular and hopefully the photos do them justice.

The drive out was for the most part uneventful, but once near the park the road turned very windy and interesting. The turns and twists reminded me of the drive up to Lamington National Park and at one point you could see where more than one panel of a guard rail had had to be replaced because a car had gone through it. It was interesting for the road to then curve back on itself and be able to see the hillside below that part of the guardrail and be able to see the path the car which had gone over had cleared through the trees and shrubs for about 200 metres down the hill. Yuck….

We stopped at a few spots in the National Park and each of them was beautiful in their own way.

The first stop was at a lookout (or vista as they are called here) which looked right down the barrel of the valley. From here you could take in the valley floor, which was covered in what seemed like small, but I’m sure they weren’t, pine trees and you could also see nice and high up to the tops of the granite cliff faces and one long waterfall.

The second stop was a short ride away at the base of one of the waterfalls named Bridal Falls. It was a short hike (I’ll use that word to impress the guys in my team) from the car park to the waterfall base. You could actually walk in from the end of the well trodden path to be nearly underneath the waterfall, but with a little one in tow and the feeling of a disaster movie in the making, we elected to view from a safer distance. I love a good water fountain, but this took it to another level. I’m going to guess the waterfall was at least 400 metres, but will check this later and bet it’s further. We got some great photos here on the “hike” and at the waterfall.

From here we went to the Yosemite Lodge, which is a hotel in the middle of the park. The hotel reminded me a little of O’Reilly’s in its look and feel and it was quite busy coming into the Thanksgiving holidays. We had a lovely picnic lunch by a babbling brook, the only detraction was the low whining sound of a little boy who didn’t want to eat his sandwich (for the record Kylie didn’t make it – we bought it from a local store). From our lunch spot we could see a couple of huge waterfalls, the granite face cliffs the park is famous for, a babbling brook and some other lovely sights. A very, very nice lunch spot indeed and well worth the three and a half hours of bus travel to get there.

After lunch it was back onto the bus and onto the final stop. Kylie really wanted to see the large tall trees which are famous here. We got to see a couple of them and these things are massive! I’m sure they are taller than 30 Makerston Street. The hike (and the word is deservedly used this time) was 1.5 km’s in each direction, downhill to get there and unfortunately uphill to get back at 6000 feet. The area is dense forest; the smell of pine was nice and refreshing for the walk. At the bottom of the walk is a few live Sequoias, which were amazing, as well as an old (now dead unfortunately) tree that some bright spark had cut a tunnel large enough to drive cars through into the trunk and an old dead trunk of a tree which you were able to climb on and INTO! I tried convincing Jackson Winnie the Pooh hid his honey inside, but that didn’t convince him to go in looking. A lovely Park Ranger came along and coerced Jackson into walking into the hollowed out trunk a little, I got a photo and he told the ranger “this is cool, no kid from my kindy has done this before!”. Then we had to tackle the walk back UP to the bus, it was a heck of a walk and I thought we were the last ones of the group so we were walking very hard. Jackson did VERY well, though he did say a few times along the way he wanted to have a long rest and that his legs and even his arms were tired from walking and even suggested at one stage that one of us go and get the bus and bring it to meet him. It was a heck of a way to finish of a visit to a beautiful part of the world.

From here it was back on the bus and a three and a half hour drive back to the hotel to pack up our stuff to be ready to leave.

Day three in the eyes of Jackson:

Over and out, Chris, Kylie and Jacko.

Day 2 – Wine Country (aka hiccup!….)

Hi all,

We had a great day on our tour to San Francisco’s wine country, which included stops in the Napa and Sonoma Valley’s.

Saturday night we went out for dinner at a little Italian joint around the corner from the hotel. Jackson fell asleep at the table and I think if we’d have stayed much longer Kylie and I might have fallen asleep at the table too! We were all asleep by about 730pm and Jackson WAS NOT the last to drop off. We all had a great night sleep with the alarm waking us up at 6:30am, so even I had a sleep in which was nice.

After a VERY restful night of sleep we were off to “Wine Country” today! Our day was spent with Rick from Blue Heron Tours. Rick does a great day out and if you are in San Francisco, be sure to get in touch with him to organise your day out and about. Apologies to Rick, Jackson just could not remember his name.

9:00am kick off and at the first winery by 10:00am….. This would’ve been a fun day to spend with Kezza and Jane!

