NYC Adventures:: Day Two

So after we got home from Day One in NYC, I drove home to my parents house in NJ. The following morning I boarded a train heading for NYC -- this time to see friends from photography school. I met up with Rikki and our adventures began. We walked, and walked, and walked some more. After we ran a quick errand, we headed toward the Subway, making our way toward the East Village for lunch with our friend Jeff. We walked through the famous Washington Square Park, where one of my favorite movies was filmed, in part [August Rush].

(all photos were taken with my iPhone;
many were cropped to post on Instagram; follow me @saz810)

And the person feeding the birds reminded me of Mary Poppins, another of my favorite movies -- "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag..."

We met up with Jeff.....

...and he took us to this place called S'Mac...where they serve only macaroni and cheese.

After we left Jeff, Rikki and I decided we were simply going to walk around. Since I don't often get down toward the area we were in, we made our way to Soho, Little Italy, and Chinatown. While in Soho, we stopped at Harney & Sons and sampled some tea (my favorite is Paris), and I think I got Rikki hooked; we each left with a tin of it.

 Then we fell in love with the sidewalk restaurants and the charm that each had:

And finally, we made our way to Chinatown, stopping to see the fresh fish market, the fruits and veggies, and Rikki experienced her first bubble tea at Chatime:

We made our way back into the Subway and I took a few pics along the way:

Trump Soho

One World Trade Center

We met up with Chris - another friend from photography school - and went to dinner at Outback. Nothing says a good dinner like a bloomin' onion. We made a stop at Starbucks before I walked back up to Penn Station to get my train back home.

What a whirlwind two days, but oh, what fun I had!! I can't wait to head there again in a few months.

weekend fun

This past weekend consisted of the following:

-trip to NYC for the PhotoPlus expo
-riding on the NJ Transit train
-attempting to get my cell phone fixed (the screen is broken; they couldn't help so I had to order a phone online.)
-taking pictures for an assignment due this morning
-watching my nephews carve their pumpkins
-going to the mall with my mom
-going to church, followed by "Trunk-or-Treat", where trunks of cars/trucks are decorated and kids can get candy.
-laundry, laundry, and more laundry

Now to break it down some...

I drove home to NJ on Thurs. evening b/c on Friday, we all were going to the PhotoPlus expo at the Javits Center in NYC. I was going to take a few friends down with me, but we had to postpone our weekend getaway for another time. I decided it'd still be fun to head home and spend some extra time with my family, with nothing else on my agenda.

The expo was fun...I got some freebies and entered my name in a few giveaways. I'm sure I won't win any of them - I never do - but hey, it's worth a shot. I got some good ideas for wedding photography and picked up some catalogs with even more ideas in them. I got to see some demos taking place and got to listen to this one photog. talk about weddings and the way he likes to stylize his work. All in all, it was eye-opening to see the MANY possibilities out there, and a tad overwhelming at the amount of "things" that consume the business.

On Thurs. night, I received word that a good friend passed away from cancer. She was a former colleague of mine at PBU. We worked together for almost 2 years in the Professional Division (I was the secretary for School of Education; she was the secretary for the School of Church and Community Ministries, including Social Work and Grad. Counseling). Then we both moved down to Student Life and she took post as the Director of the Academic Resource Center. She not only helped all the students at PBU, but at the end of the day, went home to care for her family and grandkids. She had a HUGE heart and was an incredible blessing in my life. I remember conversations we had, laughs we shared, tears that streamed down our faces, and moments that I will never forget which taught me about loving others, having compassion, and giving your all to something you care about. Lora, the angels are dancing with you...

You had love for your family
Love for all people
Love for the Father and Son
Your heart will be heard
In your unspoken words
Through generations to come

You’re dancing with the angels
Walking in new life
You’re dancing with the angels
Heaven fills your eyes
Now that you’re dancing with the angels

There is so much that I don’t understand
But I know

We’re only here for such a short time
So I’m gonna’ stand up, shout out,
And sing Hallelujah
One day I’ll see you again

- Dancing with the Angels (Monk and Neagle)

It was fun watching my nephews decorate their pumpkins. This is the final result of all of 'em:



Then on Sunday at the Trunk-or-Treat, I took a lot of pictures, but here are a few favs:


The Heverlys' dressed up as the Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, and Alice from Alice in Wonderland


Gavin


Grant


Dean

It was a great weekend of time at home....

