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Merry Christmas!

mango — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 10:24:46 +0000

Nuremberg Christmas Market

Merry Christmas!

I thought today would be the perfect day for me to share some of our favourites from our tour of Christmas Markets in Germany. For a few days, we lived and breathed everything Christmastime has to offer in Bavaria – mulled wine, lebkuchen, and of course, the daily diet of bratwursts and sauerkraut. I think I must’ve been German in my past life; these people definitely do food that tickles my fancy!

Stuttgart City Centre

We began in Stuttgart, where we used AirBnB to book our stay with a lovely couple. The lady of the house directed us to a local “fast-food-like” joint with some instructions to try “maultaschens” for lunch. Maultaschens are like giant German raviolis, and the instant the savoury raviolis arrived with a pile of sauerkraut next to them, I knew I was going to love the dish. We got along just fine.

We walked through the main market a bit, had our first of many glasses of gluhwein, or mulled wine, and realized the magic of these markets: they never end. Just when you thought the row of stalls was coming to an end, a new branch/alley would open up full of hustle and bustle. It was overwhelmingly exciting. Eventually, we tore ourselves away and proceeded to check out the Mercedes-Benz Museum. From there, our host lady had recommended the Christmas Market in Esslingen, just outside of the city. We arrived in Esslingen at night and were immediately blown away.

Alex’s white mulled wine with Calvados

The Esslingen Market was set in the midst of an ancient (Medieval, in fact) town square. Flanked by seriously old architecture that I’ve only seen re-constructed in movies, the market vendors were all dressed up in costume, and the organizers even took great care to ensure the signage etc. were all written in Medieval manuscript fonts. A flame thrower and a tightrope walker completed the feel of a Medieval “faire”. It just felt like some of these people had been there for generations, doing the same thing, doling out dishes of jolly Christmas spirit with a side of potatoes.

A highlight was the bread-on-a-stick. No less than three German families stopped us in our tracks to ask us where to get these for their children. Most of the time we were confused as these parents barrelled on in German, but eventually the eager pointing/stabbing with finger motion at the bread clued us in.

Giant splitterballes

We ate very well at the Esslingen Market. My favourites were the apple slice fritters sprinkled with zimtzucker, which we quickly learned was cinnamon sugar, and the tray of roasted herby potatoes with a generous dollop of creme fraiche.

Mulled wine cups

By then, we had also learned our ways around the “staple foods” of the markets, too. Mulled wines always had a deposit and arrived in a customized mug for the market/stall. A small cone of sugared nuts – usually almonds or hazelnuts for us – was a must-have as we wandered from stall to stall inspecting the crafts and decorations. Since the Germans actually believe in gingerbread (compared to the French and their pain d’épices), we would pick up a piece or two of lebkuchen mit honig (with honey!) before the night was over. Good things my jeans were a bit loose before the trip began!

Typical stall with nuts and gingerbread

From Stuttgart we moved on to Nuremberg, one of the oldest and more traditional markets in Bavaria. In Nuremberg, the market is large and organized by rows and rows of impressive stalls, mostly in the town square. However, the whole city comes alive with Christmas spirit in celebration of the famous market. The walk from the station into the main market is studded with stalls as well. There were fruit and veggie sellers, gingerbread stands, pretzel stands, etc. We learned there that Nuremberg sausages are small and usually an order meant three of them on a round baguette. We tried a few other dishes around here, including a stall that sold hearty bowls of chicken stew with a heavy dose of curried tomato sauce. Customers crowded around the stall to use the little ledges as a makeshift bar to indulge. It was a cozy setup to be close to the bubbling trays of stew on a cold winter’s night.

Nuremberg gingerbread with honey is deliciously soft and airy, very different from any North American gingerbread cookies I’ve had

Firebowl!

It was also in Nuremberg we discovered the feuerzangenbowle – mulled wine with a giant sugar cone set on fire. The sugar cone is soaked in rum and held over the cauldron of mulled wine with a contraption…then set on fire. As it burns, the sugar drips into the wine along with a bit of rum I suppose. It was a strong wine that warmed me to my toes!

