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Back from visiting chibisuzaku in the Big Apple! I haven't been there since I was in the eighth grade, when the World Trade Center was still standing. So to me, it was practically like seeing it for the first time.
Day 0 was basically me sitting on the plane all day. Feh. After I got to La Guardia, I got into a cab with a cabbie who didn't know how to get around Queens. The bastard spent about 20 minutes running up my meter trying to figure out where her apartment was before he called HQ and got directions over the phone. Are you kidding me?? I was tempted to argue it, but decided not to fight with the cabbie in the middle of scary Queens in the middle of the night. So FEH to you, New York cabbie!
Day 1
I bought a 7 day unlimited subway pass, and man am I glad I did considering how much we rode the thing. We started off by stopping by Grand Central Station since it was conveniently on our way to Bryant Park. It's so sprawling there's an underground shopping mall that radiates from it, which reminded me greatly of the subway stations in Seoul. The architecture is very old fashioned and grand, amazing to see. Also, I'll never forget that this was the grand setting where the following took place.
We had lunch in the food court in the station. Potato knish! Then we took a turn around Bryant Park, which was very lovely. It's landscaped nicely with trees on the edges and games set up on the outside tables so that anyone could play them. The restaurants looked like they had great (but pricey) ambiance, and there was a very small and quaint carousel.
Then it was off to Kinokuniya, which boasts of a small Gothic Lolita section and floor dedicated to anime, though they didn't have Hetalia toys. They did have the most adorable bunny-sakura vinyl bag, though, and the brown Metamorphse satchel was drool-worthy. After that, we stopped by Magnolia Bakery for what is perhaps THE most divine red velvet cupcakes ever created by man. Where most cream cheese frosting tends to be a little stiff due to the heavy nature of the cream cheese, theirs somehow is as light and soft as whipped cream. I've never had anything like.
You know, CZ, I'm starting to regret that I didn't try to bring some home. I should've at least tried. If I couldn't, I could've eaten them on the plane >D
We also did some shopping at Rockefeller Center, though I forgot all about Nintendo World ><;; tepid. And we did a quick jaunt to the ritzy 5th Av to visit the motherload of Juicy Couture stores :O I'd move to NY just for that store! Though I couldn't afford anything, just being able to see all their stuff made me a super happy wannabe fashionista :p
CZ had class that evening back at Bryant Park, and because NYU was blocking my seminar, I had to entertain myself for about 3 hours. Fortunately, the Metropolitan Opera was having a concert in the park so I was entertained for quite some time with lovely music. Afterward, it being so cold in NY (CZ lied!), I sought shelter in Kinokuniya again for some snackage. Then it was shopping again until I met CZ for dinner. She took me to the Burger Joint, and man oh man, do I wish I had had my camera so I could show pics of this place. The Parker Meridien is a famous luxury hotel, and indeed, if you walk into the lobby, it's ritzy to the nines. But in that sparkling marble lobby, there's a corner fenced off with a huge red curtain. When you duck behind that curtain, you see worn paneled wooden walls covered in chintzy posters like a dive bar. That is the Burger Joint. XD
The ambiance was amazing, but truthfully speaking, if NY has Cali beat in pizza, I think Cali's the place for burgers. The walls were plastered with "Best of New York" awards and the like, but the burgers are decidedly mediocre. They had supermarket buns lined up on the counter, for Chrissake. But really, it's just that the meat was so dry and topping so unoriginal. I felt like I was eating a high school cafeteria burger. And yet, the cost is about 6x a burger from In-n-Out, which just tastes better. Still, it was worth a trip for the experience alone, and CZ swears the shakes are amazing. So if there's a next time, maybe I'll get a shake. We followed up dessert at Max Brenner in Union Square, for some delicious and rich cake with melted marshmallows. So decadent, but sooooo good! I regret not going back for some hot chocolate. Incidentally, CZ, the chocolate covered waffles I got from the shop were very delicious. ♥
Day 2
We started out with lunch in two parts. First we stopped by Petit Abeille, an utterly charming cafe for delicious Belgium chantilly waffles with whipped cream and strawberry sauce. Then came Dogmatic for some seriously delicious sausages. The bun itself is this really crispy but chewy french bread type roll, where I had lamb sausage with super rich truffle gruyere sauce and an equally rich mushroom mac n' cheese side. So, so incredibly tasty. In retrospect, this was probably my favorite place we ate at that day.
