Category: Traveling

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Today began with a visit to the famous “Sylvia’s” for some fried chicken. Since it was breakfast time, I got it with a couple eggs, while Bay ordered his chicken with collard greens and mashed potatoes. I’m not a huge fan of the greens but Bay almost finished his whole serving. Impressive! The fried chicken was pretty good, but I definitely prefer Japanese karaage.

After that, we took the subway to another heavyweight of the New York City museum scene: The American Museum of Natural History. This is such a huge museum (like The Met), with so many things to see that it can be overwhelming. We started with the space movie and learned about dark matter and the expanding universe then moved on to the animal exhibits. Some of those were amazing, especially the big cats. We’re so used to our little housecats that seeing a full-size tiger is stunning!

Next, it was on to the human civilizations, from early man all the way to the present day. And in a complete about-face, we went to prehistoric times and viewed the dinosaur exhibits. Talk about huge creatures! The giant sloth bones were particularly impressive and monster-like.

But just when we thought we had seen some large creatures, we saw the largest of all, the Blue Whale dominating the Ocean Life room.

This iconic museum is a must-see, but the facilities are definitely showing their age. The lighting in the older sections of the museum is really dim and some of the light bulbs were burnt out in a few of the exhibits. Not good! Still, we’re happy to have visited.

I think we were ready to see some art at that point, so we trekked it across Central Park to the Guggenheim to see the Giacometti exhibit. It was great to see his sculptures, but honestly, there were so many that looked very similar that it was difficult to understand the significance of one work vs another.

When we left the Guggenheim, we were getting hungry so we found a little place called Marinara Pizza and ordered up a few slices. I went with two plain cheese slices, while Bay got a Buffalo chicken slice and a Margherita slice. He wasn’t too fond of his, but I thought mine were great… a real taste of New York City!

We were close to the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum so we decided to check it out before it closed. We were impressed with how cool it was! Lots of really neat retro industrial and product designs were on display, plus some cutting-edge accessibility and mobility designs were shown. Upstairs the exhibits were more interactive, involving all senses (except taste). Bay and I had a lot of fun in the museum, and we recommend it. A bonus was that when we visited, admission was by donation.

A cool thing at this museum is that they give you an electronic “pen” that you use to scan different exhibits that interest you. This saves the information to your own personalized webpage, so you can view the designs later on a computer by typing in the code that is on your admission ticket. Here are my saved exhibits: qxjys. Really convenient!

We stayed until the museum closed and when we went outside, the rain had started, so we made our way to the subway and back home. Another fun day!　I am exhausted, but satisfied. And I am keeping up with my 17-year-old son just fine so far. I actually started running again in preparation for this trip and I think it’s paying off. 😀

おやすみ！

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こんばんは。How’s it going?

Well, Bay and I made it to New York City! It was a super-early flight out of Austin (thanks Mariko for the early drop-off) but went without a hitch and we arrived at JFK on-time. For most of this trip we will be staying at Airbnbs but we decided to splurge for one night and stay in a fancy hotel, The Roosevelt near Grand Central Station.

Our first adventure was getting from the airport to the hotel by train, but with instructions from a friend and Google Maps, it was pretty easy. The only tricky part was getting a MetroCard because you need a card to exit the AirTrain but we weren’t able to use that card for our regular 7-day unlimited passes. We had to buy new cards at the Jamaica Station and charge them up with the unlimited rides. 🚇

But after that, it was smooth sailing to our station, and then finally walking up the stairs for Bay’s first glimpse of the city from ground level. It was pretty cool! The photo above is from right outside the steps where we exited the subway. 😲

We found our way to the hotel and dropped off our bags (it was too early to check in to the room) and then went for lunch at a Teppen Ramen. 🍜

Bellys full, we wandered up to the Fifth Ave. Apple Store. Bay really wants a Macbook Pro but they are so expensive! Really beautiful, though. We’ll see… The store was really cool though!

Leaving the Apple Store, we were greeted with a scene that warmed my heart:

Oh, and we were right by the Trump Tower, which has barricades around it and police with serious-looking weaponry all around the entrance. There were a bunch of black SUVs and other official-looking vehicles, so I imagine Melania was home. It felt like we were near a source of great evil… 👿

After that we visited the Uniqlo and checked out the clothes and even got some Keith Haring stickers.

Although this Uniqlo is the “flagship”, I didn’t think it was so great and I was pretty disappointed. They didn’t have a lot of different clothes, mostly a lot of collaboration t-shirts. But we’ll check out the SoHo location later since our Airbnb we’ll stay at is close by.

Next up was a trip to the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center to check out the view. It was pretty amazing up there! Since rain is in the forecast for the following week we decided to get the spectacular view in today while the skies were clear. It was amazing! 🏙️

Next, it was time to check in to our room at The Roosevelt and relax a bit. Our room wasn’t fancy or anything special so I guess it might be good for a business traveler (we saw a bunch of Japanese businessmen checking in) but really not great for tourists. Super location though!

By this time, we were getting hungry again and there are a lot of Japanese restaurants nearby so we had katsu at Katsu-hama.

And I couldn’t resist the happy hour beer! 🍺

When we left the restaurant it was dark but we ventured over to the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge and walked back towards Manhattan. It was great! The whole island of Manhattan was gleaming and walking under the American flag filled me with a bit of pride. 🇺🇸

Well, that’s it for the day! A long but fantastic start to our vacation.

またね～

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