Have An Awesome 2011!!

Hey! How is everybody doing? Hope that all of you had an awesome holiday season. Sorry for the lack of updates for the longest time. My parents and sister are visiting from Malaysia and will be here until the 16th of Jan. Kevin's mom and aunt were also in town over the New Year holidays, so yeah, we have lots going on at this moment. It's just been a whirlwind of activities since they arrived but hey, I'm not complaining. We are really enjoying their company and do not look forward to their departure in about two weeks time. Here's a quick update of what we have been up to since their arrival. I will blog more about the stuff that we did, places that we visited and various food that we tried during our trips (of course!) in a couple of weeks time.
We spent Christmas here in Jersey and both Kevin and I cooked up the usual Christmas dinner at our apartment. Our Christmas dinner menu was Roast Turkey, Sage Sausage & Cranberry Stuffing, Bacon Wrapped Asparagus, Baked Mashed Potatoes with Maple Syrup & Pecans, Green Bean Casserole and Waldorf Salad. Phewwww, that's a LOT of food for five people! :P We had a whole lot of leftovers for the days to come. We also had a great time exchanging gift and just spending quality time together.
After Christmas, we took a short road trip to Washington D.C. Had a great time visiting all the tourist sites (will blog more about this later on) and we even managed to find some time to squeeze in a short visit to the American History Museum. I think that the highlight of the trip was our visit to the Pentagon! We actually applied in advance (about 3 months ago) for us to go on a tour inside the Pentagon. After some security clearance and background checks, we managed to get the invitation letter for a guided tour of the Pentagon. It was really quite trilling, since I'm pretty sure that not many civilians can actually say that they have stepped foot into the Pentagon. :D
After we got back from D.C, Kevin's mom and aunt came to visit over the New Years weekend. It was great to have the whole big family together. We took them all over NYC to look at the Christmas decorations (Macys, Times Square, Rockerfeller Center, Central Park, The Plaza, FAO Schwartz, along 5th Ave...). We had a whole lot of fun but I think that maybe it was a little bit too much for the older folks. There was lots of walking involved and maybe it was a little taxing on the legs. Oh well, still, everybody had a great time! We also managed to go on a New Year's Eve Lunch Cruise of the New York Harbor. The food was good and views of the NYC skyline from the Hudson and East River was just totally awesome!
A couple of days ago, we took a day trip up north to Hudson Valley to visit Brotherhood Winery (the oldest winery in America!). We managed to go on a tour of the winery (even got to go down to the cellars!) as well as join one of the wine tasting sessions. While waiting for the tour to begin, we had time to check out Vinum Cafe, the award winning restaurant that occupies the ground floor of the original winery building. The food was just amazing! I will definitely blog more about that restaurant later on. We later found out that the chef is actually Christian Pierre, a well known Zagat rated gourmet chef in the Hudson Valley. After the winery, we headed out to Woodbury Commons Prime Outlets for some shopping!!! All kinds of branded products for a fraction of it's retail price! Woohoooo! :D
We will be heading out on another road trip to Vermont and Boston soon. Can't wait! I probably won't have time to update this blog til we get home. So, til then, have an awesome 2011 and we'll catch you later!!

Annual Harbor Inspection Dinner Cruise

We were fortunate enough to receive an invitation (Kevin representing APL and I, by default, since I'm his wife :P) from the Sandy Hook Pilots to their Annual Harbor Inspection Dinner Cruise on board Pilot Boat New York. The Harbor Inspection Dinner Cruise is an annual event organized by the Sandy Hook Pilots and it's a much looked forward to event among the people in the maritime industry. Since it's our first time attending this cruise, we really didn't know what to expect. We soon found out that most of the guest were pretty influential people in the maritime industry and have been in this business since forever (we were probably the youngest people on board :P). So, it was quite an honor to be invited for such an event.

