Spring Break Trip in New York City - The Nutshell Version

Basically, Manhattan is amazing. I really wish I had another week there, so I could explore the city more. And eat more. Heh. See below.

Day 1 (Tuesday, March 22)

I got to LaGuardia early that morning and took the M60 bus and the N train into Manhattan, emerging a block and a half from the hotel (win!). It went more or less without a hitch, which was surprising because I am very good at taking public transportation in the wrong direction. I wish all cities were as user-friendly as NYC.

I met up with JH and SB coming from JFK, and ate at Carve in the Theatre District:

Later, we frolicked in Central Park:

And then we went to the Met and saw amazing amazing paintings and sculptures.

And then we ate dinner at a Hale and Hearty Soups on the Upper East Side:

And then we took a 456 train to Grand Central...

...and walked to Times Square from there.

Shopping was involved, but goods were not purchased. The stores there are crazy; I don't remember seeing a single one that was only one story tall. The American Eagle in Times Square was three stories (!!).

Day 2 (Wednesday, March 23)

The next day we headed to SoHo for shopping.

We ate at Grotta Azzurra in Little Italy for lunch.

On the way back for more shopping, we were sidetracked by Pinkberry.

More shopping ensued. I won't bore you with the details, because 3/3 of my known blog readers are male and probably don't care.

Dinner followed, at an Australian place called Eight Mile Creek in Nolita:

We finished up at Topshop and Uniqlo, since neither of them are available locally. By this point my fUggs-enclosed feet were throbbing like none other, but for the sake of shopping I soldiered on through bravely. I mean, where else could you shop in a packed Sephora that still manages to have (almost) more salespeople than shoppers? Or a stand-alone Pink?

The weather was pretty crazy that evening. It had been raining on and off the whole day, but then it started hailing and thundering and snowing and I was super excited because I had never seen snow on the streets before, and it was falling from the sky, which was pretty magical.

Day 3 (Thursday, March 24)

On Thursday we took the M5 bus (scenic view!) to the southern tip of Manhattan, to take a ferry from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty.

I couldn't decide whether or not this was the Brooklyn Bridge, but a map I obtained later stated that this is the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

Later, we went to Ground Zero, where the memorial was being constructed, and Wall Street.

I thought the Stock Exchange had a strange lack of activity, but then I realized it was 5:30 and the markets were closed. Boo.

We ate dinner that night with DL, who arrived the day before, at Arirang in Koreatown.

Then we all went to the Empire State Building for a very cold, very windy, very beautiful night view of the city.

Day 4 (Friday, March 25)

Friday morning I went to the Top of the Rock, which provided me a great daytime view of the city. The lack of clouds was a serious plus.

At ground level, Rockefeller Center is pretty cool too.

Since J and S were still asleep, I had some time to do more shopping in the area. The Rockefeller Center J. Crew did not yield any spectacular sale items, but I snagged a great lounge dress from the Anthropologie for $10. The 5th Ave Banana Republic was having a 25% off sale, and I got a nice cream cable-knit sweater there. This is probably my favorite Banana Republic store, because it is huge and two stories. The petities section takes up a third of the top floor, and the sale section was just as big. The only annoying thing was that there were no fitting rooms on the second floor, where the sale section was. But other than that, it was pretty heavenly.

I ate lunch with DL and her friends at Udon West in East Village.

We walked around East Village for a while and browsed in some vintage stores.

Then...Max Brenner. The Chocolate Store.

D and I shared half a chocolate chunks pizza with marshmallows and hazelnut bits, and a strawberry white chocolate smoothie. Amazing.....

For dinner D and I met up with YY and other friends of theirs at Lantern Thai Kitchen, in Gramercy.

The pad thai was great, but it was my third meal in four hours: udon at 3, chocolate at 5, thai at 7. (More food is always good food?)

We walked through Times Square and shopped here and there, but mostly marvelled at the blinginess of everything.We also went inside Forever 21, just because it was huge and four stories tall.