Nuremberg Market at night

We finished our trip in Munich. We browsed all of the markets in the city and ate our fair share of sausages and sauerkraut, and drank more than enough mulled wine. We also spent some time doing a history walking tour of the city, which was really fun. The history tour was really cool because even though we had been to Munich before, it was only for a layover and we never learned much about the city itself. After this walk, I’m much more appreciative of the city…and I definitely want to go back to Munich for Oktoberfest one day!

It should also be noted that it started absolutely blizzard-ing when we were walking from market to market in Munich…so pictures are few and far in between. For two Canadians, we were embarrassingly unprepared for snow, and spent most of our time in Munich shivering and blowing hot air onto our pink cold hands. It’s surprising how much we’d forgotten about winter weather in such short months.

My favourite market in Munich was the small Medieval one by the Odeoplatz. It was quite expensive compared to the other markets we’d been, but the food was different and delicious. In general, the Medieval markets featured more variety of “German grub” outside of the standard bratwursts-and-bread or bratwursts-and-sauerkraut combination. We had a steaming hot bowl of stew with turkey and potatoes (with a mound of creme fraiche on top, of course) in the blizzard there. Of course, good wine was to be found there too.

Fancy terracotta mug – heavy deposit!

Some other highlights from the Munich markets were the potato slices fritters: like potato chips, but greasier and much more delish. Alex pronounced it “dirty”, but I slurped it all down with glee. I also figured out what a splitterballe was…a super soft homemade marshmallow with a thin coat of chocolate. It was amazing! At our AirBnB host’s urge, we also went to see Tollwood market, which is where Oktoberfest is held annually. It was more like a night market that happens around Christmas time, but with heated tents who was I to complain? We ended our trip with a personal sized firebowl mulled wine and shupfnudeln (spaetzle noodles and sauerkraut stir-fried together, sometimes with bacon bits too). Mmmmmmmm.

Back in Paris now, I think my scale is quite unimpressed with all that food I consumed! :)

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the holidays with some of your favourite people, wherever you are.

Nuremberg – a bit blurry, but it was too cold to expose my hands for multiple photos!

Read the rest of Merry Christmas! on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

Winter, New York City

mango — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:50:34 +0000

For my sister’s birthday this year, we went to New York for the weekend. Having been to New York in the winter three times prior, I think it’s safe for me to declare that I love NYC in winter – it feels much nicer than a typical Canadian winter in Toronto.

We skated on the ice on Rockefeller on a chilly Thursday afternoon, and it was perfect – not too crowded, a healthy mix of cliched tourists like us and locals with their families in tow. It was slightly momentous to step onto such a famous rink; I felt like a little more skill from this tropically-born-and-raised mango would’ve been helpful. Of course, my sister was a figure skater when she was younger, so it looked effortless for her to slide right on and blend right in.

We also walked everywhere – to Times Square, through the Village, around Brooklyn Flea Market, across midtown and the garment district, and through Central Park. New York is a city meant for walking…and somehow I never bring the perfect shoes to cover all the mileage in one day, and always leave feeling like I could’ve seen more.

If there’s such a thing as a “quiet” winter, I think it happens in New York. In the past few years in Toronto, winter has associated itself with slushy roads, piles of blackened snow on the sidewalks, and a biting cold that pinches my nose and eyes shut. In New York, it’s chilly, but it also feels like winter is doing its own thing without making other people miserable – a nice change. Walking through Central Park, I could actually pace myself and observe the change in scenery from the last time I ran through there in the summer.

At the end of our walk, it was the perfect moment to end with a hot cider. Ah, winter. Finally, I have met a side of you that I can appreciate.

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Up and Down Northern California

mango — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:34:32 +0000

I had a couple of round-trip North American flight tickets to use before the end of the month, as well as two free nights at the Fairmont San Jose, so it was natural that Alex and I paired the two and went off to Northern California for the Thanksgiving long weekend. I’d always wanted to share more of the West Coast with Alex, and since Laura and I went sight-seeing two years ago around San Francisco I’ve been waiting patiently for this opportunity.

We went in October hoping for lovely weather that would make our Toronto friends jealous – and everyone we met there vouched for our thinking – but sadly it was colder than imagined, and we were actually met with a crazy rain storm that was one of the biggest in the last few decades. We did manage to hit up quite a few places before the rain came down, and we definitely added lots of mileage to the rental car!

