China - Part 3 of 3

Shanghai - This was the last city on our tour and it was much more relaxed. It felt like we had more time to see the sites and there was almost no rushing around. Our guide Rocky was a younger guy (28), had good knowledge of the city and his English was good. We had emailed Yan Ban about the bad restaurant experience in Xi’an so she contacted him and informed him about our expectations. He was very flexible about the restaurants and picked local ones as well as letting up pick a few. We stayed at the Howard Johnson Plaza Shanghai, which is just south of E Nanjing Road and is within walking distance of the Bund and the People's Square/Park.

The order in which the cities on the tour were visited, we went from classic China to modern China. Shanghai is a massive metropolitan city. The population is pushing 25,000,000 people, which is more than 70% of all of Canada.

Our first day was pretty mellow and we started the day going up the Oriental Pearl Tower, which has a clear floor viewing platform, and then took a Huangpu River Cruise. On the flight from Xi'an to Shanghai, my wife was skimming a newspaper and read a review of a seafood noodle restaurant on Changle in the Old French Concession so we went for lunch there. It was a small place but very good. We then cruised through Xintiandi, which is a neat pedestrian area of the Old French Concession that used to be stone Shikumen housing and now contains restaurants of all nationalities and a shopping center. There was so much variety, we ended up coming back here to eat several times. While we were there, we saw a Caucasian lady get hit by a bike, which seemed sort of ironic seeing as it is a pedestrian area. He was biking the wrong way on a one way alley.

The last stop of the day was the Yuyuan Garden, which is surrounded by shops housed in classic Chinese architecture. One of the coolest is a teahouse on an island that is only accessible via zigzag walkways. The garden itself has lots of rockeries as well as the three-toed dragon wall. The artist carved the dragon with five toes, which is reserved for Imperial dragons only. Supposedly the Emperor heard about this dragon and sent his people to inspect it and punish the carver but when they arrived, the carver removed two toes.

China, Part 2 of 3

Day 4 - There were a few hiccups on this two-day leg of the tour. Our day started super early with a 4:30am wake-up call. The guide wanted us to be at the airport two hours before our 8:00 flight. It seemed like a bit overkill as we were through security and at our gate by 6:20.

As soon as we arrived in Xi'an, we headed straight for the Terracotta Warriors. This was probably the second coolest thing I saw in China. The excavation site is pretty amazing. The main building is the crazy familiar one you generally see in pictures. It's rows upon rows of warriors. It's said that each one has a different face. In the back of this part is the warrior "hospital", where they take broken pieces and re-assemble the statues. Once completed, it is inserted back where they found the original pieces. What's amazing is the tomb all these warriors are guarding, that of the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang, is 5km away. Chinese archeologists are gonna have jobs for generations excavating everything in between. Like the Ming Tombs, because of the lack of technology to preserve artifacts, the tomb has not been opened yet. The farmer who first discovered the site while digging a well back in 1974 has a little desk in the gift store and signs books. Nice gig!

After the Warriors, the plan was to head back to the hotel, rest for a bit, and head out for a dumpling dinner and Tang Dynasty show. Ummm, not gonna happen! There were rallies against the Japanese with regard to the Senkaku/Diaoyu island and the protesters blocked traffic from entering and leaving the city for most of the day. We were stuck outside the city wall in the gnarliest traffic I've ever been in and ended up going straight to the dumplings and show. The show itself was good for what it was (nice costumes, good performers) but the food was terrible. I have no idea how anyone can steam dumplings and have them end up being dry and plasticy. We didn’t even make it to the hotel until 9:30pm and remember, we started our day in Beijing waking up at 4:30am.

China, Part 1 of 3

Here's a little summary of my trip to China. At the insistence of my Mom, we used a tour company and went on a four person/three city/eleven day tour. She left all the planning up to me and I decided to book with The China Guide. Yan Ban was our contact person there and pretty much everything went smoothly. I had a general idea for our itinerary and Yan and I emailed back and forth making adjustments. A few benefits of booking with them are:

1. There were no forced shopping/factory stops,
2. There was flexibility in the restaurants (two of us don't eat meat),
3. There was flexibility in the hotels (I got to book them myself),
4. They accept credit cards as payment through their website.