We arrived at the Bayonne Passenger Terminal at around 4:30pm. Boarding starts at 4pm and they plan to set sail at 5pm. The security was rather tight. We had to show the security people our IDs and they had to copy down all our information and stuff before letting us into the terminal. This is because officially, you would need a TWIC (Transportation Workers Identification Credential) card before you are allowed inside the port. Since it was a special event, they made an exception (well, Kevin has a TWIC card, so no problems there) and allowed non TWIC card holders (other wives and myself! :P) to enter with just their regular IDs.
While waiting for all the guest to arrive, we helped ourselves to some pre dinner drinks and appetizers on the top deck. There was a rather wide selection of appetizers, from a buffet spread of cold cuts, cheese and breads to a seafood booth with extra large shrimp, clams and other seafood. There were also waiters walking around with trays of hor dourves (crab cakes, rice balls, canapes, meatballs...etc). Yummy stuff! The open bars were also stocked with top shelf liquors. Looks like they are not holding out on anything, nothing but the best :P
We were also told that we have an all access pass to anywhere on the boat. In fact, they encouraged us to explore and walk around. So, we did just that! Kevin took this picture of me from the pilot house. As you can see, we were still docked at that time.
We walked all over the boat, from the pilot house to the lowest deck, from the bow, all the way back to the stern. Here's Kevin checking out one of the rescue boats :P
The first time we went up to the pilot house, it was totally empty. When we realized that they have already pulled away from the dock, we headed up to the pilot house again. This time, we got to see all the radar and other equipment all fired up and also got to watch the crew doing their thing.
Unlike most other commercial harbor cruises, this particular cruise was a little bit different. Most of the tourist/commercial harbor dinner cruises would take you up and down the Hudson and East River, focusing mainly on the NYC skyline, Statue of Liberty and the bridges. This cruise took us around the various container terminals around the New York Harbor first and then it ended with the usual skyline/statue route. It was pretty interesting to see the terminals from a different angle, from the water. We managed to sail by Global, APM, PNCT and Maher Terminals. We also saw NYCT from a distance. Here is a picture of us sailing down Newark Bay, with PNCT Terminal on the right and Maher Terminal on the left.
By then, dinner was being served. So, we headed down below deck with the rest of the guest to the buffet line. Look at all the food! Fillet Mignon, Lamb Chops, Veal, Chicken, Fried Calamari...just to name a few. Yummy! :D
It was such a lovely evening to have dinner out in the open deck. With the beautiful sunset and cool breeze blowing, life couldn't get any better =) Check out the sun setting behind the Bayonne Bridge, with the NYCT Terminal in the background. The sunset was indeed amazing that day.
It started to get more and more chilly as the sun was setting. We decided to head down to the lounge in the lower deck to get some dessert and coffee. There were all kinds of desserts, from cannolis, cookies, cream puffs, danish pastries to brownies and tartlets. However, this cake was the main centerpiece. Check out the highlight of the night. This beautiful cake was made by Carlos, the Cake Boss himself! I was so excited when I found out about the cake. I am a super huge fan of the TV show "Cake Boss" and I have always wanted to try one of his cakes. At last, I had the opportunity to do so. It was a layer of yellow cake and a layer of chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting in the middle. What did it taste like? Well, truthfully...I was pretty disappointed. It was way too sweet and it really wasn't all that good. Oh well, at least it looked nice!
After our dessert, we headed back up to the top deck. I was glad that we did cause we could see that we were already on our way towards Manhattan. We could see the Manhattan skyline in the distance. If you look closely, you can see Lady Liberty on the far left, Jersey City, Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge on the far right.
There were also dancing and live music on the top deck. Since dancing is not really our thing, so we chose to just sit back, relax and just take in the beautiful lights and sights of Lower Manhattan. We took this picture while going up the East River. Part of the Financial District, Pier 16 at the South Street Seaport, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building in the background. I can never get tired of the beautiful NYC skyline, no matter how many times I look at it. It's just so beautiful.
It was almost 9:30pm when we arrived back at the Bayonne Passenger Terminal. We had an awesome time on the cruise. The beautiful views, yummy food and most of all, getting the opportunity to meet some very interesting people. What a way to spend such a lovely evening. Now, let's keep our fingers crossed that they invite us again next year!!! :D

Check out our new Honda Civic LX!

