Last Wednesday Jeff and I flew out on my b-day (yeah!) to Manhattan, New York. The main purpose of the trip was to It was a little surreal to wake up early and spend most of the day on the plane. Once we landed it was a little rainy but good to be at our destination. Jeff’s friend Mark lives near Grand Central Station which made it super convenient to stay at. Lucky for us, he was in the process of moving in with his girlfriend Akiko which left us full run of his apartment. We dropped off our luggage and gear and took a quick walk over to have some yummy Korean Tofu Soup at Seoul Garden, which was nice after eating nothing but snacks on the plane ride over.
Until the model shoot on Sunday, we spent a lot of time wandering around the city. The crazy thing is that it was pretty warm at the start of the trip which made all of our cold weather gear look silly. However as the trip moved on, it started to cool down a lot and the rain moved in. Next time we’re definitely packing 50/50 on the cold and warm weather clothes. Mark and Akiko played tour guide for us after they were off work and on weekends. We went to different parts of the city and saw a variety of different things. Chinatown was humongous compared to what is here in the Bay Area and LA. Block after block of touristy stuff and other interesting shops. Times Square was very bright and flashy. Jeff said that it reminded him of Las Vegas with all of the big signs and large crowds of people. We went through this area a lot since it was only 20 minutes walk from the apartment. There was also a park that was build on an old train track that went over the city streets. Really cool to be walking around for a few blocks and being able to get shots of the streets and people around.
The food was really good out and let me get off on a little side talk about Starbucks and Chase. It seems that almost every other block had at least a Starbucks or Chase. It worked out for our advantage and was really convenient but it begs the discussion on is there really that much demand that there have to be so many of these stores in one area? Anyway, the food was pretty fab. Jeff’s favorite was the gargantuan pastrami sandwich on rye that he split with Mark at lunch from the Carnegie Deli. There was literally 4 inches worth of meat. The yakitori at Yakitori Totto was super delicious and the sushi at Sushiyasuda was great with wide selection of fish. They offer 4-5 different kind of salmon from different countries. My favorite was the unagi, that was really the best unagi (and most expensive) that I’ve ever tasted in my life !
me @ Central Park
Giant tulips by the Apple store. Photo by Jeff
M&M World
Shanghainese dumplings
Inside the Museum of Chinese American. David Ho and his team developed the HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy), the gold standard for AIDS treatment today
I never thought Bing cherries are related to Ah Bing!
@ Highline Park, one of the coolest parks that I’ve been. The entire park was converted by out-of use railroad, suspended above the city
To be continued…
my daddy
