Cindy wanted an iPad for some time now, for both fun and work reasons – she has a lot of video lectures that she needs to watch, so she needed some portable device she can use for that. And because I like nothing more than seeing her happy – and I of all people know how happy one is when getting a cool new gadget – I got her one.

Not without some trouble, ofc, since the darn thing is completely sold out, even 3 months after its release. It’s like everybody in New York City wants one. So after trying every single Apple store in the city I ended up ordering it online. It took 2 weeks but I finally got it.

Should go without saying that my girl was extremely happy with her gift, and spent most of the time we were home playing with it. Which wasn’t that much actually, since every day we went out.

Sunday we met some of Cindy’s friends for brunch. After – since they wanted something refreshing to drink – I took them to a bubble tea place. Where we ended staying for more then 2 hours, because right when we were about to leave I met up with Linh and another friend who were craving some as well. So we switched the group of friends and had some more with them.

Later we stopped by a small “beach” on the edge of the East River for some drinks and a nice view of the sunset. The place was crowded since there aren’t many places in NYC where you can get sand, beach towels and… fake coconut trees.

On Moday afternoon Cindy had a surprise of her own reserved for me: she booked a cruise on a sail boat around the New York bay area while being served sushi from a famous chef. We were on the boat for about two hours enjoying the great view and – of course – the fish. After the sunset – which we watched by the Statue of Liberty – they took us back to the city.

Here are some pictures from that great weekend:

4th of July Weekend

The pictures can be found at the usual place.

We started on the hangar deck, where we learned about the ship’s history – from WW2 and throughout the Cold War – and how an aircraft carrier operates. Very interesting to see the advancement in design through the years and how many planes they can fit on one ship.

On the flight deck there were a bunch of Vietnam and Cold War-era planes and helicopters, including a Blackbird and a Super Tomcat. We also climbed in the navigation and command towers and checked out maps of the NY Harbor.

After the main ship we visited the Concorde they have there – which was pretty unimpressive – and the submarine. I had been inside one before – I visited Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, at the naval museum in Mystic, CT – but it was nice nevertheless. It had 4 huge pods to store its nuclear missiles.

The guests left with some cool souvenirs: mini metallic planes and helicopters, very cutesy-looking. Should have got some myself.

On Sunday it was nice out so we headed out into the city. I already had a route planned – I’ve used it before when showing NYC to visitors – so we started at the south-east corner of Central Park and made our way downwards. Fifth Avenue, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, the works. We stopped at a few stores – notably Saks, Nintendo World and Toys ‘R Us – and then from Times Square we headed towards Grand Central.

By this time we already got hungry and started looking for a place to eat. Sadly, we were right in between the lunch and dinner times, when – most of – the restaurants are closed. We ended up having some chips and fruits in a small green space somewhere on 3rd Avenue. Fortunately we made up for it by having dinner at an all-you-can eat sushi buffet where we had our fill.

We spent Monday downtown, around my work place. I took them to see Wall Street and around Financial District, South Street Seaport and City Hall. Around 5 we headed toward the Empire State Building since the guys – experienced photographers – wanted to get up there about an hour before sunset in order to get the best lighting possible. Surprisingly there was almost no line, so we ended at the top much faster than I expected. We spent about 30 minutes up there, shivering from the chilly wind while taking lots and lots of pictures.

For dinner we headed over to a Korean barbecue place and afterward I had them try out some delicious frozen yogurt. Naturally, they loved it. We ended the night in the city by going up on 230 Fifth – the lounge with a beautiful view of the Empire State Building – and sampling some local drinks.

Tuesday I was hoping to get back around Brooklyn Bridge and get to cross it, since we didn’t have enough time the previous day. As it turned out, we still didn’t get to it.

We started the day from Union Square and made our way down toward St. Mark’s Place. We stopped at a bubble tea place since they wanted to know what the fuss is all about – I kept mentioning it almost every time we were chatting over IM. The verdict was an unanimous thumbs-up

After LES we wasted a lot of time in the SoHo shops – I figured I owed the girl some shopping she’ll be interested in (after dragging her through gadgets and comic book stores) – and then went further down through Little Italy and Chinatown. We had lunch there, this making it the third time we had Asian food since they got here (pretty much every time except breakfast), followed by more bubble tea (I told you they liked it) and – in one case – a delicious Dulce Split Dazzler from Haagen-Dazs.