We started off at the Ferry Building, which I had never been to. Between all the food choices there, we sampled some “salted pig parts” at Boccalone, got a cupcake and a chocolate lavender macaroon from Miette, and had a quick lunch at Lulu Petite. Miette had beautiful vintage milk glass cake pedestals in pink, white, and green…so pretty but quite pricey. Lulu Petite also offered a lot of sauces, jams, dressings, etc., all of which looked interesting and delicious.

We continued on along the Embacadero to Fisherman’s Wharf, where we stopped in Boudin to check out the store, before lining up in the freezing cold for an hour for the cable car. I know it’s such a touristy thing to do, but seriously, what’s a better way to get from Fisherman’s Wharf to Union Square? If there are better alternatives, please share!

Dinner that night was at the famous and revered Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Poor planning had us eating at 11:30pm EST on a day that we woke up at 4:00am, so it wasn’t the superb experience that I had hoped for. The food was absolutely delicious – simple, wholesome goodness. Nothing fancy, but flavours that really worked with each other without being overly dressed. The ambiance was nice too, I felt like I was sitting in a cozy family dining room. I’d definitely go back there, and this time maybe I’d plan better so we’d eat at a more reasonable time, and actually get a booking in the set menu restaurant instead of the a la carte cafe.

We spent one day in Monterey kayaking. The tour around the bay was great, and we were super close to seals, otters, and sea lions in their natural habitat, which was really neat. We were debating that day over the kayaking trip or a hiking trip in Big Sur, and since Monterey was about an hour closer to us, we went for the tour. I’d highly recommend one of these kayaking tours – it is so awesome to be able to see marine wildlife up close!

Oh yes, of course we had seafood when we could :)

We also spent an evening on Santana Row in San Jose. It was late, but we had a great time hanging out at V Bar in Hotel Valencia (best truffle fries!) and getting my fill of Pinkberry!

Then it was up the coast again to West Sonoma! I had read an article from Chow.com on the area and thought the wineries they featured in the article was interesting, and the itinerary sounded different than a typical California wine region tour. It was everything I’d expected – except with sunshine, it might’ve looked more like my imagination! We visited Iron Horse Vineyards and caught them just before they closed up shop for the day. It is an outdoor tasting room set up to overlook the rolling hills, and they’re famous for their sparkling wines – served at White House state dinners. As one of our fellow tasters said, it was worth it just for the view. Luckily, the sparkling wines were delicious too – dry and light, just like how I like ‘em.

The winery we loved, though, was Merry Edwards. We wandered in, and the hostess was super friendly and got us started on our free tasting right away. I think all tastings there are free, regardless of walk-in or pre-arranged. Anyway, Merry Edwards is a label often seen at famous restaurants on the wine list, but unavailable at retail liquor outlets, so I was obviously curious. The experience was made 100x better by the knowledgeable hostess we had, who was patient and explained each wine with great detail, never snooty about wine education, and gracious and friendly to chat with. Their sauvignon blanc is currently their claim to fame (highest score ever received by a Californian winery in that category, by the Wine Spectator – I think), and of course it was sold out. The next release in April 2010, so I’m already eagerly marking my calendar :)

It was a fun trip, but the weather, along with other exciting events that took place, really dampened my mood to take pictures (haha, bad pun). As you can see, this photo above was the weather on our last day there, and I barely got out of the car as it poured throughout the day. We had a little stop-in at Stanford before dinner with my uncle’s family in Mountain View, and called it a day.

I’ll be marking down everything in the Travel section on San Fran as soon as I have a moment, and maybe also do the Nova Scotia one while I’m at it…a little behind, I know!

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NYC Completes Me

mango — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:25:30 +0000

I can sing praises about New York over and over and you’d think I’m terribly repetitive on this blog. Yeah, I am, about New York City.

After I went in the winter this year, I wanted to go back in the summer because Alex and I hadn’t been there together since 2006. On that trip, he was really sick then so he didn’t really enjoy everything we did. Plus, of the three times that I’d already been to NYC, it was always winter (but never cold – definitely should be noted).

So off we went for the long weekend – yay!

