A Whirlwind Tour of the Big Apple

Ahhh...New York, how I've missed thee.  I was here on a week-long trip with a few friends about a decade ago, and I've since missed it terribly.  The convenience of getting anywhere and everywhere within walking distance, the sights, the culture, the art, the food... I've just fallen completely in love with Manhattan.  I've since wanted to return so badly, but it's not quite the vacation destination when you have three little kids.  Luckily for me, my cousin is currently attending classes at FIT and lives on the Upper West Side, so I took the opportunity to take a rare weekend trip to the city I've missed so much.

Where should I begin?  She had a packed schedule for me.  The day I landed was Friday afternoon, and that night she took me to a nightclub.  Oh, how I've missed the night life!  Then, we walked through Central Park to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the next day, spent half a day looking (ok, more like gawking for me) at the exquisite pieces done by the masters.  Not to mention the amazing exhibitions going on right now.  Then the afternoon was spent shopping on Fifth Avenue and SoHo.  And, since New Yorkers never sleep, we took a stroll from her apartment to Times Square around ten in the evening.  Talk about a packed schedule!  We crammed a week's worth of activities into a weekend.  I've got no other choice, gotta come back home to take care of my munchkins!  It really is possible to pack so many activities in such a fantastic city into a couple of days.

So we're not going to talk too much about the night club.  What can I say, I was one of the oldest people there.  Anyone of those "kids" at the night club could easily be my kids...if I had had children in my early teenage years.  But it was fun dancing nevertheless.  You don't get to do that much anymore after having kids!  So it was definitely worth staying up until 4am for.  *wink wink*

Central Park (link)

Walking distance from my cousin's apartment, we decided that we should at least take a stroll through this beautiful park this weekend.  The weather that day, to a Californian like me, was humid and hot.  But to a New Yorker, who just came out of the cold not too long ago, it was fantastic weather.  I'm not a fan of running myself, but there were loads of people jogging through the park.  Some with baby strollers, some with a partner, some were biking.  Luckily it wasn't too sunny, otherwise I think I would've melted in the heat.  But it made me so happy to see so many people leisurely enjoying their Saturday morning.

The Met (link)

I've taken a few art history courses throughout high school and college.  And I find the stories behind these historical masterpieces absolutely fascinating.  It's been so long since I've stepped foot into an art museum.  My children are too young to appreciate art, and my husband just isn't an art aficionado like me.  When I visited NY a decade ago, I remember that I had a great time inside the Met.  But the experience was even greater this time because of the current exhibit - China: Through the Looking Glass.  Talk about haute couture meeting high art!  It was amazing being able to see what the fashion powerhouses like YSL, Chanel, Valentino, Roberto Cavalli, Tom Ford, John Galliano, Givenchy, Ralph Lauren, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dior, Jason Wu, Cartier, to name a few, designed for this exhibition, which was also the theme for this year's Met Gala.  Their designs were based on past costumes, paintings, porcelain, and other artifacts from as early as the thirteenth century.  To see a court robe from the Qing dynasty?  And a vase from the Ming dynasty? The experience was priceless.  The exhibit took my breath away.  See for yourselves.  Although my camera phone did not do the exhibit justice!

And because I'm in love with the Impressionists, I had to go visit that section of the museum.  I've always loved Van Gogh's work.  As a matter of fact, a poster of his Wheat Field with Cypresses from the Met I purchased 10 years ago, still hangs in my foyer.  I was lucky enough to be able to catch another current exhibit, which was one of Van Gogh's paintings.  This was a trip well taken, I tell you.

Oh, don't get me wrong, the museum had so many other collection, this museum is to me like Disneyland is to my kids.  It would take 3 days for me to see everything.  But since we were limited on time, we only saw what was most important.  Here are some Egyptian art, Greek art, and Medieval art.

Fifth Avenue and SoHo

Ahhhh...shopping.  A girl can't call a trip "vacation" if it doesn't include shopping.  We strolled Fifth Avenue and gawked at all the beautiful goodies.  I was on the lookout for a casual cross body bag, so we went to all the big department stores.  We finally found a cute Céline Nano.  it was in the perfect shades I was looking for.  Neutral tones in tan, black, and white, perfectly goes well with everything!  And the best part about this is, I bought this at Bergdorf Goodman.  Since there is no Bergdorf Goodman here in California, it shipped home and saved me nearly $300 in taxes!  That's like a discount on a high-end designer bag, which never happens! Woohoo!  What a score!