There was a lot packed into our trip but I suppose that's the nature of a tour. We zipped through a lot of sites in a small period of time. There were lots of things at many of the sites that we probably could have spent more time at but again, it was a tour.

The first city we visited was Beijing and we got to fly direct from Vancouver. Our guide and driver picked us up from the airport and we stayed at the Park Plaza Wangfujing (nice hotel!).

Day 1 - In the morning we visited Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and Jingshan Park. We probably could have spent an entire day at these three sites. We didn't see Mao's body (there was a super long line up anyway) nor the museum in the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City wasn't as epic as I expected. In the afternoon, we went for a rickshaw ride through a hutong, went up the Drum Tower (longest steepest staircase I've ever seen), Temple of Heaven and a kung fu show.

After the first day, I got a general impression of the main tourist sites being kind of beat up/unkept. You would think the government would try to keep everything in tip top shape but it sort of reminds me of an old fair ground that wasn't being maintained. The highlight of the day was actually quite random. We drove by a big white dog and this is how the conversation went.

me: "look at the big ass white dog... wait a sec, he's wearing glasses!"
wife: "you're a jackass. It's probably a statue"
wife turns around.
wife: "jeez, it is a big white dog wearing glasses!"

Tony Hawk at Star Wars Identities

I got to check out this interactive Star Wars exhibition when I was visiting Montreal in April. Super cool! Looks like Tony Hawk also went when he was touring around Canada this summer.

Here's a bonus photo of his tour bus getting a ticket. It was parked near my work.

China, update coming

Just got back from China a few days ago. I'll have a full update soon. As far as skateboard related stuff, I drove by two skate shops in Beijing and saw a guy carving around on a cruiser board on East Nanjing Rd in Shanghai. That was it. Then again, I wasn't going out of my way to find skate shit... I did see lots of nice smooth ground and glossy untouched ledges everywhere. I can't even count how many times I said to myself "Man! This would be one of the best spots back home" and in China, it doesn't even look like it's ever been skated.

China

Well, I originally posted about this great Shanghai 5 video back in 2010. Last Fall, my Mom mentioned that she wants to take a trip to China before she gets too old. Fast forward to now... we're booked to go in September! Super psyched. If any readers have any suggestions or tips, let me know. I'm trying to figure out where the good vegetarian restaurants are. I actually found a bunch of google maps containing vegetarian restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai as well as Shanghai skate spots.

I'm up in the air about whether I'm gonna skate when I'm there. Every other time I've gone on a family vacation that wasn't a skate trip and I brought my board, I skated maybe once and that was while waiting for laundry in Paris. I'm definitely not bringing my board with me but I may pack my trucks and wheels, which are compact enough, in case I feel like skating and I can buy a board at the local shop. The Love Park spot is right around the corner from my hotel, which makes it more tempting.

Skating a Driving Range

Got a message today in my inbox from a chap named Robin about this cool DIY spot in Northern Ireland that was formerly a driving range. Robin said he used to golf and play cricket at this spot way back in the day. Wireless is a local company over there that looks pretty tight. Belfast also has a skate park now that looks super fun. I was supposed to visit Ireland back around 2006 with my wife and mother in law as my wife's university graduation gift but it never happened. Gotta get out there!

Greek-style Skateboard

I was in Athens, Greece for work a few weeks ago and my wife found this boutique shop called Greece is for Lovers just south of the Acropolis. They make a lot of interesting unique art such as the above skateboard with built in sandals. They also had a skateboard made out of white marble and another from terra cotta.

I didn't see many skaters while I was there. The few that I did see were skating around Syntagma Square, which is where all the recent riots and demonstrations have been taking place. There was also a skate shop over near the flea market area by Monastiraki square. I was pretty stoked to be somewhere warm and sunny in March and to have a chance to explore the city and the ancient ruins.

