I’ve got some of Jacko’s video updates to come too and will post them to the blog soon. We’ve got some great can-can action to show you all

This post started on the “verandah” (or whatever they call them on ships) of cabin 7122 of the Disney Magic. We’re now finished our cruise and are at Disney World….. This update was written with three days remaining on our cruise of the East Caribbean, which has been tremendously relaxing and a nice change of pace from the rather frenetic first fortnight of our holiday. Kylie commented at dinner the night before this post started that this would be our first morning to sleep in and wake naturally, without any alarms being set. She’s probably right too. It was about 545 am (a sleep-in for me) when I woke up and started writing this update, Jackson and Kylie woke at about 630am (not a sleep-in).

I need to catch you all up on a fair bit of our holiday, including finishing off with an update on New York, our time at Port and Cape Canaveral and our cruise. I’ll give you an update on the rest of New York in this post and follow up on the cruise and Canaveral later.

New York is really an amazing city. Everyone should visit New York at least once. Kylie has been here five times, I’ve visited four times and this is Jackson’s second visit. Even with a few visits we were still doing things we hadn’t done before and wondered afterwards why it wasn’t something we’d done on our first visit AND we haven’t got to any of the other four boroughs of New York City yet. We had so much fun here.

I don’t think a day–by-day or blow-by-blow description is the way to wrap up the New York part of our holiday, so I’ll give you some highlights.

The 30th of November (Sunday) was the first bad weather day of the trip. It was cold, very, very cold and raining, raining cold, very cold rain. Kylie, Mum and Jackson headed off to do the Statten Island Ferry for views of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, the views of the Statue were not good (damn rain). After riding the ferry, they did a few things but the most noteworthy (if you ask Jackson) was getting back to Toy r Us and riding the four floor high ferris wheel inside the store. I went off to check out a large electronics store called J&R, which was very cool and then off to catch up with a friend at an American Football (NFL) game. Great thing to do on a day when it is cold, freezing cold rain. Thank god our seats were under cover! The rain was coming down four different ways and the people on the top tiers (not under cover) must have nearly froze. The game was ok. It was nice to get out to a game and hang out with Robert and his mate for a while, but next time the game better be great if the weather is that bad!

We shopped. We shopped a fair bit and had fun doing it. There is a lot more variety here in the USA over Australia in the types of products available and things are still pretty cheap, despite whatever the AUD / USD is at the moment. We went into some great stores including clothes and electronics stores. I loved visiting the electronics stores and checking out all the different products they had for sale.

The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) was a very interesting way to spend a few hours. They had large Picasso and Joan Miro exhibitions on. The Picasso exhibition was very interesting and enjoyable. Contributing to the understanding and enjoyment of the exhibition, MOMA have a wireless network within the exhibition and you can use your own wireless devices (phones) to basically tune into and listen to information on each piece of art as you stood in front of it. It was very interesting to be able to absorb what state of mind the artist was in (drunk? crazy?) when the piece was being done and learn a whole lot more about the actual piece hanging on the wall in front of you. Some of the works on display take weeks and months to complete, despite them looking like they could be whipped up in a couple of minutes (more on Jackson Pollock later). I went through the Joan Miro exhibition and wasn’t really taken by any of the work. We strolled through the rest of the exhibits and took in works by many famous artists and pieces, including the famously large Water Lillies, which stretched out at least 5 metres wide and was the highlight for Kylie. There were many Jackson Pollock’s on display and Mum mentioned the national “interest” in Australia when Gough Whitlam bought Blue Poles for the National Gallery in Australia. It got me interested in that and when I get back home I am going to keep an eye out for books written on that topic. Surely there’s one. The MOMA do a great job of an exhibition, but I still reckon our very own GOMA is something we should be incredibly proud of.

On one day we caught a cab down to the financial district, to right near the site of the World Trade Centre to start a day of walking. From here we had a look through Century 21, which is a department store worth a look and then walked up to SoHo. In SoHo there are lots of great stores, including Ben Sherman, Ted Baker and Ed Hardy as well as a bunch of stores like the GAP and Old Navy etc which are fun to spend money in. I got my snow boots finally, they were marked down a fair bit on their original price and then when I got to the check-out they were marked down even further! Bargain. SoHo is also where we had lunch at Balthazar.

