New York Part 3

The day before Hurricane Sandy hit the city and got us stuck indoors, we took advantage of the somewhat ok weather and continued venturing around the city. We started off at Grand Central.

Massive place! And the Apple Store! lol

Yeah I know, awkward. Just let me be.

Aries!

Our tour guide/host, Makoy.

Love this market area in Grand Central.

We came back later on that week to cure Amado's cannoli fix. The place he originally wanted to go to was closed due to the hurricane.

Of all places to go to and buy ginger for Arroz Caldo, this is where we ended up.
I wanted to cook something while cooped up at Makoy's place during the hurricane.

Shhhhhhhhh....

Little Italy or as Makoy refers to as "Tourist Trap". Which happens to be next to Chinatown where again, we had some ice cream after some soup dumplings from Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao (another must visit place that was on Amado's list).

After fueling up with some lattes and completing what was on our souvenirs list, we made our way to Brooklyn. Walking the bridge wasn't so bad. Yeah it was packed with tourists, bikers yelling "heads up" and people annoyingly stopping in the middle of the walkway to take photos, oh that was us, but for me Brooklyn was so worth it. DapperLou.com painted such a great imagery of what Brooklyn is all about and I totally understood it when we were there, even if it was during night time.

Brooklyn is <3>

If we were to move to the East Coast, it would have to be to Brooklyn.

New York pizza was also on Amado's list so we made our way to Grimaldi's.

The line for this pizzeria was pretty long but it's worth waiting in line for.

(Amado's photos: pizza, pizza)

Yey, another picture of us together!
Makoy was uneasy using my camera. I guess I make it sound so complicated when giving instructions on how to use it. I think it turned out great though.

I feel bad when I see people taking photos in front of an amazing cityscape at night and end up disappointed with the outcome. Using the on-camera flash specially if the camera is at a great distance from you is pretty much pointless. You'll just end up with a flat and dark photo.

Just have your subjects use their phones, turn the phone's camera on video mode, turn the flash on and point it (angled) at their faces. It might seem tacky at first but I think it looks better. 

30 Rock

We didn't get to go ice skating at the Rockefeller Center :(
Amado, next time?

Amado, Chic and Makoy at Central Park before we convinced her into buying a bag.

Things that I didn't get to capture but luckily Amado was always Instagram ready:
Magnolia Bakery, The Mansion Diner, Dunkin Donuts, Gray's Papaya
(please don't judge us, I'm well aware that all we did was eat)

Thanks again Makoy for making our vacation hassle free by giving us a place to stay and taking us around.
The hurricane made it a very eventful trip and we still enjoyed it.

New York Part 2

Amado pretty much had our trip planned out. As far as he's concerned, as long he knew what was for breakfast, lunch and dinner then everything is good to go.
The only thing I asked him for was a day at the Met. A day is not enough to enjoy this gigantic museum and I loved every minute of it. I would definitely love to come back to this place as well as
 MOMA, Whitney and Guggenheim.
Too bad we missed the Kusama's Fireflies at the Whitney.

Blair minus her minions (back in high school).

He forced me to smile, ACA-awkward (If you've watched Pitch Perfect then you'll get it).

That one time Tim Gunn took us to the Met for inspiration for the avant-garde challenge.
Yeah, I pretended I was with them.

I took my time looking for the "perfect" stranger to take our photo.
I rarely let people use my camera but I really wanted at least one photo of us together.

Seems like New York is so much greener than California.

Dowager Countess of Grantham, is that you?

Yes, per Amado we HAD to visit Dean & Deluca for lunch.

Day three was the day when I started to miss Juku and Kami. We kept on seeing dogs walking by us.
I said "Hello" to every dog that we saw and I might have made a couple of the owners feel awkward doing it in my "talking to a puppy" voice.
And a chic lady riding around on a scooter with her Prada bag while on her cellphone wearing heels. Werk!

Another one that made me miss our girls. He looks like a bigger version of Kami.

Amado's lunch, my chicken pot pie didn't travel so well. I still enjoyed it though especially with Amado's $7 chips. That's right, $7. I would have settled for a vending machine but I was with Amado and there's no point trying to convince him. We took our food and found a spot in Central Park to enjoy our meal.

And another one!

Here's that shot of Amado.

See, its the littlest things that makes us happy.

Tomas Saraceno's Cloud City at the Met's rooftop garden.

We brought other pairs of shoes but we pretty much stuck with our Free Runs.
I still swear by them that they're the most comfortable pair of shoes I've ever worn.
I just need to find me an all silver 2.0s and I'll be a happy camper.

We stopped by Laduree for some French macarons before heading to a Starbucks to charge our phones. 

We did that several times during our trip. Once we met up with Makoy, we headed on over to Jeepney for dinner. Again, Maharlika and Jeepney, we need one in LA!

My Bicol Express with SanMig and Amado and Makoy's Chori Burger (Longanisa meat!).

Also made a pitstop at Van Leeuwen for some ice cream.

What? We were in the area and I NEEDED ice cream.