Anniversary!

Modern Romance: Dave gave me this scratchie card revealing a smoochie emoticon (Someone needs a manicure...)

Dave and I just celebrated the five year anniversary of our first smooch. So today, it's 5 years + 1 day.
We had a sweet date on Saturday. It was dinner at Sushi Yasuda followed by a movie.

By the way, this was our first movie in a movie theater this year. Being able to stream movies at home has rendered us (mostly me) unable to get my butt out of the house and go watch movies with a bunch of strangers in a dark room. Our comfy couch, popping my own delicious popcorn and snuggling in our PJs has made the option to stay at home a better one. Maybe 2015 will be better. We're also glad we got to watch Interstellar in the movie theater. Action movies are meant to be watched on a big screen. It's just so much better!

Our most recent shot together on December 2

Dave, I love you with all my heart and you're my black hole. I just can't stay away from you.

nykeiko travels and eats: Weekend getaway not too far away in Hackettstown NJ

Our Thanksgiving plans extended to an impromptu weekend getaway with three other couples to Hackettstown, New Jersey. My friend's cousin was generous enough to loan us her house for the weekend. We drank, we ate, we "hiked".  Quick and perfect. When we got back home on Sunday evening, we went straight to Laurie's apartment (with our travel bags and all) to taste some of her Thanksgiving leftovers which we missed out on since we had other plans last Thursday. It satisfied our hunger and we were SO THANKFUL!!!

I've known this girl for almost 25 years ...

In pictures: All I see is green...prepping for Iceland! [Hudson Valley hike]

We are planning a trip for our honeymoon anniversary and the destination is Iceland (Já!) Why honeymoon anniversary? When we set our dates for our trip and booked the plane tickets for the end of August, we realized that we are going to fly out on the same date we flew out for our honeymoon to Hawaii last year. Total coincidence. Anyway, we will be celebrating our one year wedding anniversary here in the city (July 26!) and Iceland is one of our dream destinations.

Dave recovered a Google chat conversation from back in 2009. He asked me if I would eat whale meat and out of nowhere he said: "Let's go to Iceland!" At the time, we were just friends and half way across the world. But now, 5 years later, we're together, married and going to Iceland! Will I eat whale? Will I ?!?

In Iceland, we are planning to do a few hikes and because we really haven't hiked since last year (on Kalalau trail), we really needed to step up our game and put our hiking shoes back on. So this past weekend, we decided to borrow the parent's car and drive to the Hudson Valley for a moderate 2.6 mile hike up North-Point. It was also a chance for us to test out our new fancy backpacks before our trip. It is so fancy we even drove by REI to have mine fitted to make sure it's the right size.

The hike was short and sweet. The view from North Point supposedly overlooked all 5 states surrounding New York state. We also saw the Hudson river and the North-South lakes. We were not even sore the next day so we think we can challenge ourselves a little more with a harder hike before our trip. 

nykeiko play: An evening inside New York's most iconic Plaza hotel...

The Plaza hotel, built in 1907 is over a hundred years old and is an official New York City landmark. This place holds a lot of history and although a popular tourist attraction, it was placed back on the map after last year's The Great Gatsby movie which was based on one of Scott Fitzgerald's most famous novel. Before that, I knew it best from movies like Home Alone 2 and Bride War. Man, I really liked Home Alone 2. I would love to stay at The Plaza hotel, order a bunch of pizza and candies, and then charge it on someone else's credit card...Hey Plaza, call me maybe?

In pictures: CitizenM-Where to sleep in the city that never sleeps...[New York Times Square]

CitizenM room 1414

Welcome to CitizenM 

CitizenM is a Dutch-based hotel chain line that has kicked off in Amsterdam-with great success- and has since opened two more locations in Glasgow and London. Where is the location of their latest venture for helping people get a good night's sleep? Ironically, in the city that never sleeps- New York city! CitizenM NYC is right by Times Square where it really never sleeps...well, except maybe for Earth Hour when Times Square shut off its lights for an hour, yet still attracting a mass to see it turn off :)

When Eva extended her invite to a blogger sleepover party to help celebrate the launch of the new CitizenM hotel in Times Square, I was beyond ecstatic but still trying to keep it cool sorta... How original and exciting! All breeds of bloggers from New York city would be taking over the brand new hotel for one night. To keep everyone merry, there was an open kitchen and cocktail bar along; and live music performances and entertainment (live portrait drawings) throughout the evening. I could have pretended that I am a heir of a hotel owner and do pretty much whatever I wanted (except break stuff)! The goal was to do a soft opening and prep the hotel for its official opening on April 10th. The staff worked really hard to make sure everything ran smoothly and were friendly even at two in the morning.

nykeiko play: Here's what I have been up to....

