Happy New Year

Yes, finally its the day that ends the year. We are very exciting since we will be on the plane to HK (got a business class upgrade from my 'people' from CX)
We started this blog back in September and it feels nice to look back of what we have experienced so far and we documented everything in a fun way !

The weather is colling down a bit and I am pretty sure when we get back to NYC in a couple of weeks, the snow has came down.

We will miss our babies for sure but they will be fine since theu have each other.

Happy New Year to everyone and all the BEST for 2006 !

Counting Down

Not to the new year, but to our long-overdue vacation back to Asia. This vaca means so much to me, I have not spent quality time with my parents for over a year and haven't seen the rest of my family for almost 3. I have been talking to my mom the past couple of days and I can hear how happy she is. It is actually even a bigger deal for F - he hasn't been back to Indonesia for 7 years!!! Will def take lotsa pictures to share.

Last Wednesday in 2006

Let's look back real quick before its too late what have we done in 2005 !
I like to sometimes think what have I done in the past and learn from it, aren't we all ?? They said anything happens for a reason, is it really true ? Stop the crap ! Let's us tell you what we have done last week.

We started the Friday before Christmas walk around the city and feel the spirit of the Holiday. Saturday was a good day, as far as I remembered, the weather was nice ( a bit cloudy but still nice and warm)-imagine in the last week of December, it was 55 degress. We strolled around C-Park with our babies, they were so happy finally got to go out and smelled the trees/leaves and walk around the park.



We tried the Pastis in MPD on Christmas eve and thought the food was okay (blamed it on Rachel Ray).

It was pretty a quiet weekend for us, good to relax and prepared ourself before heading out to Asia.

The weather was pretty warm and no, we didn't have a white christmas this year instead a wet ones ! So we decided to watch the 'movies' which were Family Stone, Fun with D and J and also Memoirs of Geisha (kong) :)

Got some stuff after christmas's sale but seriously we experienced all the time, the sale in NYC happens all the time and after christmas is not the best sale ever and considering have to line up for the register, you really think it twice !

Merry Christmas everyone !

City streetlights...Christmas stroll

For some reason both F and I were not 100% feeling the Christmas spirit this year. We didn't get gifts and didn't get a tree, and in the last effort to not end up being a jaded and bonafide GRINCH, we decided to head uptown to see if we can soak up as much Xmas spirit as possible -- and it worked!

Talk about Xmas Spirit, headed out last night to 5th Ave post-Transit-strike and boy were the streets filled with HOLIDAY SPIRIT. This is what a "New York Christmas" is all about - the only thing missing is the snow... But the weather was amazing, clear and cool but comfortable.





Went to check out the Bryant Park Skating rink - I believe it's free and sponsored by Citibank!




There was also an AIDS Installation featuring celeb foot prints... interesting:



Checked out the window displays at Saks, Pretty Nice:







But the displays at Bergdorf were amazing, blended fashion with fantasy and were actually out of this world!!

10 "transit strike" awakenings

1. Starbucks closed?!?!

2. Don't mind paying double the rent to live in the city

3. Embarrassed that I don't walk to work more often

4. Subway musicians actually getting airtime on morning shows

5. Miss those adorable little rats on the tracks

6. ... and even the homeless guys asking for handouts

7. Maybe zoning for cabs DO make more sense

8. What does Union Square (and anything above 14th street) look like again?

9. Hitchhiking is in again!

10. Cab drivers are assholes

Strike - OUT

So today is the first day of the NYC transit strike. Not sure how to feel about this whole thing -- I feel like at this point it's all about EGOS vs. trying to come to a resolution... below is a pic of people walking across the brooklyn bridge this morning...



Anyways, many Xmases might be ruined because of this - luckily we still live in the City or else we can't really get anywhere!!

Vincent

Kong is the King

Party and Pop-Up Wired

Last night was my company party. It was at a cool moroccan themed bar / lounge in midtown called Kemia. Beautiful place -- which just got more and more beautiful as the night went on (ie. open bar...) Everyone danced, including my bozz Z. He rocked the house with his family -- how sweet is that?!





For a company party, it was definitely a blast. I guess I work with people who work hard and play hard as well!!

Today the weather was amazing, gorgeous morning -- actually quite warm. Went to this place called 12 Chairs for brunch -- amazing falafel and hummus... yum-O. No pics to share with you because Francis was embarrassed to take out the camera...oh well! :-)



Anyways, we spotted Alec Baldwin pacing back and forth outside of the restaurant twice, first time he was on the phone, then about 10 minutes later he came back again going the same direction... the poor guy looked lost.