Over the day Rick took us to wineries which produce good sparkles and pinot. We went to 5 wineries, including Mumm and Tattinger’s for bubbles and Nicholson’s Ranch for Pinot and a stop at a very nice winery called Trefethan. We went to one other, but the name of it escapes me for the moment – their Global CEO is an Aussie and they have a winery in Vic somewhere.

The weather was great, the wine was very nice and I could very easily have settled in for a Sunday session at either the Mumm or Trefethan winery, which were my pick of the tasting room’s / locations.

Lunch was at a lovely Italian restaurant, we’ve got a great photo of Jackson showing his “best” table manners…. Our mains were fantastic! Kylie had what she claims was the best Ravioli she’s had and the Porcini & Sausage Fettuccine was pretty bloody good too. The highlight was Kylie’s Maple Syrup Creme Brulee… wow!

We got back into town early evening and headed off to ChinaTown for dinner. Jackson decided he didn’t want Chinese for dinner, so chucked a tanty in the restaurant and didnt eat anything. Quite funny…. (he didn’t think so)

This YouTube video is an update on the days activities from Jacko: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R-MfRCiCHA

This YouTube video is Jackson’s best of / worst of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkCJjX3_YgE

Fun day! Day 3 update is written and ready to come soon.

Chris, Kylie and Jacko..

ps – we’re in New York now, Nanny arrived safe and sound.

Day 1…

What a long day….

Our flight left Brisbane a little late (thans Ju, Will and Pat as well as Kylie’s Mum and Dad for coming to the airport to say goodbye) and then there was a little bit of bumpy weather around Sydney, so we were delayed a bit getting into Sydney. By the time we got from the Domestic terminal over to the International terminal we had about 2 hours between flights. BUT, our flight out of Sydney to San Francisco was delayed by nearly an hour… Thankfully they hadnt boarded us yet and we just waited in the terminal. When they did board us they called for people in First and Business Class and families travelling with children under 5. Yeah! we got to jump the scrum…. that was by far the best bit of flying with a child under 5….

The “highlight” of the flight was Jackson starting to vomit about 4 hours out of San Francisco. He stopped vomiting after about 2 hours. He was not himself until after we’d cleared customs. He’s full of beans now.

We got in mid morning. We’re booked into a very nice hotel, right off Union Square. We step out of the front steps of the hotel and there’s the shops and the trams! Great spot, very nice hotel. They even had our room ready a little early and we were able to check in when we arrived – hooray.

Today we took it easy (if you call flying half way around the world with a vomiting child easy). We walked around the main part of town, into some shops, checked out the big Christmas tree and the ice skating rink in Union Square (Jackson said he does not want to ice skate… which is unfortunate as we’re going to make him do it in New York). Had an ordinary lunch at a restaurnt in the Westfield shopping ctr but a beautiful dinner tonight at http://www.pucciniandpinetti.com/index.php. Jackson fell asleep at the table – which is a first.

We’ve recorded a short video which we’ve asked him the best / worst bit of each day. It’s at YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h5egrnvZUI. Apologies for the film & interviewing quality.

Tomorrow we’re off to the Napa Valley for some pinot quaffing.

over and out,

Chris, Kylie and Jackson

a few cool sites

I’ve started to notice some really interesting sites. This is probably because I am now subscribed to a lot more RSS feeds, emails and other news sources. I thought I’d post a few here.

I regularly have a word on the tip of my tongue, which I just can’t quite remember WHAT the hell it is I am trying to say. I know it’s a very, what’s the word…? pertinent thing to say, but I just can’t…. remember what it is. Now, I use http://chir.ag/projects/tip-of-my-tongue/ which is designed to help you find that word! You can search for words by three different methods, including parts of a word, the meaning of a word, or letters in a word.

Not really sure of a completely USEFUL application for this, but it is pretty nifty! http://www.sevenwires.com/play/UpsideDownLetters.html Allows you to type something into a box and copy / paste the results, which is your typed in information UPSIDE DOWN into another site.

Having again had a look at some of the cards on JackCards, I still think this is a very useful site! Use JackCards to organise cards for your valued friends and family and make sure you never miss a special day again. http://www.jackcards.com/

In a completely different light, this is something which I saw on a site a while ago. I would NOT want to catch one of these while out on the Logan River with dad… http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article817553.ece