There was also a Farmer's Market going on that day, where I scored a free Simply Juice apple juice (tasty) and watched some of the really interesting local vendors come out. There were also shops, like Diesel. I love Diesel's designs, even if I can't afford anything from their store, and they always have an interesting aesthetic. These were some of the mannequins in their Union Square store.
After lunch, we made our way to Times Square to try and score some musical tickets. The rush line was insane, so we ended up just paying full price anyway to Phantom of the Opera :\ Since we had a ton of time before the show, we headed down to City Hall where the World Trade Center once stood, though this is all that's left.
It's especially bizarre for me, because one of my most salient memories from my first trip to NYC was going up the WTC and eating ice cream on the observation deck. I really can't believe it's gone. It's devastating.
We went up a block to Century 21 for some discount shopping. Despite the crowds, this might be my favorite discount store ever. The stuff there was totally cute! I can't believe how much variety they had, and the wide range of styles they carried from each brand.
Naturally, we trekked back to Broadway when our show was about to start. I had seen Phantom once when I was really young, but ended up buying a souvenir program since I didn't have one yet. I got a velvet rose as an additional gift :) I should take a pic of that. I think that was the only souvenir I ended up really getting for myself. That wasn't edible, anyway. :p The show itself was spectacular. The costumes and settings were so opulent and gorgeous, and the cast was obviously used to their roles because the timing was perfect. I was a little meh on the cast, but the only one who truly bothered me was Christine. Her voice was so tinny and shrill that it got annoying to listen to. The Phantom and Raoul were decent, but then again, the ones I had seen first time around were these guys:
...so there was really no contest, I guess. Still, I'm glad CZ enjoyed it, and it's been so long that seeing the richness of the show again was well worth it. I'm such a huge fan that I think seeing it periodically wouldn't be a bad idea.
For dinner after the show, we headed down to St. Mark's Square for okonomiyaki. It was a pretty interesting take on it. The pancake was thin like a crepe, so it was like eating yakisoba, mostly. Apparently there's a ton of interesting architecture around St. Mark's Square, but since it was raining, we decided to forgo. I'd definitely like to see it next time.
Day 3
The rain found us on this day, so we ate pad thai for lunch at home. We spent most of Saturday at The Met, which, OMG is just the most gorgeous museum I've ever been in. Each room is incredibly well-crafted to create an atmosphere around the piece, not just to showcase it. And the atmosphere from room to room is different. There's also a ton of space, so there's a lot of room for huge full-wall pieces, like the famous Choir Gate.
We went to dinner at Tavern on the Green, which, sadly, closes at the end of this year. So it was definitely on our bucket list, so to speak. The look of the place is opulent but gorgeous, as I'm sure the pics from the website show. This is a shot of the hallway.
Mirrors and glass everywhere! It was like eating inside a chandelier. Our reactions to the food were mixed--CZ and I ended up liking each other's dish more! But overall I enjoyed it, and I'm sad I won't be able to see it decked out in its Christmas glory. Afterward, we went to Herald Square where NY's Koreatown is. We stopped by a cafe (the name of which escapes me) for some sweets. There was also this cute accessory shop next door that sold this really cute necklace. I wish I had a picture of it, I really wanted it. Afterward, we proceeded to a lounge (still don't know the name) where we had some lychee soju. Normally I'm not a soju fan, but this was really tasty! And we had such a huge bottle of it. Perhaps a bit too big, for one unfortunate thing we discovered at 2 am was that the NY subway stations do not have bathrooms!! We thought we were dying, and at one point I really wasn't sure we'd make it until we ducked into a shady Indian restaurant where we bought vegetable samoas for the privilege of using their bathroom XD/end TMI. It's funny in retrospect, though.