We started at Jean Georges, where an artichoke appy looked like this. I didn’t quite know what to do. Alex was happy to note that it looked quite similar to the artichoke mess we cooked up a while back. It’s true. Turns out we’re not that stupid with internet instructions :)

This time around, I chose the newest addition to the Thompson chain, the Smyth in Tribeca, as our home base. I actually booked online through the hotel website and got an amazing deal for the August long weekend, at about 35% of the regular rack rate! It was very sleek and new inside, and I could just picture the staff saying, “I’m actually a model/actor/singer-songwriter”, as they were all good-looking people who were too cool for school. It was a very comfortable hotel with lots of in-room amenities, but I wouldn’t stay there again for the full rack rate – there are other cheaper gems in the city.

We checked out Pearl River Mart, which I’d always heard about but never set foot in. On the way up there, we walked past Chinatown…and it was amazing to see the people and the energy there. The street was packed full of people peddling an eclectic mix of bootleg and fake luxury goods, it was amusing to be a part of that buzz! I tried to take a picture but really couldn’t get a good shot anywhere because we were all packed like sardines on the sidewalk.

On Sunday morning we went for a run in Central Park, and I got to see way more of the Park beyond Wollman Rink and Tavern on the Green. The full run through the park is 10K, so we did just a bit more than that to hit the 14K for my half-marathon training. The run started out in pouring rain, which I actually loved because it cooled down the city significantly, and despite wiping the rain out of my eyes every couple of minutes, it made the run more interesting for sure. The rain stopped at about 6 or 7K into the run, and as we were finishing, the park was just starting to get busy for a Sunday morning.

We also hung out at the new park in Meatpacking, the High Line, before a late dinner at Pastis on Sunday night. The view from High Line was gorgeous at dusk, and I loved the way it was set up…full of big, wide, comfortable park benches that recline at 45 degrees! It made me fall even more in love with the city – there’s a little piece of heaven for everyone everywhere you look!

Another new spot for us this time was MoMA. We’d always meant to go but never made the commitment or time. As expected, the Andy Warhol sections were bustling with people who recognized the artwork, but the rest of the museum had a couple of limited-time exhibits that were quite fun to see, and the architecture and design itself were fun to check out. I liked the exhibit Projects 90: Song Dong where the artist Song Dong literally aired out every single item his mother carefully saved in her house in communist China. It is reflective of a culture that harboured the sentiment of “waste not” – during times of political instability, you wouldn’t want to be the household without all kinds of emergency items, and you definitely didn’t want to be frivolous when the times were good because you never knew what could happen. I felt like I was taking a trip down memory lane, looking at some of the colored pencils and markers in their original boxes, kitchen twine and other strings knotted and saved in their own bundles, and mismatched pots and pans sitting in a corner on the floor. This exhibit reminded me very much of the way my mother’s parents lived in Taiwan – my grandparents having fled a war with the communists themselves.

A trip out to the UN on our last day rounded out the list of things Alex wanted to see. We didn’t make it in time for a detailed tour of the grounds, so that’ll be for next time. It felt kind of neat being in “the United Nations” rather than the US for a while there, and I posted a postcard from the UN post office just to feel like I had stepped off the continent for a second and was mailing a letter from a (somewhat) exotic land.

Our flight ended up getting delayed so we got a bonus night in NYC. By then I was tired of being the weirdo with the jeans in a heat wave, but we managed to go out to Brooklyn Bridge and do the walk across – one of my favourite things to do. We had a delicious meal in Vinegar Hill – but I’ll devote a post to just food in NYC later ;)

All in all, it was a wonderful trip where I got to see more of NYC and fall even more in love with it. As we wandered through the streets, I’d exclaim whenever I recognized a store, a street, or a landmark. Alex just shook his head at me at how much more “at home” I was in New York versus Toronto – as he puts it, why would I even consider living in another city?

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The One with a lot of Temples and Smelly Towns

mango — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:01:44 +0000

We took a day trip out to the south of Taiwan with my godparents and my godbrother Norman. My mom suggested Lugang, and none of us are really sure why she chose this place. I vaguely recall saying it’d be nice to photograph some temples as it’s such a big part of everyday life here, but I had no idea what I was in for.

