So I was out on the bike after work tonight and noticed this taxi parked on the side of the road with its hazard lights on. Nothing unusual about that, except it also had blue flashing lights as well. On closer inspection I noticed there was a cop in the driver's seat, having apparently just pulled this car over hahaha! We've all seen cops in unmarked police vehicles, but this is something else! The cab even had a medallion on the hood, as required by all New York City yellow cabs to indicate they're legit. I wasn't the only one to notice this taxi cop, and I wasn't the only one taking photos either - clearly this was a first a lot of folk.

You'd have to feel a bit bummed out to be pulled over by a cop driving a cab hehe.

Twice a year at the end of May and the middle of July, the sun sets in perfect alignment with the east-west streets of the main street grid in Manhattan. The locals refer to this as Manhattanhenge, and it never fails to draw a large crowd of photographers wanting to capture it.

This is a shot I took of it last year. This year I opted for a different vantage point, but by the time I arrived there was really no room left. Furthermore, I realised the main event was actually yesterday - what we would see tonight was only half of the sun. Bugger! So rather than stand around for two hours and waste my time, I left again. I'll have another go next year (and arrive early).

Instead I waited until after dark and captured a couple of other shots I've been meaning to for a while. This is the view across the East River of Lower Manhattan from the bottom of Brooklyn Bridge Park (I have no idea why those things are sticking out of the water)...

And this is the view from Manhattan Bridge looking west towards Lower Manhattan behind the Brooklyn Bridge. Nice :)

One of my workmates had a birthday over the weekend so a couple of us ventured out after work tonight to celebrate in Manhattan's Koreatown, which covers all of one block. This is a Korean BBQ joint in the middle of it all, which was a first for me. They bring out all of these little plates of random bits and pieces, and then proceed to BBQ up a feast in the middle of the table. Wash it all down with some sort of Korean booze that resembles watered-down vodka, and off you go with a funny taste in your mouth. Good stuff!

A couple weeks ago I got back on the bike for the first time since injuring my knee, and now I've started running on it again to continue training for the New York City Marathon in November. Central Park is my training ground, and today I found this going on in there - the Central Park Dance Skaters Association.

Every weekend throughout the summer, this area of Central Park is closed off and taken over by anyone wanting to don a pair roller skates and get jiggy to the beat put down by random DJs. This video here sums it up nicely.

Among the characters on show today was Mr Groovy here, who was all about it...

Mr Muscle, with very large pants and a container on his head...

Pedro, showing off some leg...

And President Obama.

A while later Muscles had progressed to three containers on his head plus a bottle of water...

Obama gave us all a twirl...

And grandma showed me she's still got it where it counts.

It really is a sight to behold.

Then this fella turned up with crap all over his bicycle including license plates, animal furs, and what looked to be the horns from a springbok.

'Twas just another day in Central Park :)

The talk about the town over the last couple days has been the mysterious replacement of the two American flags atop the Brooklyn Bridge with bleached-white flags. I took the shot on the left last Friday night, and the American flags were definitely still there at that point. Someone took the shot on the right of one of the white flags as they were driving over the bridge yesterday. When noticed and reported by construction workers at 5:30am yesterday morning, authorities quickly removed them but were left stumped over how this could have taken place unnoticed. A city employee estimated it could take up to two hours to take a flag down from the bridge and raise another up. Furthermore, the gate to the top of the bridge was found to be still locked. The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the most heavily secured landmarks in the city, and constantly monitored by surveillance cameras. Subsequent viewing of that surveillance footage showed a group of four or five people crossing the bridge overnight. The lights that normally illuminate the flags flickered and then went out at about 3:30am, first on the Brooklyn-side tower, then on the Manhattan-side tower. At the moment, authorities have no idea who these people are or what their motive was. Fascinating. News story here.

In other news, New York City has been ranked as America's unhappiest city, according to a new study hehe. The study, taken place over the course of several years, asked respondents, "In general, how satisfied are you with your life?". The study ranked those answers and adjusted them for income, housing prices, age and other factors that might influence how happy a place could be. Also fascinating, although I'd have to say very surprising, and I'm not sure I agree with it. I mean just look at the roller disco above - you can't tell me they're not happy people ;) News story here.

Today in three weeks Kristina and I are flying out to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia for a week. Similar to the Yucatán Peninsular trip a couple months back, our accommodation will be free courtesy of the perks of Kristina's job as a travel agent hehe. One of our accommodations is this place - Jade Mountain, apparently one of the nicest (and most expensive) resorts on the island. All I can say is, "Damn!" These places are apparently eager to woo travel agents.

In preparation for what I expect will be a landscape photographer's heaven (and in preparation for our four-month US road trip, tentatively planned for next summer), I upgraded my camera gear recently to take full advantage of it.

And I've been putting that new gear through its paces! This is Midtown Manhattan, shot last night from across the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey. I attempted this shot last year with my old camera gear, but it came out looking nothing like this. A larger version of this along with some of my older stuff is here :)

The Ramble and Lake is a main feature of Central Park, so much so in fact that it has its own Wikipedia page. As part of the original plan of Central Park way back in 1857, the Ramble was intended as a woodland walk through highly varied topography away from carriage drives and bridal paths. And in a nutshell that's pretty much what it is.

The Ramble covers 38 acres and is a hot spot for bird watching (of the winged variety). It is also apparently a hot spot for homosexual antics hahaha! Since at least the early 20th century, according to Wikipedia, the seclusion of the Ramble has been used for private homosexual 'encounters'. Times have changed somewhat, however some in the gay community still consider the Ramble to be "ground zero for outdoor gay sex", enjoying the "retro feel" of sneaking off into the woods hahaha! I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the original plan ;)

This is what I call bird watching.

