Architecture,history,Views, and Good Company

Today has been a full and fantastic day. We had a bit of a sleep in after all these late nights and enjoyed a leisurely wake up. Then we were off - like two lone rangers on a mission. We ventured into Kansas City again via the Independence shopping mall. Here the malls don't open until noon, which I think is fantastic as it allows families time to go to church or have some rest. We had some interesting driving moments where we went around a few times attempting to exit the I70 (interstate East West). I got frustrated as we could see where we needed to be but we just didn't seem to be able to find the right lane or exit (for those of you at home the roads here are wide and have three to four lanes in most sections, bit different to Oamaru's main street and main highway). We really stood out as country bumpkins and foreign visitors negotiating that exit! Onward the adventure continued - to Kansas City and a place called the Plaza. Here we saw some beautiful architecture with a Spanish Theme. The shops were impressive. We ventured into Tiffany's - as I wanted to say that we had visited there. I selected a lovely necklace and then Richard inquired regarding the price - Hmmmmm me thinks I am not getting that for Christmas. It appears that I have expensive tastes! The necklace was well over $1000 US.

The picture below is us with our guide Theresa, who is the City protocol officer. She was a lovely young Spanish woman who came in on her day off to give us the tour of city hall. She is a great ambassador for her city. You can see that there are no mountains in this picture.

The pictures are out of order as It is late again and I cant figure out how to change them but you can see some pictures of the architecture. We loved exploring this area. I even got comments on the Missou Tigers shirt that I was wearing.

After a while we ventured from the area with all good intentions to find the WW1 national museum or the Liberty Memorial. Well we saw allot of Kansas City trying to navigate to this, it really wasn't far from the Plaza - but took us forever as we got completely lost. To me I couldn't even tell the difference between N S E W. There were a few fraught moments.

The picture below shows the top of the memorial, and what you cant see is that there are exhibitions inside the building - underground. We didn't have enough time to really see all of the museum properly. It was incredible and very interactive. Alex we took heaps of photos of the artillery and planes to show you as we know that you love this sort of history.

Then it was time to navigate again to the City Hall in the center of town - Oh dear another few fraught moments as we took the long way to there. I give up trying to navigate Kansas City - Its hard when its all flat and there are no mountains to the west and no sea to the East to guide me. I usually have a great sense of direction but that self perception appears to be misguided.


Here is Mr and Mrs Mayor of Kansas City (He he - I think not)

We were very privileged to be given a tour of the City Hall (like council offices, only on a much grander scale). The building was built in 1937 and was a superb example of art deco. At the 29th floor we got to go outside to the observation deck and see Kansas City at night. It is a very flat but beautiful city. It is quite surreal to not see any mountains on the horizon.



This is the Liberty Memorial

This picture shows the scale and grandeur of the Council Chambers. They were Impressive. Sorry the photo is sideways - but i cant find how to rotate it.

This photo is jumping back to The Plaza and shows the Spanish architecture. Take note I am wearing a Missou Tigers football shirt.

Yes they have dinosaurs at Kansas City. No just kidding, this was in the lobby of the place we went to for dinner this evening. It is an old railway station called Union Station and once again had fantastic architecture. It was also built in the early 1930's and was very much Art Deco style.

Some more examples of the wonderful architecture and interesting features.

Bob and Amy - our hosts for the evening at Union Central Station.

we shared a fabulous evening with this lovely couple - who are both Lawyers. Amy has an international job that requires allot of travel, and Bob work as Blue Springs City Attorney. Yes Councils have their own legal staff here.




The Plaza and neat tile features.







After our tour of the City Hall, we met with Bob and Amy to go for dinner and shared some lovely food, good wine, and cocktails. Bob and Amy are lovely people and interesting to talk to. The restaurant was fabulous and the food yummy. I even got daring and attempted another new food - Crab meat. I loved it. Also a new discovery is candied nuts - ohh la la they are yummy too. Tonight's salad was blue cheese, pear and candied pecans. I think that I will attempt to recreate candied nuts at home. Continuing on the food note Richard forgot to mention that yesterday Eric and Sonja kindly cooked us an American favourite breakfast "Biscuits and Gravy". They are YUMMY. I would describe it as a small scone like biscuit that is flakier than scones, crumbled on a plate, served with Pork sausage with gravy on top. when we get home I promise to try to recreate this for you to try kids.
Any way it has been a full and great day and is well past bedtime (12.50am) I apologise in advance for poor grammer and spelling errors but it is late.

goodnight all.