Kevin and I have never been really big on cars. We never really felt the need to get a big, flashy or pimped up ride...just because it's a cool thing to do. To me, a car serves the purpose of transporting us from point A to B and that's about it. I'm not saying that we don't like nice cars (who doesn't, right?), it's just that we don't see the point of throwing a whole bunch of money into one. Maybe one day, when we are super rich and have a lot of excess cash, then will we look into getting a high end or sports car :P That's why, for now, we were happy with our old beaten up 1999 Chevy Lumina. As long as it still moves, everything is cool with us.

For the past few months, our Chevy have been making a lot of noises when we apply the brakes. Lately, we can hear loud clanking noises even when we just drive normally. We knew that it wasn't such a good sign, it looked like our old faithful Lumina was slowly dying on us. The final straw came last Thursday, when Kevin was driving over some railroad tracks. He wasn't sure what he ran over but there was a loud crash and after that, we could hear like a ringing sound, like something has been broken off. Now, the car is only worth $400 (at the most) and getting it fixed would set us back about $2k. Looks like we didn't really have a choice but to go out and get ourselves a new car. So, we headed out to Planet Honda on Route 22 on Saturday to get one!

Prior to all this, we have been looking around at cars (since our Lumina first started giving us problems). After all the research, we narrowed it down to either the Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. Both cars have their own pros and cons but we finally came to the conclusion that the Honda has a slight edge over the Toyota, in terms of resale value and the 'cool factor' :P After spending like what seemed ages negotiating, we finally reached the magic number and we were ready to sign. It took almost 4 hours, from the time we walked into the dealership to the time we were ready to sign. Phewwww, what a long and stressful day.
Here is Kevin saying goodbye to our old friend, the 1999 Chevy Lumina. It was actually quite a bittersweet feeling, to trade her in. While clearing her out earlier that morning, we found many things from the past few years of our lives. Things like the sitting chart from our wedding dinner in Pittsburgh, an invitation to one of Kevin's good friends wedding (they just celebrated their 2nd anniversary not too long ago), brochures that we picked up in Hersheys when my parents came to visit us, the envelopes that held our plane tickets from Marlboro...even a price tag from some newborn baby's rompers. It took me a while to figure out how THAT got into our car. Then I remembered. We were on the way to visit a friend who just had a baby and I was wrapping the present up in the car. I guess I must have forgotten to throw the tag away. Oh, by the way, the baby is now a 3 year old toddler :P Ahhhh the memories, we will surely miss our old faithful Lumina.
After saying goodbye, we headed over to the new car delivery section of the dealership and with a firm handshake, Mike Hanna (our salesman) congratulated us and we now have the keys to our brand new Honda Civic LX!
Here it is! This is the first photo I took of Kevin with our new car. Doesn't it look all shiny and nice? I just love the new car smell :P I wonder how long before all that goes away? Wanna see more photos of the car? Well, I'm gonna show them off anyways, even if you say no. So, enjoy!
There were quite a number of colors to choose from. It was a toss up between Polished Metal or Urban Titanium. At last we went with Urban Titanium. Polished Metal is gray, with a bluish undertone where else the Urban Titanium has a brown undertone. I felt that the Urban Titanium has a warmer look, so we went with that. Also, the Urban Titanium is a new color (just introduced last year) and it's only available for Civics and CR-Vs. Looks cool, eh? Here are more photos from different angles.
The interior looks pretty cool at night. Just love the blue back light, kinda sharp looking :P We still haven't gotten our license plate yet, so we are still driving around with our temporary plates. Hopefully we will get it by this weekend or early next week. We are both still very excited about our new car and we can't wait to collect more happy memories with our Civic, just like how we did with our Lumina! :D