NYC 2011 wrap-up

Really late on this one. My wife and I visited New York City in September and here are a few observations.

1. We stayed at the Comfort Inn Manhattan Bridge, which was recommended to me by Eric over at Chromeball. We had stayed south of Houston our last trip and really like cruising around down there. Hotel was clean and the price was good.

2. I saw my first Jackson Pollock at the MET. I few weeks prior, I watched the Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? documentary.

3. Met up with Anthony from Music Skateboards at Maxfish to have some beers. Super nice guy and I hope for all the best for him and his company.

4. Chipotle Test Kitchen at 149 8th Ave in Greenwich Village was awesome. Faux chicken was one of the protein options.

5. Red velvet donuts at the Donut Pub were a nice snack. Same with red velvet cupcakes at Magnolia's.

6. Tickets to Broadway shows aren't cheap. We wanted to check out the Book or Mormon so we decided to try and get raffle tickets. What are raffle tickets? Their website describes it better than I can.

"A limited number of tickets for each performance will be sold through the lottery. Entries will be accepted at the box office beginning two and a half hours prior to each performance for up to two tickets.

Two hours before curtain, names will be drawn at random for a limited number of tickets priced at $32 each. Only one entry is allowed per person. Cards are checked for duplication prior to drawing. Winners must be present at the time of the drawing and show valid ID to purchase tickets. Limit one entry per person and two tickets per winner."

We ended up winning tickets! It was my first Broadway show.

7. I was waiting for Lombardi's pizza take out and I heard the rolling thunder, looked up and saw Muska cruising by. He was pretty much dressed in all black like in these photos.

After we ate our pizza, we were walking around Soho and crossed paths with him again. My wife knows who he is from TMZ and when she saw him, she noticed he was skating in moccasins. Then a few months later, those moccasins show up in this Berrics footnotes. He seems like a really kooky eccentric dude, not that there's anything wrong with that. I've heard that he's a super nice guy and I bet he has great stories for days. Image from here.

Phoenix - Part 3 of 3

I'm going to jam in three course reviews in this post.

Las Sendas - This course is gnarly! Just look at the slope and rating. It's located east of Phoenix in Mesa. We booked our 11:40 tee time through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $60 per player, range balls included.

The green here were by far the fastest and smoothest we played. They were also the toughest with severe undulations. I putt off the green twice on the same hole 8( Doesn't get much worse than a triple bogey on a GIR. Brutal! The fairways were in great condition and the rough was actual rough, although not very long. The course is quite scenic, although some of the holes are lined with houses. There's also rabbits all over the place. There was at least one hole where we didn't know what to do off the tee. It was a dogleg and we had no idea which way it went. Overall, it was the worst round I played but I pulled it together a bit on the back 9 after taping up my thumb. Paul shot 1 over on the front 9 and then proceeded to throw all his hard work away by shooting 10 over on the back. I'd definitely play it again for the sake of redemption.

Sanctuary - This 18 hole Troon facility up in Scottsdale is one of the most desert style target golf courses I've ever played. Ball placement and strategy was definitely key on this course. We booked our 12:07 tee time through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $61 per player, range balls not included.

The greens were spotty but cut short so they weren't very fast and not very smooth... pretty much the 2nd slowest on our trip. The fairways were spotty as well. The rough was actual rough, although not very long. For most of the front nine, every fairway is slanted to the left or the right so you gotta aim your tee shot to account for the sideways roll. The bunkers seemed to be fluffier than any others on our trip, which made them tough to get out of, particularly the fairway traps. I couldn't believe how many dog leg lefts there were on this course! The tee box options were, again, sort of limited. Either tee off from 6600+ yards or 6000 yards and like Lookout Mountain, I ended up at the shorter tee box and it felt short. The longer tee box would for sure have been too long... something in between would have been nice. Overall, I'd play this course again.