Day 5 (Saturday, March 26)

The last day was a short one :'(. We ate lunch at Room Service, in Hell's Kitchen:There was a very brief and somewhat harried stroll through the Upper East Side, because I was paranoid that I would miss my plane.
We made it to Port Authority Bus Terminal two minutes before the shuttle left for JFK. So there, paranoia does pay off. (Or we should have just not gone to the UES that late. That would have been better.)

All in all, this trip was a lot of great food, a lot of great shopping, and a lot of great sightseeing. I cannot wait to return to New York, also because the numbered streets appeal to my OCD :)

An Ode To Seaweed Salad

Being a notoriously picky eater, I normally dislike anything slimy, grimy, or has a strange odor when cold.

By all conventional wisdom, I should avoid seaweed salad like the plague.

But it is so absolutely delicious.

I can't explain it.

Late-Night Cravings

I'm up late again tonight (blogging instead of writing my paper?), and being thoughtless, I had eaten sugar, meat, and fat the whole day (which covers the three biomolecules but somehow is unhealthy anyways?) and now my day's nutrition is all out of whack. So now I'm hungry and only have chocolate, popcorn, and yogurt to eat, but the former two are unhealthy and the latter two I'm rather sick of. Also I have tea eggs, but I already ate an egg today (might break one out later though). And my cheek is swelling up from chewing too much gum, which rules that oral activity out. And late night is closed.

I was pretty desperate when I remembered that I have oatmeal. That wonderful, unassuming, non-unhealthy food. So I started mixing:

1 packet plain instant oatmeal
1 packet apple cinnamon instant oatmeal
1 dash cinnamon
1/2 tsp coconut oil
1 dash ascorbic acid powder
1 dash brown sugar (to neutralize the sour vitamin C powder)
1 splash vanilla extract

It's only vaguely strange, and overall pretty nonthreatening. I love having a pantry stocked with raw ingredients.

Highlights of the Week

disclaimer: very food-heavy :9

Saturday: We (SB, KL, DH, MB, DO, and me) went to the Counter, and I got a beef, pineapple, cranberries, and lettuce burger. It was very good. Plus they have awesome fries. And then we went to Cold Stone while listening to Belle and Sebastian's new album, Write About Love.

Sunday: NS, my brother, and I went to the Tomales Bay Oyster Company near Point Reyes. It was a full-day adventure, driving for two hours up hwy 1 (note to self: don't ever let brother drive up hwy 1, unless you bring a barf bag). It was slightly freezing, but delicious and the first time I ever shuck or ate raw oysters (hellooo 101 in 1001!). Afterwards, we went to Verde for PMT, and then I ate dinner with my brother and his friends at his residence.

Monday to mid-Thursday were dark times. You know, the three P's - presentations, psets, papers. I don't like to think of those. Although I did learn from various coffee runs around campus that I can get Endangered Species chocolate for $1.

Thursday: Lunch at Sushi House with my AIM mentor. They have really great teriyaki chicken and seaweed, like at Ophelia's Cafe, and . Later, after this rhetoric presentation (T_T), I had a poster session and hung out with KH, IN, and WZ. Plus there was a project about pop-up books, and one with a virginal, which were beyond amazing. Went to WZ's that night to check Bio pset answers, and talked about life. Good times.

Friday: Lunch included grilled cheese, broccoli and carrots, and broccoli/sausage/alfredo pasta. Needless to say, I was a happy camper. I watched When Harry Met Sally that afternoon, which was exciting because a) it is a fantastic movie, b) I have the same phone as Marie, and c) it has a bobble bird in one of the scenes, whose mechanism we explained in a BioE pset, and I was one of the few to get that problem right because I didn't look on Google, which had a wrong explanation. (PWNED.) And later I'm going to Nordstrom Rack with WZ and SB for my shoe edification. And then tonight is my Breakfast at Tiffany's party. And by party, I mean movie+snacks.


October is always my favorite time of the year, not because of the season (although it is a nice balance of sunny and lightly rainy).It's because I get to be at school again, and although it's rather stressful, I'm not as burnt out as in spring, and I can still emerge from consecutive late nights generally without horrible angst. I still have energy to do fun stuff (see above) without worrying about what I'll do in the summer (although I should start thinking about that...). Also, since people haven't been at school for ages, the drama hasn't really started yet. Plus I can meet new people in the dorm without seeming weird, like I would later in the year.