Now onto another busy week of taking pictures and learning new things.
This coming weekend I'm heading to PA to assist my friend Lori at a wedding. Looking forward to a lot of fun.

My Weekend, day by day (Friday)

So on Friday after the photo review of the images in my last post, my roommate Julie and I headed to Holyoke (about 40 minutes away) for this kickoff for a breast cancer walk that took place on Sunday. Western Massachusetts started this organization called Rays of Hope to raise awareness of breast cancer. Julie has been doing the walk for some 11 years, not thinking that she herself would be diagnosed with breast cancer last year. She is a SURVIVOR and an encouragement to me of someone who has determination and strength. Go Julie!

So we went to this dinner and then (a very soon-in-the-future-post) did the walk on Sunday. Here's the link to Rays of Hope if you wish to check this fantastic organization out. I'll be writing further details about the walk itself in the Sunday post.

Rays of Hope

Afterward, we went to the Holyoke Mall, one of the bigger malls in the area. I had a few places I wanted to go, and along the way we saw this store called Teavana. In February singer/songwriter Shawn McDonald talked to me about this place, but I never got to go.

Check out Teavana here.

So we walked in and of course I was hooked. I'm not a coffee drinker, but definitely love my tea, so to smell all the teas and see all the lovely teapots, I was like a kid in the candy store. The salesman was soooo good that I bought a teapot and cups and little things to set the cups on...and I am so proud of my little teaset.

Here's the teapot I got:



Isn't it just so cute? And these are the little accessories I got to go with it:

I got cups:




and little coaster and leaves to stick the cups on:



Of course my little set matches. The different cups sit on different colored coasters which all sit on green leaves.
The dragonfly (in Chinese) symbolizes new beginnings, and I am indeed experiencing a new beginning with photog. school, and it was just so stinkin' cute :)

We ended up in the store for over an hour, talking away with the people who worked there. They both knew of Hallmark and turns out the manager on duty's husband worked at Hallmark for a few years. Small world! He was actually in the mall, so we got to meet him and chat for a few minutes about what we were learning.

Saturday's post coming soon......

hong kong....at night

Last night, as I said we may, we (Mark, Corinna, and I) went to Hong Kong Island. We traveled on the MTR.

This was our route:

Shek Mun to Tai Wai (end of line)
Switch lines and go from Tai Wai to Hung Hom (end of line)
Go from Hung Hom to East Tsim Sha Tsui.
Walk from East Tsim Sha Tsui to Tsim Sha Tsui (they have those walking paths that make you feel like you're walking faster...like a flat escalator, for those who don't know what I'm talking about)
Then from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central on the Tsuen Wan line.

Along the way (IN the MTR station, we found Debbie and Holly, coming back from a trip to the jeweler. So we added Holly to the group, so she could see Hong Kong Island before she leaves on Monday for the States).

And....we've reached out destination. We walked outside to more people than we're used to in Shek Mun, but imagine - for those of you who can - walking out of NYC's Penn Station onto the street.

The sun was just about set, but I managed to get a few pictures. Oh, how I wish I already had my Hallmark training. I'd know how to get clearer pictures :)

For now, this is the best I could get:













By this time, it was 8:15pm. Mark, Corinna and I had not yet had dinner, so we (1) were hungry; (2) were hot; and (3) just wanted to sit down somewhere. We went to a mall we had seen and found this noodle place to eat. We had about a 20 min. wait, but when seated, realized we'd dine well. This was our table before we were served:



And THIS is Mark and Corinna (finally, faces to go with the names):



I had stir-fry noodles with beef - delicious! We left the restaurant around 9:40pm and made it back to ICS by 10:40pm. All in all, another wonderful night with wonderful new friends! I slept so well, I even OVERSLEPT a few minutes this morning, but still made it down on time to make morning coffee for everyone and get set up.

new shoes, and a few other newsy items

I took a picture of one of the shops at the market the other day - a shoe store.
My sister and I were skyping this morning and she commented on the shoes in the pics, telling me which she liked.

We went to City One for lunch today and lo and behold, they had the sandals and in the exact colors she and I were talking about.



I got an identical pair in black too...


And this was my AH-MAZING lunch today (rice bowl with pork):



And this is the Hong Kong version of our Dollar Store in the States - the $7.80 store:



And Debbie and I went to the mall last night for dinner. We decided to be true Americans and eat at Ruby Tuesdays. While I was in great company, I could have been spared the food. It wasn't all that great. I got salmon (one of my fav meals) with rice and veggies. The rice tasted like they had microwaved it. And I didn't even touch the veggies - they looked like wax.