Aside from the Nano, there were plenty of stores in SoHo that were having great sales, so I nabbed a light sweater from Club Monaco, a pair of faux leather jeans from All Saints (similar here), and a cute necklace from Madewell (similar here).  Yes, I knew there was a reason I loved New York.

Times Square (link)

The first thing I want to say about Times Square is this: why on earth would there be THAT many people there at midnight?!?  Don't you guys sleep?!?  There were honestly tens of thousands of people!  If you'd seen what I saw, you'd think that we were there on New Year's Eve, watching the ball drop or something.  It was ridiculous.  We got there, we saw the sea of people, took a few pictures, and left.  Don't get me wrong, Times Square is amazing as well.  Just the sheer number of people there will make your jaw drop.  The lights, the stores that never close, the street vendors, they all bring this place to life.  I stopped by M&M World and bought some personalized candy for my kids, and got a couple of really cool street art (YouTube link here). I saw this guy's work on my FB feed one day, and I thought it was the coolest thing.  So when I came across him, I knew I had to get the paintings for my boys.

Food

I can't talk about New York without talking about the marvelous food the city has to offer.  My cousin took me to some of the best restaurants around her apartment, and sure enough, they didn't disappoint.  First stop was Totto Ramen.  I got the Mega Ramen.  Oh my, the broth is heavenly deliciousness.  And there was so much food that I couldn't finish the entire bowl.  Which never happens when I'm eating noodles.

Next up, Pick a Bagel.  There were lines out the door for their bagels.  I had their whole wheat bagel with raison and walnut cream cheese.  And let me tell you, I don't eat cream cheese often, but this one was so delicious.  Just look at the picture of their cream cheese selection!  Although I don't know what plain tofu would taste like...

And a block from the bagels, is a smoothie store.  Not your typical Jamba Juice.  This is much healthier.  Juice Generation even has tiny bottles of juice "shots" that do various things for your body.    Cleanse, check.  Boost metabolism, check.

After we went to the Met, we stopped by Le Pain Quotidien.  Yes, there are many closer to home, but it's usually too inconvenient of a drive for me.  Since it was walking distance for us, we decided to stop by.  That day, this particular store ran out of ricotta cheese for the Prosciutto, Pear, and Fig Tartine I ordered, but I asked them to substitute it with plain Greek yogurt, and the result was still delicious.

Last but not least, we went to 456 Shanghai Cuisine for their delicious dumplings, also known as Xiao Long Bao. The restaurant itself does not have a website, but here's an article on it on the NY Times. There of course was a line out the door again; we waited about 20 minutes and then we were seated. I was reading up on the restaurant from one of the articles they posted outside, and supposedly the owner modeled his dumplings based on Ding Tai Fung dumplings.  Sure enough, the dumplings didn't disappoint.  I also felt like eating their sesame cold noodles, and that was delicious as well.  Although after a while, the sauce became too rich for me, so again, another bowl of noodles I couldn't finish.

Alas! My post on NYC is finally done!  I have been wanting to write this post since I returned, but I was either too busy or just got plain lazy.  I finally decided I'd sit down today and type it up, once and for all.  My cousin and I didn't have time to watch a Broadway show this time, and that's on my to-do list.  She promised me she will take me when I visit her again.  So cous, if you're reading this, I'm holding you to that promise!  I'm sure a lot of you have been to New York already, but have you been able to do all this in two days?!  And to those of you who haven't, and have heard such wonderful things about it, it really is that great.  If you think there are too many things to do and too many sights to see, and you just don't have enough time to do and see them all, I just proved to you that it is possible to do most in a short weekend.  I hope you find my post helpful in navigating the city!

xoxo,
Lin

Island of the Blue Waters

We can pretty much call ourselves regulars in Maui now.  We've been to this beautiful island about a handful of times, and it has been my children's favorite vacation spot.  Nothing beats the Maui sun, the crisp, turquoise water, and the relaxing atmosphere.  And since we're only 5 hours away from Hawaii, this is our go-to vacation destination.

