back from new york!

hello hello everyone! we're back from New York! ok so we got back Sunday night but it takes me a while to get things back into the normal flow of things. New York was GREAT! and freezing! I honestly didn't expect it to be as cold as it was. I'll upload my pictures tonight when I get home (hopefully) so be sure to check back if there aren't pictures in this post!

Flying a redeye by myself wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I met up with some coworkers beforehand for a quick bite to eat and then headed over to Long Beach Airport (and got lost on the way, but what else is new!). The flight went by pretty quick - I slept most of the way - and chatted with the guy next to me - who had graduated from Berkeley also! He was an American Literature major though, so I definitely probably didn't know him while I was there. I didn't even watch my own little TV - I just wanted to sleep.

Here's me and Juliet - we don't actually work together but she works at Boeing in Seattle and she travels to HB alot for work. A friend introduced us a couple years ago and we've been friends ever since! She's an EE like me and we both share the same interest in .. video games!! hehe. We especially like getting together for the Berry burst cider at BJs! :) Got in at JFK before 6am (it was still dark!) and bravely navigated myself to a different terminal via the AirTrain to meet up with Kareen/Andy who were set to arrive at 7am. No getting lost this time! After they got here, we jumped into a cab and headed to our hotel in Manhattan - the Holiday Inn Express. TINY hotel! Last year Will and I stayed at the Affinia Manhattan which was literally 1-2 blocks away and our room was probably 3x the size AND came with a kitchen and cheaper too! Although last year we didn't wait until last minute to book... so no one to blame but ourselves. After checking in our luggage, we headed over to Pastis for breakfast (a favorite of kareen's) where we had a REALLY expensive breakfast. My apple juice was $5! But boy was my Eggs Benedict yummy. I was pretty tired though. Then we walked around to the Greenwich Village area and hung out at Washington Square park and watched all the dogs and squirrels!

Here's one of those Jedi Post Office boxes on the corner near Times Square that we saw:
Will got in about 10:30am and met us at Magnolia Bakery after dropping off his luggage where we bought (yum!) Banana pudding, cupcakes and cookies. I love their banana pudding - I can never get enough of it! Next we headed over to Chinatown to eat at Joe's Shanghai - the most delicious soup dumplings! Will loves soup dumplings already, so he was especially happy with that. Then we walked around Times Square for a while before heading back to the hotel, getting changed, and heading over to the NBC Studios to watch a taping of the Conan O'Brian! That was actually pretty awesome - Conan is SOO tall in person, and VERY pale. we had good seats and were really close to him when he came to talk to the audience before the show started. Highlight? - he actually interacted with Andy! He started dancing with him so Andy got up and danced back! Then Conan was like - " hm, there's this strange sexual tension between Andy and me. Who thinks Andy and I should hug?" Everyone cheered so they did! It was awesome! then Conan was like, who thinks Andy and Max Weinberg should hug!? And Andy got to go down onto the stage and hug Max Weinberg and Max gave him his drumsticks!! It was so crazy - I wish we were allowed to take pictures! It was very exciting. :) Anyway, the guests were Liv Tyler and Gerard Butler (from 300).

The wristband that we all had to wear to stand in line:
All the people waiting in line: Waiting in line! We were very excited :)By the end of the taping, I was about to doze off. Seriously, exhausted. We hopped in a cab and headed back to te hotel where we had maybe 15-20 minutes to change and rest a bit before we headed off to meet friends at this Korean BBQ restaurant (hm I forget the name but I'll add it here later). It was SO good. At first, I was like - korean bbq? Strange thing to eat in New York - but hey - we had great Chinese soup dumplings for lunch! Met up with Mikey and Laurie - a very nice married couple (Mikey is one of Andy's frat brothers) and ate a TON of korean bbq. They have these dinners for 2 that have an enormous amount of meat. I don't even know how we finished it - but we did!

check out the amount of meat we got - this was just between me and Will! Afterwards we headed over to bar (hm the name reminded me of a play on the Central Park -"Central Perk" but something bar-related). Will and I stayed for a bit before we headed back to the hotel first (yes I'm boring - but I was tired and I can't drink anyway!!). It was GREAT getting back to the hotel and showering and getting ready for bed. Ahhh - what a full day!

Kareen, Laurie, Mikey and Andy. Doing a jager bomb! It was semi-weird being near jager bombs and not being able to join in. heh. I think I've forgotten completely what alcohol tastes like...Saturday morning, Will headed down early to bring us some breakfast from the Continental Breakfast offered. Its actually much more than your normal coffee/muffins - there were eggs, and cereal, and hash browns, and bacon, etc etc. Main thing? - custard filled chocolate donuts! oh YUM! We were all so worn out from the day before that none of us were up to getting dressed and actually heading downstairs to eat there.