Day 4
We started out really late, because I had an ungodly flight back the next morning at 6 am. So we ended up having brunch at Bubby's where we had these amazing sour cream pancakes. These things were huge and thick! And so incredibly dense--I poured syrup on them and it totally got absorbed into the cake! Since were in Tribeca, CZ took me to see the firehouse used in Ghostbusters. 80s children, we are :p
It's surprisingly small, but is still apparently a functioning firehouse. One of their lieutenants lost his life in the line of duty on 9/11.
We moved along to SoHo for some shopping where I saw the Tokidoki store and Toy Tokyo. There were also a ton of really cool vendors, especially with pretty jewelry. I stopped by and saw NYU's library, which is much bigger than Davis'. By nightfall, we moved to Columbus Circle.
Here's a shot from the inner side of the pretty fountain of that great explorer mass murderer Christopher Columbus. We poked around the mall there and I found out they have a Bouchon Bakery branch and a Cartoon Network museum. Also, a Samsung store. Interview on Tues, yikes! We grabbed dinner at a very famous halal cart on the corner of 52nd and 6th. We ate the steaming plates on cold benches, which was very awesome and very New York. Yay, yummy NY cart food!
I ended my stay in NY with a trip to Serendipity 3, a restaurant famous for its very original ice cream creations. The most famous, perhaps is the Frozen Hot Chocolate, pictured here.
This thing was giant, okay. Really, really good, though.
After that, we crashed back at CZ's place while I waited for my ride. The rest of that is a blur though. I think lack of sleep makes me delirious. Thank you so much, CZ, for being such a great hostess. I appreciated that it wasn't an easy weekend for you either. And thanks, Daddy, for giving me your free plane ticket so I could have such a wonderful trip.
I'd like to offer some insights on what I felt about the city itself, including its diversity and sense of history. But I am le tired. For now, I leave you with this.
The New York lottery ads were all over the subways and were obscenely cute.
Day 0 was basically me sitting on the plane all day. Feh. After I got to La Guardia, I got into a cab with a cabbie who didn't know how to get around Queens. The bastard spent about 20 minutes running up my meter trying to figure out where her apartment was before he called HQ and got directions over the phone. Are you kidding me?? I was tempted to argue it, but decided not to fight with the cabbie in the middle of scary Queens in the middle of the night. So FEH to you, New York cabbie!
Day 1
I bought a 7 day unlimited subway pass, and man am I glad I did considering how much we rode the thing. We started off by stopping by Grand Central Station since it was conveniently on our way to Bryant Park. It's so sprawling there's an underground shopping mall that radiates from it, which reminded me greatly of the subway stations in Seoul. The architecture is very old fashioned and grand, amazing to see. Also, I'll never forget that this was the grand setting where the following took place.
Click to viewWe had lunch in the food court in the station. Potato knish! Then we took a turn around Bryant Park, which was very lovely. It's landscaped nicely with trees on the edges and games set up on the outside tables so that anyone could play them. The restaurants looked like they had great (but pricey) ambiance, and there was a very small and quaint carousel.
Then it was off to Kinokuniya, which boasts of a small Gothic Lolita section and floor dedicated to anime, though they didn't have Hetalia toys. They did have the most adorable bunny-sakura vinyl bag, though, and the brown Metamorphse satchel was drool-worthy. After that, we stopped by Magnolia Bakery for what is perhaps THE most divine red velvet cupcakes ever created by man. Where most cream cheese frosting tends to be a little stiff due to the heavy nature of the cream cheese, theirs somehow is as light and soft as whipped cream. I've never had anything like.