A Wonderful Evening in Little Italy

From the South Street Seaport, we hopped into a cab and headed over to Little Italy. It wasn't too far away actually but with day being super hot and humid ( I believe it was a little over 100F!), we decided to just spend a few extra bucks and take a cab. We have never really explored Little Italy before, well, except for those times we walked thru it to get to Chinatown and when we went for last year's Feast of San Gennaro Festival (all we saw was the back of other people's heads, cos there were just too many people :P). So, we were really excited to head over there and check out the neighborhood!

Our cab dropped us off at the edge of Little Italy and we decided to walk down Mulberry Street. Bustling with all kinds of action and activities, Mulberry Street is definitely the heart of Little Italy. Restaurants, outdoor cafes and souvenir shops line both sides of Mulberry Street. Also, the entire street is closed to traffic, so it was really fun to just slowly stroll down the street, with a drink or gelato in hand, while taking in all the sights and sounds of Little Italy.

You know you are in Little Italy when you begin to see signs like those all over the place! I bet looking for a parking spot along Mulberry Street is the least of the worries for the Gambino family :P Nahh, those are actually souvenirs from the many gift shops along Mulberry Street. You can get all kinds of Italian American souvenirs like "Proud to be Italian" t shirts, Italian flags to Italian food cookbooks and ITALIA soccer jerseys. There are also quite a few shops that sell fresh olive oil in barrels, home made fresh pasta, fresh smoked meats and all types of cheeses. I must make a mental note to return and buy some fresh pasta one of these days.

Since it was close to dinner time, we started looking out for possible dinner locations. There were just so many restaurants/cafes to choose from! Everybody had their menu out and the waiters were all standing outside, actively promoting their specials and trying to get as many customers as possible. Some of them even offered a free glass of wine with an entree or free appetizers. Sure, it sounds good initially but you gotta be really careful. A simple plate of pasta in some of these places can go for about $30-$35 bucks! Just regular pasta, nothing special. So yeah, if you were to pay $30 bucks for some pasta, suddenly a free glass of cheap wine doesn't sound all that tempting anymore :P

We continued walking (away from the crowded and popular section of Mulberry St) towards the edge of Little Italy, and thats when we saw this restaurant. It doesn't look as upmarket as the other restaurants, in fact, it was rather laid back and casual. The menu looked good and the prices were really reasonable, so we decided to have dinner there. Will blog more about that in the next post!

After dinner, we continued walking around Little Italy for a bit. We were looking for some sort of dessert when we spotted a little roadside stall selling homemade gelato and Italian ices. There were quite a lot of people in line, getting their gelatos, so I figured that the gelatos must be pretty good. You could get it in either a cup or cone and it comes in three sizes - small ($4), medium ($5) and large ($6). Apart from Chocolate and Vanilla, some of the more popular gelato flavors are Hazelnut, Cuppuccino, Pistachio and Cookies n Cream. They also have Peach, Melon, Mango, Raspberry and Lemon Italian ices as well as sugar free ices in Tangerine and Cherry flavor.

If you are not a fan of gelatos and Italian ices, they also have some yummy looking Italian desserts. You can pick up a Cannoli for $4 or a mini Cannoli for $2. You could also have a Cannoli with strawberries for $5. Apart from Cannolis, the Italian Cheesecake ($5) and Tiramisu ($6) looks good too!

