Did I mention that I’m back at yoga again?

No? Well, I am – I’m actively practising yoga yet again.

I checked out and signed up at a new studio a couple of weeks ago.

This studio is closer and offers a wider range of classes.

The facilities are rather plush; it has a sauna, café, boutique and a lounge with wifi.

I quite enjoy going, although I can’t say I’ve mastered the Chaturanga yet.

Ironically, it’s my mom who led me back to yoga.

For years I’ve been trying to get her to try it.

After her mastectomy she was taught a few poses, and encouraged to join a yoga class for breast cancer survivors.

She did the poses but didn’t join the class.

A few months ago she finally tried a class at the seniors’ centre.

She raved and raved about the class and how good she felt afterwards.

She hooked and hasn’t missed a class since.

Ahhh… this skirt! I call it my yoga skirt, it’s flattering and floaty.

The pattern mixing here is totally zen.

It’s one my most comfortable and fun skirts, I like that I can dress it up for work.

The patterns at the bottom look like Hindu symbols, which reminds me to do yoga.

I got it at a little shop on Commercial Drive – the kind that sells hippie bohemian fashions and burns incense.

The skirt is from the Canadian brand Groggy, and the pattern tights are from Hue, boots are Nine West.

The shirt is from Uniqlo and the wine vest is from Jacob.

Our hotel was directly adjacent to Ground Zero in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan.

The World Trade Center site (Ground Zero) is being rebuilt into office towers, museum and memorial, retail and arts centre and a transportation hub.

Right now it’s just a 16-acre construction site; although judging by the look it doesn’t seem like a lot has happened in terms of rebuilding in the past years.

It seems they are still in the early stages of construction.

It was a little eerie and haunting being there, but there’s a great sense of regeneration about the neighbourhood.

The concierge at the hotel told us how there were more residents in the Financial District than before the 9/11 attacks.

He said he especially loved that young families were moving into the neighbourhood.

I chose our particular hotel for nostalgic reasons.

I made reservations for that same hotel back in August 2001.

So when I saw the hotel again while looking for places to stay for our trip, I knew we had to stay there!

Back in 2001 I had an appointment at the Canadian Consulate in New York.

We decided to drive up from Maryland and make a mini vacation of it.

We’d just started looking into moving to Vancouver, and everything seemed to be moving so fast.

The hotel was far from the consulate but close to my aunt Mary who worked at One Liberty Plaza.

I don’t recall what exactly but there was also something about wanting to be near Battery Park.

My reservation was for September 21st and then 9/11 happened.

The hotel sustained damages during the attacks and had to shut down.

Our reservations were canceled.

In the end we stayed at an awful hotel in Secaucus.

The second day into our trip back in 2001 we walked all the way from Times Square to Ground Zero.

I remember taking pictures and thinking how chaotic and surreal the whole experience was.

Strangers milling about, looking sad, lost and uncertain.

Some were crying, some hugged their loved ones tighter and other just stood there dazed.

I remember calling someone, I don’t recall who but I think I may have said something like “It’s all gone, there’s nothing here.”

It felt nice to go almost a decade later and see how much it has all changed.

It’s much quieter now, it’s not so chaotic anymore, people still visit but they look reverent now.

We’ve all changed.

And sometimes when you go back you realize just how much you’ve changed.

So I went from being a non-Apple person to visiting two different Apple stores in two days while in New York.

I bought the iPad from the famed cubed store on Fifth Avenue; which is open 24 hours a day.

Upon activation I realized that the device was seriously limiting in content and Apps when logged in through my iTunes Canada account.

I couldn’t even download iBooks which is a free and major part of the whole iPad experience.

The iPad is currently only available (and supported) in the US; it doesn’t come to Canada (and the rest of the world) until late May.

While Apple isn’t discouraging folks in other countries from purchasing them (like it did initially with the iPhone) access to iPad Apps and content is limited to the US only.

A way around this is to open a US iTunes account (while in the US) using iTunes gift cards.

This isn’t exactly a secret; people do this all the time in order to get access to awesome US content.

During our time at the Apple store,  there were two guys from the UK, another guy from Canada and a couple from Germany all buying iPads, some were buying two each.

While in Chelsea the next day we skipped over to the Apple store to get our gift cards.

And since our hotel was unfortunately having some bizarre Wi-Fi issues, we set up our US iTunes account too.

Some Danish guy at the store bought a $1000.00 worth of gift cards, this is because you can’t buy US iTunes gift cards outside of the US.

Well, you could on Ebay and other questionable sources, but that’s another thing altogether.

So I guess the idea is to load up, fortunately for me I’m down in the States at least once a month.

The set up itself was easy and quick; then I downloaded a few more Apps, bought some books and just hung out at the store.

For a while I considered what it’ll be like to use the iPad exclusively, like this guy who is using it wholly for a month.

A lot of people consider it more of a consumption device rather than for production.

Which is true in a sense unless more production Apps become available, imagine having a full-feature Lightroom on the iPad.

I do almost everything on the iPad these days, emails, read blogs, books, videos, etc.

The only times I use my laptop is to edit pictures or write longer blog posts.

You know I didn’t know that Apple really had a ‘Genius Bar’?

I’d like to work in a place where my job title includes ‘genius’ even if I’m not necessarily a genius.

That way I can tell people at dinner parties that I’m a ‘genius.’

Everyone at the Apple store looks so happy, maybe it’s something in the hardware.

Did I mention how amazing the battery life is?

I can go two to three days of constant use before I get a low battery warning.

The battery life alone could count as magical and revolutionary.

These pictures were taken on the last day of the Olympics.
Minutes before the closing ceremony and moments before Canada just barely beat the US to take gold in hockey.
It was a tense game, the hockey-types called it one of the best games ever.
The streets were electrifying, the kind of patriotism I saw on the streets was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
I think we’ll be talking about it for years.

You can see the the rest of the photos here

I managed to catch the Macy’s Flower Show while in New York.

It combines two of my favourite things, shopping and flowers.

Held simultaneously during spring at Macy’s flagship stores in five cities, this delightful annual event has been charming shoppers for over half a century now.

The show uses a wide variety of flowers, plants and trees to transform the store into a beautiful and colourful floral fantasyland.

It’s a perfect start to spring; every inch of the first floor enchantingly covered with flowers – colourful tendrils flowing from out of reach areas.

Display cases were infused with exotic flowers; there were live birds, stunning tropical plants, topiary gardens and shades and shades of flowers from all over the world.

There were chandeliers with butterflies, whimsical airplanes, a giant hot air balloon garden and displays with giant vases made to look like fireworks… little pink fireworks.

This year’s theme was “Spring is in the air” – and it so beautifully was!

Aisle displays

Pinks…

These poor birds! Poor things probably suffered some sort of eye damage from all the camera flash (flash is evil!)
And you probably can’t tell from my smile what a long day this day turned out to be.

The people… they were everywhere.
You really can’t go to New York and complain about the crowds, that’s  like going to Paris and complaining about the wide usage of the French language!

Everyone loved the birds, the flash photography eventually got out of hand and the birds had to be covered up.

Quelle relief! I wasn’t mad at all.

Frankly, I can’t imagine the time and manpower it took to put all this together.

The displays were truly stunning, I’d have spent the whole day there but alas, I had other awesome places to go.

All the flowery colours…

Outside window display.