Ahwatukee Country Club - This course is located in Phoenix just south of the airport. We booked our 7:15 tee time through ezlinks.com's for $28 per player, range balls not included.

This was our last round of the trip and we were flying out in the afternoon. It was tough to get an early Saturday tee time near the airport for a reasonable price. We had it narrowed down to Ahwatukee Country Club, Vistal, Dobson Ranch and Arizona Golf Resort. I've read and heard negative comments about all of them (speed of play, course conditions etc) so I just booked whatever was available. Needless to say, this was by far the worst course we played this week. Actually, I'd go as far as saying it's the worst course we've ever played in Phoenix! I have no idea how this place can place the moniker "country club" on their facility. It had slow and bumpy greens, worst course conditions and worst scenery. The course is not a desert style layout. There's lots of trees and there are basically retaining walls from houses along all holes. I'll never play this course again. I'll add it to Bougainvillea and Kokopelli as courses I'll never play again.

Phoenix - Part 2 of 3

Whirlwind Golf Club is a 36 hole Troon facility located in Chandler south of Phoenix. We got to play both courses on separate days. We booked both tee times through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $66 and $62 per player, range balls included. The practice facility is great. Nice big range with lots of targets, multiple putting greens, chipping and bunker area.

The greens on both courses were fast and smooth, 2nd best on our trip. The fairways were in great condition (slightly better on the Devil's Claw) and the rough was dormant grass framed by red pebble wasteland. The finishing hole on Devil's Claw wasn't particularly memorable. There were lots of challenging holes and the hole-by-hole guide was great to help a first timer navigate the course. I'd give the nod to Cattail as the more fun and memorable eighteen. I'll definitely visit Whirlwind again.

Phoenix - Part 1 of 3

This was our 5th or 6th trip down here and in the past, we always seemed to play the same 4 or 5 courses... Lonetree, Legacy, Phantom Horse (now Arizona Grand Resort), Vistal and Estrella Mountain Ranch (now Golf Club of Estrella). Not that there's anything wrong with those courses but we decided to try some different ones this time around. With the bad economy and the dollar at par, we were able to play quite a few that were out of our price range before. I'll try to do a review of each course we played. FWIW, we both track our handicaps using Gametrack. I'm a 16 and Paul is a 12 so neither of us are world beaters. In terms of strengths, I think Paul's is his ballstriking, and I guess mine is my chipping.

Trilogy and Power Ranch - This course is located southeast of Phoenix in a Gilbert community development. It's lined with hundreds of houses and is definitely not the most scenic course. We booked our 1:06 tee time through golfnow for $62 per player, no range balls included.

We got quite a bit of rain in the 24 hours before the round and it rained for at least 9 of the holes. I've definitely never played in as windy, cold and rainy conditions in Phoenix as we did this round. Regardless, it was still lots of fun. The fairways were well manicured and the next cut was dormant bermuda. Pretty much every course down here is framed by desert wasteland. In this case, the wasteland was mostly red clay/packed dirt. The greens were good... smooth and relatively fast. Adjusting to yardages down here took a little bit. Airmailing greens into the street/wasteland/water occurred on more than one occasion. I'd player here again.


Lookout Mountain - This course is located at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort in Phoenix. We booked our 11:32 tee time through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $46 per player, range balls included.

The course was fun, challenging and in good condition. It underwent renovations recently and has changed quite a bit compared to what is shown on the course layout. In order to be more environmental, they removed water from pretty much every hole except for #15. The fairways were lush and in great shape and the next cut was rough that was actual rough, although not very long. The wasteland was mostly pebbles and rock. The greens were decent enough, although not the smoothest or fastest we played. The tee box options were sort of limited. Either tee off from 6500+ yards or 6000 yards. I didn't want to get stuck playing a 230+ yard par 3 or forced carries over desert that I couldn't make so I dropped down to the shorter of the two while Paul played the longer one. The variety of holes is definitely there. Long par 3's and 4's as well as short ones. Lots of elevation changes as well. It's a bit of a gimmicky/tricked out course with weird holes... sort of reminds me of Furry Creek up near Squamish. I did have my best stretch of holes during the trip going 2 over through 5 holes to finish the round. For what we paid, I'd definitely player here again.