Both Kevin and I decided to get a gelato each. He had a medium Cookies n Cream and I went for the medium Hazelnut. When we first looked at the cup, the small looks kinda tiny. That's why we went for the medium (yes, greedy us!). Should have gone for the small cos the medium was just wayyyy too much! Two huge scoops is more than enough for TWO people :P I guess we didn't really mind though, cos the gelato was soooooooo yummmy! Super creamy and good, seriously, it was just amazing! No wonder they pride themselves as "Little Italy's #1 Home Made Italian Ice and Ice Cream". After getting our gelatos, we happily strolled thru a few other neighborhoods before going to the WTC PATH station to catch our train home. What a wonderful way to end a fun day out in the city =)

The Great 4th of July Festival 2010

Remember when we blogged about going to Coney Island to watch the Nathan's 4th of July Hot Dog eating competition last year? Well, it's the 4th of July weekend again (boy, the year just flew by, didn't it?) but we decided against going to Coney Island this year. It was just way too hot to be standing among thousands of people in the heat, just waiting to watch some hot dog eating competition. So, we decided to head out to the city instead.

We wanted to go check out a street fair and found out that there were quite a few going on all over the city. At last, we decided to check out the Great 4th of July Festival since it was located pretty close to the WTC PATH station (that's our usual PATH train station). They blocked off part of Water St, the blocks between Fulton and Broad St. By the time we arrived, the street festival was already winding down. That was a good thing actually, cos there wasn't as many people and we didn't have to push thru crowds just to walk around.

Just like any good street fair, you could find almost anything for sale there. It was a shoppers paradise for us ladies. There were stall after stall of really cheap summer dresses, hats, sunglasses, various types of bags....even pashmina scarfs! 5 pashmina scarfs for only $20! That's really cheap! All the clothes and accessories stalls reminds me somewhat of the markets in Bali or Phuket :P

You could also find all kinds of music on sale. Carribean music, hip hop, oldies...it was just an eclectic mix of everything! Pretty cool though. Apart from music, there were also all types of artwork and handicraft for sale. We saw this really big and cool oil painting of the NYC skyline for sale in one of the stalls. We thought that it would look really cool hanging behind our sofa back at our apartment. When we asked the guy how much it cost and he said $270! Wow! I guess those stuff don't come cheap. Even if it includes framing, it's still a little bit too expensive for us :P

The highlight of all the street fairs that we go to is of course....the FOOD! All the carnival/street fair food stalls were out in full force. Cheese steaks, Italian sausages, funnel cakes, deep fried oreos, corn dogs...the list just goes on and on. They even had some cheap ethnic food on sale..like $1 Pad Thais and $3 for a big pack of banana fritters. We could smell those yummy roasted sweet corn a block away! They were that good! You could get all kinds of toppings for it, from regular butter, honey butter, salt, Parmesan cheese to pepper flakes and lemon juice!

After walking under the scorching sun for nearly an hour, we stopped by this Smoothie stall to cool ourselves down. There are all kinds of fruit smoothies to choose from. They had the regular strawberry, kiwi, watermelon, banana smoothies to exotic flavors like mango, passion fruit and lychee! Oh, they even have bubble tea! We shared a jumbo size mango smoothie ($6) and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! No additional sugar was added, just pure mango! I think that guy used close to 2 large mangoes for our drink! It was really thick and good =) From the Great 4th of July Festival on Water St, we walked further down to the South Street Seaport area to check out the Puma City NY World Cup event. Will blog more about it in the next post!

Tribeca Film Festival Family St. Fair (Final Part)

After we were done walking around the Tribeca ESPN Sports Film Festival area, we headed over to Greenwich St. From the looks of it, I guess this is where all the action is. Apart from food carts/trucks, there was also a Green Market along this street. The highlight was of course all the booths (sponsored by various corporations and agencies) that offered free stuff and activities.

The Time Warner cable booth was a big hit with the kids! They could get their faces painted (either by hand or spray paint) and their hair dyed for free. All the artists were so skillful and talented, it was so much fun to just watch them work. Oh, Road Runner was hanging around the booth too. I didn't take a picture with him cos the line was just too long. Beep Beep! :D

Here is another cool booth. You could charge your phones for free at the At&T booth. However, that's not the highlight of the booth. You see the green screen at the back? Well, you can stand in front of the screen and they will take a picture of you. Then, they will superimpose famous NYC sights behind you and you get to take the photo home for free! Cool, right?

