oh hey. found the flatiron building.

took another trip over to nyc over st. patty's day (so yes, this is a little late). it was kind of a belated birthday trip of sorts, to celebrate with jess, my mom (who was in town on her way back to hk from a business trip in chicago/st. joe), nana and smingle. yay! more adventures to distract from sad, not-so-funemployment...

friday, march 16th
hopped on the 10am bus from alewife to penn station, which, for the first time in my experience, was actually completely packed. for the record, i'm fully aware of how little i am. so when i can feel my knees getting crushed by the reclined seat in front of me, that's saying something. not to mention, the woman in said seat had already struck me as someone who goes around feeling way too entitled for her own good when she kicked a girl out of that row by trying to convince her and the people around (including her unofficial guardians for the trip in the seat in front) that she was absolutely required by world wide bus to sit next to (read: in contact with at all times) her 9-year-old daughter. (hint: this is false.) but anyway. not worth dealing with for one five-hour bus ride and probably the only time i would have to deal with this woman. moving on...

get to penn station and meet up with anna. we find a starbucks to just hang out in and catch up while we wait for smingle to get through her crazy traffic jam and into the city. super nice. i do miss hanging out with college friends, but everyone kind of exploded out of pittsburgh, geographical-location-wise, after graduation. smingle arrives. we hang out some more since we had dinner plans near by and soon anyway. getting filled in on all the changes that have gone on back at cmu makes me feel extra old. which is super impressive considering i only graduated in may. but something about five years at architecture school will do that to you. i am looking forward to visiting again over carnival, even if i'm only going to be there for a couple of days.

next is dinner at gallo nero. is delicious. mmm...i do love risotto. i pretty sure i go on to have risotto one more time on this trip and then again back in boston, when we go out for restaurant week. heh. oops.

amazingly delicious crostini w/ prosciutto, arugula + mozzarella

my porcini mushroom risotto

share desserts of pear tart + ...something else...whoops.

 then they head off for their showing of phantom and i meander my way across times square to find and meet up with jess and mom, who are nomming on some delicious-looking japanese food, but seeing as i just stuffed myself at gallo nero...i only help out for dessert, green tea mille crepes. ;) so good. pretty much what it sounds like. a big pile of thin, light, airy (green tea flavored) crepe pancakes stacked on top of each other and then cut into a cake slice.

green tea mille crepes w/ green tea ice cream! so good!

then its time to head back to the hotel, catch up, hang out and, in general, share some down time and watch some tv. and get birthday presents!!! :)

saturday, march 17th - st. patty's day
for the record, not as crazy as i had thought it might be. win!

headed out for brunch at almond. a super cute restaurant in the flatiron district. had the amazing almond hash, which is really hash but with duck confit in it instead of corned beef. fancy, right? so. good. for real, tell me that doesn't look awesome.

almond hash w/ duck confit. seriously may be the best brunch ever.

jess' brunch of french toast with banana and berries.

then headed out for a stroll, window-shopping included. and yes, the architecture nerd in me did in fact feel the need to pause and consider the flatiron building for a second before continuing with the window shopping. we went to eataly which is essentially a grocery store, food court and novelty store combined, but all of authentic italian products. this place was amazing. all the super fresh food looked so good. if it weren't for the fact that we had just gotten stuffed at brunch, i'm sure we would have found something to nom on. again, like almost everytime i'm there, we checked out the marimekko store just because, while pricey, i do really love all of their stuff. the patterns, the products, the design. after a while of strolling, we settle on going to see a movie and went and saw jeff, who lives at home. not going to lie, it was a strange movie. still not entirely sure how i felt about it. but if you're interested in watching jason segel and ed helms play very unexpected character-types, this may be the flick to see for you.

oh hey. found the flatiron building.

 ooh! the doughtnut plant! so, i had been planning on going to this place the last time i had a whirlwind weekend extravaganza with the j-twin, but we never got around to it because when we were in the mood for it, we weren't near it. and when we were near it, more than likely, we had just finished stuffing ourselves with other delicious noms and couldn't possibly have then fit in a doughnut. but we made it! and i got myself an incredible peanut butter and banana cream doughnut. it was amaziiiiing! worth it! sigh...