I have been MIA and I am back with some updates! Here's what we have been up to...

+ We went to our first holiday market hosted by Renegade Craft fair at One Hanson Place in Brooklyn. I absolutely love this building and we love holiday markets/fairs although we rarely end up buying anything! Meeting artists and designers and seeing some really unique gifts is pretty refreshing although some things can be repetitive, there's always a standout. I did have my eye on a baby alpaca blanket but Dave told me dishing out $200 is not fiscally responsible. Maybe he should attend all the samples sales with me so I can be more fiscally responsible.

One Hanson Place

+Holiday parties are upon us and it started with a farewell party for a colleague which was held at my boss' luxurious condo on the Upper West side facing Central Park. We love that apartment and would do anything to go back. It helps he is neighbors with Phil Collins. Some of us were looking for excuses to meet him such as the good ol' "ran out of sugar" trick.  We behaved and didn't embarass our noss.

+Before Thanksgiving, Dave and I were struck with a virus of some sort. So did 5 of my coworkers who all went to the same party. There was fever, headaches, chills, nausea and some vomiting. Not a pretty picture. I was throwing up on my way home, into a bag, during rush hour. I did get off the train to do that so I don't freak people out. Highly not recommended. It took us two days to recover and we came back strong and healthy just in time for a Thanksgiving feast at Dave's grandma's in Jersey. I am not sure if I was recovered 100% because I passed on the turkey on turkey day! hmmm.

+On Thanksgiving, we found out wild turkeys can fly.

+We both went back to work on Friday and were so, so busy even though we thought it would be a dead day since everyone was out of town. And that's right, I did not go shopping on Black Friday. Sure, I purchased a body lotion and eyeliner from Sephora at work to take advantage of a 8% cashback from ebates but I didn't physically go to any stores at all! I applauded myself while Dave gave me a sarcastic gold medal for my effort. Update: I returned and repurchased the items using a $20 VIB gift card I received days later. yay!

+During the weekend, I accompanied Dave to do some shopping. Dave? Shopping? Incredible! But alas, it was not for himself but for the less fortunate kids in New York city who wrote to Santa with a wish list. Santa Dave! He purchased a scooter and helmet for a 10 year old boy and necklaces from Forever 21 for a 12 year old girl! I made a necklace for the girl using real gold plated stuff. I hope no one steals it from her at school :S

+For the past two weekends, we have been drinking. I am trying to build up my tolerance to alcohol because it is just so pitiful how fast I get tipsy. Ok, I don't really care because it saves money when I don't need much to get tipsy right? So, this past weekend, we decided to go to Pocha32 in Ktown popular for their watermelon soju bowl. The bowl is a godamn watermelon! It wasn't as strong as we thought and so we were able to finish the entire bowl and walk home without falling.

Pocha32 swatermelon soju

+We also tried out the new H&M runway in Times Square. Yay! My first time on a Times Square jumbotron!

Dave trying out the H&M runway in Times Square

+Philipino food was ingested on Sunday! 

+ We also finally picked up our wedding reception video DVD! We didn't watch the whole thing. I like watching myself but Dave hates it so we have yet to sit down together and watch the whole thing. We got a couple of copies to share with our parents. Maybe they will enjoy it more. I want to extract the part where all our close friends got on the dance floor to do a backstreet boys routine we all learned together!

+We passed by an amazing yard sale across the street from our apartment. A theater was shutting down for the season and was selling all their props which included a lot of authentic antiques. Too bad our place is so small so we got what we could. We bought a marble egg (heehee), a small wooden drawer and three antique frames all for $7.

+ A longtime friend was visiting NY with her family and her 15 month year old daughter. We got to catch up a little. It's always good catching up with a friend especially when it is at the Union Square holiday market. A very popular holiday market worth checking out by the way but pricy (the rent is high!).

+And finally, on Monday, Dave and I took the day off so we can attend a taping of the Daily Show. It was soooo much fun! I'd love to go to the show every day if I could...only minus the waiting!

The Daily show! 

There are other exciting things that has happened but I'll leave that for future posts when everything becomes a little bit more official!