You know, CZ, I'm starting to regret that I didn't try to bring some home. I should've at least tried. If I couldn't, I could've eaten them on the plane >D
We also did some shopping at Rockefeller Center, though I forgot all about Nintendo World ><;; tepid. And we did a quick jaunt to the ritzy 5th Av to visit the motherload of Juicy Couture stores :O I'd move to NY just for that store! Though I couldn't afford anything, just being able to see all their stuff made me a super happy wannabe fashionista :p
CZ had class that evening back at Bryant Park, and because NYU was blocking my seminar, I had to entertain myself for about 3 hours. Fortunately, the Metropolitan Opera was having a concert in the park so I was entertained for quite some time with lovely music. Afterward, it being so cold in NY (CZ lied!), I sought shelter in Kinokuniya again for some snackage. Then it was shopping again until I met CZ for dinner. She took me to the Burger Joint, and man oh man, do I wish I had had my camera so I could show pics of this place. The Parker Meridien is a famous luxury hotel, and indeed, if you walk into the lobby, it's ritzy to the nines. But in that sparkling marble lobby, there's a corner fenced off with a huge red curtain. When you duck behind that curtain, you see worn paneled wooden walls covered in chintzy posters like a dive bar. That is the Burger Joint. XD
The ambiance was amazing, but truthfully speaking, if NY has Cali beat in pizza, I think Cali's the place for burgers. The walls were plastered with "Best of New York" awards and the like, but the burgers are decidedly mediocre. They had supermarket buns lined up on the counter, for Chrissake. But really, it's just that the meat was so dry and topping so unoriginal. I felt like I was eating a high school cafeteria burger. And yet, the cost is about 6x a burger from In-n-Out, which just tastes better. Still, it was worth a trip for the experience alone, and CZ swears the shakes are amazing. So if there's a next time, maybe I'll get a shake. We followed up dessert at Max Brenner in Union Square, for some delicious and rich cake with melted marshmallows. So decadent, but sooooo good! I regret not going back for some hot chocolate. Incidentally, CZ, the chocolate covered waffles I got from the shop were very delicious. ♥
Day 2
We started out with lunch in two parts. First we stopped by Petit Abeille, an utterly charming cafe for delicious Belgium chantilly waffles with whipped cream and strawberry sauce. Then came Dogmatic for some seriously delicious sausages. The bun itself is this really crispy but chewy french bread type roll, where I had lamb sausage with super rich truffle gruyere sauce and an equally rich mushroom mac n' cheese side. So, so incredibly tasty. In retrospect, this was probably my favorite place we ate at that day.
There was also a Farmer's Market going on that day, where I scored a free Simply Juice apple juice (tasty) and watched some of the really interesting local vendors come out. There were also shops, like Diesel. I love Diesel's designs, even if I can't afford anything from their store, and they always have an interesting aesthetic. These were some of the mannequins in their Union Square store.
After lunch, we made our way to Times Square to try and score some musical tickets. The rush line was insane, so we ended up just paying full price anyway to Phantom of the Opera :\ Since we had a ton of time before the show, we headed down to City Hall where the World Trade Center once stood, though this is all that's left.
It's especially bizarre for me, because one of my most salient memories from my first trip to NYC was going up the WTC and eating ice cream on the observation deck. I really can't believe it's gone. It's devastating.
We went up a block to Century 21 for some discount shopping. Despite the crowds, this might be my favorite discount store ever. The stuff there was totally cute! I can't believe how much variety they had, and the wide range of styles they carried from each brand.
Naturally, we trekked back to Broadway when our show was about to start. I had seen Phantom once when I was really young, but ended up buying a souvenir program since I didn't have one yet. I got a velvet rose as an additional gift :) I should take a pic of that. I think that was the only souvenir I ended up really getting for myself. That wasn't edible, anyway. :p The show itself was spectacular. The costumes and settings were so opulent and gorgeous, and the cast was obviously used to their roles because the timing was perfect. I was a little meh on the cast, but the only one who truly bothered me was Christine. Her voice was so tinny and shrill that it got annoying to listen to. The Phantom and Raoul were decent, but then again, the ones I had seen first time around were these guys:
...so there was really no contest, I guess. Still, I'm glad CZ enjoyed it, and it's been so long that seeing the richness of the show again was well worth it. I'm such a huge fan that I think seeing it periodically wouldn't be a bad idea.