Stuffed, we headed back home. At 8 we had tickets for a Broadway show so we needed some time to change. We got back to midtown a bit early and we took another stroll around Times Square before the show started.

The play was… ok. For some reason I remembered it to be better somehow, which is why I wanted them to see it (still, it was my backup choice, after Avenue Q closed its doors). They seemed to have liked it, at least some of them. After the show we stayed in the neighborhood to sample some of the city’s night life

I’ve got a few phone pics, I’ll upload/link the rest – much better ones – when I get them from their cameras.

Today we had planned a visit to one of the museums – Natural History or MET – and since I’ve seen them so many times recently I decided to let them by themselves and come to work to save on vacation days. I’ll meet them afterward and we’ll probably have dinner at a good burger place around here. After three days of Far-East food, it’s time they experience some American cuisine. At an Irish pub

It all started with a friend’s post on Yelp (a review site on almost anything, but mostly restaurants and bars) that mentioned a place in Flushing where they served chicken wings, stuffed with all kinds of interesting things. The post included this link (warning, clicking it will get you hungry!), which was all I needed to convince me I have to try it.

After almost two weeks of bugging the hell out of her, we finally managed to get a group going to the place. And it was well worth it…

There’s no point describing how good everything was since there’s nothing I can say that you can’t see in those pictures I linked before. I mean, chicken wings, broiled (I assume), stuffed with veggies, kimchi and shrimp(!) and covered in spices. What more could you possibly want? Add to it a slushy alcoholic drink – Soju – which I had for the first time. And second time, since we didn’t stop at the first pitcher (strawberry) and we ordered another one (apple).

We have some pictures, courtesy of Helena. Definitely a great place, I will go there again. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, when my friends from Romania will get here.

I woke up pretty early on Saturday and because of that I found myself falling asleep after noon. Around 3 PM my nap was interrupted by the gentle sound of a drill-hammer right outside my window. A ConEd truck was parked in front of my building and the guys were breaking up the pavement (later I found out it was about replacing a leaking gas pipe, so I guess it’s a good thing they’re doing it). I took it as a sign to get out of the house and enjoy the rest of the day out.

My plan was to go to Central Park and do some reading, but first I took a quick detour to Chinatown for some bubble tea. There was a place I haven’t been in over a year that had some great mango tea and good, cheap food – even by local standards (there’s cheap, and then there’s Chinatown cheap). I ended up paying less than $10 for food that could have easily satisfied 2 people, plus my mango bubble tea.

The “quick” detour ended up to last about 2 hours, with me walking afterwards from Chinatown up to Union Square. There were a lot of street fairs along the way, on Spring street, Prince and a bigger one on 4th avenue. I left the latter with a corn on a cob, which for some reason reminds me of my childhood summers at my grandparent’s place.

Around 7 I finally got to the park and camped on a bench close to a cross-street. Which made for an interesting experience, since I could overhear the horse-and-carriage drivers telling NY stories to the tourists they were carrying. I learned a few things about the park’s history and some of the many movies it’s been in. I left a little after 8, since it got too dark for me to read.

Back home the ConEd workers were still there, still noisy. It looked like a good time to pay a visit to my cousin, who keeps asking me to come crash at his place in Jersey for a change (he comes to Astoria almost every weekend). So I packed some extra clothes and headed out.

I already have a long list of places to take them to, from touristy spots to places I found and fell in love with. NY has so many of them! I’ll take them see a Broadway show – which I guess is a must for a first-time visit here – and while it won’t be my first choice (Avenue Q, which sadly will close its doors before they get here) it’ll still be one of the more successful ones (it’s Chicago, btw). We have set a trip to Six Flags – one of my favorite spots – and a one-day trip to Washington D.C. We’ll fill the rest with as much NY exploring as possible, strolling the city around the day and sampling it’s nightlife afterwards. At least that’s my plan, we’ll see how much they will want to hold on to it.

I also plan on stuffing them like turkeys, since I’ve been compiling a list of all the awesome food, dessert & drinks places I have found in the past 4 years and I want them to try as many of them as possible. This city is a melting pot of cuisines and it will be a pity to miss on many of them.

Yay, can’t wait!