NYC Wkend: Part II: Culture Day in NYC

Woke up this morning in pain! After a 10 hour walk-a-thon the day before, I was certainly feeling the after effects of it. Good thing today would probably end up be alot of sitting around compared to yesterday - since part of today's agenda was to watch Billy Elliot!

Today's scheduled activities: Guggenheim, Central Park, MoMa, Mesa Grill, Billy Elliot, and then a walk around Times Square/Theatre District. All pretty artsy! :). I keep thinking how funny it is that someone like me - who is so artistically challenged - is always interested in this stuff. I don't know much about the stuff I look at, nor do I really prepare for it in advance and read articles about what I am about to see, but seeing these pieces of art awes me at times, not to mention I swear it makes me smarter!... lol. The other thing I guess I realized that I like about going to 'culture day' events is that I feel very peaceful there, and it gives me alot of time to just let my mind wander and think about stuff... maybe that's the main pull that makes me like having 'culture days' every so often. I find that I don't think enough or reflect enough these days :P. Always going from one place to another, and when I do stop, I am stopping only to rest, not to just think. I gotta watch out for this and set some time aside to think some things through...

At Guggenheim
There were 3 things that jumped out at me. One was the architecture that this Lloyd Wright guy built. Looking at his work, the coolest ones were the ones that did not get built. Some of these ones were really futuristic, others were really great ideas - but none of these ones got built. Don't know enough about architecture to know why that is the case, but interesting nevertheless.

The second was this quote I saw at the entrance of one of the 'sub galleries'.
"Yesterday is not quite out of sight; tomorrow is not yet clear in view. But the atmosphere of vitality is unquestionable" -- James Johnson Sweeney, 1953
The past haunts the future, the future is murky, but happiness was knocking right at the footsteps. I keep looking at this and wonder, is there going to be a chance that things will just be like the way it was before I took this vacation?

The third one was this room where they showed off works of art of students. I think it's really cool that kids at such a young age can create something like this with guidance. This one particularly looked sooo cute. Not quite sure if I was allowed to take pictures, but I couldn't resist. I think my tour guide for Victoria Island would have really liked this section of the museum...

Central Park
With Guggenheim being next to Central Park, we walked around in it. The whole time, I keep thinking, wow, if this was a sunny day, how much Victoria Island tour guide would have liked it here! There was a walkway right along this lake, with the buildings just protruding out from the horizon, yet very much looking like its part of the park. Didn't take any pictures of this though, because it was pretty drizzly today.

Anyway, originally the plan was to head in a southerly direction, so we get closer to MoMa, but being the pure tourist that I am, I decided to not look at the map, and we ended up walking in a big semi-circle. With yesterday's toll of walking, this walk felt really loooong! After getting back onto the east end of the park, we gave up and took the bus to MoMa.

MoMa
In my opinion, I liked the MoMa in Seattle more than the one in NYC. Even though the NYC is much bigger, I didn't particularly see any 'wow' pieces... there were a few Picassos (I still don't get these pictures...), but for the most part, there wasn't anything that jumped out at me.

Mesa Grill
Busing further down south, we reach our dinner location at 4:45pm. Being 15 minutes early, we left our name and then walked around. Stumbling into a 30% off sale at Kenneth Cole, I emerge out of it with 2 more pair of jeans :D. Finally I have new jeans to wear. My old jeans that I got 2 years ago should have been thrown out weeks (if not months) ago. One had a hole in the back pocket, the other had a hold at the right knee area (that expanded as the NYC progressed), and the last pair - well the zipper broke! For the rest of the night, I would carry this big shopping bag around... lol.

The food at Mesa Grill was nice. Had bison for the first time. Didn't really like it too much though -- felt really smokey and just a big too gamy. The service was really good here though, but seems a bit overpriced (especially when compared w/ the prime card specials in the west coast :P).

Billy Elliot
Then for the main venue of the day, it was time to watch Billy Elliot! A story about a kid who stumbles upon ballet and falls in love with it. This part of the night deserves its own entry. In summary though, I really liked this musical... more to come on this in a later entry.

Times Square
Alot of people, even at 11:30pm at night! This whole day, I keep thinking how much Victoria Island Tour Guide would have liked this place. There was a nice buzzing shops area, a nice park right in downtown that has a nice pond and trees.

