Playing Tourist in NYC

In addition to visiting the Met, we spent a lot of time seeing other tourist sites in NYC, since our family from Taiwan had never been before! Here are a few of the sites we visited:

The view from the bottom of Rockefeller Center

The view from the top of Rockefeller Center - look how expansive Central Park is!

Washington Square lit up at night - since we were there right after the NYU commencement, the place was flooded with graduates and their families. The Empire State building was also lit up in purple as a tribute to the new grads - very cool!

Central Park Observatory - at the very northeast corner of the park, and where we celebrated Bryan and Sandy's wedding! 

A montage of pictures from Highline Park - a very cool and unique juxtaposition to Central Park!

China: Through the Looking Glass

One of our first stops in New York was the Met, even though we were just there in October. There was a special exhibit going on this time that I wanted to check out - China: Through the Looking Glass. My favorite part of the exhibit was the Chinese-inspired haute couture. The dresses were absolutely gorgeous - especially the blue and white ones designed by Chanel! If only I lived the sort of life where I could afford these dresses and have somewhere fabulous to wear them to...

Back in the Big Apple

Enjoying this view for the next few days...

New York Day 3: 911 Museum and Memorial

In between days 2 and 3 in New York, we spent a day out in New Jersey to attend our friend Mei's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding at the Mansion on Main St - I love how weddings are a great excuse for everyone to get together. We had so much fun catching up with college friends with good food and good music. 

The morning after the wedding, we drove back to New York to spend a few hours at the 9/11 Museum and Memorial with Bryan. We purchased tickets online beforehand but we still had to wait a a bit to get into the museum, as they were fairly strict with crowd control. We were an hour late for our reserved ticket time but they still let us in anyway.

I had already moved away from New York by the time 9/11 happened and thank God I don't have any friends or family that were hurt in the attacks. Because of that, a part of me has always felt like I didn't have the right to be as affected and grieved by the events of that day. This visit to the museum was probably the first time I felt deeply affected and emotional about 9/11.

We would have liked to spend more time at the museum but we had to catch a flight back home to SFO. We definitely cut it close, as we didn't make it to the gate until 6:11pm for our 6:24pm flight. While I don't recommend it, I think it shows that we're good at making the most of our time, even down to the last minute. I can't wait to go back to New York and visit another European destination "on the way"! 

New York Day 2: Old friends and the Met

Jeff and I woke up on Day 2 and headed straight to Come Buy Tea in the Flatiron district for our morning caffeine fix. I love how so many of these Taiwanese tea chains are aggressively expanding into the US - it means that we have more access to authentic tea! From 28th St, we made our way up to midtown for lunch. Jeff was wary about walking 15+ blocks but I reminded him that walking was our only form of exercise while we were on vacation. I'm so glad we didn't end up getting unlimited ride Metrocards. The weather was fantastic and it was fun to share bits and pieces of my New York past with Jeff as we walked. 

We met up with my dear friend Lulu from middle and high school (we go way back!) at Sakagura. I was eager to try their uni soba special - they only have 7 servings per day so I was worried that they would run out! I guess I didn't need to worry, as the dish was just okay. Their chocolate souffle and sesame creme brulee are fantastic though. It was so nice to catch up with Lulu - she just gave birth to an adorable baby girl so I appreciated her taking time out of her crazy schedule to meet us.

After lunch, Jeff and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have really fond memories of the Met, as it was a popular school trip destination when I was young. My favorite memory of the Met was when I came with a group of friends as part of a 7th grade art project. Ms. Rich sent us on a scavenger hunt to find various works of Japanese art throughout the Met. I was so bad at drawing that Ms. Rich couldn't identify my sketches of the art exhibits and gave me an A-. I had to do an extra credit assignment to earn my A for that class, as an A- just wasn't going to cut it for my tiger mom. 

Jeff and I spent quite a bit of time in the Japanese art exhibit as I reminisced about Ms. Rich's scavenger hunt through the Yamato-e period. It's only now that I appreciate what an awesome teacher she was and how I was able to learn art history at a world-class museum! We were also particularly interested in American art, as we see a lot of European and Asian art in our travels.

Once we finished up at the museum, we took the train to Flushing to Andrew and Laurie's to meet their new baby. After admiring their son, we walked over to Joe Shanghai to meet Jack for dinner. Jack, Andrew, and I were all violinists in an orchestra together in high school and have been friends since we were 14. It's crazy to think that we're now wives, husbands, and in some cases, parents!

In my biased opinion, Joe Shanghai has some of the best soup dumplings I've ever had in the US. I used to eat here all the time when I was younger, so I'm sure the familiarity and comfort contribute to my affinity for the food here. 

After dinner, we went to the Rose House for dessert. This place is clean, quiet, and fancy by Flushing standards so the prices are rather steep. The desserts were average but I did enjoy the tea, even if it was $12/pot. The company and conversation was silly, hilarious, and awesome and you can't put a price on that.

The older I am, the more I appreciate the people who knew me when I was younger. Does that just mean I'm getting older? :) 

New York Day 1: Xi'an Famous Foods, Momofuku Ma Peche, and Midtown Madness

After saying goodbye to Italy, we hopped onto a plane and arrived at JFK in the early afternoon. We weren't in a rush and our bags were relatively light, so we took the Airtrain and subway to Bryan's Upper East Side apartment. We fought the temptation to nap and headed out for lunch at Xi'an Famous Foods in midtown. We got two bowls of spicy, tingly beef hand torn noodles and a mild cucumber salad. I love super spicy Asian foods and chewy noodles so this was heaven for me! Just a warning though - if you're unaccustomed to very spicy Asian cuisine, your stomach might not enjoy the food here as much as I do.

