NEW YORK CITY 2

The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the State of New York, the city is the centre of the New York metropolitan area, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. A global power city, New York City exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute.

Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important centre for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbours, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which is a separate county of New York State. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over a land area of just 790 km2, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States.

The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States, and as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York,making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. We have visited New York City several times and each time we have enjoyed it, with always something new to see and always meeting interesting people and feeling very welcome. These photos are from a trip in July 2003.

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VASE

This vase is in the National Gallery of Victoria's decorative art collection in Melbourne and is a piece by Thomas Webb & Sons, Stourbridge, England. It is glass and dated ca 1880.

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SPIDER

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SATURDAY SILHOUETTES #49

Welcome to the Saturday Silhouettes meme! This is a weekly meme that looks at SILHOUETTES in photography.

SILHOUETTE |ˌsɪlʊˈɛt| noun: The dark shape and outline of someone or something visible in restricted light against a brighter background.
ORIGIN - late 18th century: Named (although the reason remains uncertain) after Étienne de Silhouette (1709–67), French author and politician.

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COMMONWEALTH PARK, CANBERRA

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ASIATIC LILIES

Lilium (members of which are true lilies) is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs, all with large prominent flowers. Lilies are a group of flowering plants which are important in culture and literature in much of the world. Most species are native to the temperate northern hemisphere, though their range extends into the northern subtropics.

Many other plants have "lily" in their common name but are not related to true lilies. Asiatic Lilies are a very popular garden and florist flower and they offer a brilliantly colourful range of blooms to choose from. The bulbs of Asiatic lilies are tough and resilient, providing a bounty of colourful blooms for vases, very easily grown and wonderfully tolerant of searing Australia's hot Summers.

Asiatic Lilies come in a wide range of brilliant colours from bright red to soft and pretty pink which means they can be used to create pockets of colour or gentle waves of soft and pretty cottage colours. Asiatic Lilies have more advantages in that they are great in pots and the bulbs can be planted anytime between May and October (in the Southern Hemisphere).

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WILLIAMSTOWN FORESHORE

Williamstown is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 km south-west of Melbourne's central business district in the local government area of the City of Hobsons Bay. At the 2011 census, Williamstown had a population of 13,203.

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COOBER PEDY

Coober Pedy is a town in northern South Australia, 846 km north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. According to the 2011 census, its population was 1,695 (953 males, 742 females, including 275 indigenous Australians). The town is sometimes referred to as the "opal capital of the world" because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there.

Coober Pedy is renowned for its below-ground residences, called "dugouts", which are built in this fashion due to the scorching daytime heat. The name "Coober Pedy" comes from the local Aboriginal term kupa-piti, which means "boys’ waterhole". Opal was found in Coober Pedy on 1 February 1915; since then the town has been supplying most of the world's gem-quality opal.

Coober Pedy today relies as much on tourism as the opal mining industry to provide the community with employment and sustainability. Coober Pedy has over seventy opal fields and is the largest opal mining area in the world.

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PLUMBAGO

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BIRDHOUSE

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SATURDAY SILHOUETTES #48

Welcome to the Saturday Silhouettes meme! This is a weekly meme that looks at SILHOUETTES in photography.

SILHOUETTE |ˌsɪlʊˈɛt| noun: The dark shape and outline of someone or something visible in restricted light against a brighter background.
ORIGIN - late 18th century: Named (although the reason remains uncertain) after Étienne de Silhouette (1709–67), French author and politician.

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SAWFLY IN OUR GARDEN

Pterygophorus cinctus is a sawfly recorded in Australia. Sawfly is the common name for insects belonging to suborder Symphyta of the order Hymenoptera. Sawflies do not possess the distinctive thin waist of the other hymenopterans, nor do they possess a sting. Their name comes from the female's saw-like egg-laying tube, which she uses to make a slit in a plant leaf or stem, into which she lays her eggs. The adult Bottlebrush Sawfly has an orange and black banded body, with a wingspan of about 2cm. Males have feathery (pectinate) antennae.

In this case the sawfly was photographed on some dill seeds in our garden in our garden in Fairfield in suburban Melbourne.

This post is part of the Friday Greens meme.

CORREA

Correa is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rutaceae, with bell-shaped flowers, native mainly to eastern Australia. There are about 11 species in the genus and 26 subspecies. Natural hybridisation between the species makes taxonomic relationships within this genus problematic. There are also hundreds of named cultivars, many of which have been registered with the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority (ACRA). The genus Correa is named after the Portuguese botanist José Correia da Serra (1750–1823), known as Abbé Correa.

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SINGAPORE BY NIGHT

When it comes to nightlife in Singapore, the city-state practically transforms itself from an ever-so-efficient business hub to a buzzing network of cafés, restaurants, bars and nightclubs as soon as the sun goes down.

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OLD SAN DIEGO

Bazaar Del Mundo is located in Old Town San Diego and we visited this in 2001 during one of our trips to the USA. We loved San Diego and the admittedly touristy Bazaar del Mundo was nevertheless fun to visit, rich in Latin American culture and very enjoyable to stroll through and shop at. One feels as if one is visiting Old Mexico. Shops are bright and cheerful and filled with all of the products you would find if you were on the other side of the border. It is a well designed area with lots of plants, flowers, fountains and other attractions. Open air bazaars and fiestas are often held there.

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And while there, we were listening to this song!