Back from Vacation

Got back on the weekend from a vacation down south. Got to spend a few nights in Vegas with my wife and then parted ways and went to Phoenix to meet up with a friend for a week of golf. It definitely wasn't warm in Vegas and was below average temperatures in Phoenix but it was still nice to be somewhere sunny.

Course reviews to come. Booked 6 of 7 rounds through ezlinks.

Menstruation Skateboards

"some girls bleed more than once a month"

My wife was horrified when she saw this advertisement at the Karlsplatz station in Vienna. Turns out it was a Secession Art Museum piece. Check out the decks here.

Back from Vacation

Lagged on the blog posts the past few weeks. I was vacationing in central Europe (Budapest, Vienna and Prague) and I happened to fuck up my ankle two days before departing Canada. Bad timing...

Palm Springs - Part 3 of 3

beep beep.
12/1. East Valley Golf Club - Legends Course. The East Valley Golf Club is the home of the Southern California PGA. It's a 36 hole facility that has hosted PGA Tour Q Schools in past years. We booked our 10:43 tee time directly with the course for $50 per player.

This is a really nice facility and the track was super fun to play. There's lots of interesting holes, including a 490 yard downhill par 4. The bunkering on this course were strategically placed on almost every hole and I'm glad I had my GPS unit to figure out yardages. There were some dry spots but the overall course conditions were top notch. The bunkers were kind of bunk though. They were groomed (probably Thurs or Fri) but rained on heavily on Sat so they were crusty and rock hard on the day we played. The greens were fast and the undulations weren't quite as difficult to read as the prior three rounds. This day was by far the windiest conditions of our trip. We let 2 singles through but otherwise, we didn't see another golfer on the course. We finished our round in 4 hours, 5 minutes. I'll definitely visit this facility again and plan to play their Champions course as well. I didn't take any "blow up" holes (triple or quad bogeys), at least for me, in this round.





12/2. Indian Canyons Golf Resort - South course. The Indian Canyons Golf Resort is a 36 hole facility along the mountains southwest of and close to the airport. We booked our 9:00 tee time through standbygolf.com for $74 per player. This was the only round we played that we had to pay for range balls.

Compared to the prior 5 rounds, this course, by far:
1. was the easiest track we played in terms of slope/rating
2. was the greenest, moistest and lushest
3. had the slowest greens (soft and spongy) but smooth and true-ish
4. was the most photogenic with the mountain backdrop

Aside from the slow greens, the course was in amazing condition. We finished in 4 hours and 15 minutes, despite being a twosome sandwiched between two foursomes. We definitely needed this round to get a confidence boost and finish the trip strong. We both birdied the 18th hole to finish our golf in Palm Springs. That alone will probably lead to a return to this facility. It was my low round of the trip (87) as well as Paul's (83) but I think he was most satisfied with the 89 he shot at Oak Valley.



As far as food was concerned, we basically just ate Mexican food everyday LOL Rubio's was our main stomping grounds. $1.25 fish taco Tuesday was awesome!

Overall, I was very happy with my first trip to Palm Springs and will visit again for a golf getaway.

Palm Springs - Part 2 of 3

11/29. Classic Club. The Classic Club is a facility that is run by Troon, which typically means excellent service and amazing course conditions. The Bob Hope Classic was hosted here in 2006, 2007 and 2008. We booked our 11:10 tee time through activegolf.com for $79 per player.

