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Stone Street, located in downtown New York, is a unique block of shopping and dining destinations in an otherwise grey and bland section of the city. The financial district, where Wall Street is king, is not known for its charm or beauty. The streets are narrow and the buildings are tall. This results in a light deprived environment where everything looks shadowy and bleak despite the wealth and financial power surrounding it.
Stone Street is lined with 18th century buildings that have been restored and converted into restaurants and retail spaces. Since no new constructions are allowed on this historic block, the area is bathed with sunlight and colors. In the summer, the street is closed to automobile traffic and side walk cafes spring up to create a beautiful oasis of beauty in the middle of this concrete jungle.
This guy was supposed to be working but instead, he was oogling at the pretty girls across the street.Today, 62 Daily Photo sites are participating in this month's theme photo, Men at Work. Here are the participants: 1 Porto (Portugal) 2 Greenville, SC (USA) 3 Hyde (UK) 4 Tenerife (Spain) 5 Albuquerque, NM (USA) 6 Stayton, OR (USA) 7 Rotterdam (Netherland) 8 Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) 9 London (England) 10 Richmond, VA (USA) 11 Sydney - Sally (Australia) 12 Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) 13 Constanta (Romania) 14 Evry (France) 15 Lubbock, TX (USA) 16 Szentes (Hungary) 17 Villigen (Switzerland) 18 Mumbai (India) 19 Tel Aviv (Israel) 20 Twin Cities, MN (USA) 21 Jakarta (Indonesia) 22 Houston - Candice & Megan, TX (USA) 23 Budapest (Hungary) 24 Singapore - Zannnie (Singapore) 25 Dubai (UAE) 26 Singapore - Keropokman (Singapore) 27 Madrid - Dsole (Spain) 28 Mazatlan - Kate (Mexico) 29 Nelson (New Zealand) 30 Vantaa (Finland) 31 Kyoto (Japan) 32 Tokyo (Japan) 33 Joplin, MO (USA) 34 Auckland (New Zealand) 35 Sequim, WA (USA) 36 Menton (France) 37 Minneapolis, MN (USA) 38 Istanbul (Turkey) 39 Sydney - Nathalie (Australia) 40 Sharon, CT (USA) 41 Seattle, WA (USA) 42 Anderson, SC (USA) 43 Monte Carlo, (Monaco) 44 Milano, (Italy) 45 Grenoble (France) 46 Wailea, HI (USA) 47 Guelph, ON (Canada) 48 Melbourne - John (Australia) 49 New York City - Ming_the_Merciless (USA) 50 Cebu (Philippines) 51 Bandung (Indonesia) 52 Antigua, Guatemala (Central America) 53 Hamburg (Germany) 54 London - Jonemo (UK) 55 Hong Kong 56 Stavanger (Norway) 57 Paris (France) 58 Naples, Florida (USA) 59 Saarbrücken (Germany) 60 Shanghai (China) 61 Quito (Ecuador) 62 Zurich (Switzerland)
One of my coworkers, who is Shanghainese, introduced me to soup dumplings about 6 months ago. Now I am totally addicted to them. Soup dumplings, which originate from Shanghai, are essentially meat dumplings filled with hot, delicious soup inside. The dipping sauce of choice is black Chinese vinegar with shredded raw ginger.
So how does the soup get inside the dumpling? Well, the meat filling is mixed with a soup base and frozen for a couple of hours. That enables the soup base and filling to solidify and congeal together. The frozen mixture is then scrapped with a spoon and (securely) encased in wonton wrappers, and steamed to perfection. Because there is soup/liquid in the dumplings, they are made-to-order and have to be consumed immediately. Otherwise, the wonton wrappers will absorb the soup inside and turn doughy instead of light and soupy.
New York City received another dousing of snow and sleet yesterday. School children enjoyed the day off while adults were outside shoveling snow so the cars could get out.