How yummy eh? Ok the fact that it was free made it that much yummier. :)

We started out the day by heading over to the American Museum of History next to Central Park. I've been wanting to visit ever since watching "Night at the Museum". Ticket prices are "recommendations" and something crazy like $14 or something per person. We waited in line and I told the person we'd like to pay $5 for a ticket since we were only going to be there an hour or so. Imagine my surprise when he said ok and charged us $5 for FOUR tickets! what a BARGAIN! We walked around the museum - definitely more interesting than the MET since we didn't have that much time and I get pretty bored looking at paintings if I don't really know the history. We looked hard for that Jade Dragon that was walking around in the movie, but only found a little tiny one. boo!

Only the outside looked like the movie - everything inside was different.
Kareen and me in front of the Asian elephants! I thought this display was really funny - if you look closely at the top right, there's a little genie on a magic carpet!
After the museum, we walked around Central Park for a while and visited Strawberry Fields before catching a cab over to the Times Square Marriot Marquis to wait in line for the TKTS booth to get Broadway tickets for that night. Man the line was long - and we got there at like 2pm and the booth doesn't even open until 3pm! Good thing people were nice and let my pregnant person sit. :) We wanted to see Spamalot but no luck. We ended up getting tickets for HairSpray which I had heard great things about but not exactly top on my list. But oh well! We headed back to the hotel (pit stop in Times Square's Bubba Gumps for some YUMMMY shrimp!) and had some time to rest before heading out to dinner at Harrison's. We couldn't get reservations but when we called they said that if we came when they opened (5:30pm) we'd be able to get a table. Yay lucky us! This place was very fancy - and I got this delicious sweet pea risotto. It was SO good. I also got this scallop ceviche but realized too late that ceviche means raw of some sort - and no raw seafood for me! sheesh. oh well.

Yes, I do look pregnant huh. Especially that picture with Will! I am 6 months pregnant here - so I guess its to be expected!


This was the TKTS line. It sucked!
Yum! Kareen/Andy have a special connection with Bubba Gumps - they've been to so many of them around the US! This shrimp was super yummy - we practically inhaled it!
mmm my sweet pea risotto. I was so stuffed afterwards - I LOVE risotto!!
The show was not bad - entertaining - but our tickets weren't really that great - but it was a fun experience anyway. After the show we headed to this place in SoHo called "Room 4 Dessert" that a friend had recommended. Totally a fancy dessert place! It was very different from different desserts - I had a basil brioche among my tasting platter. Kareen had apricots in her chocolate glass! It was definitely fun to try something new though. After that we headed over to East Village to Life Cafe (as featured in the Broadway show Rent that Kareen loves) where we hung out (I had nachos!). By the time we left Life Cafe it was like 2am and we were pretty exhausted. Talk about full days!

The place was really small - and really narrow! Basically it was a long bar going all the way down with just enough room behind to walk by. They were super busy - and it was already late at night! The handful of people working there were all relatively young - college+ ? And mostly Asian too. It seemed like it was one person making all the desserts, and she was right in front of us so we got to watch her make everything!Our dessert - I can't even remember what it was - it was such an unusual combination.
Not sure if you can read the menu - hopefully it'll give you an idea of how totally different from any dessert place this place was!
Sunday we checked out of our room and then headed over to Joe's Shanghai again for lunch. Can't help it - its so delicious! Twice in one weekend! We totally were craving those dumplings again. This place is seriously always packed - by Chinese people AND tourists! Although Chinatown in NY is similar to Chinatown in SF - they all seem pretty much the same.

The waiter seriously gave us a crazy look when the 4 of us ordered SIX baskets of the soup dumplings. And we had no problem finishing them at all!
Afterwards we stopped by this place called "Max Brenner - Chocolate by the Bald Man" where we had gotten recommendations that they had great frozen hot chocolates. This place was PACKED and totally reminded me of Ghiradelli's. FULL of chocolate! I wouldn't say the chocolate was THAT great, and the chocolate waffle plate we got tasted a little off and salty. The frozen hot chocoloate we got just seemed like a really thick shake. Next time we'll have to go to Serendipity! This was our last stop before heading back to the hotel and heading to the airport.

One of the many many many taxi rides we took that weekend - we only took taxis! The subway overwhelms me in NY for some reason - I have a fear of us getting lost!
yum pure chocolate!
what a trip! You may be wondering why we didn't do any of the touristy stuff - but we all went last year and did all that stuff already! So it was definitely nice to go to New York and be able to actually just enjoy the city and not have to cram in all this touristy stuff. All in all- it was a great trip! I'm so glad we went - and am really satisfied with our little "Baby-moon!".

hm.. wonder if there's time for one more trip before the baby gets here... heehee just kidding Will! :)

oh on the baby note - last night we were watching TV and the baby kicked (which is very normal now) but this time I actually saw my stomach move ALOT! usually its like a twitch and stuff but this time my whole stomach top moved! The best part was that Will saw it too! He poked his finger on my belly and the baby kicked back at his finger a couple times! I was totally tickled pink. It was too adorable. :)