The Big Apple

Yep, I did it. I pulled off a surprise weekend away for my hubby! Actually I'm not too sure how much of a surprise it was at the end, as I think he had sort of figured out where we were going. But he was a champ, letting me have my fun and not letting on that he had any hunches. As we were leaving the house early Saturday morning, I told him where we were going. He may not have been totally surprised, but he was definitely excited.

Back in June my cousin told me that her husband was going to be sent by his company to work in NYC for 3 months. His company was putting their family up in an apartment in the middle of Manhattan, and she said that visitors were welcome. From that time on, I knew I just had to try and get us out there during those 3 months. My husband always says that he's never been to the East Coast, and in particular, that he'd like to visit New York someday, so I thought it would be a fun surprise.

Thankfully all the details worked out: my hubby had a couple of vacation days to use, I found a good price on airline tickets, and the biggest detail of all: coordinating with my very gracious parents who were willing to watch our kids for 4 days and 3 nights! Someday we would like to take our kids to New York, but at the ages they are at now, it would've been a lot more work and limited the things we were able to do. So...what did we do?

We arrived on Saturday evening, and bravely figured out how to get from the airport to my cousin's apartment, without taking a taxi. We hopped on a bus and transferred to the Metro, and arrived feeling very savvy. Their place was just a few blocks from the Empire State Building, so that was a handy landmark.

The view outside my cousins' apartment

After arriving, we went out for a late dinner in Koreatown. Mmm! We don't get a lot of Korean food in our town, so that was a treat.

Then we walked off our dinner...we walked up to Times Square, over to Rockafeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, & then to Madison Square Garden. It was fun to also see NBC studios and the Good Morning America building.

On Sunday we slept in (actually we just stayed on our CA time) and went out to Chinatown to have dim sum for brunch.

We were close to the Brooklyn Bridge, which I really wanted to walk on, but we couldn't figure out how to get up onto it (we walked under it a couple of times) and sort of gave up in the interest of time. We instead went back to Times Square, got tickets for a Broadway show, walked through a big vendor's fair & all the way up to Central Park.

We walked back via 5th Avenue, dodging all the shoppers. Did I mention that my cousin has a 9 month old, so we did all this walking pushing a stroller as well? Good times.

Sunday evening we grabbed a quick slice of pizza and went to watch the musical, Rock of Ages, on Broadway. The show was kind of like Mamma Mia, except instead of creating a storyline around Abba songs, it was around a huge medley of 80's hits. The music was a lot of fun, but there were a few scenes that I could've done without. Afterwards, we had a late second dinner (actually just salad, bread, wine & dessert) at Carmine's, which was fun. Just to be able to go out and grab a bite to eat at 11pm (& not be too tired since our bodies thought it was just 8pm) is something we never do. It made me feel so young and spontaneous again.


Monday was our big historical landmark day. We woke up early and took the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We got to go inside the museum which is in the pedestal underneath the statue and even climb the steps to the top of the pedestal. We were really lucky to get to see it, as they are closing the Statue starting on October 28 for about a year to do remodeling. It was a beautiful day, with hardly a cloud in the sky, so we had great views of the city.

Then we booked it back downtown to pick up our reserved tickets to see the new 9/11 memorial that just opened last month. We were very fortunate to even get tickets to enter, so we really didn't want to miss it. After waiting in a couple long lines and going through security (for like, our third time that day) we got to go in and see the fountains. It was a very serene place and so profound to be there.



We walked completely around both fountains (which are built on top of the exact footprints of the North & South towers) just remembering what happened that day and praying for the families of the victims. All around the memorial there was construction, as they are working on a new World Trade Center building. In 2012, there will be a museum opened there as well, which I think will make a visit to the memorial more complete.

After that, we dodged the protestors on Wall Street and went back to meet up with my cousin & her husband so that we could walk more (!). This time over to the High Line, which is a walkway built on top of an abandoned elevated railway. Supposedly the city put a lot of money into creating and landscaping this walkway, and it was really nice. I would even say relaxing and peaceful to walk there.



We stopped at Chelsea Market and had Thai food for dinner and browsed in some of the shops. Apparently several Food Network shows are filmed there. We walked back, stopping at my new favorite tea place, Argo Tea, then had another spontaneous moment where we decided to visit my cousin's husband's workplace, which is 50 stories high and overlooks the city lights of Manhattan. The view was amazing (& free!). And just because we didn't want the night to end (and because we had walked so much I was ready for dinner #2) my hubby and I opted to go back to K-town for a late night snack. After some soft tofu soup, we were finally ready to turn in for the night.

Tuesday morning we still had a few things to check off on our "list", so we walked up near SoHo and Greenwich Village to get a crepe, and do a little shopping. We also passed Union Square and got a burger at the famed Shake Shack. (We had been told it was superior to In-N-Out, but we were not convinced of this, shhhh!) After grabbing a few souvenirs to bring home to our kids, we headed back to the airport to fly home. We arrived home at 11pm, exhausted and happy to be back.

What a whirlwind! Ahhh, but we wouldn't trade it. It may not have been the most relaxing vacation ever, but it was so exciting! Living in a big city for a few days, staying up late, making spontaneous decisions without worrying about how they will affect our kids, took me back to my younger days. Isn't there an expression, "footloose & fancy-free?" I think that describes how I felt.