I have to say, Neko was a great company -- I didn't end up having to plan much for the trip. Good thing this was because when I did try to fit everything we were doing this weekend, I had things scheduled at 8:30am...! Also seldomly did I look at the map, because we had these trip planners map all printed out. My only roles were to figure out adhoc routes to our destinations, and to guide others to j-walk.

Got back to the hotel at around 1am today. Another eventful day of touristy activities. Lots of thoughts going through my head today - among one of them, as weird as it feels, in a way, I was glad that this vacation was coming to an end. This silly 3 hour difference was just very hard to deal with... much harder than I had imagined it to be.

NYC Wkend: Part I: Statue of Liberty and SoHo District

Woke up bright and early on Friday to catch a flight to NYC. First time ever being there, so was pretty excited. Just thinking about the stuff we had planned though was tiring! So much to do, in some little time. Today we would see, Battery Park, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Financial District, Ground Zero, Bloomingdales, and Empire State Building - all in the span of 12 hours!

After landing at the airport in EWR, found out neko's plane got delayed. So while waiting, scouted the airport and found some info about NYC, and also finally finished looked and sorted through the wedding pics.

After rendevouzing with neko, we went to the hotel to drop off our bags, then off we went to the subway to head to downtown NYC! Just like with Vanc, the buying of a subway ticket is ever so perplexing. Must have spent at least 5 minutes figuring out how to pay for the pass... First we went to the booth to ask what the best value would be (after staring at the sign for like a minute), then I pull out a credit card -- to be pointed to the machine since the booths do not take credit card. I get to the booth and try to stick the card in, and it does not recognize it. Try to stick in cash, but machine doesn't return change more than $20... So we went back to the booth to pay for the pass... lol. Either I am very dumb with subways, or it's just EXTREMELY difficult to understand...lol

First stop was getting to Battery Park to hop onto a ferry to the island with Statue of Liberty. So here we were, lining up for the ferry, and we see the audio tour and an ferry ride ticket. Thinking 'oh, it'd be nice to have an audio tour of the Statue of Liberty', here some history, etc., we spent $8 more to get this 'audio' package. WE get on the ferry, get to the island, and then realize that apparently, you can't actually go into the Statue of Liberty unless you book in advance... So we ended up just walking around the island, taking pictures of the Statue outside... all the while with these $8 headsets... Feel so jibbed!

Visited Ellis Island afterwards, and that was pretty interesting. The audio tour was very useful there. Spent a good hour I think there. Returning back to the main downtown island around 6ish, headed up the financial district and saw the bull. Lots of people were taking pictures of the front of it, but not so much the back...

Dropped by ground zero as well -- only to realize that ground zero was no longer ground zero anymore. On top of where it is, they were building the new thing on top of it, but knowing the history and looking at the size of the construction site... can only imagine how scary and shocking it was when the building collapsed that day...

After strolling around, we headed up to the bloomingdale mall area, only to realize most of the shops were closed by 8ish. There were a few places opened though - so we looked at a few. I ended up buying a much needed new pair of jeans from Old Navy for $14.50 w/tax! Loooove half price sales!

After the 10 hours worth of walking, we headed back to the hotel for a quick break, before heading out for some food and the Empire State Building. It was actually a pretty hot day - I felt very sticky and gross, and I keep thinking if it's because of the big city and all the pollution/smog that must be there.We arrived at the Empire State building at around midnight - only in NYC will an 'attraction' be opened till 2am in the morning! Turns out the place we were staying at was only 2 blocks from it. So walking to there was a breeze. There were soo many people still at lined up at this hour. The good thing though was that it wasn't too cold up at the top of the Empire State building -- that or I just was very happily playing with my camera and lens taking pictures of the night lights of NYC. It took awhile for me to find myself a temporary tripod so I could get a nice picture - good thing Neko's camera pouch came to the rescue! With it, I was able to set the camera still on a slightly declining angle, so I could take pictures of the city. More pics of today to come later once I upload them onto SkyDrive.
After I think a good hour or two up there taking pictures... we headed back down, and then called it a night. The plan originally would have had us waking up at 9am or something like that, but with my great persuasion skills, we set the alarm for 10am! wuhahaha!

To be continued...

TO Week: Wedding Day

Got dressed and put on my tie today for the main purpose of coming back to Toronto - my big cousin's wedding! My first wedding that I can remember going to, I had the role of guiding people to their tables.