Afterwards, we took a walk through midtown, snapping some pictures as we passed by Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's cathedral, and Grand Central Station. We had a lot of fun relaying silly messages to each other at the Whispering Ach in Grand Central. We also stopped by Tiffany's for a ring cleaning. Tiffany's now charges $50/item for polishing now...yikes! We got the complimentary cleaning for our rings and opted out of the polishing, convincing ourselves that it was better that our rings remain scuffed but retain more platinum. :)

(photo credit: Tiffany & Co.)

I grew up in New York City so every time I come back, I take it all in with a wistful nostalgia. I definitely took all these iconic New York attractions for granted when I was young! Unfortunately those happy nostalgic feelings quickly faded when we had an unfortunate incident in front of the Plaza hotel. Some crazy woman accosted me, started screaming at me for "getting into her space", and jabbed me hard in my collarbone with her elbow. To be fair, this is my first time getting violently attacked in New York so this isn't a common occurrence. As a New Yorker, you never want to aggravate the situation by fighting back, so we quickly sprinted "out of her space" and into safety at the next block.

We had dinner with Bryan at Momofuku Ma Peche. I was excited that Ma Peche takes reservations so that we could try some of the Momofuku favorites without waiting in line. Ma Peche is supposed to be dimsum style but the carts don't come around very often and the service is extremely slow (but friendly). I  didn't love their famous pork buns or jalapeno fried chicken but I was a big fan of the lobster fried rice and broccoli salad. We also tried some crack pie, a compost cookie, and a blueberry cookie from Milk Bar. Interesting but nothing super unique or out of this world. I love sweets but I don't think my palette for cookies and pies is that discerning, so I'm probably the wrong person to judge!

 After a day of aimless wandering and delicious eats, we treated ourselves to long, hot showers and some long-awaited sleep. Thank goodness the Upper East Side is pretty quiet. It's funny to think that you can have some relative peace and quiet in Manhattan. Crazy lady incident aside, I do love the culture, diversity, and uniqueness in every corner of New York. It's definitely a change of pace from the suburbs of Silicon Valley!

Italy: Flight and Hotels

I'm finally back home and ready to blog about our trip. Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast have been on our list for awhile - beautiful coastline, Italian cuisine, and discounted designer handbags are my ultimate vacation trifecta!

When we found out we were going to New York for a wedding this fall, I started poking around on Kayak to see what kind of flight deals I could get from New York to Europe. When I saw that Meridiana Airlines had direct flights from JFK to Naples to $685, I knew I had to jump on it. Not only is $685 an amazing deal, but I had done some research and knew that this flight itinerary would be the easiest, fastest way to get to Sorrento. From Naples, you can take a train, bus, ferry, or taxi to Sorrento - we took a taxi and it was about 75 minutes. Direct flights from anywhere in the US to Naples are extremely rare, so most people fly into Rome, take a one-hour train ride to Naples, and then find another mode of transport to Sorrento. On top of that, there aren't any direct flights from SFO to Rome, making the trip that much longer and more painful! So given that we were going to be New York anyway, we knew we had to make this trip happen.

For those who are finicky about their travels, be warned - Meridiana is a very simple budget airline with old planes. Our flight didn't have personal TVs for each seat and the meals were rather sparse. While this isn't an ideal experience for a 9 hour flight, it was totally worth it to me, as I had plenty of books on my tablet to keep me occupied. I also bring my own food on long flights, as I absolutely cannot stand the smell of airplane food. For me, I just need the flight to be safe and relatively on time - we'd flown them before from Milan to Santorini and the experience had fulfilled both criteria.

I had researched a lot of options for getting from Naples to Sorrento (do you see a pattern here with the obsessive research?). The train, ferry, and bus options didn't work for us because we were getting into Naples airport at 6am and they didn't start running until 9am so I reluctantly started looking into taxi and shuttle options. Luckily, I came across Seahorse Car Service and reserved a door-to-door shuttle for 25 euros per person. They said that the first shuttle wouldn't leave until 7:30am but our driver arrived at 7:10am so it wasn't too bad. We were lucky enough to be the only passengers that morning so we were the only stop! This was definitely a steal, since all the taxis quoted me at least 100 euros per ride (but normally more). I would highly recommend them!

As for hotels, I started looking about 5 weeks before our trip and found out that a lot of hotels were already fully booked. I was pretty horrified to learn that of the hotel rooms that were still available, the average price was $250-300/night. Anything nicer and more comfortable was easily double that price, and a fair number of hotel rooms went for $1,000+/night. I was so discouraged at these prices, I almost started to regret booking the tickets. At this point, I went on Airbnb to see what the options were. Even on Airbnb, a lot of hosts apologetically replied to let me know that they were already booked for my dates. Luckily, we found a newly renovated 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment available in a great location for only $190/night! Let me know if you would like the info - I would happily recommend this apartment and would definitely stay there again if Jeff and I were lucky enough to go back to Sorrento one day.

Bay of Naples, September 2014