World's Most Expensive Restaurants

Are you a frequent flyer with loads of cash? Then make sure you check out on Forbes coverage of the world's most expensive restaurants spanning from London to Mexico City to Tokyo. Interesting to see that its not really that expensive after living in London for a while. GOes to show how expensive it is to live here.

Run London 2005

Participated in Run London over the weekend. Ran a 10km route around Hyde Park, alone...yes as usual! But interesting bit was I got the chance to pace alongside Paula Radcliffe at the 8km mark when she suddenly appeared beside me. For those who is wondering who she is, she is the womens' marathon world record holder. So its certainly quite special with all crowd cheering her on, and here I was pacing with her. But ran out of steam eventually, finished in average 47min+, just happy to complete the course as I was still carrying a niggling knee injury which prevented me from running as often as I would like.

Click on the Nike banner above to see if you can spot me crossing the finishing line.

New York Trip

Coming to the end of my stay in NY, overall experience - pretty miserable, typically caused by the lousy weather all week ever since I landed. New Yorkers whom I spoke to emphasized how bad it is, been this was one hell of a long continuous raining week for a long long time, resulting at even places like SOHO and Chelsea to be flooded! The rain typically prolonged my stay in the room all day, not wanting to go out unless absolutely necessary to meet people. Guess it was just my luck!

On the bright side, did manage to go to a few places worth mentioning. First thing to get when you're in the city is to get the tourist metro card that costs me $24 for a week's unlimited usage on the metro as well as the bus. Each journey costs $2 and basically, the more you take, the more you will save. Its really useful especially after a long walk around the streets and you just want another mode of transportation to get you to your next destination. Times Sq is probably worth a stop to look at the glitzy neon lightings, although I was told this is nothing compared to Tokyo. Take a walk through the streets and head towards the Rockefeller Ctr for some shopping. If you are on a budget like me, H&M is a definite stopover, with good designs at very affordable prices, much better than London for sure! Didn't get a chance to go Central Park but would strongly recommend you to visit this gigantic 100% man-made park smack right in the center of Manhattan. Take a metro down to Union Sq and get off to see the Flatiron building, a triangle shaped building that has plenty of character when you look at it from the Broadway junction directly infront of it. You could get a peek of it again if you rerun your spiderman DVD in your closet.

Take a stroll down to SoHo and window shop the many chic boutiques along the street and end off at the bustling Chinatown for a tea-break. Highly recommended is this small 1950s coffee place called Mei Lai Wah along Bayard St. Coffee only cost 80c and Cha Siew Bao(roast pork bun) is around $1. Must rank as one of the absolute places with character. You can still see the owner behind the cash register collecting money on his ultra-old looking machine, and all the waiters are probably the same age as your grand parents too. If you want to save on meals, get fresh groceries from the numerous fishmongers along E. Broadway or Canal St. Prices can go to as low as $1 for a fish and I certainly enjoyed mine tremendously considering that I hardly have any chance to eat fish in London, and did I mention that they are incredibly FRESH!!!

Next up, walk across to Brooklyn using the Brooklyn Bridge and have a wonderful view of Downtown Manhattan/Wall Street as well as a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. If your legs can continue to carry you further, walk down and head for Dumbo on the Brooklyn end. Its a new stretch of shops, art galleries and cafes in between the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge. Stop over at this restaurant called Superfine and enjoy a nice Hoegaarden with lemonade-soda, accompanied by live country music performances.

For jazz fans, make sure you check out Smalls(10th St 7 Ave) and Fat Cat(75 Christopher St 7 Ave). You pay $20 for 2 drinks and all night long of live jazz performance, and I must say the folks who performed are really good! Make sure you are there prior to 10pm as that's when the band starts playing.

For hot dog fans, head over to Crif's Dog(113 St Mark's Plc) and order yourself a good dog with lemonade. Make sure you check out the small underground restaurants along the street of St Mark's place as well as there are plenty worth a try.

Managed to squeeze in a visit to MoMA(Museum of Modern Art) before I boarded my flight back. If you like to save a bit on the penny and dun mind big(I really mean BIG!) crowds, go on a Friday evening as its free entry to public. Newly opened and quite a big collection, worth a trip if you like it.

MSN & Yahoo to make IM seamless

1 significant punch aimed at G**gle, after the the 2 giants agreed to make their respective IMs to speak to each other seamlessly, without the use of 3rd party IM clients like Trillian. Slated to be made available to users in 2Q 2006. Maybe AOL should join into the fray as well and make it a common playground for all users from all 3 platforms currently. That will leave 99% of the world's IM users against Google Talk's 1%.

Apple to release Ipod Video?

Look out for the close of US markets whereby Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the latest gadget to the world - Ipod Video!

Geezz, I only got my 4th Gen 20GB mono version last Sept and its sounding so ancient already.

Updated 12 Oct: Steve Jobs just showcased the new Ipod in 30GB and 60GB versions, with reduced form factors in relative to current models. Also released is iTunes 6. Time to go check that out. And did I mention anything about the new iMac G5 machines, everything you want as a Xmas present, remote control, integrated iSight, better specs, gosh! I better start to save up immediately!!!

U2 Vertigo World Tour @ Madison Sq Gdns

Lost my original post while trying to add this memorable pic of my first and probably last U2 concert. A definite must-do if you have a chance!

Ipod Nano - First feel

Stumbled into the mega Apple store along Regent Street and its no wonder Apple stock price has been ever heading north. Tons of folks buying Apple products that you really have to say the ipod euphoria was probably the 2nd biggest thing to change the human digital lifestyle since world wide web burst into mass adoption in the mid-nineties. Got my hands to play around with the new Ipod Nano, and boy am I absolutely impressed with the size and the overall package. You get full colour screen, the same click-wheel which is found on my 20GB B/W ipod, ability to display photos as desired(although not on the biggest screen size which you would like it to be), and best of all, its almost weightless. It is seriously the gadget to have for folks who are considering a MP3 player. Only downside is the capacity, but I guess you can never get the best of everything. Apple did acknowledge the problem of cracked screens early this week, and would advise folks waiting to swipe their credit cards to lay their hands on it, to wait for couple of weeks more for the QA to improve.