Last Days of Summer

The last days of summer have arrived and gone so dining outdoors will be the thing of the past pretty soon. This restaurant on the corner of Union Square West and 16th Street is called The Coffee Shop and is a popular hang out for locals as well as tourists. It was rumored that Sandra Bullock worked here as a waitress many years ago before she became famous.

Before I became Ming the Merciless, I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken for 6 week when I was about 17 years old. I quit the job after they made me do a double shift. Yes, I was a spoilted brat. :-)

So what is your most unglamorous job?

Woodbury Commons

I went to Woodbury Commons, a premium outlet mall outside of New York City, for some shopping recently. A friend who has been talking about going there for some time said she would drive so I decided to tag along. We managed to do some damage on the credit cards. I bought a new pair of loafers to replace the old ones that were falling apart. I also bought a new belt.

So what did you buy lately?

Grey Goose

I'm not much of a drinker but I do love the Grey Goose Vodka bottles. This photo was taken months ago when I walked by a liquor on the Upper East Side. The owner did a great job displaying the beautiful bottles on the window display.

So what is your drink of choice?

Waiting for Amtrak Train at Penn Station

I got back from Boston yesterday afternoon. While in Boston, I ate a fair share of lobsters, clams, scallops and shrimp. I also have a new favorite dessert: Boston Cream Pie, which is more of a cake than a pie.

This photo was taken inside Penn (Pennsylvania) Station in Manhattan on Friday afternoon when I was waiting for my Amtrak train to Boston. The trip (on the high speed Acela train) took 3 hours 30 minutes and it was very comfortable, with plenty of leg room and personal space to relax and enjoy the journey. I have to admit, I love traveling by train. It's so much more civilized than what we called, "air travel" today.

So do you prefer to travel by plane, train or car?

Theme Photo: Sister Cities

According to the New York City government website, we have 10 sister cities around the world. They are Tokyo (inducted in 1960), Beijing (1980), Madrid (1982), Cairo (1982), Santo Domingo (1983), Rome (1992), Budapest (1992), Jerusalem (1993), London (2001), and Johannesburg (2003). The only sister city I have visited in the last year or so is Beijing, China. So here is a photo of the scene inside the Forbidden City from my trip there last July.

Click here to view the thumbnails for all the other participants of this month's theme photo.

Gazpacho

This bowl of gazpacho was from Le Pain Quotidien, the Belgian chain restaurant/bistro. I had my first gazpacho soup probably about 5 years ago at a french bistro and since then, it has been a love affair that knows no bounds. . . . except when it comes to me having to make it myself. :-) It is especially delicious during the hot summer months when the last thing I want to eat is a warm soup.

So do you have a favorite soup for winter and/or summer?

Reflection on Madison Avenue

This photo was taken at the corner of Madison Avenue and 58th Street in midtown Manhattan. Madison Avenue, especially north of 60th Street is the prime shopping district for high end fashion goods like Ralph Lauren, Hermes and Versace. South of 60th Street, the avenue is comprised of mainly offices for big corporations and financial institutions.

So what is your plan for the three-day Labor Day weekend? I will be in Boston visiting with the family.

Fanelli Cafe

This is the Fanelli Cafe on Prince street and Mercer Street in SoHo. The restaurant bar has been around since the 1800's and it is still a popular hang out place among the locals and tourists alike. I have had some decent sandwiches here after an afternoon of wandering the streets for photo-op.

So how often do you go out to take photographs?

Tricycle Taxi

These tricycle taxis are a fairly new phenomenon in New York City. I started seeing a few of them on the streets about two years ago but now, they are everywhere. These young fellas will "drive" you anywhere in Manhattan if you pay the right fare. I don't know how much it would cost since I've never ridden on one. And it is not an efficient way to travel around the city but for a tourist, it is definitely a fun way to explore the city.

So have you ever ridden on a tricycle?

Update: Went to my 7:20 AM appointment at the Apple Store on 5th Avenue this morning and my iPhone was replaced within 10 minutes of "diagnosis". I'm back in the 21st Century again.

Restaurant Flowers

This is a macro shot of a simple flower arrangement at a Thai restaurant on Court Street between 3rd and 4th Place in Brooklyn where I had dinner with a friend last week. The small pink bloom with yellow center is probably about 3/4 of an inch across.

My iPhone died on Monday night. Since I don't have a land line at home, I had to wait till I got to the office on Tuesday morning to call the 1-800 tech support hotline to for advice. Unfortunately, nothing can be done so I will have to make an appointment to visit one of the tech support guys at the Genius Bar inside the Apple Store.

It feels weird not to have a cell phone (or a telephone, in general) available even though I have no need to call anyone right now. My only access to the outside world now is the internet. Please, please, please....don't let my internet connection fail before I get my iPhone working again.