I saw this salt spreader on the sidewalk in my neighborhood. The workers were still shoveling snow further up the street. I assumed that once the snow is cleared, the blue colored salt will be deposited on the street via the wheel barrel looking machine.
Does anyone know what the salt is blue?
This photo was taken at an art gallery opening in New York City last Friday. A good friend of mine designed the catalog for the exhibition and I was invited to attend the opening and reception. The woman in this photo was wearing a very interesting winter jacket. It has a pair of straps attached to the inside that can be worn over the shoulders like a backpack. That way, the woman does not have to carry the jacket in her hands when she is not wearing it. She told me it is a club kid jacket. I have never heard of the term. Have you seen this kind of jacket before?
Takashimaya is one of the most exclusive and expensive departmental stores in New York City. While researching the information for this post, I found out that Takashimaya does not have a US-based website. The only store site I could find in English was for Singapore Takashimaya.
Takashimaya is a large Kyoto-based retail store that has outlets all over Japan, as well as in Taipei, Paris, Singapore, and New York City. It was founded in 1829 by Iida Shinshichi. The store specializes in obscure designer brands for apparels, cosmetics, accessories, and home furnishings.
This photo was taken inside the store's floral department on the 1st floor of the building. Aside from floral arrangements, it also sells garden ornaments, decorative and utilitarian vases, tools, and books and cards with botanical themes.
This statue of Victory is part of the Sherman Monument located on the south east corner of Central Park. The monument depicts Victory leading General William Tecumseh Sherman seated on his horse coming home from war. General Sherman was one of the generals who led the Union (northern states) against the Confederates (southern states) in the American Civil War .
The monument was created by August Saint-Gaudens in 1892-1903. Saint-Gaudens was one of the most important American sculptors of the Beaux-Arts era.
Victory is a common symbolic figure used in many war monuments to signify triumph. The figure is based on the Greek goddess Nike. One of the most famous of these statues is the Winged Victory at the Louvre in Paris.
Recently, the New York City Board of Health passed an amendment to the city health code to slowly phase out artifical trans fats in all food items served at restaurants by July 1, 2008.
Prior to that, the other major public health initiative undertaken by the city was the smoking ban, which took effect on April 1, 2003. The ban covered all workplaces including bars, restaurants, cafes, pool halls and offices. In addition, the city and state imposed an additional $1 tax on every pack of cigarettes, making New York among the nation's most expensive places to smoke.
This photo of a small convenience store is advertising cigarette sales at $6.60 per pack. The prices at other stores are closer to $7.
So how much is a pack of cigarettes in your city?
I did a google search of "Ming the Merciless" and found there are more than one blogger/internet surfer using the name. Aside from me, there is a guy in California and another in Switzerland who call ourselves, Ming the Merciless.
But who is Ming the Merciless? The name came from a fictional character in a scifi comic strip called, Flash Gordon, which was first published in 1935. Ming the Merciless was an extraterrestrial villain from the planet, Mongo and the main nemesis of the hero, Flash Gordon. Ming the Merciless has an underground ice palace, Ice Station Earth, set deep beneath Antarctica. With his arsenal of laser weapons (that was so 1930s, before WMD became the word of choice) and an army of drone robots, Ming the Merciless set out to conquer Earth but his plan was foiled by Flash Gordon.
This photo, a semi coming out party for me, was taken inside a relatively empty subway train -- nobody was sitting within view of my camera. The reason my face is not totally visible in the photo is because I was told (and have read) that blogging can be a career suicide, especially if too much information is revealed. Besides, I fancy myself as the International Man of Mystery. Yeah baby!!
If you have an alter ego, who would you be?
I love Korean cuisine and my favorite Korean dish is the spicy tofu and seafood stew, which is especially delicious during the cold winter months. Another reason I love Korean food is the appetizers or side dishes that are served with every meal called, banchan. These little morsels of meat, seafood or vegetable dishes are served tapa-style and they can be spicy, sweet, salty, crunchy, soft, or chewy.