Rockerfeller Centre is a collection of buildings in mid-town. They were at one stage all owned by a very rich dude and were once home to the Tourism Queensland’s New York office (who do I talk to about re-opening that puppy?!). Rockerfeller is also home to “Top of the Rock”, which is a skyline viewing area similar to the Empire State Building which is about 70 stories up and also includes an outdoors area. The ride up to the viewing platform is an a lift (duh) but the roof of the lift is transparent so you can see through the roof and see the workings of the lift taking you up to the viewing area, this is pretty cool. Once up on the 70th’ish floor you can get a great 360 degree view of Manhattan. I prefer this view than the Empire State Building, there are shorter lines to get up to the viewing platforms and you are closer to Central Park. The outside areas have glass “walls”, but it was so windy that when out there I was clinging tightly to the camera and walking as “low” as I could. We got some great photos from up here.

We went along to the Radio City Christmas Show, with the Rockettes. Apart from being dazzled by the heights of the dancers kicks we also thought the show pretty cool as they combined dancing and singing with a story about believing in Santa and a 3D film which tied in nicely (and not so subtly) advertising messages from the shows sponsors. This was a good night out which also featured a 5 block dash to the gents room at the restaurant we were having dinner at for Jackson who pronounced that he was busting to do a pee just after leaving the theatre and we were sure we wouldn’t make it, but he did! Phew…

Dining wise we had some great meals in New York, probably the highlights over the last few days in New York would have been.

Balthazar is a beautiful French Bistro in SoHo. A friend had dined there in the past and recommended it to me, we were looking forward to eating there and we were not let down. We’d made a reservation for 12 and when we were going back to the restaurant I noticed a big black SUV pulling up in front of the restaurant. Given my earlier induction to the Posh-Pap-Scrum and that my paparazzi sixth sense is now nicely developed and I commented to Kylie that someone famous was in that car. Turns out it was Kate Moss who was having lunch at Balthazar, “with us”. Kylie wanted me to let everyone know that she did eat something and definitely drunk her share of red wine (Kate Moss, not Kylie). We had a great lunch and the highlight for Jackson was when he was presented with a box of crayons and told to draw all over the paper tablecloths. He didn’t believe me and I had to get the waiter to come over and be the first to draw on the tablecloth for Jackson to believe it, but after that first drawing he couldn’t be stopped and he made his way around each of the four settings at the table doing his own special drawing for each setting.

We also ate at Daisy May’s. This was one of Kylie’s finds, which came from Oprah Winfrey (!). It is over on 11th Street and it served BBQ’d ribs. We ordered our dinner and went into the dining room, which was a few rows of tables and benches and sat down to one of the most delicious meals we have enjoyed so far. We both had Kansas City style sticky sweet ribs, Jackson had a chocolate ice cream. Kylie and my ribs were served with our selection of two side dishes. We got the Brown Sugared Sweet Potato Mash (which I’d had a version of once before when we had a Thanksgiving Lunch in the Digital Team with Caroline Lalla, a Yankee member of the team) and the Red Eye Sauce Mash Potato and the Corn Bread. My mouth is watering just remembering that dinner… If you are in New York, get yourself here for a meal. Fantastic food, go Oprah!

Mum headed back to Brisbane on the Tuesday, from New York, to Los Angeles, to Sydney, to Brisbane. Blech! She did have a row of three seats all to herself from Los Angeles to Sydney, which is very fortunate! With her she took a medium and a small sized suitcase loaded up with goodies we’d bought in San Francisco and New York. Kylie has bought eight pairs of shoes (compared to 11 the last trip) and I’ve bought a few new business shirts.

Sadly, I’ve now realised that we go back to work next month

We’ve managed to cram a lot in during our stay in New York. Since the last update we have done so much more and the days tend to slip into one another. I have trouble remembering what I had for lunch yesterday, let alone four days ago, so I’m going to drop down here a few notes on the main things we’ve been up to.

