Thursday, September 03, 2009
New York New York day 3
Our final day in New York was a wrap up of the things we didn't do the previous days. I miscalculated and didn't get to go visit either of the 2 letterpress shops I wanted to see because I had saved them til Monday, and they aren't open on Monday. Bummer.
We did manage to go to the home design megastore ABC Carpet and Home. Wow wow wee wow. It was amazing. It must be so fun to work there just to arrange all the goodies. I was surprised that they let me take photos, but they did!
Jason sitting in what must be the world's most comfortable chair.
We went in this store across the street called Fish's Eddy. I had never heard of it, but let's just say it's lucky that I only had a small carry-on suitcase, already stuffed with paper goods and envelopes, because I could have taken the whole store with me. Lots of really cool dinnerware, tea towels, and entertaining stuff. It was just my style. Not stuffy, just fun and well designed.
Jason fulfilled his final New York manifest: a slice of pizza, followed 1 hour later by Katz's Deli. That pastrami sandwich alone cost $14.95, but it was pretty freaking amazing.
Now it's back home and hard at work on calendar stuff and real work stuff. It was such a great 3 day destination. Of course, you know I could stay for a month. Maybe in my next life I'll take a summer sabbatical to New York.
Labels: travel
New York New York day 2
Treasures from MoMA and Asian influences....
Sunday we got up and walked ourselves to MoMA. I love that place.
I didn't really appreciate modern art until I took the hardest course in my college career called Contemporary Art History. I barely scraped a B in that class. It was a very reading and writing heavy course about way-out there theory. But it made me appreciate the value in someone having the cahones to do something first. Like very first. And to realize that it actually takes a lot of work to make that perfectly solid red canvas. Okay, so the red canvas wasn't my favorite, but I can appreciate Jackson Pollock's splatterings because there is an art to the way he moved his arm, to the color choices, to the dedication it took to make people turn their heads at that.
This exhibit by Song Dong was spooky to me because it seriously could have been from my own non-Asian grandmother's house. All it was missing was a garbage bag full of bread ties. The artist's mother was from the waste-not-want-not generation, and that apparently compelled her to say partially used bars of soap and plastic bottle caps. As someone who has a pack rat tendency herself, this is terrifying.
We moved on to Chinatown after lunch. These photos are an exact depiction of what I love about New York...the 5-6 story building neighborhoods and the bustling cultural soup. One street is Chinese, the next is Italian. I love it. And the men whispering in my ear as I passed by "bags. gucci. prada. louis vuitton." So sen-su-al. I always think I'm going to buy a bag when in Chinatown, but I just don't like any of them when it comes down to it.
Day two ended at Five Napkin Burger. Tuna burger for me, and a frozen strawberry mojito for dessert. I was so enthralled, I didn't take a single photo. Cause sometimes, you just gotta live in the moment.
Labels: travel
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
New York New York
The view from our hotel.
Jason and I went to NYC for a quick 3 day weekend. As of Monday, we've been married for 365 whole days. A lot of that time we were living with my parents, which was awesome in so many ways, but I didn't really feel married until we bought our house in May and had to do real married things like pay a mortgage, cook dinner, and pick out a cable package. They say that the first year is the hardest, and I don't know if that was true in our case. I do know that I'm happier everyday than I was the day before with being married. We just figure out what works and repeat.
Now, notice I didn't write this post at midnight before our 4am trip departure when I had been up packing for 2hours longer than Jason. Somehow, clothes, shoes and toothbrush seemed enough to him, meanwhile I was printing boarding passes, finishing up a load of laundry, searching for umbrellas, doing a load of dishes and emptying out the dehumidifier. Yeah, my answer wouldn't have been the same then.
But I digress. I actually had sort of a working trip. If there's one thing I believe about art and creativity, it's that you have to be constantly inputting information and ideas so that when it comes time to create, you can draw on that library of visions in you head, whether consciously or unconsciously.
So we went about "inputting" all over the city. Natural History Museum (great tribal prints and patterns) MoMA (everything) and countless design stores and more. And I stocked up on a lot of supplies like paper goods and envelopes.
I'm going to break this post up into 3 posts, one for each day we were there.
Day one:
Butterflies at the Natural History Museum
We walked from our hotel on 34th all the way to 81st in the rain. So we took the subway back.
Check out this bead store. Even Jason was really impressed. That's why I love this guy. He didn't complain at all about going into this store. It's Toho Shoji on 6th Avenue. To be accurate, I didn't make him go in any ribbon or fabric stores.
We went to the Rockefeller Center Magnolia Bakery. That icing recipe they have is spot on for the original. I was totally entranced by the people in the back doing the icing. That is some serious skill.
We had dinner at Les Halles for our anniversary. Yum. And not stuffy or anything. It's not terribly expensive, but for our wallets, it was a special treat. I think the steak and fries was $20, so that's not much more than a restaurant around here.
The woman sitting next to us kept taking one sip from her water glass and tossing the rest in the bushes and then smiling wickedly while the water boy was perplexed and filling her up again. I caught her doing it, and she just grinned at me.
Day two: MoMA and beyond.
Labels: travel
Friday, June 26, 2009
Photos from Philly
The trip was so fun, educational, blah blah blah, but not really exciting in the context of this blog. I'll just post you some pics and tell you that we ate at the Waterworks restaurant (Chilean Sea Bass, lobster asparagus couscous, octopus and cheddar gnocchi and to drink a watermelon mojito and a kiwi margarita. Be very very jealous.) by the art museum and I didn't have my camera because it rained on my way there and I wimped out and left it at the hotel.
The Comcast Building:
The Comcast Experience. Super cool huge TV in the lobby. Awesome.
Loved this color combo. Sorry to the lady whose bum just got World Wide Webbed.