Thank you for reading!

xx

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nykeiko play: Sling Shot Me [Coney Islands]

The Sling Shot at Coney Islands

Dave and I did something spontaneously about a week ago during a work outing to Coney Island. I could have added this on my 30-30-30 list but since I like roller coaster rides or any heart rate pumping machinery, this wouldn't be too challenging. Except, I have not been on any crazy rides for a long, long time! I'm more sensitive now to any type of rides which saddens me because I love, loved roller coasters. Now, I am THAT person who gets queasy simply from texting or reading on a moving car or bus!

After eating a big Italian feast at Gargiulo's with my colleagues, Dave and I decided to take a stroll to Coney Island's boardwalk and then inside the iconic Luna Park amusement park while everyone else headed to the stadium to catch a baseball game. When we walked into Luna Park, we were all for "just looking and no playing" since Dave overstuffed himself at dinner and was sure that he would definitely puke if did any rides. There was one ride that peaked our interest. The Sling Shot. After a bit of contemplating (mostly because of the price! $35 for 2 people!), we decided to enter this ball cage thing which "slingshots" two people up 150 feet in the air at 90 mph! When we got in, we were pretty nervous but the whole thing finished before you knew it. I also felt a little queasy...just a bit.

After that, we had some raw oysters to um..ease our queasy stomach? I know right? This (pic below) is the LAST thing you want to look at and eat after getting off a vomit-inducing ride...

Another thing I did was get my face painted by this clown hired to entertain the kids at dinner. The adults took advantage of this to be kids themselves again. So, I decided that I wanted a panda face ON my face. It didn't work out so well, the clown was almost clocking out and got lazy and decided to make me a dog instead. Oh well. I received many compliments at Luna Park nonetheless..."Are you a cat?"...

Overall, we had a pretty nice evening...a perfect date almost where dinner was paid for by my boss :)

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nykeiko eats and play: Just a couple of pics from the weekend ...

Monday isn't so bad when you had a great relaxing weekend.

Even though the weather was friggin' beautiful and warm on Saturday, I spent the day indoors sleeping in and napping trying to recover from my week long coughing episodes and then woke up to start cleaning the apartment. Dave slaved away working 10 hours in front of the computer. By 7 p.m., we made up the time we missed during the day by going on a super date. We stayed in Williamsburg and ate at Marlow and Sons which we have wanted to try for quite some time. The menu changes daily and so you know you're getting freshly delivered goods onto your plate! We had drinks, raw clams, delicious dishes and after our feast, we strolled to Bedford Avenue. We decided to check out the much talked about rooftop bar at the Wythe hotel where there is a panaromic view of Manhattan. The music was so loud though so we stepped out onto the terrace but it was too cold so we left. Yea, we're getting old. We took the stairs down and end up stepping into and crashing a movie release party with an open bar and food. Guess what we did there for 20 minutes. hehe. Quenching our thirst. We explored the hotel a little and admired this ex-warehouse turned to hipster hotel splendor. We then decided to get some dessert (Strawberry+Angel food) at the Wythe's resto called 'Reynard'. A great way to end our night with something sweet in our mouth!

On Sunday, we hit up a batting cage at Chelsea Piers for a friend's birthday. I was pretty impressed by myself when I was able to hit most of the softballs. As for the soft pitch baseballs..not so much. It's too fast. We didn't even try the regular pitch. We then checked out Friends and Family at Saks and had ramen for dinner.

A little gift of maple-vanilla roasted almonds I made for the neighbors...The recipe is SO EASY! Addicted.

Marlow & Sons

We had a nice dinner at a quaint restaurant in Williamsburg called Marlow and Sons and I was tipsy off my butt from one glass of gimlet!

We had a dozen of raw Littleneck clams and baked razor clams. For main, we had brick chicken and swordfish! It was so delish!

Marlow & Sons razor clam

Littleneck clams

Wythe hotel

Reynard

At Saks looking for bridal shoes but NOT looking at bridal shoes...

Jimmy Choo

Like an art piece on your feet!

Louboutins

Hide-Chan Ramen on a chilly Sunday evening.

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nykeiko eats and play: Lovely Saturdays

I met my bridal make up artist for the first time early Saturday for a trial and I was so relieved when she was done. It looked totally natural which is what I wanted! Nancy works for Make Up For Ever and used all of their great HD products on me. Here I am in my make up, taking a selfie at Sephora and later on deciding to add a filter to see how I would look like photoshopped. Oh the power of makeup + filters.