Bethesda Terrace, overlooking the Ramble behind the lake.

This is the LOVE sculpture on Sixth Avenue, just a couple blocks up the road from my office.

This thing is constantly covered in tourists getting cheesy photos, and today they got a little something extra in their Facebook-fodder...

This guy hehe. If they're not pushing a shopping cart full of their possessions up the street (sometimes in the middle of traffic), or camped out on the sidewalk with a cup for spare change, they're sleeping at the weirdest times and in the weirdest places. He actually looks like the dude from the roller disco in Central Park a couple weekends ago.

I'm writing this at 12:29am on the dot, and I'm about to go to bed. According to this article, that's right on time ;)

Kristina's younger brother, Bryan, is in town visiting for a few days, so as is usually the case when we have visitors, we took him to a random rooftop bar.

This is the Press Lounge on the west side of Midtown Manhattan in Hell's Kitchen. While we were waiting in the 30-minute line to get in, we saw two motorbikes doing burnouts in the middle of 11th Avenue in front of police (who were otherwise distracted), two fights break out in the middle of 11th Avenue within a very large group of black people who had apparently all just left a 40th-birthday party next door, and three very large black ladies in front of us in the line who we are fairly certain used to be men at some point. Hell's Kitchen ladies and gentlemen.

The fighting on 11th had cleared by the time we got up there, and traffic was flowing again hehe.

Drinks on the roof - always a good time :)

Since it was nearby, and since it was Bryan's first time in the Big Apple, we ventured home via Times Square, which is generally avoided by those of us who live here due to the millions of tourists constantly swarming it :)

A year ago today we moved into our modest little studio apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. During that year we've had detectives bang on the door looking for someone in the building, the Asians upstairs banging on their floor (our ceiling) which necessitated a few words, and countless folk rummaging through the trash on the sidewalk outside hehe. It wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea, but we like it :)

I'm sure most folk have at least heard about the Ebola virus outbreak currently going on in West Africa, and now it may have found its way to New York City. Some guy checked himself to Mount Sinai Hospital this morning, located 25 blocks north of our apartment, with Ebola-like symptoms after recently travelling through the West Africa region. There's no word yet on his test results. More info here. By the way the screenshot above is in Africa, not Mount Sinai. That reporter will be next.

Enough said. Story here.

Once a week I head across to New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River for work to touch base with colleagues who are based over there. Until now that's involved catching a subway that runs beneath the river through to Jersey City, but they've all been kicked out of that building now and so this will be my new mode of transport over there - a ferry :)

Slightly nicer view than the subway. The new building (the bluish one center-right) is down the street in Weehawken, from where I took the shot of Midtown Manhattan at night the other week. What's better is I can take my bike on the ferry, so no more bloody subways for me (weather permitting).

Interesting view out the window.

Everyone moved into this building on Monday so it's all a complete mess right now. After ten minutes of searching, this was the best desk the office administrators could find for me - something biffed together and shoved next to a pillar. Lovely.

Instead I went and found my own damn desk next to this guy. His suit jacket and pants look blue in this reduced-size image but they were blue and white striped, like the Bananas in Pyjamas, complete with pink belt. What were you thinking man?!

Broadway, although best known for the portion that runs through Manhattan's Theater District here, is in fact 33 miles (53km) in length. It starts quite a long way north of New York City, passes through the Bronx, and ends at the bottom tip of Manhattan at Battery Park.

The point at which Broadway intersects with Seventh Avenue is encompassed by Times Square and known as "The Crossroads of the World".

First we had the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, though I haven't seen him in a while and now we have Naked Cowgirls. I'm not complaining.

While Broadway is a south-bound one-way street from Columbus Circle here to the bottom of Manhattan, from this point north it's all two way. Last year I set out to ride north from this point as far as I could go, but the weather got in the way and I haven't got around to it since. Until today :)

This nice leafy section of Broadway runs through the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Kristina and I were really interested in moving to this area when we were apartment hunting last year, but the prices for something 'suitable' were more than we were willing to pay given the temporary nature of our stay in New York. Instead we ended up on the Upper East Side hehe.

Things inevitably start to get a litter more colourful as you head into Harlem.

There was a block party raging along this side street in the middle of Harlem, complete with DJ. Good times!

Further north is the entrance to the George Washington Bridge across to New Jersey. This thing has been in the news recently over plans to spend $50 million to build a "suicide fence" along the bridge's walkway because people keep throwing themselves off it. If folk can't kill themselves this way then they'll find some other way to do it, like throwing themselves in front of subways which inconveniences everybody. At least here they just land in the Hudson River.

Further north again Broadway leaves Manhattan and crosses into the Bronx. The first time I cycled into the Bronx last summer, someone tried to run me over with their car within the first five minutes hahaha!

I cycle. And lately, I run.

A short ways into the Bronx, Broadway passes alongside Van Cortlandt Park. I ventured in for a look-see and was stunned to find several cricket matches going on! I couldn't believe it - cricket in America?! On closer inspection though, they were all Indians. Not a white guy out there. Makes sense.

With my camera battery about to die because I forgot to charge it (and forgot to bring my spare), I ventured deeper into the park and found a bunch of trails heading through the forest - awesome!

At 1,146 acres (464 ha), Van Cortlandt is the third-largest park in New York City, even larger than Central Park which comes in at just 778 acres (315 ha).

Good spot in the middle of the park for throwing stones at cars.

After leaving the park I continued along Broadway and left New York City behind, eventually arriving here - Yonkers. I have no idea why you'd choose to name a city Yonkers.

I headed down to the waterfront along the Hudson River to rest my legs and watch rich people cruise past in their boats, before calling it a day (along with my camera battery) and catching a train back to the big smoke down there.