Being a long weekend here in Taiwan, it was really busy in one of the bigger and more famous temples. By the time we were done sticking incense into different pots (are they called pots?) I was sure that whatever gods were supposed to be listening wouldn’t understand me amidst my violent choking and sniffling fits. Imagine very still, humid air full of incense smoke. See the picture above of my godmother lost in smoke for an illustration.

Lugang is one of the oldest cities in Taiwan, and loosely translated it means Deer Port – which is exactly what this port did/does: they export deer antlers. We thankfully opted out of visiting any deer farms. Instead, we went through the old streets and the main tourist street was surprisingly beautiful, clean, and very well preserved. It really felt like stepping back into history when we were in the alley, but I’m sure the street’s actually cleaner than it would’ve been 50 years ago.

There were also artisans making wooden toys, string lanterns, and blown candy! We had to try, of course.

From the touristy spots, we moved off to the actual ports to have oysters, only to discover the port smelled revoltingly like oysters and seaweed and everything scary. The worst part was, there were flies everywhere. One day I might go into detail about “How Alex and Sandy Fought Off 1 Million Flies and Their Eggs” in England, but this was definitely an incidence where those flies reincarnated to attack Sandy in Taiwan, in a wide open space where she cannot duck for cover or simply hide behind a closed door (other than running back screaming into the car parked on the other side of town).

We managed to find a tourist-friendly place that served the oysters without being too close to the smells (but a barefoot waitress served us, how sanitary). I could not eat if you paid me $1,000, having just seen the flies and experienced the smells. So we continued on to another town that’s not a port, that’s famous for lamb. On the way there, we experienced chicken manure smells at its best. Let it be known that I am not a fan of towns that smell like manure exploded in my face!!

Anyway, it was a really fun day, and on the way back we have made plans to go to Kenting (south of Taiwan) when we go back to Taiwan next – with Julia & Alex, too, of course. Yay!

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Where’s My Prosiutto?

mango — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:49:03 +0000

My mom and I have been constantly surprised and inspired by our market strolls daily. The array of leafy greens, fruits, and pre-cooked deli-like foods are exciting and we’d love to be able to try and eat them all. The other day while eating at my godmother’s house, I thought, I could really get used to eating Chinese home-cooked fare everyday. Almost immediately after, I panicked a little and thought, but where would I find prosiutto if I lived here?? Ha, so for now, I’m enjoying myself but totally unwilling to surrender my prosiutto supply by moving here! I will likely check and see if it’s available in the big supermarkets in the city, though, just for kicks.

More pictures –

My lobster getting weighed – it was about 1 kilo

The cooked lobster (steamed)…you can see how I could singe my hair…

A giant rock pretending to be wood. You can see the “wood grains” if the photo was enlarged.

I had no idea there were surfers out on the North Coast!

A coffee house by the sea

Up at the top of Yangming Mountain on a foggy night

You could watch the baseball game from there if you tried!

Steamed pork buns for breakfast

In front of National Palace Museum

Architectural detail outside the museum

Since China-Taiwan tourism began, this place sees 8,000-10,000 people come through per day.

Orchid outside the museum. I love my 50mm lens.

My mom picking out bamboo shoots for dinner

A typical meat stand in a traditional market

Lots of people in front of a fruit stand

My favourite – local mangos!

Read the rest of Where’s My Prosiutto? on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

Taiwan in Pictures

mango — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:04:37 +0000

Too tired to blog, here are some pictures with captions. I will catch up later – it’s actually quite hard to find time to type away without feeling like a social recluse or an obvious avoider of my parents.

I’d never noticed how many different types of flowers there are on a flower truck

Love the multi-colored plastic bags – a staple at any traditional market

My fish said hi

So did my chicken feet

Chopsticks for sale – $1.85 for 10 pairs

This is the size of watermelons out here…

Chinese donuts chilling on the sidewalk

Picking out papayas for a quick snack

No idea what this is called. It smells kinda like Secret Wish by Anna Sui though

Pig kidneys, anyone?

Someone’s dinner artfully arranged over a manhole in plant trays…

Adzuki bean cakes being made

Traditional egg crepe for breakfast

Another traditional breakfast staple – the flat one on the fork is the unbaked version, and you can see one baking next to the fire that’s all puffed up. Yum!

