Purveyor of style and other such visual treats

Full set here

Some shots from my trip to Morocco. We visited Marrakesh and Essaouira.

One of my favourite cities, one of my favourite shots.

Truly Incredible

Full set here

VAG, not a dirty word. (Volkswagen Audi Group)

30 years of…

I now have a thing for those cleanly presented Kombi’s

Skoda.

Full set of photos here

Some BMW love.

Private stuff for sale…

Porsche

This makes me happy, you could eat off it…I wanted to sleep in it.

Just about everything was for sale.

Gawd, if only…

The Mercedes display was impressively laid out.

American muscle.

Tiny but mighty.

Tiny but…stylish.

Just damn small…

Very different from the usual racks of Volk racing or BBS wheels I normally drool over.

From the outset, I knew this photo had to be titled: The Axis of Awesome!

Spares for sale…

Need some wheels for your Stratos? No problems!

Or perhaps just the owners manual for when it eventually breaks?

Amongst the many anniversaries, most notably it is Alfa Romeo who celebrate their 100th this year.

One of my many favourite ‘affordable’ cars… It’s not fast, but why be in a rush when you have style like this.

Day 5

We waited in line for some tickets for the Late Show, they take your details and you are picked at random in a lottery style given the demand for tickets.

It was a pretty special feeling to get tickets and be part of the audience, I had grown up watching the Late show with David Letterman late at night in Australia so it was great to be part of a show. Aside from having to be patient as we lined up and being alarmed at the boundless energy of the staff warming up the audience (not sure how they keep up such excitement and cherpiness) seeing Dave and the Jeremy Piven (Ari from Entourage), it was a great, once in a lifetime experience for me.

After another trip to Little Brazil for a fix of my now favourite Cuban food, we headed to the Rockerfeller Centre observation deck for some great 360 degree views of New York City

View of the Empire State Building

Day 6

Our last day meant an early morning, shortly after breakfast we jumped back onto the Hop On Hop Off bus and made our way down to the pier where we boarded a ferry across to the Statue of Liberty. Usually when you visit a famous attraction it either lives up to expectations or falls short and disappoints. Luckily, she was as graceful and spectacular as we had envisioned partly due to the fact it was designed and built by the French so the style was in tact and not tainted by any new world ‘style’…

Aside from the great views across the river and Manhattan it gave us the realisation of the scope of New York City, while being densely populated and the most expensive city in the world when it comes to most things including real estate, New York City has much to offer other than the usual brightly lit Times Square and Empire State Buildings.
There is a great variety of activities, sights and experiences on offer to delight the young and more mature travellers alike.
Whether it is sight seeing, nightlife, food odyssey’s, shopping or taking time out to relax, New York is certainly the place to be.
We certainly had a great time, while initially thinking we would have too much time on our hands, this quickly gave way to the feeling there was so much to see and do that we needed yet more time or subsequent visits to take it in. Even then, we had only scratched the surface.

I hope you enjoy the photos, the rest of which are located here:

Flickr Album

Day 4

After a combination of now being on our own and not really knowing our way around, having sore feet from all the walking and wanting to see as much as we could, we decided to buy tickets to the hop on hop off city tour bus that goes all over the city.  

We went to Macy’s and while the other half shopped I visited the world’s largest photo and video store, BH Photo & Video. This place is a Mecca to photographers!

We then went around Brooklyn

Yes I did contemplate taking this NYPD Police car fender back with me in my luggage…

And to Ground Zero

Tiles painted by children as a memorial to the victims

Ground Zero

We went further downtown past china town and checked out the East Village. I went to a small sneaker store known for their exclusive stuff and we stopped off for a slice of famous NY Pizza, this place had slices for $1 and it was frequented by the funky but cash strapped locals.

Later that evening we went on a night tour around the city including another visit to the pier at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, the view of the bridge and Manhattan is far more spectacular at night.

Day 3

We took in the sights of Central Park, I was surprised at the size of the place and the relative tranquility it affords being right in the heart of one of the busiest cities in the world. The famous Ice Rink was transformed into a kids playground with small rides during the warmer months, there were fountains, lakes, exposed rocks and various wildlife from Squirells and ducks to an Eagle we spotted landing in a tree.

Some tucked away areas were breathtaking if only for the fact that you felt like you were in some secret garden away from the noise of the city for a brief moment.

 

After walking through some newly erected market stalls in the closed off streets surrounding Times Square and Broadway for the Sunday,  we said our goodbyes to our gracious hosts for the weekend having made the 4 hour drive from Boston to see us and show us around.

They even indulged me in being dragged to my pre determined shopping spots including a visit to Best Buy and to pick up some much needed running shoes (these came in handy when doing as much walking as we did!)

Full set of photos here

Day 2

After waking up very early in the morning on account that the UK is 5 hours ahead of the East coast of America we eventually headed off to the usual American Diner for some breakfast. Being New York, if the place is popular then there will inevitably be a queue.

Given this is America however, there are plenty of staff available working minimum wage so service is generally swift with accents usually in the range of eastern European or Latin/Spanish. We did some shopping and made an obligatory (or so I was told) trip to 5th avenue including a visit to Tiffany & Co. I also had to Visit the Apple store while I was here.