This photo was taken last week at my favorite neighborhood Korean restaurant called, Natural Tofu. It is one of the many banchan that came with the meal. I do not know the name of this dish but it is a type of black beans that have been deep fried, tossed with a sweet barbeque sauce and sprinkled with sesame seed. Yummy!! If you love asian food like I do, you should check out Singapura Daily Makan Photo by Keropokman who blogs Singapore Daily Photo.
So tell me about your favorite food. What do you like to eat?
A bagels is a type of yeasted dough bread that was first introduced to this country in the 1880s by Jewish immigrants from Central Europe. It has an extraordinary chewy consistency, which makes it very different from other types of breads in the market. The chewy consistency is achieved by boiling the dough in water first before baking it in the oven. New York City bagels are supposedly the best in the world because of the city's tap water in which they are boiled in. Or maybe it is because New Yorkers are snobbish about their food. Regardless of where they are made, bagels are usually eaten with cream cheese. For more special occasions, bagels are served with cream cheese topped with smoke salmon or lox.This photo was taken inside Murray's Bagels on 8th Avenue and 22nd Street in Chelsea. It is a chain of bagel cafe that sells all types of bagels and its accoutrements like cream cheese, smoked salmon and whitefish, creamed herring, etc. Bagels are usually consumed at breakfast, with a cup of strong coffee.
So what do you normally eat for breakfast? What did you have for breakfast today?
The lion dance is a traditional Chinese dance that is usually performed during special occasions like Chinese (Lunar) New Year, which starts this week. The dance involves two acrobatic performers who balance an elaborate head piece and a long tail while mimicking the moves of a lion to the rhythm of drums and cymbals.
This photo was taken on Sunday (yesterday) afternoon in Flushing, Queens. The lion dance troupe was performing on the street and visiting various retail stores in the area. It is supposed to bring good luck to the businesses that hire these dancers to perform at their stores.
Flushing, in Queens, is the second biggest Chinatown in New York City. The other two Chinatowns are in downtown Manhattan (the oldest and biggest) and Brooklyn. Flushing is also the site of the Arthur Ashe Stadium for the U.S. Open and the Shea Stadium for the New York Mets.
This is what I woke up to on Wednesday morning. The snow continued to fall until late in the afternoon. By the evening, the snow had turned into ice, which made the roads slippery and dangerous for drivers. Some above ground trains were delayed due to circuit problems from icing on the tracks. Many schools and some businesses were closed early.
The snow storm was not all bad for New Yorkers. Some entrepreneurial youngsters were charging $10 to $15 per hour to clear snow from the sidewalks and driveways.
Why do private homeowners have to shovel snow from the public sidewalks, you ask? Well, there is a New York City law that requires private homeowners and businesses to clear snow from the sidewalks abutting their properties within a reasonable time or risk getting a $50 fine. In addition, the public sidewalks have to be properly cleared because homeowners can be liable for a slip and fall suit if it was established that the sidewalks were poorly maintained.
So what do you think of all these?
We had our first major snow storm of the season last Tuesday night. Despite below freezing temperature for over two weeks, we have not had much precipitation until recently.
On Tuesday night, the snow began to fall. By Wednesday morning, most schools and some businesses were closed for the day. The amount of snow we received in New York City was nothing compared to upstate New York, where areas near Lake Ontario were the worst hit, receiving over 12 feet of snow and resulted in over a dozen deaths.
This photo taken on Tuesday night from my living room window shows the beginning of the snow storm. I had the camera sitting on the tripod set on top of the window ledge. Tomorrow, I will post a photo taken 10 hours later from the same position.
I hope everyone has a warm and enjoyable weekend
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I enjoy holding hands, taking long walks in the park, cuddling at night and even a belly rub once in awhile. I promise to listen to all your problems, laugh at your jokes, and cheer you up when you are down. I will no judge you if you did something wrong or complain about your cooking even if it is bad. I will always be happy to see you when you get home from work. And if you like, I will give you lots and lots of kisses.