Hot soy and rice milks – the cups with which you scoop them look mighty mingy

That’s what green onions look like out here – and they’re much more flavourful

We’re adapting the Parisian bike thing – but you can use your MetroCard with it here!

Some jetlagged thoughts & “one Indian”

mango — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:04:38 +0000

Due to increasing popularity for the Vancouver > Taipei > New Delhi route from China Airlines, they now hire South-East Asian flight attendants and try to incorporate Bollywood music and movies in flight. In the “introduction” flight announcement on my flight out of Vancouver, the main flight attendant announced, in English, that with the crew on board today, they have “one Indian”. I felt like bursting into song – “two little, three little Indians…” How totally PC of everyone, and me.

It’s now 6:20AM Toronto time on Wednesday, April 22. The last time I was in a bed was 6:30AM on Monday, April 20, where I had just slept for about 6.5 hours. I reaaaaalllllly miss sleep right now. If I don’t make sense here, I blame it on lack of sleep.

Coming to Taiwan is always exciting because the place I live is so familiar to me that I feel at ease and ready to reacquaint myself with my hometown right away. However, the twists (and there’s one more this time) are that seeing the grandparents always depresses me a little bit, and this time around my parents are not speaking to one another (and have not done so for about 3 years now). So please, imagine the awkwardness of trying to keep a conversation going on the way home from the airport with my parents in the car.

When I go see my grandparents, this is what typically used to happen: my evil grandma beats me down emotionally with comments like, “you get fatter every time I see you” and “wow your arm is quite thick *squeeze squeeze*, my sweet grandma compliments and fusses over me repeatedly because her short-term memory isn’t great, and my grandpa smiles serenely in the corner and adds appropriate bits and pieces in a conversation.

This time around, my grandpa is shaky on his legs and can’t really organize his thoughts. He tries to start a conversation but loses his train of thought halfway through. It is especially hard for me to witness age as I’ve been so far removed from it, and so sheltered from the effects of it, for most of my life. Except glimpses into my grandparents’ lives when I visit, I never get to see and feel “age” ripple through a family. I hate the quiet desperation behind it all – they’re all so calm, but they’re all so afraid at the same time. There’s nothing we can do about Grandpa; his brain has simply aged 92 years now and is quickly deteriorating. While doctors can reverse wrinkles, they can’t rebuild brains and bodies, and I’m not even sure if they should be able to. It’s only natural to age, but the gracelessness of it and the helplessness everyone feels about it haunt me.

Luckily for me, my evil grandma not only has the regular steam of my “weight issue” to harass me with, but with my age (almost 25!) she’s got new material now: don’t forget you need to save all your money to give your parents for their retirement, and i sure hope you’re sharing your income with your sister too! plus the inevitable marriage speak. Except the marriage speak is so warped with talk about praying to God for a fantastic husband, and perhaps going through the names of people I know from university who are church-going Christians and narrow down from there – yes, these were her suggestions. Never mind that I had just confirmed Alex and I are still together. Wow, seriously Grandma, because I desperately need a man to make me whole. Thanks for asking about my super-awesome-career that’s supposed to pay for two (very likely separate) retirements and support a younger sister. In case you were interested, Grandma, that career doesn’t exist in my life currently and has no starring role on the horizon either. It’s hard for me to be understanding because she has just put me down with all that fat talk, even though I know she’s from a different time where a woman moved from her parents’ house to her husband’s home…

My sweet grandma is sweet as ever, but she had a really rough time a while back that everyone thought she wasn’t going to make it. She is recovered now and very chatty. Aside from the no-short-term-memory thing, she is an amazingly strong woman who just doesn’t quit. I love seeing her. I like seeing all of my grandparents. However, I also noticed that as I got older and started to pay attention to my surroundings, the fact that my grandparents’ homes have stalled in time makes me sad. It makes me want to help them clean up the old stuff and re-paint the house, but at the same time it makes me remember all the memories I have in their houses with those beige-walls or red chair cushions. It’s an odd nostalgic feeling combined with an impulse to clean and de-clutter, and it also reminds me of how selfish I was as a kid. I accepted the way things were and never thought that their places needed facelifts. Now, I totally see the changes we can make to improve their lives, and I feel guilty for not having caught on earlier, and not being able to be around and help. At the same time, I’m a little glad for things not changing. It’s strange.