The course is just off the I-10 but feels like it's in the middle of nowhere... no houses anywhere near the course. This is a really awesome facility. Their clubhouse is top notch and their practice facility was the nicest we saw on this trip. Their range balls were brand new NXT Tours. The course conditions were amazing... comparable to Indian Wells. The greens were just as fast with some real tough reads. It was definitely a fun and challenging track! I have no idea how they got so much damn water on 18 holes in the middle of the desert! I was warned about the course being in the wind belt. No kidding! It was howling pretty good all day. We played the round as a foursome in 4 hours, 20 minutes. I'll definitely play this course again. Oddly enough, I had four pars that day and all of them came on the four par 3's.





11/30. Oak Valley Golf Course. The Oak Valley Golf Course is actually not in Palm Springs but is 30 miles west on I-10 in Beaumont. Just a few weeks ago, they hosted one of the 2nd stages of PGA Tour Q School. We booked our 11:00 tee time directly with the course for $49.50 per player.

What a strange facility! When you drive into their parking lot, it screams ghetto muni track. Their clubhouse is average at best and quite a few of the tee boxes were pretty hacked up with weeds growing on them. Everything else about it was top notch though. The fairways were in great shape as well as the bunkers. The course had actual rough, which was extremely contrasting compared to the low penalizing resort type conditions we were playing up to this point on the trip. The greens were actually quite soft but they were also by far the fastest greens we played. They were also next to impossible to read, at least for me. We played the whole round without waiting for or holding up another golfer. I got my ass handed to me. I was having issues with every club in the bag... 6 penalty strokes, 40 putts, you get the picture... Pretty sure I'd play it again to exact revenge on the ass whooping I received.

Palm Springs - Part 1 of 3

We got back on Wed night and I gotta say that we had a great golf vacation! I'm going to break down our trip into three posts, two course reviews per installment.

We left Vancouver 11/26. The new Canada RAV Line was an awesome means of getting to the Airport. We landed in Palm Springs at 11:00am, picked up our rental car and we were checked into our hotel by 11:45am. Pretty damn fast! We grabbed a quick lunch and then ended up at Cimmaron, which was a 10 minute drive, to try and get some range action in. We ended up getting out on their short course (Pebble) for $25 (seventeen par 3's and one par 4). The greens were super slow but it was still pretty fun and a nice little primer.

Neither of us had ever experienced Black Friday so we decided to wake up at 11:00pm and drive down to Cabazon to check out the outlet malls. What a terrible idea. As we drove down the I-10 westward, we saw the traffic coming from LA and knew we were in for trouble. All the parking lots were full. The residences of the few houses that were near by had chairs in front of their homes and were selling parking for $10. We were fortunate enough to find a spot. I couldn't believe how many people were there and the line ups to get into the stores were ridiculous. The longest I saw was the Coach store... it must have been 500 deep. We checked out several stores and bought a few things but in the end, we came back later in the week as we were going to be golfing out this way.


11/27. Westin Mission Hills- Peter Dye course. The Westin Mission Hills is a 36 hole facility that is run by Troon, which typically means excellent service and amazing course conditions. We booked our 11:34 tee time through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $68 per player.

The course itself was fun, challenging and in great condition. The greens were smooth and fast. Unfortunately, they had fivesomes in front of us which lead to a 5+ hour round. Totally brutal! For that reason alone, I doubt I'll ever play there again. I don't understand why there was no marshal to maintain a good pace of play. Totally sucked. There's also about a 1000 houses lining the course. I did have my biggest drive of the vacation on hole 9 (300 yards) and also birdied the hole. My friend Paul hit two flags from 90+ yards out during the round as well!




11/28. Indian Wells - Players course. The Indian Wells Golf Resort is a 36 hole facility with many excellent reviews. We booked our 10:50 tee time through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $76 per player.

When I first walk into their clubhouse, I was totally floored... super nice facility! They have a Callaway Performance Center which looked pretty high tech and thorough. Their washroom even had a strange waterfall in front of the mirror at the sinks. The course conditions were amazing. The greens were super fast with lots of deceiving undulations. A fun and challenging track. The GPS on the cart was nice as a first time player at the course. In contrast to Fridays round, there were no houses lining the course. We finished in 4 hours, 40 minutes. I'd definitely play this course again. I birdied the first hole by placing my approach 1" from the hole. Great start!