Today's venue started with the tea ceremony, then a dim sum lunch, followed by a 2 hour intermission, then the actual wedding. After the rings are put on, it was picture time, and then the dinner (where I guided people to their tables) and after dinner, dancing. A long eventful day that got me home at around the same time as the night before! Strange that even I didn't do all that much, I was pretty exhuasted by the end of it all. Maybe the years working have made me unable to wake up early and last a whole normal day anymore - that or I've just been sleeping wayyy too little these past few weeks :P.

Today I ended up taking about 300+ photos! (Link to them is at the very bottom) I played around with the long lens :) and got some pretty nice photos -- particularly liked the close-up pictures of my cousin receiving her ring from her fiancee now husband! Also, today I played with the new flash that I got just for this event! I am pretty glad I brought it because without it, the pictures would probably not have turned out nice. The flash allowed me to take nice pictures during the tea ceremony, and also inside the tent during dinner. Loooove 100 foot flashes!
Throughout the wedding, for some reason, I can't help but keep thinking of my tour guide on Victoria Day. But I guess it'd probably freak her out more than anything if I told her that. Really wish she was here... On this topic, the bride and groom gift was these pretty cute red and white salt and pepper shakers -- just saw this a couple weeks ago (but they were black and whtie). Maybe it's a sign that it showed up today that things for me are going to work out!

Other notable highlights was that I got 2 honorable mentions tonight (once at the beginning of the dinner, and once during the bride's speech!). Dammmm it was well worth it to fly back to attend.

Congratulations Cous! Pictures uploaded here

TO Week: Pre-Wedding

Night before had a chat w/ bro in the backyard. It was a nice chat, and put a few things in perspective. There are a few things I would need to see about, but for the most part, I have faith that this could work out. It might have been just a tad colder than I thought it'd be cuz I wasn't feeling too too well today - combined with the hitting the 3 drink limit last night, I was closing in on the upper bound of my 'sick formula' fast...

Had early morning dim sum with aunt (who called at 9.30am) in the morning, then off we headed to my cousin's place for a lunch. Originally we were planning to be there for lunch, but we ended up staying there for dinner. Missed meeting up w/ a friend because of that - and instead, when the ladies went for their manicures, I took a nap on my cousin's couch.

Another interesting note today was that Hermie was drunk by 4pm! lol... aiiiiiiiiiii... such an alcoholic. I wonder if all client meeting office people end up drinking large amounts of alcohol constantly. It is sooo not healthy! Ironic that of all people I would say that - maybe it's because I feel like wanting to be more healthy so that I can do more things w/ my life.

Anyway, got home pretty late, and was really tired. Turned down going clubbing for a 2nd night in a row. And so, with the big looming cloud of sickness hanging over me, I called it a night since the next day would be something similar -- waking up at 9:30am again...

Chi-town: Part III: Tourist Day

After 2 days of booze, booze, and more booze, today was tourist day! Went first to Navy Pier,

In the afternoon, after visiting the bean and this waterfall thing, we went to a bar for some wings and beer. After the game, went into Coldstone and grabbed some ice-cream... cuz I was craving it.

At night, we stayed in, got some famous ribs, and watched some basketball. After which, we started packing and getting ready for the morning flight back.

Feel soo fat this weekend, all we`ve been eating were like ribs, wings, beer, pizza, and oily stuff!!! Soo good, but sooo unhealthy.

It was nice seeing everyone though. Was missing HHH, but all the Waterloo folks were pretty gathered this weekend... felt like university days alllll over again.

Chi-town: Part II: Morning Aftermath

Supposedly getting home at 4am or something late like that, this morning we had to get up at 10am to go to Rigley's field to watch some baseball. Mannnn that was sooo tough and gruesome.

Lack of sleep, head and throat slightly hurting, we went to the cubs game and in my brilliance, I decided to go without a jacket... in the windy city. So there I was, sitting through the baseball game, feeling cold from the occasional wind, and watching baseball - which is not all that interesting in my mind.

Good thing I guess was because of this, I was able to sober up since I was probably awake for maybe 3 innings...lol. This baseball game went 7 innings without scoring (which to baseball fans, is suppose to be an awesome game -- but to me, it was like Zzzzzzzzzz....), and so by the end of 8th, we decided to leave. At the end of the night, we find out the final score was 5-4 (so 7 runs were scored in the 9th inning). Go figure eh?

