Hurricane Irene

Yup, Irene was headed our way.  If you hadn't heard Irene was going to be the biggest Hurricane of all time!  Well at least that's what the news agencies, mayors, governors, and even the president were saying.

The city was in evacuation mode, the transit was shut down, stores were closing, people were asked to leave their buildings, and stores were boarded up.

Below is a new way to use duck tape...

I guess they started to run out and used a few pieces of strong to make sure trashcans weren't flying everywhere.

Everywhere you looked things were boarded up and taped up!

So where was the first place we went when we heard we had to evacuate and stores were shutting down?

Whole Foods!!!

Yes, its crazy to think in the world that we live in that I and everyone else in New York, were fighting over organic fruits, free range chicken, and hormone free milk.  I still can't figure out how I feel about the whole thing.  So the line wrapped around half the block and it took us about 15 minutes to go in.  I really felt like I was on the old show super market sweep.  You get into a real weird shopping mode, when everyone around you is buying for a 2 week camping trip or nuclear warfare.  So you get into the same group think as well.  I think we bought enough food for 10 different meals.  (I think at least 6 of those meals never came to fruition).  

This was a friday and the hurricane wasn't going to hit until Saturday night.  Whole foods was nice enough to stay open all night or until food ran out.  And even by the time we got in there there was no bread left and very little water.  I do feel better that bread and water were the first to go and not organic pears and quail.  But who am I to judge we filled an entire cart full of food and still had second thoughts on whether we bought enough.

Jason Wang was visiting us and hadn't been to NYC since he was small so it really was the worst weekend he could have came.  We had so many plans that fell through such as going to the Jersey Shore, seeing a Broadway show, taking and boat cruise and going to the top of the Empire State Building.

So after getting our provision the day before, Saturday became a ghost town.  The subway was shutting down at noon.  And the taxis were on emergency fare tolls, which meant it was going to cost the 4 of us almost $40 to go anywhere, since they turned off the meter and changed flat rates within Manhattan and more to any other destinations.  So whatever we did had to happen either close or before noon.  After scouring the web, we found out that the shake shack on the upper west side would be open from 11 - 3 on Saturday before shutting down.  All other locations would not even be open.

So we jumped on the subway and was in line at 10:50.  We had our burgers and got back down to our area on the subway before it was shut down.  

These girls were carrying everything they needed for a long stay away including a bottle of wine in the water bottle holder on the side.  It was an amazing site on the subway before it was getting shut down.  People were really heading the warnings and getting out before the Hurricane struck.

At 3 this is what most of the subway stations looked like.

But we still had most of the day free so we didn't let it spoil our day.

So where would you go on the day before Armageddon?  Times Square!!!

I also made a shirt to mark the occasion and got a lot of great complements!

After all the fun was had in times square we finally made it back to the apartment filled the bathtub and sang campfire songs for the rest of the night.

More accurately, Christie made an amazing meal with all the great food we had from Whole Foods.  We obviously bought beer to hold us over for the night and video skyped with a few friends to tell them our last wishes.  We went to sleep and the next day New York City was still intact, there was very minor flooding by the south street seaport, and a bunch of leaves and branches on the ground.

Overall NYC was spared the blunt of the storm and more importantly all the flooding that occurred in the area around New York, which ended up having a great deal of destruction.

I can say after a week that started with an earthquake and ended with a Hurricane that New York City was hitting us with everything they had but we are still staying strong!

Nerd Alert!

Well at least that's what Christie said when I told her I was taking her to the Skyscraper museum.  Found in Battery park on Manhattan's southern tip, the skyscraper museum was everything you think it is.

New York has a ton of world renowned museums but none of them got me as excited as seeing the models inside.

The museum is fairly small, probably as big of a Walgreens.  It was on the bottom floor of a larger development, but I could have spent hours there.






They had a great model of downtown Manhattan and Christie was trying to find our apartment building.  I am pretty sure this is where her excitement and enthusiasm peaked as the next hour was filled with wooden models, metal models, paper models, foam models, and all the information possible about each building as well.

So they currently had the Supertall exhibit, which is why I wanted to attend.