We stayed at the Grand Wailea once and fell in love with the resort.  This resort is basically divided into two parts.  One part is the villas, where the resort manages and rents out individually owned condos.  And the other part is the hotel.  The first time we were there, we stayed at the villas.  It was a fantastic, incredibly spacious condo.  You literally feel like you're in paradise as you look out from the lanai.  The only drawbacks are that there is no room service, and the beach and amazing pool facilities are all on the hotel side, so we had to drive across the street everyday.

This time we chose to stay on the hotel side.  We had a suite and a connecting bedroom.  The resort was so nice, since our wedding anniversary falls on the 4th of July, they sent us a huge arrangement of tropical flowers and assorted snacks, on top of that, they gave us a box of gourmet cookies and chocolate covered strawberries.

We spent most of our time at the beach; we can stay up to 6 hours a day just lounging and playing.  The resort will set up lawn chairs and umbrellas for you, and if you're hungry, you can go to the resort cafe and take boxed up food to the beach.  We probably only spent a day at the pools, but the pools are incredibly amazing.  Each pool has a distinct feature to them.  There are kiddie pools, an adults only pool, slides connected to pools, a lazy river, scuba diving pools, and a pool where there's a rope where you can hang on and jump into.  The lazy river doesn't provide large floaties, you'll have to purchase them at the pool-side shop, but they're not insanely expensive, and they're pretty well-made, so we purchased 2.  They're not absolutely necessary, as most of the pools are only 3-4 feet deep.

There are quite a few restaurants on resort property, but we like exploring the island and try different things.  One of the best restaurants we've tried this week is located at the nearby Andaz resort, the Morimoto Maui.  Their omakase is very pricey, but absolutely delicious.  We weren't able to go this time, but Star Noodle in Lahaina is a must.  Their Hapa Ramen is made with a broth that's made with the Lahaina Luau pork bone, cooked for about 12 hours.  The flavor is to-die-for.  Another good restaurant to try is Mama's Fish House.  They are on the pricey end, and reservations are recommended at least a week in advance, but the seafood is fresh, and the dessert called Black Pearl is among one of my favorites, ever.  Another good restaurant is called Sansei.  When we drove up, my husband and I thought this place looked vaguely familiar.  Then I remembered that we were here 10 years ago on our first wedding anniversary trip to Maui!  Only the strip mall a decade ago wasn't as lively as it is now.  Food was still amazing though!  And how can you leave Hawaii without having shaved ice?  The stand where we had ours was called Surfing Monkey Shaved Ice.  It was only steps away from Sansei.  They're not like your regular shaved ice stand.  They offer syrup flavors like Kona coffee made with real Kona coffee, cream, and sugar, real lemonade, or combinations of different flavors making up new flavors like Tiger's Blood (ha!). They have options where you can put a scoop of vanilla ice cream inside the shaved ice, or sweetened azuki red beans, or ling hui mui powder (a type of dried Chinese plum), you name it, they have it.  The owner is a British guy who came to Maui and decided he never wanted to return to London.  And it was fun being able to chat with him.

One of my husband's cousins had their family photo taken in Maui just not long ago.  And I loved that idea.  What better backdrop is there than the blue waters and the gorgeous white sand?  So I did a little research on Yelp, and found a fantastic local photographer to do our family portraits.  Turned out, she was the one that my husband's cousin used as well!  Small world!  Her name is Angela Nelson, and we honestly couldn't be happier with her work.  She was so good with the kids.  Captured their innocence perfectly, and did fantastically with all the candids.  I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of posed photos.  She did mostly candids, and even her posed photos were amazing.  You'll see for yourself!

xoxo,
Lin

Staycation

I don't think I've ever done as much traveling in one month as I did this July.  Three weekends out of the four this month, I'd have gone to three places and stayed slept on three different beds other than my own.  Each trip will earn it's own blog post.  This one, however, will highlight the places I took my kids to during one of the weeks of their summer vacation.