First and foremost, Kylie has done a lot of shopping while we’ve been here. My mum heads back from to Brisbane today, taking with her quite a bit of our shopping (thanks mum!) which includes an unknown (to me) number of pairs of Kylies shoes and quite a few new business shirts that I have bought and a whole bunch of other stuff. We’ve certainly done our bit to try and kick start the US economy. I might try and get Kylie to do a summary of her purchases when we’re back in Brisbane. No point in doing it on the road, the “kill” count rises too quickly….

Saturday 29 November

Saturday we all went our seperate ways for the day. Mum did the hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the Uptown areas, Kylie went and did some shopping and Jackson and I went to the Intrepid Air & Space Museum.

The Air & Space Museum only recently re-opened after being shut for renovations for a while. The Museum sits on board a retired US Air Craft Carrier which is moored in the River just at the end of the street we’re staying in! (One heck of a yard ornament to have in your street!) What a great facility and museum this is. Jackson and I were both enthralled for the three and a bit hours we walked the decks of this massive ship. We got some photos, but I’ve been having trouble uploading them through this internet connection, hopefully the next place is kinder to me, because we’ve got some great shots to share.

A visit to the museum starts off with a movie about the career of the ship. It’s mainly focused, of course, on the tragic aspect of the lose of life which happens during war. Halfway through I thought I’d made a “dad” mistake taking Jackson in, but he hasnt had any nightmares since and though he asked once after the movie about why’d those people get killed, he was fine with the movie. We were sitting next to a (I presumed from the way he was talking to Jackson before the movie) retired British Naval guy and during the movie he started crying through the movie – the emotions which come back visiting a place like that must be a terrible thing to manage.

The main “exhibits” of the museum are the planes which sit on the deck of the carrier. There must have been 20 different planes and choppers from different Navy’s / Army’s around the world. Jackson loved it and would run from plane to plane and then ask me to read the words on the sign for each plane (some of those Russian designers have VERY difficult names).

You also get to walk through the hanger of the carrier and in the hanger is a kids museum area where they can get their hands on all sorts of cool stuff, including sitting in the cockpit of a M*A*S*H style chopper, a plane simulator where you try to land a plane on the deck of a carrier, there’s a scoreboard which counts the number of “Jap” planes and ships the carrier took down and some models which show the carrier in its different incarnations.

Another exhibit is the Concord, which sits on the pier next to the Intreipd. The Concord is dwarfed by the Intrepid. I was looking forward to looking inside the Concorde, which you could do, but they had all the seats enclosed in a plastic bubble and the cockpit was blocked off, so all you got to do was walk down the aisle. Which was pretty boooring, even to me.

By the time we got back from there we met up with Kylie and went down to the Union Square area for a look around. We had lunch at a burger joint and walked around and looked through the stores. Paragon Sports was the main shop we visited and we got some stuff for the ski part of our trip – cool new goggles!

That night Jackson and I went to a cirque de soleil show and Kylie and Mum went to see the Musical Wicked. They liked Wicked better than Mumma Mia. Jackson thoroughly enjoyed the Cirque show, particularly the acrobatics of the show including a great trampoline act and during the finale huge fans sent a deluge of paper snowflakes out over the audience. This was pretty cool.

Jackson’s video:

This started out as a short note, ended up being longer than I thought, so I’ll wrap it up there. more to come.

over and out

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)

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!

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.

We took in Times Square, the Rockerfeller Center, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Tiffany & Co (the outside only), FAO Schwarz, Central Park, had a ride on the subway downtown, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, saw “the bull” near Wall Street and we walked along Wall Street itself. We covered a fair bit of ground walking around the city – I’ve started a map of the walk to show where we went and will finish that off in the next couple of days. I can highly recommend this tour if you’re in New York, it’s a great way to see the city and get some happy snaps.

The slideshow of our USA holiday photos has been updated to include some of the photo’s Marc took. We ended up with 160 something photos (not all of them are in the slideshow!).

After the tour we went into Century 21, a big downtown department store, right near the site of the World Trade Ctr. Centruy 21 was organised (??) chaos – lots of people and not much room to manouver a pram. We did not look in on the site of the World Trade Ctr, it doesnt seem like it should be a “tourist attraction”, despite its historical significance.