Supertall = 1250 feet or higher.  Essentially any building that is taller than the Empire State building.

Below are some pics of the taller buidlings in the world.  
The Burj Khalifa which is the middle one, is in Dubai and is 2717 feet!  That is over twice the size of the Empire State Building!!!

They had a great exhibit about the world trade center history (you would never have guessed the towers were originally built right on the water!  All the dirt that they dug up for the towers made the battery park city area that the skyscraper museum now stands.

And with the past come the present, which every week is going higher and higher towards its ultimate goal of 1776 feet.

Sorry to those that I bored to sleep, I kept all the details to myself.  

The "Big" One

Yup, the Big one hit New York (East Coast).  A 5.8 earthquake hit the East Coast on August 23rd.  I was sitting in my office which is on the 4th floor of a pretty large office building and felt something very familiar to something I have felt all my life.  Well at first my thought was a big rig just passed by, but then realized there was no way a big rig (which are rare on the side of the building I am sitting).  I then was like, was that an earthquake?  Looked around a second and no one else was too excited so I went back to excel and pandora.  Within a few minutes everyone started milling around and the age of social networking really showed itself.  Twitter was abuzz with tweets about the earthquake.  Once word started spreading, people started freaking out.  Half my floor evacuated and everyone started leaving the building, thinking that it was on the verge of collapse.  

Little did anyone realize, towers with glass walls are probably not the best place to stand underneath.  

Though we did have a little fun in the office...I don't know how many of you guys saw this picture around the internet.  It was a picture of the devastation from Washington DC.

Apparently the same thing happened at my office.

Many of the office building evacuated for the day and people spent the rest of the day at home.  My team asked me if they could go home, and I said, "Are you kidding me".  We did spend the next 30 minutes talking about earthquakes and taking funny pictures and sending them around the office.

I think the earthquake was big news over the next 2 days... Come on NY really?  We were over 300 miles away.  Wake me when we get over 6 and is less than 100 miles away.

Though thanks to everyone for the texts, calls, and emails finding out if we were ok!

Le Cirque - The Cutest Dessert Ever!

x

One of the main tasks on our agenda when deciding to move to New York was to eat and when I say eat, I mean eat well.  We've use Gilt City (i really should be getting paid for all the promos i do for their company) a lot to help with this task as they do sometimes have great deals on restaurants.  One of the deals we to a place called Le Cirque.

Now I hadn't heard of the legacy of Le Cirque, until i when back to SF and spoke to one of my colleagues (resident foodie).  I learned that Le Cirque was an institution in NYC.  It had been around since the 70s and started the careers of many of famous chefs (include Daniel Boulud).    What they will do is take each of the signature dishes from the past chefs who started there and include them as their "classics".  Now i was more then excited about trying this out, until my colleague mentioned "don't waste a weekend evening at Le Cirque, go during the weekday"..

This immediately put me on guard and i wished we had not purchased the Gilt City deal (2 tasting menu dinners) for Le Cirque.

So one evening, as I was decompressing on the Train from a hard days work, I decided I wasn't interested in cooking, I know Raman doesn't cook, so let's use the Gilt City deal.    This was a Monday night - yes......

We put a last minute reservation and still showed up 45 minutes early.  As we walked in (me in a dress and Raman in a jeans and a button down plaid shirt) we quickly realized that we were out of our league.

Immediately, the host asked what Raman's jacket size was and swooshed off to find a blue blazer which Raman would have to wear for the remainder of the evening.  We were then swiftly taken to our seats.  We provided the waiter with the gilt deals and said we would try one of everything on the tasting menu (there were two options for each course, so why not).

From that moment forward, we were transformed by each dish that came to us.  First a beautifully silk green garlic soup amushe, followed by Foie Gar and scallops, Potato wrapped bass and lobster risotto, Lamb and steak, and to end the evening creme brûlée and a stove cake.  All delicious, all beautifully crafted, all devoured by us with excitement and intrigue!

We'll let the pictures tell the rest about the cutest dessert ever!!

When Friday's turn from sub-par to above par!

Given that Raman and I are planners in life we had our last Friday night specked out about 6 weeks ago... Or so we thought.

