Hot Time, Summer in the City

May 2007

My pal Christina came to town and we hung out while doing some of our favorite New York-y things: watched a Broadway show (Mary Poppins!), indulged in some good, good eats (Jean Georges), and took a trip up to the Bronx Zoo (gorillas!)!

June 2007

I hopped on a Greyhound with Bikki to spend the weekend with Christine. First up: Dinner at Wagamama (finally!) and then dessert: ice-cream injected cupcakes (messy, but deelish).

The next day, we watched the Giants lose to the Red Sox. My first time at Fenway!

I also went to my first amusement park outside of California: Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. We rode El Toro (the BEST wooden roller coaster--even better than Ghostrider at Knott's Berry Farm) and the SpongeBob Square Pants 3-D ride that Toby and Chris's uncle worked on.

July 2007

Dave and Mike Wu came for a visit just last week. We had the bomb time! First things first: I took Dave for his very first Pinkberry. Then, we proceeded to eat the Crackberry three more times that week.

Best shirt, ever (especially if you know what happened to his front teeth last month)!

We had burgers and "concretes" (frozen custard blended with pie crust and fruit filling!) at the Shake Shack--twice!

Dave and Mike learned how to navigate the subway system like pros.

On Sunday, we biked through Central Park for a few hours.

We also braved the madness that is Times Square several times to try to nab Broadway show tickets to Wicked (no luck) and Spring Awakening (success!).

On Independence Day, a whole crew of us subwayed it over to Coney Island to witness the most magnificent 12 minutes of gluttony known to man, the Nathan's International Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Some of the heavy-hitters we were thrilled to see: the pint-sized Sonya Thomas, aka "The Black Widow."

Joey Chestnut (aka this year's winner--whatevs, I want a recount!)

And, THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND: TAKERU KOBAYASHI!

Some of the hot dog-eating action!

The gracious loser (Takeru, you're always a winner in my book!) stuck around to sign hundreds of autographs, including ones for Dave and Mike (on his arm in Sharpie!).

After all the hot dog drama, we, of course, had to have some Nathan's hot dogs of our own. This was the scene at the restaurant, packed to the gills. We waited nearly an hour to order our food.

Fun times at Coney Island.

See how awesome NYC is? COME VISIT ME and you, too, can have this much fun!

P.S. I'll be back in the Bay at the end of this month--holler!

Yay! A post!

So, here's a photo-filled recap of 2007 thus far. Enjoy.

Chris came to NYC before moving to Hong Kong. We hit up City Bakery for some ridonkulous cookies & hot chocolate.

We also ate at an izakaya (Japanese-style bar)--this is salmon and scallions being roasted on an aromatic leaf over a cool miniature grill.

He also shared this phat piece of bacon with me at Peter Luger's. It was bacon like I've never had before.

My roommates and I celebrated Chinese New Year with a dumpling-making party at our apartment.

The dumpling-making crew hard at work.

I also passed out red envelopes to all of our guests.

In March, I left Prevention to work at a wedding magazine! Here's my desk at Prevention, before I packed everything up.

Celebrated my birthday with my roommates Rebecca and Bikki at Balthazar in SoHo.

Later that night, Rebecca took me to my first hockey game at Madison Square Garden. We watched the Rangers lose to the Ottawa Senators FROM THE VERY FIRST ROW! I felt like such a high roller.

Mike was in town for business so he came, too!

Also celebrated my birthday with some pals a few days later. The whole gang:

Went snowboarding for the first time on the East Coast, at Okemo resort in Vermont. Nice place, with lots of uncrowded runs.

I've also been playing some Settlers of Catan. Check out this board--my friend Erika made it for her boyfriend Will for his birthday. IT ROCKS.

I've also been eating tons and tons of Pinkberry frozen yogurt. My record so far: three times in two days. Yes, it's that good.

Simon & Ivy stopped by for a quick visit. Fun times on the subway!

Since my last post, I...

1) Saw a 550-pound bluefin tuna get sliced and diced into sashimi. It was one of the most awesome things I've ever seen. Once they started cutting into the otoro--the fattiest cut from the tuna belly--I was practically drooling. Here, a visual play-by-play.  

The first incision:

He had to hop onto the table with his sashimi sword for leverage (nice Sevens, dude).

Most pieces were sold for $39.99/pound with the slabs of fatty tuna like this going for $49.99/pound. Look at all that marbling.

Oooooh.


2) Saw Lance Armstrong run the New York Marathon!
 

3) Rode the subway with a pirate on Halloween.


4) Visited Boston for the first time to visit Christine and Hayden.


And also got to hang with my favorite Huis, Simon and Ivy!

5) Co-hosted Thanksgiving dinner for ten with my roommates at our (teeny!) apartment. Here's our turkey day menu (I made the apple appetizer, stuffing, and Brussels sprouts):

6) Flew home for a 10-day Christmas break. I spent a lot of time with family, road-tripping it with them to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Here are all the cousins.


Spent the rest of my break hanging out with pals. Drove to Napa and had some quality girl time with these lovely ladies (thanks for taking care of me during my bout of food poisoning!).
 

Went snowboarding at Sierra-at-Tahoe with this guy:

And this guy:
 

And these guys came to see me off before I had to catch a red-eye back to NYC.