Late Summer Two-Week Diary

I'm tired mentally and physically... and my wallet is, too!

There is so much to say about the past two weeks of my life, I really have no way of summarizing it but to go through what happened with day-to-day coverage. It all began the weekend before my birthday and ended just yesterday when a good friend of mine went back to Asia after spending the same amount of time in New York.

With my birthday lunch as well as a close friend visiting from Singapore, there were a lot of activities in between. I feel like it was a wonderful two weeks and there is bound to be more downtime over the next month or so as I settle in to a more normal daily routine.

But in any case, I really enjoyed being around close family and friends, and realize that it's really the people that make the place memorable, not the place itself. If you are able to read until the end of this post, thank you very much! It took me well over an hour and a half to type everything up!

Sunday, Aug 3 --

Ria visits from Philly for my cousin's wedding the following day. I met her in Penn Station then head over to TriBeCa to meet Seng for dinner. We ate at some Japanese restaurant where the randomest of conversations occured with another patron in the same restaurant.

Monday, Aug 4 --

My birthday. Facebook is probably the most interesting thing to happen in terms of birthday reminders. Several close friends wrote, and thank you if you were one of them! But what was more interesting were those who I haven't heard from in ages.

My cousin and his fiance also decided to have their wedding on the same day as my birthday. It was a comedy of errors in the beginning, but everyone seemed happy at the end of the event. Food was great for a wedding and it was a free spectacle for the guests, so that was ok with me.

Tuesday, Aug 5 --

Ria leaves for Philly in the morning. It was back to work for me. For dinner, I had lunch with Jared, Richie, Nancy, and Lisa. We ate in a really cheap but trendy and delicious Thai restaurant called Song in Park Slope. After dinner involved simply talking the night away at a local Starbucks.

Wednesday, Aug 6 --

Met up for dinner with Joyce, Cami, Donald and Julia at Men Kui Tei in Midtown Manhattan. It was comfort Japanese food at cheap prices. After that, we had dessert at Ben and Jerry's in Times Square.

Thursday, Aug 7 --

Again, another dinner with Joyce, Cami and Julia. This time, we ate at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park in Manhattan. This NYC institution has really long lines and delicious burgers. It was also a beautiful day and we ended up having frozen yogurt for dessert while walking all the way to Krystle's place 30 blocks uptown! There we spent the rest of the night just hanging out, as I subjected myself to a girls' bonding session. It ended at around midnight and I got back home around 1 AM the next day.

Friday, Aug 8 --

Met up with Joyce and Cami in the Wall Street area while waiting for the rain to stop so we could cross the Brooklyn Bridge. It was beautiful and no wonder is it a New York must-see. Since the opening ceremonies of the Olympics were showing on TV, we decided to turn the night into a stay-in and cook dinner thing. We had roasted lamb with rice while watching the spectacular opening ceremonies on TV.

Saturday, Aug 9 --

This was the big day that was scheduled as a joint-birthday lunch party at Todai between me, Cricket and Greg. We invited several of our close friends in NYC and it was a total of about 22 people! Thank for those who came: Ria, Richie, Joyce, Cami, Krystle, Sean, Jared, Nancy, Duday, Donald, Seng, Anna, Mark (+friends), and Cricket's friends. Thanks also to Cricket and Greg for planning this out!

After brunch, I hung out with Joyce, Cami, Krystle, Donald, and Sean in the most interesting place I've been to have fantastic hot chocolate: ABC Home and Carpet! You may be stumped, if you want good hot chocolate and interesting ambiance, it's a great place.

For dinner, I met up with Ria and Seng and we ate in Grill 21, a surprisingly good Filipino restaurant in the East Village in Manhattan. If buffet for lunch wasn't enough, we had even more food here! We had Tinolang Manok and Sisig! After that, Ria and I headed back to Brooklyn.

Sunday, Aug 10 --

Ria and I started out the day with Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church in Brooklyn then waled over to Applewood for brunch, where we met up with Joyce, Cami, Krystle and Donald. Although the brunch wasn't too bad, I felt it didn't live up to the expectations of the numerous raving reviews about the place.