I feel soooo vulnerable. Have you ever felt so lost?

Greeley Square II

This is a regular summer scene on Greeley Square, a small triangular plot of space bordered by 32th Street, 6th Avenue and Broadway in midtown Manhattan. Around the square is one of the busiest intersections for automobile and pedestrian traffics in the city. If you have been to the gigantic Macy's store on 34th Street and Broadway, you will understand that this is an oasis tugged inside a concrete jungle.

A year and a half ago, I posted a winter scene (January) of the same square. It looked very different from the photo above because of the cold weather, i.e. few greeneries or people around.

So are you happy summer is almost over and the cold weather is approaching? I am! I love cold weather. :-)

Lost Bird

Last week, I lost my camera but I found it the next day. On Saturday, I saw this sign posted on a lamp post in SoHo -- apparently someone found a lost bird. My question is how does one find a lost bird? Did it fly into someone window and said, "I'm lost?"

So have you lost something recently? Did you ever find it again?

Nutella Sandwich

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you would have figured out that I rarely eat/cook at home. But I do . . . sometimes. This photo above is an example of my cooking reportoire: nutella (hazelnut chocolate spread) sandwich. My other specialty is a scrambled eggs over peanut butter and toasts. When I tell my friends that, they all said, "EWWWWWWWWW!"

So have you ever had scrambled/fried eggs on top of peanut butter and toast? If not, what weird food do you like to make at home?

Reflections on 5th Avenue

The yellow building in the reflection is the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on 5th Avenue and 59th Street. The glass building doing the reflecting is the GM Building, one block south between 59th and 58th Street. You can also see the Apple Cube on the bottom right corner of the photo.

I apologize if I have not been visiting your blog lately. It's been a busy week for me so hopefully, I will be able to do some catching up in the next couple of days.

Hope you all have an enjoyable, relaxing weekend.

Gruyère Tartine

I had lunch this afternoon with fellow NYC bloggers, Lisa of Gramercy Cafe and Todd of Postcards from Hell's Kitchen at Le Pain Quotidien, an amazing Belgian cafe/restaurant in Union Square. Unfortunately, I "lost" my camera this morning so was not able to take any photos except this one with my cell phone.

Lisa and Todd took a lot of photos including one with actor, Jesse May who starred in a Pepsi commercial. Go to Lisa's blog to see the commercial on YouTube.

My lunch included a bowl of gazpacho (you can see part of it on the top right of the photo above) and gruyère tartine with mustard. It was super delicious and I think everyone had a good time. So what did you have for lunch today?

N.B.: I found my camera in a grocery bag from yesterday.

Otafuku NYC

This is the front entrance to a tiny (and I mean TINY) Japanese take-out restaurant called Otafuku in the East Village. There are only three items on the menu: okonomiyaki (Japanese style savory pancake), takoyaki (octopus balls) and yakisoba (stir-fried noodles). Customers can mix and match any combination of two of the above items for less than $5. Now, that's cheap eats.

So have you eaten octopus before?

Ferns For Now

Everything I photographed lately has turned out . . . blah!! I have been lacking inspiration or been visiting the familiar haunts too frequently. I need to find a new place to visit instead of tSoHo, Little Italy, Union Square and East Village.

So here is something from the archives. It's ferns for now!

We Accept Euros II

The real estate market may be battered in some parts of the country but it is doing very well in NYC (Manhattan) , thanks to the foreign buyers in the market. Some realtors, like this one in SoHo, are targeting European buyers with their strong Euros. The apartment listed on the chalkboard is a condominium loft in the NoHo (north of Houston Street) district and it can be yours for a reasonable €888,000 or an affordable £766,000 or an unbelievably absurb price of US$1,532,000. Ouch!!

So where do you go for an affordable dinner or an expensive dinner in your hometown?

Old & New in East Village

This is the skyline of East Village on Lafayette Street, just south of 8th Street. The blue glass building on the left is a new $5 - $12 million condo/coop building that sits on leased land. This is an interesting concept in residential real estate because the building does not own the land it sits on. At some point (way in the future), the lease on the land will expire and a new contract will have to be drawn up. How will that affect the prices of the apartments? Only the future can tell.

So how was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?

Fancy Schmacy Dresser

I saw this elderly gentleman waiting outside the Christian Dior store on 57th Street near Madison Avenue yesterday evening. He was probably waiting for the car service to pick him up after an afternoon of shopping.

Notice the canvas tote with the green handles on the floor next to him. That is such an upper middle class NYC thing, i.e. older men carry canvas totes. I'm not upper middle class (not even close) but I do have one of those totes at home. A friend gave it to me because it was too big for her small frame. The bag is great for picnics, except I haven't been on a picnic in ages.

So what kind of bag do you carry?