Waterfalls of New York

The raison d’être of the trip is the New York Waterfalls by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. My mom read about the waterfall exhibit and invited the rest of the family to join her in seeing them. We got our tickets for a Circle Line boat tour months in advance.

Our Saturday boat ride was canceled because of Hurricane Hannah, but thank goodness they let us reschedule for Sunday, since we were all leaving Monday morning.

The boat ride is the same old boat ride you can book normally, but it’s extra special for a few months because of the waterfalls. There are 4 waterfalls in the East River and New York Harbor:

• Under the Brooklyn Bridge (on the Brooklyn Anchorage on the Brooklyn side, facing Manhattan)
• Between Brooklyn's piers 4 and 5 (west of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, facing Manhattan)
• Pier 35 in Manhattan (adjacent to South Street at Rutgers Street -north of the Manhattan Bridge, facing the Bridge)
• Governors Island (on the north shore, facing Manhattan)

The waterfalls were certainly worth seeing., but it was the overall experience that was the highlight. After Hurricane Hannah, Sunday was a glorious day, with blue skies and low humidity. We had clear views of the Manhattan skyline, the status of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Wall Street. If you like boat rides, this is one worth doing.

Yes, You Can Take a 4-Year Old to Museums

Whenever we go on a trip, and certainly around Washington, we visit museums and take CJ with us. Maki and I love museums (Maki joined us in NYC on Saturday afternoon) and we figure CJ will love museums if we get him started early.

On Saturday morning, mom, Alex, CJ and I visited the Museum of Natural History. The dioramas filled with stuffed animals from Africa were lifelike and very well done. CJ loved looking for the baby animals and guessing the names of the animals. We all enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit, as well as the reptile exhibit. I wish the exhibit had more hands-on elements, or even some interactive kiosks, but otherwise, no complaints. We need to watch Night at the Museum, the Ben Stiller comedy set in this museum.

On Sunday morning, we all made the mandatory visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Alex says he has spent many, long days at this museum, especially when he was living in New York. We started our visit the Egypt collection, culminating, of course, at the Temple of Dendur, my favorite spot in the museum. Then we visited the armor collection, including a special exhibition on Tibetan armor. Then we wandered into musical instruments, and then dashed through European history. We also enjoyed a Jeff Koons exhibit on the roof of the museum featuring three sculptures; the most fun was a stainless steel sculpture that looks just like a dog balloon!

CJ obviously can’t read the descriptions and can’t sit through long explanations, but he enjoys looking at everything, commenting on what he sees, and looking at the varied items. Next time, we will have to catch the Children’s Museum, which we hear is terrific and fun for kids.

A Weekend of Yummy Asian Meals + Amazing Doughnuts

I come from a family of eaters. Growing up, birthdays and celebrations were nearly always celebrated with dinner at a nice restaurant, the family favorite being sushi. This trip to New York felt like a gastronomic tour of Asia’s greatest hits. Following recommendations from Fodors.com (my favorite online travel resource), we visited, in this order:

Nha Trang, a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. This is Alex’s favorite restaurant in New York City. I was blown away by the hot and sour shrimp soup and the shrimp with salt and pepper sauce. Best of all, dinner for 5 was a mere $70 and you should have seen how much food we ordered!

Cendrillon in SoHo, my favorite Filipino fusion restaurant in the world. Despite Hurricane Hannah, which slammed into New York on Saturday afternoon, the restaurant was full by 8pm. Romy, the chef, does an amazing job and greets every table personally. I loved the mussels, the laksa noodles, lamb shank and kare kare (Filipino stew made with peanut butter, oxtail, tripe and vegetables). For dessert, we adored the passion fruit crème brulee, the bibingka, and champorado (sweet, sticky, chocolate rice porridge, what's not to love?).

Momofuku, a ramen noodle joint on the Lower East side. Momofuku serves fresh, Japanese style ramen noodles. The menu is limited, and unless you don’t like pork, order the pork steam buns and the pork ramen, which are superior to their chicken counterparts. Service was a little snotty. And since the restaurant does not take reservations, it’s best to arrived before 6pm. We got there at 5:45pm; the place was packed by 6:15pm on a Sunday. We've had better ramen on the streets of Tokyo, but good ramen places are rare in the US; to date, we have found none in the DC area.

Doughnut Plant in the Lower East side. I heard about this little doughnut place on Food Network, when Bobby Flay challenged Doughnut Plant owner, Mark Israel to a throwdown. Mark Israel’s doughnuts won hands down and I knew we had to make a pilgrimage. The $20 cab ride was worth it. If you go, order the tres leches doughnut, a cakelike doughnut that is out of this world. CJ loved the chocolate doughnut.