My photographer is supposed to use minimal photoshop so I wanted to make sure my makeup looks as natural as possible under natural light and not see much cakey foundation or a shiny forehead. Nancy did a great job.

So I thought I would be able to hit two birds with one stone since I thought for some reason (okay, I never read anything carefully) Nancy also could also do my hair but I was le wrong. So now, I have to find a hair stylist for my big day as well. Argh. I was thinking a quickie up-do at Drybar? $80, in and out and done! No biggie!

After I got my makeup done, Dave and I met up for lunch. We met up by the Union Square green market where food sampling was all around but there was a special one from a tent hosting a book signing. Chefs were on site meticulously making samples for the hungry crowd. We had some carrot cake and a delicous beet/goat cheese salad. OMG I wanted two but didn't want to look too greedy. We also snacked at other stalls which offered artisanal sausages, handmade potato chips, cookies, pickles and more!

After lunch at Saigon market, we decided to slowly stroll down University Place until we reached Washington Square Park. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was crowds around the park. A pianist played beautifully on a grand piano he rolled in. Three tap dancers performing to a roaring crowd. A street artist using color powder to stencil the concrete floor in the park. All this was happening simultaneously and we were just enjoying the weather taking pictures as well as testing how my makeup looked in the sun taking shots with the SLR camera. I quickly forgot I had a cold.

Treated myself to a free frozen yogourt from a gift card I won while walking by the same 16 handles yogurt store a year ago. I got fat free vanilla flavored frozen yogurt topped with...ahum not so fat free stuff. See the mini Reeses and Turtles?

As we walked home on Saturday afternoon, we passed by our community garden which we haven't paid a visit since last Summer and a volunteer was there trimming weed and cutting flowers. He stopped us and waved some flowers asking us if we wanted any? We never met him before! That was my favorite part of the day. Fresh flowers given to us by a random stranger. Love it. The flowers are sitting beside Lilies Dave gifted me last week. Our apartment smells better than usual...usual meaning, bad!

Carmine's pizza

Annnnd for dinner. We had pizza! Diet? What diet? I have been bad and not losing my goal weight. But Carmine's pizzeria is only a couple blocks from home...

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nykeiko eats and play: In pictures-Day trip to Philly! Lotsa cheesesteaks

Do you think Pat's, Geno's or Jim's have the best Philly's cheesesteakss..but who cares?!

So we didn't go to Philly JUST to find out who in town has the best cheesesteaks but we might as well have! I had never tried cheesesteak before this!

If you Google 'Best cheesesteaks in Philly' right now, you'll find a list of top ten Philly's cheesesteaks.

The top 3 are:
1. Pat's King of steaks since 1930.
2. Geno's steaks since 1966.
3. Jim's steaks since 1939.

These are the three places we tried within the span of 1-2 hours I think. We got one sandwich from each place, 2 from Jim's and shared it. Of course, a friend of mine had to mention trying Tony Luke's which is number 4 on the list but... we can only eat so much cheesesteaks in a day and we weren't feeling it after going to Jim's.

I think for this type of food anyway, who makes the best cheesesteak is all arbitrary to one's personal taste. For me, I didn't love any of them. Maybe I just don't like cheesesteaks in general but I KNOW that if it was just more fatty, greasier and cheesier, I would probably love it a little more. Maybe I should talk to the chefs! *knock on windows. "Hi can you change your 70 year old recipe?". Nonetheless, Pat's cheesesteaks came out as a favorite for all of us. Geno's steak was dry and Jim's steak was drier. The end.

After eating eating eating, we finally started the sightseeing. We parked by Independence Hall to see the Liberty Bell, walked across Chinatown to get to Reading market and finally end up at the Love Park. We then drove to get some water ice at Rita's water ice and then off to the Art Museum! On our way back home, we had dinner in Edison New Jersey at a Taiwanese noodle joint called 'Noodlelicious' which seemed to be everyone's favorite part of the trip!

First stop: Geno's steaks

Typical line in the middle of the street?

Pat's cheesesteaks with mushrooms!

Second stop: Pat's King of steaks. The origin of Philly's cheesesteaks?

Geno's cheesesteak with onions

Third stop: Jim's steaks

Cheesesteak with peppers

Cheesesteak with onions

Chinatown

Reading market

Gimmick food. Andrew Zimmerman tried this and probably the only dummy who did.

Philadelphia City Hall

Giant Monopoly pieces

Love Park

Totoro loves LOVE

The Art Museum where everyone runs up to

Rocky's shoe print at the top of the Art Museum steps

xx

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