Vegas BABY!!

On our way to the west coast we made a pit stop in Vegas for a couple of nights.  We stayed at Planet Hollywood in a cheaper (since it was midweek) but very flash suite! We spent our time wandering along the strip and continually ducking into casinos for a game here and there to keep out of the immense heat up around 40 degrees. 

Roulette was our game, had a few good runs but the wheels came off and we cashed out slightly up and threw that at dinner at Gordon Ramsey's burger restaurant which was excellent.  Sweet potato hand cut fries with icing sugar?! yes!  The evening on the strip was very impressive, water fountain displays outside the Bellagio, big screens everywhere.  It made Times Square look pretty small scale I reckon.  We finished our stay with a Cirque de Soleil show 'Mystere' at Treasure Island, very very good.
  

Planet Hollywood

Ramsey's Restaurant - Burgr

Paris Casino

Dinner out

'Welcome to Las Vegas'

The show we saw

Blame Canada! Toronto, Niagra Falls, Cedar Salmon and Manford

From NYC we flew up to Toronto and stayed with Abo and Mel. We spent a sunny day out at the epic Niagara falls, (only a 90 min drive away) and we were treated to some Canadian culinary delights - cedarwood smoked salmon and maple bacon.  This is hands down the best salmon and bacon I've ever tasted, jebus.  I cannot however side with the 'Clamato' juice which is made of clam extract and tomato juice urgh, the ole 'but it's good for you' didn't quite get me across the line, sorry Mel haha. 

Also caught up with Wellington old boy Mitch 'BB' Buchanan, sporting a black eye and a tale to tell.  To top it all off we went to see Manford and Sons at the Molson Amphitheater with Abo's United Nation mates which was grand. Nice work Toronto.

Flight from NYC to Toronto - view of Niagara Falls...jackpot

America Falls (Canada on our side, America on the other side)

America falls (left) Niagra Falls (right)

Niagra

CN Tower - a Toronto landmark that looks suspiciously like the Auckland Sky Tower

Street art Kensington area

Street art Kensington

 Manford crew @ Molson

The Big Apple - New York City

Our first stop on the way home from Edinburgh was New York City 'The Big Apple'.  We flew into JFK International airport and immediately spotted a distant view of the famous Manhattan skyline partly concealed in a veil of smog.  Temperatures were well into the 30's and below ground in the subway this heat was even worse - thankfully the subway train cars were air-conditioned!  After about an hour on the subway we made our way to our hotel in Queens and were instantly impressed with the politeness and helpfulness of New Yorkers when asking for directions.  

Each day we caught a short 5 minute subway train from Queens onto Manhattan Island. New York is an extremely compact city, which is demonstrated by the masses of high rise buildings towering above the streets. In parts of New York the buildings were so tall they completely shaded the street below on a sunny day.  

Muc h of our time was spent visting touristy landmarks and areas of New York that have become so familiar to Kiwi's from american tv programs based in NYC.  We visited Battery Park where we saw the Statue of Liberty, the Wall Street bull (no longer on wall street, now located in bowling green park), Wall Street, the Empire State building, Times Square at night, the Brooklyn Bridge, World Trade Centre memorial and a Broadway show – Wicked, the tale of the witches of OZ.

We dived into typical New Yorker foods and sampled New York pizza and buffalo wings and visited the Metropolitan Art Gallery (The Met).

Statue of Liberty

Wall Street

Freedom tower ferrari (near the 9/11 memorial)

9/11 Memorial  - 9m inverted waterfall in the footprint of each of the twin towers.  The names of each person who died are etched in a steel plaque around the edge. A very moving memorial.

Empire State Building

Times Square

PIZZA!!

Wall Street Bull

Set of Wicked on Broadway

Edinburgh to Newcastle tiki tour

A few photos from a recent tiki tour down and around Berwick, Newcastle, Bamburgh and Lindisfarne.

Old brick rail bridge and residential housing Berwick upon Tweed

Berwick upon Tweed

Bridge in Berwick upon Tweed

Angel of the North

Liz & Kat & angle of the North, Newcastle

Bamburgh Castle and beach dunes

Bamburgh Castle

Beach at Bamburgh Castle

Lindisfarne Castle

Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island, Northumberland, England

Residential houses and Lindisfarne Castle in background

Caber Tossing at the Balloch, Highland Games

We caught the train out to Balloch on the shores of Loch Lomond yesterday to see their annual highland games.  The games included many ancient scottish competitions including the caber toss, hammer throw, shot put, backhold wrestling, tug of war and 80m sprints; as well as a few modern events like triathlon and cycling (albeit around a grass track on road bikes).  There were also piping and highland dance competitions.   It seemed that where ever you looked there was something going on. 

The games where really well attended mostly by tourists, but it certainly had a rural New Zealand feel to it with everyone getting involved and lots of involvement for children. It reminded us of the A&P days back home. The announcer over the loud speaker was classic, commentating events off the cuff i.e. in the 200m race "and the're off down the first straight, it appears that we have two number 5's in this race... down the final stretch and yes first place for number 5, second place to number 2 and third also taken by number 5". 

Lots of the events had a few girls and boys of all ages so they would use a handicap system whereby some started further back. Amazingly a 74 year old man was racing, he was still pretty quick and was a clear crowd favorite in the running events. The handicap system was so good all competitors seemed to finish evenly on the line.

The caber toss was easily the most novel and entertaining event, with the "World Heavyweight Championship"  hinging on a successful toss.  We witnessed almost a dozen big fellas toss the caber with only two managing to throw it end over end - with the crowd roaring with applause. The caber toss is not a competition of distance but of style.

The caber toss looks an extremely difficult event.  First the competitor must slowly grip lower and lower down the caber making sure it doesn't fall over. The technique requires the shoulder to be pressed up against it whilst gripping the other side.  Once at the bottom, the caber is lifted straight up, balance is needed to make sure it continues to stay upright. Then its a matter of balancing the huge caber forwards slightly and quickly moving forward with it building momentum until the final heave upward when the caber becomes airborne.

The best throw will see the caber go end over end then fall in the 12 o'clock position on the ground.  The dimensions of the caber can vary hugely but the one used at Balloch weighs about 68kg, is 5.5m long and 23cm thick at one end tapering down to 13cm at the other.

I have taken a few multi-shot photos and stitched them together into a animated GIF image below. In this case the caber didn't quite get over.

Cycling event

Falcons on show

Shot put throw

The Royal Standard of Scotland flag

Robert the Bruce artwork

An owl sitting on this womans shoulder

The heat on the street - Madrid

We traveled to Madrid via the bullet train from Barcelona.  The train reached speeds of 300kph as it carved a path through the mostly barren rural spanish setting on the way.  The heat on arrival in Madrid was noticeably hotter than the seaside breezes of Barcelona, up around 30-35°. 

We continued our hunt for sangria and interesting food and joined in on a walking tour which gave us some insight into the Madrid and Spanish Culture. It covered the Spanish royal family (the Habsbergs), local food specialties i.e tapas, and some background on the history of bull fighting. We were regaled by a story of one particular matador by the name of 'Frasculeo' who had reportedly run with the bulls 1236 times and killed 3801 bulls!, incredible stats given the likelihood of injury.  Here are a few pics of Madrid.

Sewer cover showing the Madrid coat of arms, a bear reaching up to eat from a strawberry tree

Paella in the markets

Coffee hit

The Royal Palace Museum

Impressive artworks on a book retailer kiosk

This guy!

Crowded antiques markets on Sunday

Graffiti artworks

Backstreets of Madrid