After this sobering up event, went to lunch at Cheescake factory. Was pretty much out of it here and think the lack of sleep in the past few weeks plus the night before is starting to get me sick - so it wasn`t a nice feeling. Strolled a little bit around the 5th Avenue after lunch, where all the shops are at in Chicago. By 5:00ish, I gave in and went back to take a nap... a 3 hr nap :).

With the refreshing nap under my belt, went for some famous deep dish pizza, and then we went clubbing again. Everyone was sooo tired from the night before (since most of them did not take naps), so it ended pretty early - that and the place we went to wasn`t all that good. We ended up going back to Law`s place to chill for a lil bit, then headed home.

3 drink limit unbroken! :)

Chi-town: Part I: Italian Tapas and Club

After a 2 hr delay at the airport, off I went towards the east coast for a weekend in Chi-town!

First destination was to an Italian tapa place, where we ended up eating one thing from every menu it looks like. Really good food -- but don't know the name of place.

After a few hours of sangria and tapas, on we moved to experience the clubbing experience in Chicago. Nothing too too special, just normal clubbing stuff -- drink, dance, drink, dance, sit, etc.... It was the first time though that I had bottle service. The one cool thing I thought was seeing how the bartender poured into 5 glasses with one pour by stacking the glasses on top of one another. Never thought you can do that!

The last thing I remembered was that of taking a picture with the bartender... but suppposedly we had McDonalds that night... and supposedly I was not passed out! lol. The story goes that I was in the line reminding people to get Happy Meals and get a free smile :). But nothing too too rowdy other than that... Also somehow I magically pulled out the sleeping bag and changed on my own too.. hahaha... guess my subconscious homing beacon is still doing well!

So needless to say, the 3 drink limit was broken once again. Since its inception in Oct of last year, it has been broken 4 times. Not too bad, but not too good...

Boat Day!

After an all crab fest, woke up relatively early today to go boating!

Bought some good wholesome Molson beer (which was on sale), then headed over to the docks to board the boat.

Pretty chilling.. steered the boat for a lil bit, but mostly just laid around the boat and drank beer, watching and hearing the salted sea.. wuhahahaha

The captain of the boat made us some food as well. Sausages, wings... mmm... all taste so much better on a boat!

Link to pictures to come... (currently on facebook)

Crab Fest

Having had a craving for crab two weeks ago, I ended up buying king crab legs at the regular price. As I was chatting up with the store clerk, he mentions to me that just a couple weeks ago they had a sale on it... half price!

Fast forward to a couple days ago, where I had begun to stack of flyers I get each day and lo and behold, this week, they had a sale for king crab legs! Putting a plan into action, we create an all crab meal using the 3 lbs of king crab we bought :D

Menu:
1) Egg Drop Soup w/ King Crab Meat
Pretty good soup. The seasoning was from a pack, but the egg was beaten by my hand and slowly mixed into the soup at the end. The king crab meat was shredded by my other 2 accomplices :P
2) Oven Baked King Crab Meat and Vegetables Stuffed Mushrooms
Found the recipe for this online. The instructions had red peppers mixed into the mix. But turns out, it tasted better without it. It was pretty tasty overall though
3) Steamed King Crab Legs with a touch of butter
Mmmmm.... Sooo good. Could use more butter though.
4) Mochies... (ok, this one wasn't made of crab... but it was desert!)

Dellllicious!

Tulip Festival

After having said I would go for 2 years, this year I finally got the chance to go... the tulip festival!

Have to say that I was amazed at the sheer number of flowers that were present. It was really eye opening to see that many photos. Armed with the long lens, we ended up spending 3 hours taking pictures of flowers!

In addition to the flowers, it turns out I provided the other tourists there another attraction -- my camera lens. Couple typical reactions:

1. Oh wow, look at that lens
Mson stands with camera, and snaps away at pictures. Onlookers with DLSRs walk by, admires the tulips. Sees the lens, admires the lens as well...

2a. What the heck is that guy standing there for?...
Mson stands at a the tulip bush, onlooker sees Mson, wonders why he is standing there. Traces where Mson's looking, sees a camera, then looks back and forth between the two and has the expression "really?!?!?!"

2b. What the heck is that guy standing there for? (Part II)...
To get a better picture, cameramen extends the lens, onlooker sees this and realizes the answer to 2a, that it is possible. 2a's expression is now replaced by "wtf..."

Link to pictures at:
Link to Pictures