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Store window displays are always an interesting sight in New York City. This one from Barneys New York is especially interesting because it shows a blue mannequin being attacked by little white people. Actually, these little white people are Munnies. Munnies are small vinyl action figures made by Kidrobot, a creator and retailer of limited edition collector toy figures. They are extremely popular among teenagers and college students. Recently, Kidrobot ventured into the apparel business and it is doing very well, especially among its core fans, the toy collectors.
While researching the identity of the little white people in the photo, I discovered these Gorillaz action figures. Aren't they cute? You can watch the video starring these action figures by clicking here. I love this video!!
Do you have a favorite toy or do you collect anything special?
These young lovers were holding hands and whispering sweet little nothings to each other at the Grand Central Station late one night. Were they celebrating an anniversary? Or were they secret lovers meeting at the train station? Regardless, romance was definitely in the air.
The photo is a little blurry. I saw them as I was walking through the station and snapped a quick photo as soon as their backs were turned from me.
Hope everyone has a wonderful and enjoyable Valentine's Day.
Ice carving is a form of art that produces temporary sculptures that will eventually disappear into a puddle of water. The ice sculpture begins its life as a special block of super clear ice made from pure, clean water to reduce the appearance of air bubbles in the ice, which can make it opaque. First, the carver uses chainsaws and chisels to create the shape of the sculpture. Then more precision chisels and grinders are used to carve the details and smooth out the surfaces. Once it is completed, it is stored in a temperature control room until it is ready to display or delivery.
This photo, taken at the Central Park Winter Jam this past weekend, shows a young artist demonstrating this ice carving skill. We are experiencing a bout of super cold weather this couple of weeks. Notice the ice on the floor is not melting and the family in the background are bundled up in their winter coats.
Are you an artist? Aside from the photography, what kind of art do you do?
It was late Sunday night and all the stores at the food court in Grand Central Station have closed for the evening. Only a dozen or so people were still lingering around waiting for their trains to arrive. I was on my way home, walking to the subway terminal located inside the Grand Central Station.
I saw this interesting sight -- chairs neatly stacked on top of the tables. It got me wondering. Did someone with an artistic flair put it together or was the person a little obsessive compulsive? Or is this just a routine way of stacking chairs on top of the table? I admit, I have never seen anything like this before. What do you think?
N.B.: Since we are on the topic of organization, please share with me how you catalog your photographs? My laptop automatically catalog them by dates. I also keep a separate folder for the photos I have selected, resized and PhotoShopped for this blog.
The Central Park Winter Jam, held at the 72nd Street Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park yesterday, was one of the many free events sponsored by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation at Central Park. Winter activities like cross country skiing, snowshoeing and igloo making were available despite the lack of natural snow accumulation. Huge amount of artificially generated snow were created to cover the venue specially for this event. There were also an ice carving exhibition, husky dogs for adoption, free hot chocolate and smoothies, t-shirt give-aways, ski vacation exhibitions, etc.The photo collage shows a member of the U.S. Winter Olympic Freestyle Ski Team (also known as the The Flying Aces) performing on a giant trampoline. The team routinely trains on the trampoline to master the flips, twists and turns that are commonly used in the competition. This demonstration attracted the most audience and applauds. Click on the photo to see a larger, clearer picture of the collage.
N.B.: The collage was pieced together from half a dozen jumps, despite the appearance of one single jump, courtesy of PhotoShop.
Do you know how to ski? I saw a lot of brochures for ski vacations in upstate New York and Vermont at the event. Unfortunately, I cannot ski so I did not pick up any brochures.
Stone Street, located in downtown New York, is a unique block of shopping and dining destinations in an otherwise grey and bland section of the city. The financial district, where Wall Street is king, is not known for its charm or beauty. The streets are narrow and the buildings are tall. This results in a light deprived environment where everything looks shadowy and bleak despite the wealth and financial power surrounding it.