So in the years past, I've always scheduled summer camps back to back.  When one ended, another one was the week immediately after.  This year, because my boys' school schedule was so packed, I decided that we'd take it easy during summer vacation.  I cancelled all of their after school activities that they normally take, and inserted a week of "nothing" between the summer camps and before and after our travels.

During one of the empty weeks, I decided that since the kids are all old enough to behave like decent human beings in public (as opposed to a bunch of wild monkeys), I should take them to different places locally and still have fun.  Otherwise we'd be watching TV all day at home and/or read books. Here are the places that we visited during a particular week: Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena, The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, and Abalone Cove in Palos Verdes.

Kidspace Children's Museum (link)

I took my boys here when they were tiny toddlers.  They weren't even 2 yet.  I remembered the place being a lot of fun for them.  They were a tad too little to enjoy all the activities here, but they nevertheless had a lot of fun.

We visited a family member in DTLA that day, and because it's not too far from Pasadena, we decided that we should go to Kids Space too.  We only had about an hour before closing to play, but that was plenty of time.

Admission is $11 for adults and children, and infants are free.  When you enter, you enter through a tunnel, I think that alone had me in awe.  My children had fun climbing up an indoor treehouse.  We weren't there long enough to enjoy all the activities indoors, because I had to take them outside.  Once outside again, you have two separate areas where kids can ride tricycles on paths.  There were ones for older children, and the other side for toddlers.  Helmets are provided for the older children.  As you go up further up, there is a man made stream where the kids can jump in and enjoy the water. It was incredibly fun!  I brought an extra set of clothes for my kids to change into, but what I should've done was just have them in their bathing suits.  You can take buckets from the tricycle area and bring them up to the stream.  These pictures will speak for themselves!

Aquarium of the Pacific (link)

We're members of this museum, and I feel so lucky that we get to live so close to such an amazing facility.  My boys absolutely LOVED sea animals when they were little.  They were in awe of all the different types of sharks, and the shark petting "zoo."  Aside from that, there is a lorikeet jungle where you can feed the birds nectar.  Sometimes when they're extra hungry, or just feeling friendly, they'd even climb on your finger.

Since my daughter was born, I wasn't able to bring the boys here as much as I'd like to.  One of the twins had wanted to go for quite some time, but I haven't had a chance to bring them until now.

What perfect timing it was!  The aquarium is currently having a jellyfish exhibit.  It was mesmerizing seeing all the different kinds of jellies.  From jellies that have flashing lights, to upside down jellies, to ones that have electrical currents running through them, to glow-in-the-dark jellies, every single exhibit was amazing.  Oh yea, and the rest of the aquarium exhibits, like the giant crabs, the octopus, the friendly sting rays (they come to the surface to say hi!), the fascinating sea dragons, and penguins, etc, aren't so bad either.  *wink*

See the pictures below and prepare to be wowed!

Glow-in-the-dark jellies

A bunch of tiger sharks

A friendly sting ray!

It's hard to tell but there's electrical light running through this jelly.

Octopus! 

Sea turtle

Fish that can change it's gender

Lionfish

Shrimps

Sea dragon

Beautiful leafy sea dragon

Abalone Cove (link)

I've never been here before - however, I've heard many good things about this place.  I've always wanted to bring my kids to the tide pools to explore.  And sure enough, this place did not disappoint.

Don't get me wrong, this place is not for little ones.  It is about a 10 minute steep hike to get to the tide pools.  Then when you get to the beach, you have to walk past a bunch of rocks to get to smooth surface.  The tide pools itself wasn't easy to get to either.  The rocks are sharp and unsteady, so water shoes with more traction (not just Crocs, from our experience) are definitely recommended.  But when we did get to the tide pools, it made the trek totally worth it.  We saw so many crabs, anemones, mussels, hermit crabs, sea snails, etc.  I'd say it's a hard walk for even a 4-year-old, as my daughter, although a total trooper, did have a little difficulty getting around.

Sea snails

It's hard to tell, but these are hermit crabs

A green crab 

Mussels

I think they found a shrimp

If you're a So Cal resident and you're wondering what else there is to do, I hope I gave you some ideas to take your children this summer!  Enjoy the summer while it lasts!

xoxo,
Lin