Still know zero people and needed to fill time I figured I would go to the gym to get some climbing in and would start the day with a run down the Hudson River to Battery Park - place where you board the boat to go to the Statue of Liberty - also the place that was made with the dirt they dug out from the world trade center.. so its a man made part of Manhattan.

I took the camera incase I felt like taking some photos. Once I got out of the Subway I figured I shoot on the way to the gym.. Here are the results.

I stumbled upon a market that was set-up on 23rd street.. there seems to be a schedule when this stuff happens as there was one up by my area a few weeks ago but not since.. my guess is that it happens once a month. Either way it was a treat to walk through and look around.

Although I had my camera in my backpack I hadn’t felt the need to take any pictures, until I came across this lock. I instantly thought of it as the NYC version of the looney at centre ice from the 2002 Olympics.

Photo of the street where the market was set-up

no words needed…

Anyone for a rack of meat?

How about some meat that is cooked a little more thoroughly

I’ve posted about these delicious things before… Corn bread sandwich with mozzarella cheese inside. AWESOME!

This is a large apartment block that I walk by on the way to the gym in Chelsea. As you can see it is massive and the architecture is very grand.

Closer view of one of the buildings.

This picture has a second part, I just don’t have the picture yet. I suspect many people from the east cost don’t think this is interesting but for me to see a house getting gassed up and the gas cap embedded in the sidewalk is not a normal site.

As I progress through Chelsea I end up at the westside highway and things are a bit more run down.

A high density parking garage.. You’ll notice the cars stacked up and across, making it harder to get the cars out, but the revenue per square foot yield is certainly increased.

NYC residents love their dogs, even if there is nowhere for them to run.. here is a dog park that I walk by sandwiched between two highways. Strange! It ain’t no Nosehill park, but Calgary is no NYC I guess.

:)

NYC dogs are also sometimes very very tiny.. here is a the tiny little guy from above.. he appears to be so fragile that he has to stay on the leash.

We’ve all heard about ‘Off Broadway’, I’m guessing this might count as ‘Off Off, not even close, to Broadway’. I will try to go here and watch a play at somepoint I hope. That should be a post all onto itself.

[Updated this with more accurate info since orignal post.]
The gym is at Chelsea Piers, and being a Pier in NYC it sometime has nice boats, but check out this thing! After some more research online this yacht appears to belong to Steve Forbes and is 151′ long. Look here for more details My guess is that it has more communication systems and capability than the Lloydminster Airport. (probably cost more too .

This yacht has the following visible toys:

• helicopter
• 2 cigar boats - can’t race if you only have one
• 1 Harley type bike
• 1 Japanese type sport bike (incase you don’t feel like cruising)

There are some other large boats parked at the Pier

On the other side of the pier there is a driving range that looks more like it should be in Japan than America.

Closer look. The name of this Yacht is ‘Grief’, maybe it was a divorce present.. what are your guesses… post a comment on the post if you like.

So there you have it that is the walk to the gym.. its not as comprehensive as I would have liked as I started to take pictures to late in the process, but I hope you liked it.

A neat story… well for me anyway.

I was at the Eddies on the 9th of May and the night met expectations, I guess with the exception of finding my future wife…

A big part of the fun of the Eddies is getting dressed up in outfits that you would normally not go out in and then acting in ways you likely wouldn’t if you weren’t in costume.. a much deeper topic on human behavior that I will let other investigate.

I have a habit/track record/tendency when consuming beverages to get intrigued with wierd things (read: women looking a bit different than normal) - the the eddies was a bonanza for me. One such woman happen to be wearing a very bright yellow wig and a generally attractive outfit. Not being much or a doer and much more of a talker/looker I remained intrigued from a distance; that was until the end of the night when the BAC was at its maximum.

On the way out the door, Yellow Hair happen to be sitting by herself and with enough Big Rock beer in my system I went to get her story.

Her name was Bonnie (remember this could be wrong as she could have lied… which means the rest of this might also be a fib but who cares). Bonnie is what I like to refer to as a crazy cat lady. This is a affliction that seems to affect women more than men. Bonnie lives with her mother in a large house in one of Calgary’s estate communities on the west side of town. At the dinner table there are 10 seats - one for Bonnie, her mother and one seat for each of their cats…. yes 8 cats. Who needs 8 cats! and a better question - who lets them eat at the table?

This wasn’t much of a story until I stumbled upon this:

You can see more photo’s of the night here.. if I manage to get one of me and I am happy with it I will post it.

Mr Suitcase, has been found is supposed to be delivered this evening to a safe home.

Those that were worried their beloved handbags would be stuck in the belly of some strange airport, or worse …. need no longer worry.

Don’t ask me why this particular suitcase seems to miss its connection as often as it does, although its life it has made some pretty impressive connections, the best being a 30 minute connection in Vancouver from a BA flight from London, UK to a Westjet flight to Calgary (it was just over 30 minutes from one gate arrival to one gate departure, I had to sprint to make it.. no idea how mr. suitcase made it).

The handbags are missing in action. There were traveling back in my suitcase with June and did not make it to Calgary! (her suitcase was too small for an additional 5 purses)

This is the 4th time this suitcase has not made it at the same time as its guardian…

Throw a prayer in for the might suitcase and is oh so precious belongings.

