New York - Birchall Style

DAY 2    HE SAID...
Fact: The Panama canal is under reconstruction to enlarge the facility so that larger ships can pass thru. This is a major passage for ships bound for New York which has a large and very important to the town container facility. Not wanting to risk losing the port and all the jobs etc that go with it the Local authority have decided to raise the Beyonne Bridge. This bridge will not accommodate the new size of ship expected to use the canal. The bridge will be 6 foot too low. So, at the extremely fair price of $2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.75cents the bridge will be lifted.
 .... and so it was that we met Graeme Birchall at about 9.30 am in our hotel Lobby for a tour of New York. He dropped us off that night at 7.39pm. Graeme came here for a couple of weeks about 30 years ago and I have no doubt that he knows more about NY than the locals. The whole day we walked, along with his friend Hong, everywhere except the places most would visit when coming here. All day, these little gems were passed on.


On one of the pontoons where Graeme's free kayaking sessions
take place. Jersey in the background where they both live.

 He had an opinion on most things and as the day wore on we found ourselves eager to hear more. Mid afternoon, we were taken to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Hong, who is married to an American, ordered all but one dish of our meal and we just ate. We didn't know what we were eating but it tasted bloody nice and would never have been something we would've ordered. eg we had some sort of red bean paste desert which was delicious. Bean paste for christs sake!!
Graeme has some very interesting things to say about 9/11 and the aftermath so bail me up and ask me when i get home.
After Graeme dropped us off, we retired to our room with a 6 pack of "BUD" and some pretzels and crashed about 8.30pm. We had done bloody well considering the day before we had been awake for 24hrs.

SHE SAID ... Day 3
(So many things I'd like to tell you about yesterday, just not enough time now.) 
Just like in the movies a very wet NY day ... taxi's everywhere, people jumping in and out, and two Kiwis in shorts, walking shoes, raincoats and cheap umbrella's hit the streets.
Another awesome day of walking around, visiting more places Graeme and Hong had suggested, and some of our own picks.  Cancelled the Empire State Building visit as it was in mist!  A big highlight was the Jersey Boys show last night  ... oh what a night.  Something we'd both been looking forward to since we started planning our trip, and definately lived up to it's hype.