Also a visit to the famous Fao Shwarz Toy Store from the movie Big.

Ugly Dolls

I had to have one so adopted an Ice Bat.

Here he is after being tucked in by housekeeping.

After a short Subway ride across the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn we walked through some lovely, quiet neighbourhoods to the base of the Brookyln Bridge to take in the sights and try out the famous ice cream from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. 

The main attraction aside from the great Ice Cream was of course the view across the Hudson River to the famous Manhattan skyline, good times.

We walked back to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge, this alone is spectacular and well recommended. A highlight of our trip. Can you tell?

We then went to Little Italy to the oldest Pizzeria in America, Lombardi’s. There was quite a wait since everyone else had read the guide books too.

We went to this quirky rice pudding spot ‘Rice to Riches’ while we waited for a table

To be honest the Pizza was just ok, I suspect the better place to be was Grimaldi’s near the bottom of Brooklyn Bridge where the line was even longer and seemingly less touristy.

On the way back to the hotel we stumbled across a busy bakery working late into the night baking handmade cupcakes.

They were the most expensive but the best i’ve ever tasted!

A recent trip to New York was my first visit to North America.

Thoroughly enjoyable, New York has so much to offer. Great food, sights and a colourful mix of burroughs means there are so many sides to this great city.

We had a great time in New York, despite high hopes and expectations NY did not disappoint.

I took quite a few photos in our travels around the city so I can share the experience as much as possible with others and I tried a few new camera and processing techniques as I am always learning and trying to do something different.  

Day 1
After arriving at the rather swanky boutique hotel (this means the overuse of blue neon mood lights in the room) located near Times Square and Broadway we met up with my cousin and her husband who came down from Boston to spend the weekend with us.

We then proceeded to check out Times Square, Broadway and walked around mid town New York getting oriented with the city and working out what we would be doing while we were here.

We checked out the world’s largest Toy Store (there is a trend for the world’s largest stores to be right here in New York), Toy’s R Us.

Massive animatronic, moving T-Rex

Then visited Grand Central Terminal

We had dinner at a great Cuban Restaurant in the Little Brazil area. I’ve not tried Cuban food before but the art deco interior and great atmosphere of the restaurant complete with wooden ceiling fans for effect won me over.

I had a spicy Creole Shrimp dish with some special rice (Prawns to you and me), it was without being pretentious, a revelation. This was now on my favourite dishes list for sure. I added a mental note to come here again.

This is just an example of the variety of cuisine on offer in New York. Aside from the usual franchise/chain restaurants littered about Times Square, there is a massive array of restaurants with cuisine from all over the world from Latin to African, Modern American, French and Asian along with a mix such as Creole/New Orleans food.

If you add in the large Latin population here in New York with folks from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic etc. there is a breadth of choice i’ve not experience anywhere else in the world…

Well this is not a food guide so I digress…

An amazing show, in fact the world’s largest classic car show. Held in Essen, Germany.

Since I am living in Germany at the moment and i’m only here for another 10-11 months I wanted to make the most of my time here. This means going to see as much as I can and share it with you all.

Well after a bit of an adventure getting to the event which involved a 360klm drive…

(My MK4 Gti I bought a few weeks ago overheated and blew the head gasket on the way 30klms into my trip), I eventually made it! (6 hours later than I expected but in a MK6 Golf courtesy of VW while they fixed my car - crappy VW plastic water pump design was to blame).

Was it worth it?

I’ll let the photos do the talking.

In terms of size, it’s the world’s biggest classic car show. Halls and halls of cars and plenty of spares and nostalgic bits up for sale.

To give you an idea of the size, think Australian motorshow, but with all classic cars. This isn’t your usual sunday show kids. To put things more into perspective we were literally tired at looking at cars…

Think about it, car enthusiasts who cannot bare to see another 911, Stratos or Alfa…There is simply too much to see and I couldn’t possibly capture it all.

Rather than straight up shooting each and every car that caught my eye I tried to give you a taste of the event and how special some of these cars are. Not only in their design and rarity, but also the details that make them just so amazing.

Enjoy.

This is one of the first cars we saw upon entering, it hits you like a sledge hammer. Tough, heritage and sleek. Awesome just oozes from every angle.

Even a quick peek out the side door just uncovers another level of bad ass.

The car park was special too, but it was raining and trust me we had seen enough.

Full set of my photos here

Very fast, and very good.

Full set of my photos here

Nothing left to do but drive…

Jinba-ittai

Down to Burragorang Valley, south past Camden near the Oaks, a bit of a benchmark route…

Unfortunately the car had developed a habit of creeping up past the halfway mark on the temp gauge after 20mins of driving in traffic, only turning the heater on could sort it…

Baking in the sun with the heater on was never my idea of fun…

Only one thing to do…

What is missing in this pic?…

Out comes the radiator…This was a relatively easy job once you take off the undertray.

A quick trip to the radiator specialist revealed that it was blocked by more than a third. Since the plastic tank top was going to go eventually I had them source and fit a new top tank since they already had the newly cleaned up core with them.

2 hours later and it’s ready to install!

After flushing out what was mainly just plain water and some crud the freshened up item was refitted.

Filled it up with Castrol Radicool premix and all systems were go….