I didn’t want to do a post without pictures, but I really can’t function much longer, so I’m going to sign off now. I did take some serious cultural shock photos earlier today that I will post later after I finally catch up on some sleep. Stay tuned!

Tomorrow: visiting my second family, my god-family. Very exciting!

i want to be a part of it – new york, new york

mango — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:04:00 +0000

i can’t tell you when exactly i fell in love with new york city, but at some point in my childhood, i realized that i was already worshipping everything about “the city”.

to this day, in my eyes, new york city can do no wrong. i know the floors and the tracks in the subway system are dirtier than i’ve seen anywhere, but i can honestly tell you i actually find that charming. sickening, i know. when i’m there, i feel energized and eager to explore, as cliche as it may sound. i’ve only been there three times, including the most recent trip that i just got back from, but from my passion about the city, i know it better than i know vancouver (for sure), and probably toronto, too. i crave information about it, and i cling to the pieces i find so that when i’m there, i have a huge list of things to do, places to see, food to eat, etc.

i will be sharing my trip in more detail via a mini guide that i’ll be creating separately, so i can share every bit of my favourite city with as many people as possible. i’m planning on doing it for most of the trips i’ll be embarking on, and any of note that i may have already taken. it’s more for my sake, since i’m totally an over-planner :)

back to my love for new york city. this time around, i went with the mission to shop. i decided not to roll my merit/bonus into my rsp’s this year (very irresponsible in “the current economic environment”, i know) and i really wanted to get away for february, if not to a tropical destination, then at least away from home for a bit. despite my reputation for being very good at spending money, i actually don’t spend money shopping casually. these days i don’t buy clothes/shoes at all, and then when i do, i go all out and acquire pieces that i’ll really like and be able to keep for a long time. now that is an interesting philosophy to take to new york, and it definitely worked very well (or poorly) for me.

my loot included:

tory burch signature black leather flats (seriously, most comfortable flats ever): no savings
chloe pumps (last pair, in my size, the same pair i’ve been coveting from holts): $480 savings
dvf vintage wrap dress (style: justin, black and white links): no savings
bendel’s signature cap-sleeve cashmere sweater, black: $114 savings
marc jacobs electric blue and purple plaid cashmere scarf: $55 savings

- i think the savings paid for the items that i paid retail for, if that makes sense… :P

miscellaneous items also include:
bendel’s neck warmer for my sister, cashmere toques from marc jacobs for me and alex ($10 each!), dylan’s candy bar chocolates and candy, fat witch brownies, crumbs cupcakes, kiehl’s collection of products for alex plus creme de corps for me, dean and deluca custom-blend coffee (half soho, half breakfast blend), and jacques torres french kiss cookie mix!

all in all, i was new york’s stimulus package, and proud of it! my favourite part of the trip was definitely just wandering the city and looking up, and around. it’s a city that never ceases to impress.

oh, p.s. – saw chace crawford at theory in meatpacking, decided i was too old to make an effort to recognize him and harass him on his time off. but still!

Then she said ‘hi’

mango — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 04:02:55 +0000

We began the evening at the Plaza. The Champagne Bar was nice, small, and pretentious. Of course. We each had the Imperial Plaza cocktail and the gross bar nibs (solid butter on the side still) and moved on.

Stopped at Henri Bendel and then went to 21 for another drink. We first got seated next to the Bloomberg terminal, then moved closer to the restaurant when we ordered food. Somewhere along there I saw a white haired man, didn’t think of much, then he stopped to say hi to the table near us. I nudged Lori. Dude, is that Bill Clinton??

Yes! Yes it is!

Oh, that explains the men standing around with ear pieces. Hmmm.

It turned out to be Chelsea’s birthday. The fam was celebrating at 21. Of course, when Hillary walked by us in the end when they were all leaving, I swear I held my breath.

She said hi to us.

Then we said hi back. And giggled like crazy.

- Sent from my BlackBerry