"That's got to be the most advanced burger order ever."


I had a pretty good weekend, actually. Rob came down and we decided to do a bit of NYC touristy things. It was nice because instead of exhausting ourselves we just did a couple things each day. Saturday we slept in late, and went into the city in the afternoon. We took the Staten Island Ferry out across to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty - which was all the better because it was *free*. And then we went up to Hard Rock Cafe and ate an early dinner. The food was pretty good and surprisingly not that overpriced. I mean, it is NYC, so when you take that into account, it really wasn't more than a dollar or two more than what I'd expect at any restaurant. The waiter was very accomodating in trying to get whatever we wanted, which was good because I was essentially trying to create a bacon mushroom swiss cheeseburger even though it wasn't on the menu. They had a bacon cheeseburger though and "add mushrooms" was one of the options at the top of the burger section, so it wasn't that bad, except for the sauce. I couldn't think what kind of sauce it is they usually put on those - its reddish, something horseraddish maybe? And the waiter clearly had no idea what I was trying to describe. So it came out "okay, add mushrooms, and then just mayo on the side, with lettuce but no tomato", (except probably less succinct). Rob was laughing out loud at me, and the waiter joked "that's the most advanced burger order ever." Good thing all three of us had sense of humor! :-)

After that we went into FAO Schwartz and were completely amazed at the stuff you can get there. For instance, a life size giraffe stuffed toy or a life-size elephant stuffed toy, for around $15,000 each. The kicker was a child-sized Ferrari, with a working gas engine, brakes, suspension, steering, lights-horn-turn signal, and so on, for . . . . . how much do you think? How much??


Answer: $50,000. Ouch! If you spend that much on your kid when he's 7, what are you going to spend on him when he's 17??? So it was an interesting day.

Chrysler and ESB
Then on Sunday we got up early and took an 8am train into the city to beat the lines to the Empire State Building. Our plan worked perfectly. We got there about 9:30am, and the we only waited 20 minutes or so to get to the top. There was a bit of a bottleneck towards the front of the line, because they take these geeky pictures of you next to this ESB backdrop - and everybody has to take one. The catch is when you come down from the observation deck, they try to get you to buy the photos. I don't understand the point, really - you get much cooler photos for free from the top if you bring your own camera. But they insist that every group gets their photo taken. Apparently someone in front of us tried to argue, because the camera lady said in a loud threatening voice worthy of a cop show, "Everyone gets their picture taken!" The "Or you're gonna get some @$$ whupping" hung unsaid but understood.

It was a beautiful day to go to the top of the observatory. It was a little hazy in the distance, but we could still see 15-20 miles, or so the board said at the bottom. The sun was bright and hot, but luckily since it was early in the day not too hot. I'd been up with my parents in March, but today was a lot better day for it. I kind of pointed out a few landmarks to Rob, and chuckled to myself at two woman who were trying to convince each other they knew what they were talking about but obviously didn't, since they had 5th Ave going up the west side of Central Park instead of the East side. Rob was mostly just interested in the view; this was his top thing-to-do in New York (aside from all those comedy shows we can't get tix to), so he enjoyed it. And took lots of pictures.

It was wierd though; when we got home and downloaded the pictures from his camera, it kind of made me a little sick to look at all those ugly buildings stretching out into oblivion. The shots with the Chrysler building in it were good - the Chrysler building is one of the few truly beautiful buildings in NYC, in my opinion. Much cooler than the ESB for looks. But you can't go up it, and it doesn't have an open air deck at the top either, so the ESB is a better destination. I commented to Rob about how it kind of turned my stomach to see all those buildings in the photos, and he was like "Yeah, it doesn't really look breathtaking the way it does when you're there. It just kind of looks ugly." I guess it's because we've all seen plenty of pictures taken from way up high, so looking at them doesn't impress us; we just see what there is to be seen. When you're way up high though, it's just cool to be high in the air, particularly in the open air.

So then we walked down in search of this little place fairly close to the ESB that supposedly had bubble tea and dumplings. I was hyped, because I've really been wanting good zhaozi - dumplings or potstickers, as they are apparently called in the US. (For a long time after I came back from China I didn't know the English word for them.) I was a bit curious how good it would turn out - it was called Rickshaw, which I thought was a bit of a bad sign, since rickshaws are an Indian thing generally speaking. I mean, there were these things in Beijing that we called rickshaws for lack of another term; instead of two wheels and a guy running they had three wheels, with the guy pedaling to power the rig. But anyway, the place turned out to be clean and have decent dumplings, but no bubble tea. They did however have green tea milkshakes - very happa, as El would say.

(Which most people reading this will get why, but just in case, "happa" signifies something like "mixed breed", and many Asians - not Asian Americans but East Asians - are lactose intolerant. Dairy products simply aren't a part of the diet the way they are in the West. When did you last see cheese in a traditional Chinese dish? So a green tea milkshake is kind of weird.)

So after the ESP and the dumplings, we came home, and packed up some of my stuff into Rob's car. And that was the weekend. It was pretty nice.