New York, Here We Come or Why I Love Amtrak

Last Friday morning, CJ and I went up to New York on Amtrak. I love Amtrak. Maki dropped us off around 9:00am for a 9:25am departure and we still had time to pick up breakfast at McDonald’s and make a bathroom stop before boarding the train.

Family and friends know that CJ is crazy about trains, so it was a real treat for him to ride the train up to New York. We even ran into our friends Debbie and Bert, and their son Max, so we had company for part of the ride. CJ played Go Fish! with Max, he watched a couple of Thomas movies on the PSP (Playstation Portable), and we paid a visit to the café car for some lunch.

Catching a cab was a breeze because it was the middle of the day, so we got to our hotel, Club Quarters in midtown, in no time.

This trip to New York is a mini-vacation before CJ starts school on Wednesday, as well as a family trip. We met my mom, older sister and brother in New York; they flew in from San Francisco. The impetus for the trip was the waterfall exhibit by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, who created waterfalls from four locations in the East River and New York Harbor (more on that later when I post about our boat ride on the river.

Shopping in New York

Shoe shopping, lunch, chocolate, wine and hanging out with the girlfriends? I can't think of a better time!

On Saturday, May 17, I got to hang out with some cool women during a bus trip to New York organized by Reston Limousine. It was a long day, but a fun day. We left Tysons Corner at 7am and arrived back ground 11:30pm.

The ride up was awesome. I got to meet some fabulous women, all friends of the amazing Kristina Bouweiri, CEO of Reston Limousine. Many of use are business owners and moms, which made for some fun conversation.

We got dropped off at Canal Street around 11:30. Yes, we were hungry, but we had more important things to do. Our first stop was Shoegasm (yep, that's the name), where I bought a pair of purple ballet flags and a cute pair of black and gold sandals (a little more bling than I'm used to). Next up, Shoefinity, where I bought a pair of lavender Merrill walking shoes. (Did you guess I like purple?)

Next up, handbag shopping. Most of the group ventured into a secret basement shop to hunt for Pradas and Guccis, but I was too claustrophic. I wandered around Canal Street and got a wallet and Sponge Bob watch for my son.

After all that shopping, we were famished. The group split into two. The first group went for an Italian lunch. My group went for Chinese since I never get great Chinese in the DC area. Michelle led us to a great hole in the wall where we had a veritable feast for $25 per person. We had crab, duck, scallops, fish, noodles, beef, and soup. We even had bubble drinks from next door.

It was still early, so we hit some more shops. We hit a couple of sample sales, wandered around the discount department store Century 21 and even got to see Ground Zero. After that, we headed to Soho, where I got an amazing deal on a Cleo and Patek purse and wallet. Seriously, I bought the most beautiful purse I had ever seen and it was 60% off. The store manager said sales are way down and they are forced to discount.

Our day ended at Te Casan shoe store. This has to be the swankiest shoe store I've ever been to. The store carries 7 lines of designer shoes, many of them limited edition. Did you know that Natalie Portman has her own line of vegan shoes? The shoes start at $275 and I had already bought 3 pairs elsewhere, so I was able to resist the temptation.

After Te Casan, we grabbed some hot dogs for the road and headed home. The bus ride was long, but Kristina treated us to a movie (Maid Money, total chick flick), wine and chocolate covered graham crackers. We slept, we chatted, we shared our food, and we passed around the goodies we bought.

I was a waste of space on Sunday because I'm not used to all that activity in one day and I'm definitely not used to being up so late anymore! But boy was it fun! Reston Limousine organizes New York trips once a month. I'll definitely try to join another trip in the Fall. Fun times!

I love Amtrak

Last week, I took the train up to New York City to make a presentation at a client's Board meeting. Did I think about flying up to NY from DC? Not for one minute. Here are the many reasons I love taking the train to NY:

1. I can get my tickets last minute. Of course, there is always the chance that a specific train will sell out, but I almost never have trouble buying a ticket the night before.
2. I can get to the train station 30 minutes before the train leaves and still have plenty of time to park my car, go downstairs, go to the bathroom and grab coffee before boarding.
3. 9 times out of 10, the train leaves on time and arrives on time. On the few occasions that the Acela or Metroliner has been late, it has been by 5-10 minutes. How often does that happen with a commercial flight?
4. When I arrive in NY, I am less than 10 minutes away by cab from pretty much anywhere I need to go, and there is a civilized taxi line.
5. It takes less time to get to NY from my house on the train, door to door, than flying.
6. There is AC power on the train so I can work on my laptop.
7. There is plenty of legroom.
8. Although the food is not great, there are lots of options. I can always get by on a bagel and yogurt or pepperoni pizza.
   
9. The Arrive magazine actually has some good suggestions for events and restaurants in NY and Washington.
10. I can use my cell phone if I need to, or go into the quiet car if I want absolutely peace and quiet.
11. I have a lot of interesting people on the train.
12. I met my husband on the train! No kiddng!