super proud of my doughnut plant find.

mmm...

 so that was all on the way to a nice simple dinner in chinatown. simple, but delicious. because up until yesterday, that was probably the most authentically chinese meal i've had in a looooong time. mmm...taste like home.

sunday, march 18th
remembering how nicely delicious it had been the last time we all went together, we found our way back to le pain quotidienne for a simple, rustic, european brunch. i love their belgian hot chocolate. they just serve you a hot bowl of frothy milk with the chocolate on the side, so you can make it as chocolatey as you want. mmm...delicious. had a breakfast of yummy bread and yummy eggs. (how good does that look?)

deconstructed hot chocolate.

like i'm sitting in some european countryside. :)

again, headed out to do more shopping, both window and actual. got myself a nice hat from H&M and a shirt from Gap. :) minimal shopping for the unemployed. but still nice.

this was a pretty simple day. topped it off with a dinner of more italian food at basso 56. pretty sure this was where i had my second dinner of risotto for the weekend. again. delicious. seafood risotto with clams, mussels, calamari...mmm...and once again, ended the night crazy full. but hey. worth it.

monday, march 19th
jess had to go back to work, so it was just mom and i left to our own devices. we went back to le pain for breakfast. i kept it simple this time with a banana + maple syrup oatmeal and mom with some kind of cranberry porridge. we found our way back to the hotel again, hung out and packed up our stuff, before heading out to drop her off at the airporter stop. then i carried on to penn station myself to grab a small bite to eat before catching the bus back to boston.

a super fun, chill weekend full of some really good food and company, topped off with fantastic weather almost all weekend. :)

look forward to doing it again some time.

another whirlwind adventure.

thursday, nov. 17^th, 2011.

my trip started at 7:45am when i was out and ready to catch the badgerbus to the milwaukee airport where i was to catch my flight to new york via cincinnati. this may have been one of the worst travel experiences of my life. okay. not really. but it wasn't good. everything was fine until i got to cincinnati. then, after sitting at the gate for over an hour, the gate agents announce that the plane is here, but there were a few minor issues that needed to be taken care of before we departed. okay. no problem. a half hour later, a few minor issues turned into, "um...we found an oil leak. it's something to do with the hydraulics, so...it's not good". okay...still not terrible. turns out, it didn't take them long to reroute all of the passengers with connecting flights from jfk and then find the remaining passengers another aircraft. at the other end of the terminal. so we haul ass over there, board, taxi out from the gate. only to then taxi back in five minutes later. cue, "sorry folks, we just found a small technical issue with our communications system". excuse me? so then began yet another hour-long wait while that got fixed. then finally, onward to new york. onward to whirlwind weekend adventure #2 with the j-twin.

i don't think i ended up getting into brooklyn until 10pm-ish (i was supposed to get in around 7-ish), which, considering my travels began at 7:45am that morning, wasn't fun. it really shouldn't take fourteen hours to get from madison, wi to brooklyn, ny. just saying.

anyhoo. met up with jess, and had a nice, late dinner at a japanese place, where we each got delicious dinner boxes with sushi. mmm...have i mentioned i love japanese food? Then, we turned in for the night and hung out at the apartment since j had an early morning the next day.

friday, nov. 18^th, 2011.

café regular.

my delicious (and pretty) latté. :)

jess worked the am, and left instructions to check out some really good coffee at cafe regular down the street. so i went and got myself a really good latte and hopped on the subway and wandered my way through ny to meet her at rockefeller center. since i figured i had time to kill, i got off the r a stop early and just decided to walk over. stopped in at bryant park along the way. they had their holiday stalls up so i meandered my way through. unfortunately, being unemployed and on a very tight budget, i had to refrain from getting anything. fortunately, being human, i had to eat at some point. om nom nom…enter my nutella + banana crêpe. mmm…i had actually wanted something savory, but it turns out i’m bad at turning down banana and chocolate wrapped in a delicious pancake.

