Cheap 'n' Choosy Chelsea

Free yoga on Pier 64 offered by Chelsea Piers Fitness Center. Yoga in NYC doesn't come cheap. Classes hover around $18 unless you buy some kind of package. But here are some options in Chelsea and a little further, that can tide you over 'til you get that Wall Street job and can afford a membership at Equinox and wherever else you please ... Free summer yoga at Pier 64, offered by Chelsea Piers Fitness Center August/Sept only, before the snow comes in ... Donation only Community Class at Laughing Lotus , 19th and 6th Ave, M-F, 2.30pm-3.45pm. Ongoing. For Summer only, Lotus also offer a free Wed 7-8pm class on a grassy knoll near 15th and the West Side Highway. Easy Yoga with the Galfromdownunder , Chelsea Rec Center, 25th bet 9th and 10th Ave. Tuesdays 6-7pm. Ongoing. Yes folks, this is my completely free, 'tude free class, part of Boomberg's ShapeUpNYC initiative - you don't have to be a center member to attend, make sure you tell them that if the front

The Joyce, a neighborhood dance theater in Chelsea, Manhattan,  reminds me of Dr Who's Tardis : a modest, low key, retro frontage that opens up into a giant internal world of global dance entertainment. It's not that the theater is huge - the tremendous variety of shows simply makes it seem that way. In recent times they've started offering $10 seats, thereby putting world class dance within reach of a huge and recession-strapped audience. And if you've never been to a dance performance and experienced the psychological boost it gives you, you're in for a treat. $10 buys you seats in the very front row, "the bleeding nose seats", where, unless you're tall or sneak a cushion inside, you will possibly see the show from the dancer's ankles up. But choreographers make sire a lot of action happens above the ankles, so for the amazing price, it's a no-brainer. I might be the only person on the world that believes watching dance actually has a

A new spin on the dowdy old Aussie UGG (sheepskin) boot - a decidedly Caucasian geisha by Ed Hardy  Oh woe is me. The signs of ageing are happening at both poles - I'm plucking out the first strands of gray hair, and ... carting the nth pair of perfectly good shoes to the Salvation Army. Yep, my feet have slowly but surely spreading over the years, from a petite size 5 at age 17 to almost a 7 (!) at age 47. Does gravity really suck that bad? Now in my younger years I'd be rejoicing - what a perfectly legitimate excuse to follow in Imelda Marcos' stiletto-steps. I challenge all but the most die hard Tomboys to deny they had a personal warehouse of both silly and sane shoes between age 20 and 40. Lately, I'm just disgruntled because it means having to replace perfectly good shoes that seemed to fit two years ago with new ones - just so I can walk more than a block without ending up hammer-toed. But it's not all bad. I've come to genuinely believe th

This is one of the many rambling wholesale outlets in the Garment District with their questionable garish offerings in the window and racks of samples out on the pavement for $25. But this one has great leather coats, jackets, dresses. And surprise, surprise, if the clearly non-commercial shopper walks in, the laid back dude patrolling the racks of fur leather etc will sell you the odd one-off wholesale. I suspect that if you've made the effort to come all the way to NYC he might as well. Anti-fur people stop reading here... I'm not really a fur person - I tend to wear the fake fluff. But I picked up an amazing Jean Harlow like rabbit fur stole for $40. It was made from the offcuts of fur I suspect, it has a kind of 'bobbly' texture. Rabid vegans stop reading here... I have to say, nothing warms like fur. I bought it for a friend's grandmother to sit around in her armchair while the snow rages outside, reading a book without having to don a giant sweater or

  Kayaking in NYC Photo Gallery Now that it's too damn cold to do stuff like put on a life jacket and shorts and get get whipped by subzero Manhattan tradewinds ... here's a joyous post about what you can do sometime next year. Free kayaking. On the world famous waterfront of NYC. You heard it right! It's all thanks to the rabid enthusiasm of the collective at http://www.downtownboathouse.org who offer weekend and weekday paddles, all equipment supplied. First, make sure you get to the right place. To get to say, the Pier 96 location, subtract 40 from 92 and it's at 56th street. I have no idea how one would find that out except I got it from one of the head honchos there, the Lord of Logos Michael Samuel . If you can undistract yourself from the big list of logos he's famously designed (list the History Channel Logo, Sears, Tasty Delight etc etc) you will find that he wields a paddle as impressively as his lightpen. I'll be posting a movie here sh

What's the most eaten meal in Japan? It's NOT sushi. It's not even ramen. Nope, it's this thing called curry rice . Curry rice appears on practically every budget menu in Japan. You can buy it to go for around $3-4, when most simple noodle dishes or soups range from 600 yen or $US6.50. Curry rice is the staple of millions of ordinary Japanese families, and even more geeky bachelors, I bet. It's even been immortalized by this miniature curry rice meal I found at Kid Robot in NYC. So what is it? It's basically made from a pre-packaged curry rice cube that comes in a packet - they call it a roux, and the competition to make the perfect roux is stiff. Now of course, you can get this exact same kind of thing from India, China, Malaysia and so on. But if you read Japan's S&B Foods site, they'll convince you that Japanese curry is the best, because the guy who made a fortune out of it sought to refine it, whereas other countries use it t

Here's an Gal golden oldie - a short clip from my Hawaii 2005 trip where I sampled a number of cheap'n'choosy Hawaii treats like musubi, super hygienic nori rolls and even a Hawaiian McFeast. This was pre-YouTube, and before I knew how to wield a digital camera like a steadycam, but you get the idea! Hawaii Food Movie Clip (a Quicktime movie)