This must be one of the most popular guys at the fair. Every kid wanted to buy a balloon from him. Seriously, almost every kid had a balloon. I wonder how much he made that day?

There were a few Broadway and off Broadway musicals that were represented that day. This is the Wicked booth. You could help yourselves to the props behind that table and they will take a souvenir photograph for you. Yes, of course it's free. That's whats so fun about this fair....almost everything offered at the booths is free! Tons of freebies for everyone :D

Ahhh, I love this booth. The Polaroid Red Carpet booth. You could just step up and they will take your 'red carpet' picture for you, using their Polaroid camera. The picture was really tiny but it was a cool souvenir. Wanna see our 'red carpet' photo?

Isn't that just awesome?!? Sorry that it's a tiny bit grainy. I scanned it with my scanner and tried to blow it up, hence making it grainy. Grainy or not, I still loveee this pic.

The kids (especially the little boys) loved this fire truck. It was part of the FDNY booth. All the kids were given a bright red plastic FDNY hat and they could go on the fire truck to explore. Boy, there were kids everywhere! Inside the truck, on top of the truck, behind the truck...it reminded me somewhat of ants, tiny little red ants running all over the truck :P

This is a pretty fun booth too. There were all kinds of supplies available for anybody who wanted to sit down and make some art and crafts. Paper bags, glue, color pencils, paint, yarn...you name it, they got it! The kids here were more under control and better behaved (unlike the fire truck kids :P). I think that it's really good that the kids were given an opportunity to get creative and express themselves.

We were happily walking along Greenwich St. when we saw this super long line. It's so long I couldn't get the whole line in frame. This was only half of the line! We were like "Wow, there must be something good in that booth at the end of this line". So, we walked up to the front to check it out.

The booth is sponsored by Fandango and they had this little 'wheel of fortune' thing. Everyone gets one spin and everybody wins something, be it just a Fandango sticker, a Fandango t shirt, DVDs or movie tickets! Sure, it's cool that everybody wins something but seriously, I wouldn't line up for over an hour just to spin that wheel and knowing my luck, I would just win a sticker :P So yeah, we moved on.

Ahhhh this was one of our favorite booths that day. Bloomberg was giving out free popcorn! I guess we were lucky cos there wasn't really a line when are got there. I guess maybe it was already almost the end of the day and the crowds have gone home. Who knows.

Mmmmm, looks yummy, doesn't it? We had a choice of Cheddar Cheese or Chocolate popcorn. We asked for one each, so we could try both. Yuummmyy yummmy! Oh and you can see Kevin holding our free Polaroid souvenir, Yeah, it's THAT small.

The popcorn wasn't the highlight of Bloomberg's booth. This is! We were given an opportunity to take a 3D photograph. How awesome is that??? Yes, the line for that was pretty long but we decided to get in line anyways. How often do you get a chance to take a 3D photo?

We stood in line for almost 45 minutes and at last we made it into the 'studio'. They had a make shift 'set' with all kinds of props that we could use. Since it's the Tribeca Film Festival, they tried to make it look as though we were on a movie set, filming on location. Very very cool.

Since it wasn't just a straight forward snap and print job, we had to wait quite a while to get our 3D photo. Look at all the people waiting for their photos.

Yay! Our turn! Here is a photo of the technician working on our photo. I am not sure how it works but he somehow converts our colored photo to some black and white photo and if we look at it with 3D glasses, Kevin and I will pop out from the photo! Too bad I cannot show you the photo here. It's like super coooool....definitely worth waiting in line for. By the time we got our 3D photo, it was already past 6 and the fair was winding down. Overall, we had an awesome time and yes, I agree with all those who say that this is the ultimate NYC street fair! I'm glad we went to check it out and we will definitely return next year!!!