mmm...crêpes...

setting up the rockefeller christmas tree!!

eventually, arrived at the rock and wandered some more through the nbc experience store, where i again mentally listed the things i wanted but probably shouldn’t get and/or don’t actually need without actually buying anything. found j-twin, and then made our way upstairs to check in and get our tickets to see late night with jimmy fallon LIVE. okay, so not going to lie, i’m not actually a huge fan of jimmy fallon, but these were free tickets to a live recorded show. in itself, pretty damn cool. and the show itself turned out to be pretty funny.

woohoo!!!

quick side note for anyone who watches 30 rock: remember that episode where kenneth has gotten fired, is working for another network and is in the process of sorting audience members for the live show in terms of attractiveness? yea, we were pretty sure that wasn’t too far from the truth. after getting seated (in the front of our section, btw!), we look around to realize that there seemed to be a strange coincidence where any audience member over the age of thirty seemed to be seated in the back half of the room. dude, what??

so, it turns out, “late night” with jimmy fallon meant that this show was actually being shot at 5:30pm in the afternoon. nice. long story short, michelle williams was there to promote her movie, my week with marilyn, which could be interesting; i’m not sure what i think about the casting, but we’ll see. alton brown came on to show everyone the correct technique to opening a bottle of champagne with a 15^th century french rapier, a replica of which he then gifted to jf. comedian iliza shlesinger (yep, had to look up how to spell her name) came on with a little stand up; she is hilarious. she brought her adorable puppy and did her own rendition of sarah mclachlan’s aspca commercial. musical guest, the roots (+ animal from the muppets), played an amazing show. jf himself? actually pretty funny in person. watched two random guys get covered in goops of all sorts (mostly perishable), and watched one of them win $200. the show ended on a high note, where i got to high five + shake hands with jimmy fallon. y’know, nbd.

the stage of the show isn’t all that big. and yet they find the space to maneuver five massive cameras around to get all the right shots. it was seriously an impressively well-oiled machine. having my only stage management experience being back in high school and being impressed with how that went, this was incredible to watch. i can only imagine the stress levels of the stage manager we watched work her way through the scenes, and when she turned to give instructions to the audience only to hope we’d respond in the way they needed. sick.

by the time we came out of the show, it was dinner time. i quickly bought a late show pint glass, which i would later leave at dinner by accident :P, and we headed back into brooklyn for dinner at the stone park café, a nice, schnazzy restaurant not too far from jess’ apartment. it was delicious. we shared a mussel appetizer to start (really fresh) and i had a fantastic salmon dish, while jess got squid ink tagliatelle. so good. no, really. so good, i forgot all about my souvenir pint glass i had set down on the floor by the window.

so ended another great day in nyc.

saturday, nov. 19^th, 2011.

slept in a little. woke up to meet anna to go to the smorgasburg market. breakfast pretty much consisted of any delicious eats we decided to taste while wandering around the market. meatballs, chicken wings, lamb burger, anchovies, asia dogs, oysters…so much goodness. retrospectively, i’m not sure my stomach agreed with my decisions. but, i regret nothing! we, then, made our way to union square where the holiday market had been set up. this led to more wandering and more “window-shopping”. we managed to lose anna at least twice, with each time resulting in her appearing with somehow more food. sliders the first time, and then belgian waffles the next; the latter of which was, again, delicious. i finally caved and bought my one big purchase of the trip, an orange, enviro-friendly tote by engage green, a global-warming-awareness company who makes a bunch of products out of recycled plastic bottles. it seemed pretty cool, and it was a good cause/idea. again, good decisions all around. it was either going to be the bag or a long-sleeved, hooded shirt that had a cute dog/cat face on the front and ears of said animal on the hood. adorable. or maybe it was a graphic t, which i decided i had too many of anyway. hmm…yea…it was that. now i actually do want that hoodie-shirt. damn.

omnomnom!