Productive Day

Today I cooked dinner by myself for the first time ever. (Rice, broccoli, eggs and basil, beef and peppers, and winter melon soup.) I also cut my mom's hair.

Emo Week

Or maybe it'll be longer than a week. Who knows.

I'm pretty sure it started last Wednesday, when we learned minor scales in music class. I remember thinking it was just too ironic, and it didn't bode well for my midterm that night (which actually went OK, but not great). And after that, it was just a week of bad grades in homework, essays, and midterms, and messed up labs, drama over next year's housing, and general emo-ness. It wasn't even PMS. And then yesterday, after I got my two worst grades ever (relatively for my midterm and literally for my paper), I skipped dinner and went to sleep at 8pm. Yay for thirteen-hour naps!

There were good parts this week, too, I suppose. It's been sunny the whole week. I went running twice, outside. (The second time I almost pulled a muscle, but still.) There were dumplings today at lunch. I got free Jamba Juice yesterday at Frosh Rally (some kind of mango one, it was really good), and I got a letter from S. Plus last Thursday I went to eat at the Creamery with G and W, and although it was $$, it was really good. (oven-fried chicken? mashed potatoes? steamed vegetables? mint-chocolate-chip shake? All signs of general win, in my book.) I also went home last Saturday, so I ate two lunches. I'm noticing this all revolves around food...

Oh, and I hauled twice this week. The first was the annual Zoya Polish Exchange. The deal is that you could send in six or more unwanted polishes from your stash, along with $3.50 per bottle, and you would receive a new bottle of Zoya nail polish for every bottle you send in. I split a package with K, so that we could get over the six-polish minimum. Turns out we both sent in six. At least we saved on shipping, right? I got these:

Blair

Casey

Lael

Posh (why is this the only one with a cap?)

Richelle

Roxy

K got these six:
Akyra

Charla

Kotori

Mieko

Rea

Suvi

I wish they'd let us exchange for their polish remover, because I desperately want to try it. Plus I'm out of acetone remover.

My second haul is with the Old Navy 30% off sale. I got a black string bikini bottom, because my current swimsuit bottom is kind of huge, even though I can tie the sides. My new one looks exactly like the old one, except hopefully it fits better. Here's a picture:

I suppose it doesn't count as a good thing this week, because I haven't gotten them yet. I just paid for them.

I also watched this week's Glee episode, Bad Reputation. I really liked it for some reason. I don't know if it was the harem pants in Can't Touch This (Brittany in red Hammer pants? hilarz.) or Mr. Schuester's interrogation scene (esp. Kurt and Brittany) or Rachel's Run Joey Run music video, or the last Total Eclipse of the Heart. That last song is my current favorite Glee song, along with Like a Prayer from the Madonna episode, and Gives You Hell (whose clip I found on iTunes for free!) and Hello Goodbye, and possibly Run Joey Run. Can't Touch This is also good, but only with the video. I watched the music videos for Glee songs so many times (esp. Total Eclipse and Like a Prayer). Mum would say that watching too much TV is why my life is deteriorating. She's probably right.

I think this should be the end of this Emo Week, because I have a break in midterm season until next Friday. Plus I got all my bad grades back. No~~just remembered my psych project is coming back soon. Won't be pretty. And my music midterm is coming back next week too. I don't know if I should be worried about it. I finished in the first half hour and I was the first one done. I thought it was easy...

Looking back on this list, I'm not sure why I was so emo this week. I did forget/de-emphasize a lot of the more depressing parts here though. The housing drama and the bad grades were pretty aggravating. Also, I'm not in as emo of a mood now (knock on wood), so I'm remembering the happier parts. You know those questions on psych surveys where they ask, "Do you think you can change your emotions?" I'm pretty sure the answer is no. To some extent, mood isn't even based on what events happen in your life. If you're sad, you think about events differently than if you're happy. Stuff that might not be a big deal when I'm happy may seem extremely annoying or depressing when I'm sad. Even if something happy happens, I would just focus on the bad parts of it (because I can always improve, no matter what the situation is).