Updates will come as I hear them.

Today was a great NYC day. The City is always special but today it shot the lights out. We started the day with a run through central park, the plan was to do the full loop which is 10 km. We walked over from the apartment - 6 blocks to the park - (2nd, 3rd, Lexington, Park, Madison and 5th ave) and started the run at the children’s zoo; which up to that point I never knew existed. Instead of taking the normal road course we ran on the other less populated paths (if that is possible in central park on a sunny Saturday), once at the top of the park we kept going into Harlem. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I figured it would not be the Harlem that we grew up seeing in the movies. There certainly was not a lot of ethic diversity in areas we ran through but it felt as safe, albeit not quite as clean as most other areas we were in in the city. We finished the run off and headed back to the apartment for a shower and lunch.

HUNTING FOR PURSES
June wanted to head out for a day of shopping, so we headed down to the SOHO area. We had some pretty basic goals - Courtney wanted a cheap knock off Channel purse. Knowing just enough to get us in trouble we were headed to hunt for the purses on Canal through SOHO and into Chinatown.

We walked down West Broadway from the West 4th st Subway stop and stumbled upon sidewalks jammed with artists hucking their wares. The art was very good, much better than I would have expected all generally staffed by the artists themselves. I really wanted to get a larger piece of art for the apartment and hoped to find something that was reasonably priced and really stood out to me. Being quite impressed and not wanting to walk around with a large painting all day I figured I’d try to come back later.

We made it Canal to start the purse hunt, the place was a complete mob and absolutely ridiculous, but not frustrating. As we hunted there were few ‘good’ knock offs and they didn’t carry the right label which defeats the purpose I guess. If you want a Prada knock off you don’t want to have a Piagio label there. After several hours of enjoying the neighborhoods, in the southern part of Chinatown observed a very good tip. As you are shopping for the purses, you simply need to ask if they will put the ‘other’ logo onto the purse - we witnessed a very normal non-functional black backpack turn into a stylish, hip, gotta have one, Prada backpack - for only $15. Well, now we’re cooking with fire!

Still not satisfied with the quality we continued to look around. Empty handed but not defeated we figured we would walk down to see the World Trade Center construction site as it was only two blocks south. As we headed down there there was gentleman that had very good looking authentic knock offs, lying on a bed sheet, with a box of large Louis Vutton purses attached to a dolly for foot transportation. Well of course we had to stop and inquire…. expect our purse man seemly got spooked and in record time grabbed the four corners of his sheets and had his purses corralled and in a newly created sheet bag; much like a calf roper might pull off in the Calgary stampede as he grabs the four legs of the calf he just roped. He dump the hidden purses in the sheet bag into the larger box, and wheel it off in a hurry down the alley way. Now we’re interested! June and I, along with a couple of other were encouraged to follow him, about 40 feet down the covered walk way where he stopped and open his wares. Very nice and authentic, so we picked up a whole family of handbags. Not 2 or 3… nope not even 4, but 5 purses (I mean handbags)! If that wasn’t enough out friend Chieck gave us his phone number incase we wanted more, and we were welcome to call him to find out what he had and were he would be.

Silence please as we respect the mighty faux handbag family:

Now for a couple in closer detail [I don’t get it but some people love this shit.]

Fashionable Pink Burberry

Baby Blue Prada

Red Prada - very RANDY

okay enough of that!

Being very interested I needed to know what made his purses so much more secret and exciting than the ones up on Canal (other than they looked very real - to someone who has never looked at, or intends to look at a $1000 handbag). You see, the purses that he was selling were made in New Jersey, and the ones on Canal were made in China and the quality and attention to detail didn’t compare.. Good enough for me - although I suspect the small country of China known for rip off does have good authentic rip offs, but they may not be on display on a busy trendy NYC shopping neighborhood.

Long story short - I got a connection with a purse man - so if your in town and your looking to get a knock off purse; I know someone (read: I’ve hit an all time low).

After all the excitement of chasing our purse man and feeling pretty good about ourselves it was time to start heading back. We had some other errands to run and I hoped to pick up some art in SOHO

• NYC trivia piece - SOHO is short for South of Houston
• Bonus NYC trivia piece - Houston is pronounced House-ton not Hew-stun. It is based on a Dutch word that I think has some translation or root in something that started out as House-town)

I pieced up a great piece of art called “Shy” from a Ukrainian painter. I got the number for her studio and hope to go and check it out this week and maybe even get some pictures of NYC art studio and the birth place of my new friend. Here is the pretty lady:

She was painted by Lena, who has some other very cool pieces. Shy’s dimensions are 16″ x 48″; she has a neat feature in that you can place her standing up or lying down (put your head on your left shoulder as you look at her).

By the time we stopped for dinner in Greenwich Village we had been walking non stop for about 7 hours and after the 1 and 20 minute run in the morning my buddy June was beat and ready for a break, as was I. We cabbed it back to the apartment and called it a night and a very good day.

.. by time you’ve read all the way down here you are also probably exhausted, bored and ready to poke your eyes out.. go here for some much better writing.