Sky is always blue

Taking advantages of free hotel and the heck of fun around Times Square, I invited him down to the big city with me for our little so-called honeymoon we both need after a lengthy and lonely travel season I have had since September. That is one of the reasons why you haven't seen me around this area to update my journal. We bid good bye earlier this evening; he has to go back home and I have to stay for a few more days to complete my work in the big city. So here I am, back to the state of being lonely again and he is perhaps sitting/sleeping on Peter Pan bus somewhere along interstate 95.

Anyway, here are the photos of our days. Enjoy!

-/-

Thursday

I spent most of my day on the 6. Hey, remember one of J. Lo's first albums when she just rose into the big music scene back in the late 1990s? She titled it "On the 6" as to metaphorically inscribing her Bronx-girl life with a literally "big-ass" dream to become somebody someday in the Big Apple by riding the 6 into Manhattan. Anyway, whenever I am riding the 6, I thought of her. Strange :)

He arrived around 2 pm, and I took him to Ruby Foo, an upscale Asian-fusion restaurant on 49th and Broadway. With a visually imposing Chinese style decor, the restaurant looks very aesthetically pleasing. The food was not that bad either, although the price is way too overwhelmed for similar tastes I could get at any mom-n-pop Asian restaurants in Chinatown. Nevertheless, we both had a great lunch, and the service staff was professional and friendly.

This is me in the middle of Times Square, before heading down to the underground subway. Hmm, the 20% photogenic luck is apparent in this photo.

I had a work assignment over in Queens that night and he ended up accompanying me to Forest Hills neighborhood. It took us almost an hour on the train to get to the final destination. After finishing my work, we took the train back to Chinatown for our late night dinner. Unable to think of any other places and we were skeptical of experimenting a new restaurant, we went to Thái Sơn, a Vietnamese restaurant on Baxter Street that we often frequented.

For all the years of training with my mother, I have never been satisfied with Vietnamese dishes offer at any Vietnamese restaurants because of the lack of authenticity and more often than not, the tastes were a bit "Americanized" to accommodate non-Vietnamese clientele. But somehow, the Phở at Thái Sơn was amazingly delicious that night. I couldn't help but to slurp the noodles and the broth all together in five minutes. The service was not that bad but the waiter didn't give me enough bean sprouts and basil for my Phở. I gotta have lots of bean sprouts and basil to soften the fattiness of the broth, otherwise, the meat and noodles alone are too overwhelming for the taste. So that was me getting a little bit upset because of no bean sprouts and basils.

After dinner, we conveniently walked a few blocks over to Little Italy for our favorite orgasmic desert. It was around 10:30 pm, but the place was still packed with patrons. There were two wandering singers who kept serenading the patrons with various Italian love songs. We found ourselves sitting right in the middle of the hallway, orgasmically biting off the creamy and rum-filled tiramisu.

Remember my theory of 80% and 20% of photogenic luck the other day? This photo is an obvious evidence of my 80% un-photogenic look. I look ridiculously retarded. Perhaps that's my true orgasmic facial expression that I have never had the chance to see. (oops, that's too much of a rated-R information but hey, we are all adults *wink*). Nevertheless, the tiramisu at Ferrara has never failed me with its heavenly taste. We went back the next day and bought one whole cake instead of a few slices. Crazy people, aren't we?

That's a wrap.

More photos to come later on.

P.S. this entry is backdated to Thursday, but was actually written on Sunday :)

Oh please pardon me for this long post. It's all my fault that I have too much time on my hand to waste the entire night on prepping for this post. Nonetheless, I am by myself in the Big Apple, and I am so freaking lonely. :) So let me share with you the out-n-about of my day.

My day required a lot of physical exercise, mostly walking around in my boots with 3-inch heels (which is bad for the feet, knees and the ankles.) I had a successful first working day in spite of a few grudging encounters with fellow train riders. Nevertheless, I don't have any other imminent complaints.

The self-portrait captured my mood at at the end of a long day, I looked a bit tired and hungry at the same time. Thanks to Photoshop for the technical tools to lighten up my pale face. It's so inevitable that I don't look good 80% of the time; the other 20% were probably by luck or just of good light setting/angle. This is such a shameless narcissist plug. (Hey, it's my blog, I can do whatever I want!)

