I went to NYC on a whim two weekends ago. It was a very sporadic, last minute decision, and I was stressing the entire week prior to the trip. Of course, I had a very logical reason for going. However, it was still hard to justify paying $700 for a weekend in the city. That was until I met him. =P

I flew out of Pearson on Saturday afternoon and landed in La Guardia around 6pm. My mom and I took the taxi to our hotel and checked into our room at the New Yorker. The New Yorker is an older hotel with an art deco theme. It was the first time I’ve stayed there, but I was pleasantly surprised they gave us a room with a balcony view of the Empire State Building. After freshening up, we made our way down and took our time walking towards Becco. I had made reservations at the Italian restaurant the night before and was really looking forward to their table side service of all-you-can-eat pasta. You can tell I was already well acquainted with their menu beforehand.

We stopped by Muji first, as it was on the way, then made our way to Becco. I’m so glad I made reservations at Becco because it was packed with people waiting to get in. After getting seated at the back, our waiter came to take our order. To me, it felt really weird being the only non-Cauasian person in the restaurant. All the diners were Cauasian, while all the waiters were Latino. It must be an American thing? Anyway, I ordered the antipasto misto for appetizer, along with the pasta service. My mom had the swordfish. Antipasto was a little too sour for my liking, but I absolutely loved their pasta. We were really full after dinner, but I insisted on ordering panna cotta for dessert. Overall the meal was very yummy. We walked off the extra pounds as we made our way back to the hotel and called it a night.

Bright and early the next day, I received an email from my friend Tian, who informed me that there would be a gathering in the afternoon. My mom and I grabbed breakfast, then decided to take a stroll towards Times Square before we were scheduled to meet Tian at 11am.

Tian picked us up at the hotel lobby, then we proceeded to take the subway out to SOHO. Since we were there early, we took time to walk around Chinatown, then met up with the other ladies at a Starbucks nearby. By the time everyone joined us, we had left Starbucks and made our way to grab lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Everyone was so excited by the prospects of seeing him later in the day, that some of us could barely eat. =P

After lunch we were on a mission to find the hotel we were meeting at. I was completely clueless where we were heading, so I let the others lead the way. Somehow we ended up arriving at the back entrance to the hotel, and missed the lobby completely. Once we found it, we were so surprised to see him eating at the table closest to the entrance! (I won’t post my experience on here publicly, but if you want to read my private post, you can read it here. The password begins with a ‘G’. Hehe.)

So I’ll skip the afternoon and continue after we left the SVA Theater. Tian and I said goodbye to the other girls and took the subway back to my hotel to pick up my mom. Then we were on a hunt for dinner. Tian was very kind and suggested a couple places for us to eat. Of course I immediately gravitated towards the sushi buffet the second I heard it. Lol. I forget the name of the restaurant we went to, but the buffet was one of the largest I’ve been. Station-wise it was about the same size as the ones in Toronto, but the selection was pretty amazing. There was hamachi, maguro and ankimo. I was in sashimi heaven! <3

I have to apologize to Tian for dinner. Even though she initially insisted on treating us to a meal, my mom and I felt bad about it and decided to pay the bill beforehand. Tian had already taken us out for the entire day, so it wasn’t fair for her to treat us to dinner too. However, a bill fight ensued and my mom and I got on the losing end. I don’t think I ever want to get in a real fight with Tian. LOL. Thank you so much for the hospitality!

For our last morning in NYC, my mom and I did some last minute shopping before checking out of our hotel. Since the shops open at 10am, I strategically decided to wait in front of Kino for the opening. Little did I know, there was a lineup that wrapped around the block waiting to go inside Kino!! Since I didn’t know what it was for, I decided it would be safer to head to the back of the line. Luckily, someone informed me that the lineup was to buy Comic Con tickets, so I decided to try my luck at the entrance to see if they would let me go inside to browse the bookstore. Thankfully, they let me in and I frantically grabbed all the books I came for. Unfortunately there was still a lineup at the cashier, so that wasted another 10 minutes of my time. However, I managed to dash back to Uniqlo to meet with my mom, and picked out a new outfit in record time. Then I beelined towards my hotel for checkout. That must have been the fastest I’ve shopped in NYC!

After checking out, we took a taxi to Pastis, where I had made reservations. This was our last little splurge, and we had a pretty good meal at the restaurant. It felt very Parisian with the French menu.

Since we were done a little early, we decided to find the entrance to High Line and go exploring down the tracks. It was a bit of a hassle dragging our luggage along (which I had hastily stuffed with all our purchases that morning). So after a few blocks, I pretty much gave up on and decided to hail a cab to the airport. We ended up at the airport super early, and because La Guardia is the most ghetto airport in NYC, it meant I pretty much had two hours to kill in the waiting area.

Anyway, that’s it for my quick weekend trip to NYC. It was definitely worth flying out to NYC. I just hope next time I’ll have a little more advance notice so I’m not panicking the entire week before the trip. Thanks to all the friends I made in NYC! We definitely shared a very special moment together. (^_^)