From Rain to Sun

Totally lagging on the posts the past week or so. It's been pretty dreary over here in Vancouver lately... chilly temperatures, wind and/or rain. The few times that it's been sunny, I've been stuck indoors at work.

My friend Paul and I have decided to head south for a seven day golf vacation. We used to go on an annual golf trip to Phoenix (2001-2004) but took a hiatus for several years. This time around, we're going to Palm Springs, which is a golf mecca several hours east of LA. Everything is hooked up... we got our flights through Westjet seat sales. Our rental car was booked with hotwire for $140 less than anywhere else. Our hotel is dirt cheap because Paul works in the industry. Great deals all around. The green fees are going to be the most expensive part of the trip. Even those are going to be fairly reasonable booking through ezlinks, activegolf, standbygolf and golfnow. I found this amazing website, greenskeeper.org which is helping me with my course selections.

We don't leave for another 11 days but I'm getting super psyched nonetheless! I'll have a full follow-up post with course reviews and all that good stuff.

NYC rehash

I just got back from NYC and had a great time. We flew with Cathay Pacific and stayed 5 nights. Here's a few observations.

1. We stayed at the Best Western Bowery Hanbee, an all around great mid-range hotel in Chinatown. Highly recommended. E at CBI stayed in the same hood a few weeks ago at the Comfort Inn Manhattan Bridge, which sounds like another good spot. Both are fairly new hotels which is always nice.

2. I decided not to bring my board. We caught the tail end of Tropical Depression Danny so there was lots of rain for our first few days. I figured it would either be too wet or too hot and, to be honest, the only thing I would have skated is the Banks. I ended up getting a cold on the 2nd day and was pretty much fighting through it the whole stay. I did see my first Shut, 5boro, Roger(PS Stix) and Habitat Ecoply boards. The former three companies are pretty rare in Vancouver.

3. Being dog owners, my wife and I notice them where ever we go. Surprisingly, at least 50% of the dogs we saw in New York were Frenchies. We also saw a PBGV, a rare breed which is what my OG pup Basil was (RIP buddy).

4.
This Puleo ledge is at Chrystie and Delancey, which is a few blocks north of our hotel and south of the Whole Foods in the Lower East Side.

5. Only "celebrity" sighting was Jason Dill and his entourage (urban cowboy + random dude) walking down Grand St near my hotel. His arm was in a sling so I'm guessing he's injured.

6. This store Uniqlo was pretty awesome. It originated in Japan and the Soho store is the only one in North America. 95% of their gear is really clean and basic.

7. Restaurants always seem to be hit or miss. Here are a few that we enjoyed and would eat at again.
a) Mary's Fish Camp in the West Village - it's small, it's not cheap and it has an open kitchen. Expect to wait but it's well worth it.
b) Baoguette Café in the East Village - it's rare to find a good veggie Vietnamese sub. This place has a great one.
c) Lombardi's in Little Italy - America's first pizzeria. Stoked on their pizza margarita.
d) Wild Ginger Vegan Restaurant in Chinatown and Brooklyn - lunch menu was great. Lots of options. It's healthy and it's always nice to be able to order anything on the menu rather than trying to weed out all the meat dishes.
e) Sobaya in the East Village - hand made soba noodles. Traditional Japanese style. Awesome.
f) Baja Fresh and Chipotles - we don't have either of these in Canada so I always stop by when visiting the States. I'm a sucker for double fisted veggie burritos.

The one's we thought would be good but didn't blow us away were: Freeman's, Angelica's Kitchen (Vancouver does organic healthy food better than both), B & H (my wife's matzah ball soup is superior and the challah we get from Terra bread in Vancouver is better as well), Acme (it was good but I don't think we'd go back), Bleecker St Pizza (Food Network's #1 Pizza in NY, I have no idea how that happened)

Thanks to everyone who hooked me up with information on cool shit and bunk crap in the city.