Kim and Ian arrived yesterday. Last night Ian had to do some work, so the rest of us trekked back to Macy’s, which is only a 8 block walk from the hotel. Kylie and Kim went to check out the shoe department and Jackson fell asleep in the pram, so I pushed him around the store. Despite having about 8 lifts, it was very hard to find one with space to go into with a pram! Every single one was chockers full of shoppers… Kylie and Kim got lost in the shoe department (suprised??) and mysteriously failed to make the pre-agreed to rendezvous point, so I walked back with Jackson and they came back to the apartment a bit later.

another good day… bye for now.

chris, kylie and jackson

We slept in until 8:00am this morning and by the time we got Jackson out of bed and everyone was ready for the day it was 9:30am when we got to a diner for breakfast. There’s a few places within a block or two walk which will be good to go to for a quick meal. This morning’s breakfast took only 8 minutes to be served after we’d ordered it. ( I dont make a habit of timing how long it takes food to be served – it was just that this morning i’d just told Kylie the time before the waiter took our order and we couldnt believe how quickly our order arrived & no – we weren’t at a mcdonalds)

After breakfast we caught the subway to SoHo, Jackson loves the subway! After we’d been on the train for a while, I had to play a little joke on Jackson and tell him the next station was Cannon Hill. He looked at me as if to say “Noooooo!”, but he thought it was funny after I told him I was joking.

SoHo was nice, there seemed to be a lot of roadworks going on and the the roads and pathways were a lot narrower than midtown and it was a bit bumpy with the stroller…. There were some good stores down SoHo way. We walked up and down quite a few streets and went into many stores – the ones we bought things from were Ben Sherman, Ted Baker, the Scholastic Store (a great kids book shop) and Kenneth Cole.

We caught a cab back from SoHo at about 230pm and had a late lunch at one of the places near the hotel. We had a restful couple of hours at the apartment and then we went to Macy’s – a large department store. We caught the subway to and from Macy’s, which is only one stop south of our apartment (but quite a few blocks).

We had a few “moments” with Jackson and the subway where he thought we were going to miss the train, or we werent going fast enough to get to the train… at one point, kylie and jackson had swiped their metro cards and gone through the gate and when I swiped my card, the gate didnt work and then when I re-swiped the card, the gate showed a message that the card had recently been used. I couldnt get through… I was worried that Kylie and Jackson were on the other side of that gate and I couldnt get through – that they were on the station and I wasnt – that Kylie COULD go to Macy’s with no adult supervision… Jackson was worried that I was on the other side of the gate and couldn’t get through… he wasn’t worried that we were seperated, he was worried that I was slowing them down and he might miss the train… it’s nice to be loved….

Kylie had a tip that if we went to an information counter in Macy’s, as an international visitor we would get 10% off purchases. Macy’s also had 30% off a lot of their stock – so we were shopping at 40% off… how could we NOT buy stuff?!

A scoreboard update on the purchases to date will come through tomorrow… I think I (chris) might be keeping up with Kylie at the moment – however, I’m more a sprinter (an unfit one) and Kylie is I am sure pacing herself…. still no shoes for Kylie though!!

The weather is pretty chilly here – a minimum of 6 degrees celsius tonight and up to a maximum of 13 tomorrow, for a minimum of 4 Saturday night! The weather for the NFL game I am going to on Sunday is currently forecast as fine – but a chilly 13 degrees celsius…

We’re off on a guided tour of New York with a tour guide / photographer. this was Kylie’s birthday present from myself and Jackson – it should be fun and we will have some nice shots of us as a family in New York.

Tomorrow afternoon / evening sometime Kim and Ian arrive.

having a ball – lots of photos, just not much time to get them off the camera and posted here….

Hope all is well at home. We’re not missing the election carry on – but we will be going to the consulate here in New York to vote… what a fun morning out! The news on the wire about the election over here is – nothing. I havent heard anything about kevin07 or Little Johnnie since we got to the US of A.

bye for now.

Chris, Kylie & Jackson