For dinner after the show, we headed down to St. Mark's Square for okonomiyaki. It was a pretty interesting take on it. The pancake was thin like a crepe, so it was like eating yakisoba, mostly. Apparently there's a ton of interesting architecture around St. Mark's Square, but since it was raining, we decided to forgo. I'd definitely like to see it next time.
Day 3
The rain found us on this day, so we ate pad thai for lunch at home. We spent most of Saturday at The Met, which, OMG is just the most gorgeous museum I've ever been in. Each room is incredibly well-crafted to create an atmosphere around the piece, not just to showcase it. And the atmosphere from room to room is different. There's also a ton of space, so there's a lot of room for huge full-wall pieces, like the famous Choir Gate.
We went to dinner at Tavern on the Green, which, sadly, closes at the end of this year. So it was definitely on our bucket list, so to speak. The look of the place is opulent but gorgeous, as I'm sure the pics from the website show. This is a shot of the hallway.
Mirrors and glass everywhere! It was like eating inside a chandelier. Our reactions to the food were mixed--CZ and I ended up liking each other's dish more! But overall I enjoyed it, and I'm sad I won't be able to see it decked out in its Christmas glory. Afterward, we went to Herald Square where NY's Koreatown is. We stopped by a cafe (the name of which escapes me) for some sweets. There was also this cute accessory shop next door that sold this really cute necklace. I wish I had a picture of it, I really wanted it. Afterward, we proceeded to a lounge (still don't know the name) where we had some lychee soju. Normally I'm not a soju fan, but this was really tasty! And we had such a huge bottle of it. Perhaps a bit too big, for one unfortunate thing we discovered at 2 am was that the NY subway stations do not have bathrooms!! We thought we were dying, and at one point I really wasn't sure we'd make it until we ducked into a shady Indian restaurant where we bought vegetable samoas for the privilege of using their bathroom XD/end TMI. It's funny in retrospect, though.
Day 4
We started out really late, because I had an ungodly flight back the next morning at 6 am. So we ended up having brunch at Bubby's where we had these amazing sour cream pancakes. These things were huge and thick! And so incredibly dense--I poured syrup on them and it totally got absorbed into the cake! Since were in Tribeca, CZ took me to see the firehouse used in Ghostbusters. 80s children, we are :p
It's surprisingly small, but is still apparently a functioning firehouse. One of their lieutenants lost his life in the line of duty on 9/11.
We moved along to SoHo for some shopping where I saw the Tokidoki store and Toy Tokyo. There were also a ton of really cool vendors, especially with pretty jewelry. I stopped by and saw NYU's library, which is much bigger than Davis'. By nightfall, we moved to Columbus Circle.
Here's a shot from the inner side of the pretty fountain of that great explorer mass murderer Christopher Columbus. We poked around the mall there and I found out they have a Bouchon Bakery branch and a Cartoon Network museum. Also, a Samsung store. Interview on Tues, yikes! We grabbed dinner at a very famous halal cart on the corner of 52nd and 6th. We ate the steaming plates on cold benches, which was very awesome and very New York. Yay, yummy NY cart food!
I ended my stay in NY with a trip to Serendipity 3, a restaurant famous for its very original ice cream creations. The most famous, perhaps is the Frozen Hot Chocolate, pictured here.
This thing was giant, okay. Really, really good, though.
After that, we crashed back at CZ's place while I waited for my ride. The rest of that is a blur though. I think lack of sleep makes me delirious. Thank you so much, CZ, for being such a great hostess. I appreciated that it wasn't an easy weekend for you either. And thanks, Daddy, for giving me your free plane ticket so I could have such a wonderful trip.
I'd like to offer some insights on what I felt about the city itself, including its diversity and sense of history. But I am le tired. For now, I leave you with this.
The New York lottery ads were all over the subways and were obscenely cute.