after the third market of my trip, we all headed to korea way for an early dinner before anna had to peace out back home. we went back to wonjo, though this time going with the nakji (octopus) bibimbop. mmm…so full. post-dinner, we wandered the gap down the street to work off the fullness. anna went home, and jess and i made our way to the movie theater. we had originally planned to watch the descendants, but being a new movie, it was completely sold out for that night. so we bought tickets ahead of time for sunday and then headed back to brooklyn to another movie theater to watch happy feet two in 3d. i had originally invited anna to see this with us, but afterwards realized it had probably been good that she couldn’t stay in the city too late since, being ocean-themed, it involved at least one giant whale scene. it would’ve ended poorly. it was entertaining, with significantly more adorable than the last one, more ridiculousness and more crazily unbelievable song choices. if you’re just looking for a funny, feel-good film, that would be the one to check out.

oh! can’t forget. we had some time to kill before the movie started, so we made our way to the brooklyn farmacy + soda fountain. it’s an old-school pharmacy that got turned into an ice cream place, but retained the old-schoolness of it. very vintage. very hipster. very brooklyn. again, more super delicious food. again, got way too full. again, i regret nothing! we had a peanut butter sundae of sorts. damn…

the before...

...and the after.

and so ended a very successful (and a little out of order) day three to my whirlwind weekend in nyc with j-twin.

sunday, nov. 20^th, 2011.

post yummy congee breakfast. :)

okay. so this day was kept light to counter the incredible foodfest we had had the day before. (my stomach was not agreeing with the sundae from the night before very well. though, it got over it.) we started it off with a very chinese-y breakfast of congee in chinatown. so simple, but so good. afterwards, we walked off breakfast by visiting the new (and old) phase(s) of the highline. there were definitely aspects of it i really enjoyed. and it’s most probably going to stay near the top of my list of places to keep going back to whenever i’m in ny. later on, we finally took advantage of starbucks’ buy-one-get-one offer for the weekend. had a light lunch before heading to our afternoon showing of the descendants. we were easily the youngest people in the audience. but despite that realization, the movie ended up being quite good. i had my doubts about certain members of the cast, but they ended up being quite unnecessary. the movie was enjoyable, and quite the contrast to happy feet two the day before. in comparison, if you’re looking for a mellow, serious drama with some surprising casting choices and appearances, this would be the movie for you. it’s got my thumbs-up.

me + j-twin on the highline.

new seating arrangement on the highline.

dinner was had at bareburger near nyu. omg. so good. this place offered all sorts of burgers, from beef to ostrich to bison to elk. ridonculous. again, so full. of delicious burger and a dessert of a peanut butter chocolate milkshake. mmm…

monday, nov. 21^st, 2011.

jess had work again, so i slept in a little before packing up, showering and then heading out to meet her for one more lunch before i headed to the airport and back to madison. i met her near her office, and we had a super easy lunch at an italian place. after lunch, it was time for me to make my way back to the airport via subway (an experience in itself), and get on my plane back to milwaukee to get picked up by B. the trip back was a lot calmer and less stressful than my trip there. thank god. only one minor hitch where i had to power-walk my way through the entire minneapolis airport, which by the way is a lot bigger than you’d think, because i had booked my connections unfortunately close together due to what was available to me at the time. but at least i knew it would happen ahead of time. it didn’t make the power-walking any easier, nor make my calves any less sore right after, but at least i had been expecting it.

sad, lonely, little dude on the runway...

overall, it was a seriously fantastic weekend and visit #2 to see jess in ny. got to go see some new sites, as well as revisit some old. i’m still very impressed with my own tackling of the new york subway system, with little to no instruction from j-twin. made it there and back in one piece, though probably back with significantly more poundage. :P

now, only twenty more days before i embark on the ridiculously-ever-so-long trip back to hong kong for christmas. i was hoping to bring B with me on this trip, but it looks like a separate, not-so-family-oriented trip may be the better option. it’ll happen. and it’ll be awesome when it does. i can’t wait.