Our plans revolved around attending Raman's company picnic out at Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  I took a half day as his picnic started at 230.  

We arrived, had a little food, and realized that everyone Raman knew from work was not at the picnic..........  So we hung around for about an hour then decided to hit the road and see what brooklyn had to offer.

Raman had been mentioning that he wanted to go to Six Points Brewery which was in Red Hook, Brooklyn, so we figured out the route via bus and upped on the M61.  Upon arriving we realized we were on the edge of brooklyn within one block from the Ikea (you all know it took everything I had to withheld Raman from going to the Ikea as well that day).

Six Points ended up being a bit of amusement for us as it was not in the best part of brooklyn and was "closed for renovations"......  

Lucky for us, there was a dive bar next door which did serve 2 Six Point beers so we decided to embark there instead.

While at Rocky Sullivan's we were unsure if we would just get the heck out of dodge and back to our little sheltered island of manhattan or if we would brave the beast of brooklyn and see what else it could offer.  After much deliberation and the help of a trusty i phone app call Alfred, we decided to take brooklyn by the horns and walk up to a mexican placed called Alma.  We were not expecting much more then a mediocre taco as thus far we'd learned that NYC is not known for their mexican food, but we decided to give it a try anyways.

To our delight, Alfred gave us an amazing recommendation!!  Alma is a corner restaurant/bar that has a beautiful roof deck which houses an completely unobstructed view of Manhattan and the sunset!  And to top that off it was amazing and cheap mexican food!!  Raman and I walked out of there stuff to the brim with steak fajitas, chicken enchiladas, and fish tacos....

We will for sure be making a trip back to Alma!!!

From that point we were so happy and stuffed with food and booze that we decided the brooklyn bridge looked close enough we would walk to it and back over to Manhattan.  We strolled along the water, in and out of various parks that they've built to allow brooklynites and tourists to take it the amazing views of Manhattan! and ended our evening with a night stroll across the Brooklyn bridge!  All and all a planned Friday evening turned into a completely spontaneous spectacular event!!  Always the best times!!!!

Summer Streets

I know it's been a while since my last post and my parents have been telling me that I need to better at writing these more frequently, but until they decide to invest in bark recognition software, you guys are just going to have to hold out until I can either convince my dad to stop playing with excel spreadsheets or my mom to focus on me instead of the Challenge or Jersey Shore.

Either way, here's what i've been up to!

In August, NYC closes down Park Avenue from 72nd to Wall Street to cars and only allows bikes and anything that has more then two legs to walk on.  It's called Summer Streets and I have to admit that I wish it wasn't limited to Summer, but i guess i might be barking a different story if in December when Park is filled with snow.

Both weekends my walks have taken me in different directions up and down Park Ave.  The 1st weekend my parents walked me down to Union Square (14th street) and we were able to walk into a food city picnic area where the smells of food were amazing.  This past weekend, they decided to run me up to 64th  and back.  Again, it's great to have a car free street that i can run, walk, and "do my business" on!!

Here's a little preview:

I have to admit, i was one tired pup after the running Saturday!  Looking forward to Summer Streets this coming Saturday!!

Sleep no more

Picture this:

Now multiple that by 150 and you get Sleep No More...

Sleep No More (http://sleepnomorenyc.com/) is an interactive play of Shakespeare's Macbeth.  It's located in an old warehouse which has about 5 floors.  Each floor has X number of rooms for the audience to explore all while a play is going on around them.  Sound strange, complicated, wondering how this is at all possible..... Well it is all of those things and more.

Once I got over my fears of 1) scary masks 2) darkness 3) being left alone to explore an abandoned warehouse (which i'm sure you're all thinking how long did it take for Raman to find me crying in the corner), I really got into the play.  The idea is that there are about 7 or 8 main characters and you follow one of those characters to see where the story takes them.

It's a pretty inventive, creative, interesting, and really cool experience and there's not much more I can say then if Sleep No More comes to a town near you, it's a once in a lifetime experience!

http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/theater/reviews/sleep-no-more-is-a-macbeth-in-a-hotel-review.html?ref=theater