Trevin Chow: Vacations

Back from NYC

Tue, 23 May 2006 06:45:23 GMT

NYC combined with a great time being reunited with one of my best friends created probably the best vacation I've had in the last 5 years. Instead of summarizing the last few days in super great detail, I've decided to recap my trip in a summary of one liners:

6 hot dogs in 5 days = Realization that Seattle hot dogs with cream cheese and hot onions whoop New York's butt.
There's almost nothing better than seeing your best friend in person after a year apart.
Bodies: The Exhibition was un-freakin-believable. Reminded me of why I wanted to originally go into medicine.
4 bagels in 5 days = Realization that New York bagels really are probably the best in the world.
Getting trapped in the subway turnstile with your luggage is not fun.
Despite their stereotypical portrayal, New Yorkers are really friendly.
Walking 280 blocks in 3 days was a great workout compared to my usual Seattle car-loving life
New York city subway is a gift from the heavens. Damn you Seattle!
Having someone that knows the manager at the restaurant you're having brunch is never a bad idea.
4 nights of partying takes a toll on your sleeping patterns.
Always have more women than men with you when trying to get into NYC hot spots on friday and saturday night :)
$12 for bottled beer is not ok.
You think Seattle rain is bad? Try having 75 degree clear skies, thundershowers, hail and sideways rain all in the same day within a 4 hour period.
New Yorkers don't know the meaning of good coffee. The entire Dunkin' Donuts franchise should be obliterated from the planet.
The first "O" in "Opossum" isn't silent. Who knew?

Amir and Kaelyn, thanks for the best vacation, being such a great hosts and putting up with my hot dog obsession.

Update: Posted up a bunch of resized photos from my trip on flickr. I have a bunch marked as "private", so add me as your friend if you wanna check those out.

Where are you Noah?

Thu, 18 May 2006 22:25:19 GMT

Day 2 in NYC. Like yesterday, the weather called for thundershowers in the afternoon. And like yesterday, it was sunny as hell outside with barely and cloud cover. I scoff at the weather report and trek out to hit somewhere for lunch.

Not surprisingly, I venture out for a hot dog at F & B, which City Search ranks as #2 on the list of best in the hot dogs in the city. After spending nearly $8.00 on a hot dog, sweet potato fries and a water, I scarf this thing down like there's no tommorow. Good news is that it subsided my lunch time hunger. The bad news is that the hot dog wasn't that great. First, it was one of the smallest hot dogs I've ever seen. It was better suited for a 6 year old. Second, it wasn't even that tasty. I was better off getting a $1.00 Sabrett hot dog from one of the 500 street vendors around the city.

"Mission: Hot Dog" was a complete failure today. Hopefully tommorow's hot dog will be better. Not sure where I"m going yet, but if you have suggestions let me know.

The day ended with a subway ride back from Battery Park since I could actually see really dark storm clouds rolling in from the west. I missed the 23rd street stop, and got out at 28th street. What a mistake. On my walk back to Amir's it started to pour like you wouldn't believe. In the 10 min walk from 29th street to Amir's, I was soaked head to toe. I felt like it was a monsoon. Noah, where was your ark when I needed it?

Easy on the cream cheese

Thu, 18 May 2006 22:17:03 GMT

Day 1 in NYC is complete. After failing to get any sleep on the Jet Blue red-eye, I arrived at Amir's at 9:30am dead tired and in need of some shut eye. I slept straight through until nearly 2pm then met up with Amir and a few of his co-workers for lunch at a spot on 9th Ave and W 22nd.

After finishing lunch, I decided to walk around town and vowed not to take a subway all day. The weather forecast called for afternoon rain, but the weather man (or woman) must be hopped up on crack because there wasn't a cloud to be seen all day and it must have hit the upper 70's. I walked from W 21st up to Times Square, then up to Central Park and further north to W 79th. I then proceeded to walk all the way back stopping at the Time Warner Center and a few other sites. All in all, I walked over a hundred blocks! I guess this will help me get in walking shape for my trip to Europe later in the year with my sis.

There has been an ongoing joke on my team about why New York bagels are so tasty. Lynn, one of the PMs on my team, is a Brooklyn native, and swears that it's due to the famous New York City tap water. Now I don't doubt that NYC water is good, I just need more scientific proof that this is why the bagels are so tasty and different than bagels in Seattle. I tell Lynn that I need an A B test where she makes me 2 bagels with different water and I eat them blindfolded (like the Pepsi Taste test). But then again, this implies that she imports NYC tap water to Seattle. Stranger things have happened I guess? :)

Anyways, the reason I brought up bagels is because that was one of my goals of this trip. To consume at least one bagel per day in various parts of the city. (My other goal is to also do the same for Hot Dogs. Yes, I"m a hot dog fanatic. In spite of my maniacal health conscious eating, hot dogs are my kryptonite)

One tip I got from Amir's coworker was to ask for "easy on the cream cheese" otherwise I'd get the New York version of a cream cheese and bagel (which is about a 1" thick slab of cream cheese). Yuck.

I succesfully found a bagel shop just when I was craving it near the Times Warner Center, and I used the "easy on the cream cheese" line. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't ask him to go light on the cream cheese, because I still got a 1" thick slab of cream cheese!

After wiping nearly half the cream cheese off, I managed to have the tastiest bagel I've had in in a long, long time. Maybe I'll pack my suitcase full of tap water so we can do that A B bagel test back in Seattle...