Great Article - Brooklyn Bridge

(Sorry no picture today since I have been busy on the work)

I am not sure I have mentioned about the bridge - Brooklyn Bridge here yet, but there is a great article about the trip from Manhattan to Brooklyn Heights in today's the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/nyregion/23stop.html?_r=1

When I have friends/family from outside of the city (international and domestic), I usually invite them to cross the bridge. My itinerary is different from the one in the Times and it starts from Brooklyn Heights.

After having a cup of coffee and pastry (outside) or toast (at apt.), we start our walk towards the bridge - don't eat too much breakfast because there is a goody waiting for you at the end of the bridge.

Enjoy the spectacular view from the bridge while walking over it - while many people start from Manhattan, and they can't enjoy the view as much as MY route.

After close to 30 minutes of walk from my apt., it is time to head to China town for Dim Sum.

I have to take some pictures of this route sometime so you know what I am talking about...

Shooting in Brooklyn Heights

This is a bit old picture but I totally forgot to post this topic.

Since the buildings in Brooklyn Heights are so beautiful - in and out, and the park gives the best view of Manhattan, Brooklyn Heights is often used as TV and movie location. This time I ran into the trailers who were shooting a popular TV show - Gossip Girl on WB at the Packer School, a famous private school in Brooklyn Heights. Unfortunately I was not able to see any actors this time, but I heard that there were shooting some scenes for this upcoming season at the inside of the school.

Beside of this shooting, I ran into a movie by Twilight star and a hit TV series Ugly Betty was there the other day as well.

You can run into the actor/actress living in this area and they are not snobby when you say "Hi".

Street Fair

On the weekends during the summer in New York, there are many street fairs popping up everywhere. I ran into one of them this Sunday on the way to the dentist on the Madison avenue. It was a huge one and you can see many food vendors - corn, BBQ, Italian sausage, hot dog, burger and Italian ice, and other types - jewelry, paintings and T-shirt shops.

I did not have time to enjoy it this time, but when we have one close to my apartment on Atlantic avenue in Brooklyn, I am sure we will be there and are having some Italian sausage and enjoying the street entertainment.

Test Drive

She is finally here - I am talking about our new car Lexus IS. Isn't she sexy? We had been looking for our new car for a few months, and finally we got her last Friday.

As our test drive, we went to New Canaan in Connecticut where all the rich people live. There are only European brands or Japanese luxury brands on the street, but our Lexus even stood out from the crowd.

Chinese for lunch, which was surprisingly good even though it seemed more Thai/Vietnamese and there was no Asian except me eating at the restaurant.

To finish the weekend, we cooked for dinner with some wine/coctail...

A Few More Pictures from the Trip

I found a few more good pictures from the trip.

On the last night, we went to a French bistro for dinner, recommended by a person at the hotel. We started our dinner with pomegranate martini, which was delicious even thought $10.5 seemed too expensive. Food was OK and good enough to conclude our great vacation.

It was the departure day, as usual we had breakfast on the porch by overseeing the ocean. You can see how much green is surrounding this place even though it is less than 5 minutes from the beach - technically you can see the ocean in this picture.

Overall a great trip and we are sure we come back again and again.

Another Weekend Started

It's already Friday, even though I am writing this on Saturday morning. It was a busy week and I feel very tired from the vacation and the work.

I stopped by at the European style market located in the Grand Central station in mid-town. They have several stores - produce, meats, fish, prepared foods and bread. I got some vegetables for the dinner. I used to use this market more often on the way back from the office in the city, especially the meat shop which has a great selection of steaks.

To rest my stomach from the vacation, our dinner was very lighter side - cold noodle with sesame sauce with vegetable salad (no meat or fish today).

Have a good weekend, everyone!!

Trip to Maine - Part 2/2

Sorry about having a few days since last posting. I was busy once I came back from the vacation and I was actually in Philly for a day yesterday.

Anyway, back to the vacation. Where did I leave last time... I guess I can start from the 2nd day, which was HOT, even though it was much cooler than that in NYC I heard. Of course we went to the beach after the breakfast at the porch. There were already a lot of people but since the beach was so wide we did not feel that it was that crowded. I usually don't go in the water since for some reason salted water gives me some sort of allergy reaction, but this time was a different story - we had a pool only 5 minutes away to wash it down. I really wanted to swim in the ocean but it was REALLY cold, below 60 degree, so going up to waist was the best I was able to do. Overall, I really enjoyed the time at the beach.

In the afternoon, we just hanged out at the pool, which was great - not too hot, not too cold to take a nap.

Since lobster is so famous in Maine, we needed to have some, even though we are not a big fan of it. Lobster rolls with rum punch - a good combination to finish the day.