After brunch, Ria left for Philly and Donald for the Upper West Side. The remaining 4 of us went to Coney Island. The weather wasn't cooperating, so we ended up just buying hotdogs at Nathan's then play a few games at the arcade.

We headed back to Park Slope after that and just had take-out pizza for dinner while watching the Olympics on TV. I thought it was a great way to end the week, with a more laid-back dinner more typical of college students than working professionals.

Monday, Aug 11 --

For dinner on this day, I met up (again) with Joyce, Cami, Krystle and Donald at Flor de Mayo in the Upper West Side. It's a reasonably priced Peruvian-Chinese restaurant where nearly all of us ordered their Lomo Saltado.

On the way downtown, Joyce, Cami and I passed by Magnolia Bakery in the West Village for cupcakes. I can certainly say that they were very overrated, and simply a fad created from Sex and City!

Tuesday, Aug 12 --

Amazingly... nothing happened on this day! For the first time, I had some me-time and it was a short pit stop for what was to happen the next couple of days.

Wednesday, Aug 13 --

This night was the result of going hell and back and discovering that Broadway tickets, especially for a sought after show, are among the hardest things to find on the internet! Joyce and I watched the musical Wicked on Broadway, and it was actually very nice. I was able to follow the plot from end to end and the music was great. The theatre was packed as it is the current top grossing show on Broadway.

Before the show, Joyce and I ate Ethiopian food at Queen of Sheba just a few blocks from Times Square. I thought the food was generally ok, but certainly still not as good as Dukem in DC, which is the best Ethiopian restaurant I've been to in the US.

After the show, Joyce and I met up with Cami and we had cheesecake and banana split at Junior's in Times Square. That was a great way to cap off the night as we headed back to our respective places.

Thursday, Aug 14 --

It was Cami's last night in NYC while Joyce was around, so we decided to save the best meal for this night. The 3 of us ate at Kittichai in SoHo. Although it's probably the most expensive meal I had in a while and will have for the forseable future, I did enjoy it. Portions were large and not "elf food" size like that of other upscale restaurants in the same price range. Food was fusion-style Thai and the ambiance was great. We chose to get the family-sized pre-fixe dinner that included 2 appetizers, 5 entrees, and 2 desserts!

Friday, Aug 15 --

For Joyce's last night in NYC, Krystle and I decided to take her to a more laid-back place for comfort food, pasta. We ate dinner at Da Andrea in the West Village and chatted for a bit at Doma Cafe until its closing time of Midnight. There was a severe thunderstorm earlier in the day, but then, everything turned out fine in the end.

Saturday, Aug 16 --

It was Joyce's last day in NYC, and ever the driver-ng-bayan, I volunteered to bring her back to JFK to catch her flight to Singapore. Since her flight was still late afternoon, we had enough time to have brunch then walk around. We went to Brooklyn Heights and ate at Heights Cafe. It was a beautiful day we just enjoyed a simple brunch while people watching from the restaurant's outdoor patio. After brunch, we walked around the neighborhood including the promenade then had ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory in DUMBO.

Then it was on to JFK. After checking in, we hung out for a while in the upper level of Terminal 1, where you could get a view of the runway and have access to cheesy restaurants such as McDonald's and Wok and Roll. Chatted there for a little while then saw Joyce off at the security checkpoint.

And that was that... the end of the 2 weeks of family, good friends, going out, spending, eating, and errr, more eating! I took the long road back to NYC and discovered that driving the Belt Parkway all the way to the BQE and back to Brooklyn was a beautiful weekend drive. I loved how you'll first see the Verezzano bridge then the Manhattan skyline with the statue of Liberty and all the East River bridges as a spectacular approach into the city. Along the way, you realize just how huge New York City is. It is not just Manhattan or the popular areas of Brooklyn and Queens. NYC extends all the way out into the ocean and there is some really eye-popping spectacular beachfront property in neighborhoods like Mill Basin.

But then, as I did mention, it is not really the place that matters, but the people. These are mainly my family and friends. So thank you everyone who has been part of the past two weeks of my life and I really really enjoyed it. This would be hard to top, but then, it's all the more reason for me to reach out a bit more to other people who I've just met. I'm sure it would be interesting and would definitely widen my experiences here in NYC.