As you can see from the background, that's New York City skylight outside of my window. Sorry for all the cropping, which limited the expansive of the pre-cropped background. Nonetheless, at the time I am writing this post, the buildings right across are all lit up, capturing the characteristics and the vibrancy of the city. The TV/light towers at Times Square right below are constantly flashing with different commercials. I didn't even have to turn on the lights in my hotel room. Hmm, why don't they turn the lights off to conserve energy? The damage for their electricity bill must be up in the 6-digit figures. Yike, that's a lot of energy and money to waste.



Korean town (32nd street and Broadway).
Lots of Korean restaurants, shops, jewelry stores, perfumnia.

Girlfriends, if you are into affordable and yet fashionable and hip earrings or necklaces (or any other kinds of jewelries), come to this area for your shopping pleasure. There are a few stores where you can do a wholesale purchase with discount. Come for the glitters and the trends! (A few of my native NYC students recommended that I should go jewelry shopping at this corner of Manhattan.)



Another shot of a random street somewhere in Korean town.
There were a few "Spa" salons on this particular street. I wanted to come in for a massage but wasn't sure if it's a "special" massage place or not. Decided to skip it eventually; afraid people might look at me as if I am an idiot if the spa salons are particular serving men.



The interior of Phở 32 & Shabu -- a Vietnamese/Korean fusion restaurant where they offer Phở on the menu and a plethora of shabu styles to choose from. The host greeted me "ahn-nyong-ha-se-yo" assuming that I am Korean. Do I look Korean? Because this is not the first time people have mistaken me as Korean.

I had doubts about the Phở and its authenticity at a Korean restaurant, so I went for my safety -- the seafood shabu. The total cost if @20 bucks, not bad for a dinner.



The restaurant has some intriguing decor. The bowl of noodles was made out of clay and plastered on the wall. I liked it a lot. Impressive idea.
(The right side of the photo before this one gives a whole view of the wall of noodle bowls.)



Here are the servings of my shabu dinner. I love the kimchi and finished within a minute after it was served while waiting for the broth to boil. Unfortunately, when I asked for another plate of kimchi, the server either pretended that he didn't hear it or he totally forgot about my request so I ended up not bringing it up again. I also love the peanut sauce as the salad dressing on romaine lettuce. The seafood items include a few squids, 6 shrimps, and 2 clams. The vegetable were not that bad.



After dinner, I stopped by a nearby deli store (own by Korean) and they have mochi. I ended up buying two of them, 3 tangerines, a bag of grapes, and a cup of cut papaya. That's my dessert for the night. As you can see from the photo, I almost finished the papaya, gulped down one tangerine, snapped a few grapes. The remaining items will be eaten tomorrow morning for my breakfast :)



It was raining, not too hard, but more than a drizzle. Good thing -- I was prepared with a hooded rain jacket and an umbrella. New Yorkers and tourists pay no mind to the rain, they still rushed out on the street bareheaded. It was still early, around 6 pm, but I wasn't thrilled to do anything else. Actually, I had intended to walk to a nearby Barnes & Noble, but with the rain that deterred me away from my original plan, I decided to hop on the R train and returned to the hotel. The photo above is captured right at my hotel door.

That's it for the night. I am just wasting too much of my time with the laptop. It took me almost 2 hours to complete this post. But at least I got a venue to vent. :)

Oii, no free internet at the Millennium hotel and their internet provider would not let me connect to their connection so no writing from the 41st floor this past two days.

Today has been very productive. The weather is perfectly great, with a little heat plus the muggy air trapped inside the subway made it unbearable at times, but perfectly for outdoor activities. I spent most of my day in Queens, visiting high school and having a little shopping spree. Then I met Fred Chapeline; Fred complimented my earrings when I was standing at a counter, paying my breakfast bill. Fred is a writer, a philosopher, a novelist, a dreamer, and a 3-times married bachelor at age 80s. Fred is full of life and stories to tell. Fred made my day!

I am at an Internet terminal at the moment and have only 8 minutes left on my time purchase so I better be quick and wrap it up.

I will write more tomorrow or Wednesday.

The Millennium hotel is magnificantly comfortable and poshy. I feel so "elite" :)