Then we went to City Super, the supermarket I've mentioned before. We watched the women cook the custard dessert I was telling you about earlier. These pictures aren't that great, but at least you can see what I was talking about. Then, of course, I HAD to get a hot custard one. It was as delicious as the first one.







Here it is....oh, the deliciousness. The custard is on the inside.



After class tonight, we MAY try and venture to Hong Kong Island, where the lights and touristy places are....will update in the AM!

first weekend adventures

The class finished their exam, and just as planned, we all headed out to have "dim sum" with the student who was leaving Friday evening. He is Korean and was able to pick up on one of the (fully) Chinese menus the word dim sum. So we all sat around a table together and asked what everyone wanted. The consensus was simply, "Let's all get dim sum."

This is what ensued....another student attempted to speak in Mandarin (he's from mainland China) and not Cantonese (what the people mostly speak in Hong Kong), and so many of the wait staff ended up coming to our table to attempt to find out what we wanted.



Whereas we thought we were getting dim sum, what came to our table was nothing close. First to arrive were 6 sandwiches on rolls. The sandwiches had pork, chicken and I think beef. We all soon realized we were NOT getting dim sum. What came next was even more of a shocker.....french toast arrived on our table!



Laughter erupted and we all couldn't understand what happened. The waitress came over and the student who ordered for us tried to explain what happened. Even though it wasn't what we expected - nor what we wanted - we enjoyed our sandwiches, french toast, and time together.

Speaking of, if any of you is hungry, let me know what you want off this menu, and I'll be sure to bring it home to the US with me...



This is all of us eating....


We then decided to go get ice cream cones at McDonalds. We all walked to Citi One, the mall close to campus. Along the way, I took some shots of life taking place around me:














I could just sit at City One all evening and take pictures of the people and things they were doing. Maybe I'll go do that at some point. A bunch of people decided to go back to ICS, but Mark, Corinna, and I decided to go exploring. I made the suggestion to go to Newtown Plaza (the "big" mall) and so we boarded the bus and went to the mall. Mark and Corinna hadn't been there before, so it was fun to roam around. I kept talking about wanting what I called dumplings, and Corinna wasn't sure what I was envisioning. We found City Super, the supermarket in the mall. We decided to walk around and look at everything. What we stumbled upon at the beginning was a variety of fruit.... durian (a really bad smelling fruit), pomelo (looks like a grapefruit, but not bitter), dragonfruit, mangosteens (my favorite from Thailand...excited to buy some here), and lots of others.

For a good peek at the fruit of Hong Kong, I googled "Hong Kong fruit" and came across someone else's blog, who posted some good pics (and some funny anecdotes) about each of the main fruits:

http://www.sunnysideuprecipes.com/2009/07/tropical-fruits-in-hong-kong.html

But then we ventured into the meat section of the store and saw this:



We continued along and found what I was thinking of...my dumplings. Sure enough, next to it, we found what Corinna was looking for...and they were called buns.
We bought some of each and continued on. We checked out, and on our way out, came across this "display" - people making these pastry-like items...you could get them with bean paste, custard, and a bunch of other things within. I enjoyed watching them make them...they kinda looked like cupcake tins, but they'd fill half the tin with the mixture, let it bake, then add the filling, then put an already baked half on top, to form a type of sandwich, sealed together. Corinna decided to get one (with custard) and we 3 decided it was one of the most delicious treats we've had. Ever. We are definitely going to go back for more. I'll be sure to take pictures next time.

The next morning (Saturday), we had lunch together (so we could eat our buns and dumplings), and along with it had veggies (peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes - of course, I didn't eat the tomatoes), and Corinna cooked up some sweet potatoes. We sliced up some oranges and called it a meal. It was delicious! We pulled some MacGuyver moves too...had to figure out how to steam the buns with limited cooking supplies. So we boiled some water in a pot, then took the drainer, put the buns in, and inserted the drainer into the pot to hopefully let the steam cook the buns. Oh, did we laugh at ourselves.

Here's a pic (from the web) of buns and dumplings:

Buns:


Dumplings:


Saturday and all of today (Sunday) it's been non-stop raining, so we canceled our outing to the market. We're planning to go next weekend. I decided to catch up on some emailing today, so came down to the computer lab to do some work. I'll probably go to the Park-n-Shop a bit later to get some food for tonight, as well as some items for the week.

Hope you had a good weekend!