Headed to soho to do some Xmas shopping and bumped into E's friend Mizz R @ Crate&Barrel, then headed over to Adidas to try our luck with their 'locker' promotion - didn't win anything but since "Everyone's a winner" (according to the overly-cheerful promo gal) got a couple of nice wristbands... hey better than nothing. :-)

Afterwards we went to another pop-up store, this time it was for WIRED. I think I'm addicted to pop-up stores, they are so... well 'temporary but fabulous'. I love that! And knowing that it won't last forever makes you wanna really spend quality time to check everything out - it's like gallery openings but for shoppers. This one even had a gift bag!

Broke 'gay' Mountain

Amazingly most of the 'people' of the movie got nominated for Golden Globe, I thought they were okay, especially for Michelle Williams, seriously how could she got it ? I don't even remember where was the last time I saw her on TV, I know she was on Dawson Creek like a decade ago, its not like I watched it too so whatever !

It's really slowing down here in the office since all of my clients are starting going back wherever they are originally from ! A lot of people moved to NYC from Boston, they all said Boston is pretty boring, of course if you compare it with NYC, I am not saying NYC is the capital of the world, there are so many cities in the globe and all of them have their own character, but we love NYC, at the end of the day, NYC is still one of the best city in the globe.

Snow is coming agin this evening supposedly it will mix with rain and it will become ice when it touched the groundso if you see the weather on TV they will say it rain/ice/snow, interesting eh ?

So we are counting down for the Asia trip, we are so excited and this is going to be my first time back home in 8 years ! Can't wait to see my family and some good friends and definitely seeing Vince's parent for the very first time.

From Manhattan to Brooklyn

After a long relaxing evening last night and a FAB. tea time although that was a lot of food we ordered with our Brit's friend 'E', we started the week considering to move to Brooklyn. YES ! We are excited, many reasons we have to make that decision, space, new area, dogs (we feel LES is a bit dirty for our babies), and definitely $$$
We are thinking that we can get definitely have a much bigger space with the rent that we pay now in Manhattan.
And also its a lot quiter there and good to relax, at the same time its only subways away to the island.

We thought the island has so many things to offer but every neighbourhood has the same stores/kind of restaurants/list of movies etc. And we have been living here in the island for a little over a year and it is time for us to check out other 'areas'. Seriously when you are out and about every weekend and some week nights, you really know what to expect although Meat Packing/West Village are the hardest two areas ever as far as the street names goes. I am not too worry about downtown NYC, what's in there anyway ?

So we are thinking about moving in the next few months, maybe on Spring time. Not sure where exactly yet, but definitely some place close to the subways.

The Brownstones look very attractive and also the private gardens there so we can actually leave out our babies there to enjoy the sun/grass. Can't wait !

16 days to Xmas

Ho Ho Ho ..
Exactly ! That is what Santa normally shout ! Is he for real ? I used to think that he is the one who always gives me gifts when I was little and we had this habit that on xmas eve, we will put our shoes in front of our room (nice and neat okayyyyy !!!) and the next morning, we will get our gifts right besides the shoes, isn't cute ?

SO the snow came down again for the second time on Friday and I had to be at work by myself for the first hour, luckily all the european clients are not calling like crazy, it was cool. What so cool about NY is the next hour after its raining/snowing like crazy, once the clouds passed by, you will see the most picture perfect in the sky and wait until you take a deep breath, You will appreciate more of the rain.

We started our weekend to use of the deck card again and that is one of the excuse to try a new restaurant so we ended up spent the evening at this cozy little restaurant at Chelsea called Tello. A little tiny italian restaurant which was amazing and the plus is we got $10 off the bill ! The food was FAB. and the restaurant was packed with gay crowds. It was a blast !



The snow mostly had melted today but its still cold and the sky is a bit cloudy. We walked around the city like usual and feel the xmas spirit, people are all around stores from Soho to Chelsea. Something about New Yorkers, no matter how cold and slushy is outsied, they are still out and about and seemed like they don't care at all, it is snowing so what ! we have to go out and enjoy all the excitement that the city always has, especially for the Holiday Seasons. I recalled last year when it was a blizzard outside, we had to go out and feel the first blizzard in NY and there were so many people out and about.

So we went to this Vosgez Haute Chocolat in Soho and had these amazing hot chocalates, I got the regular mint ones and Vince got the Spicy Cinnamon. They cost $5 per cup, but I think its worth it.





Check out this Union Square Christmas Store's crowd, although its kinda wet the ground because of the melted snow, we couldn't even move properly, we needed to really bump into each other shoulders to get from one tent to another. It is an annual event at U-Square.

Project Runway Paaaty

Ok, so tonite we braved the below-freezing weather and actually headed out on a weeknight to one of Francis's party --- the seasons ultimate reality-tv-slash-fashion party ... no not america's next top model... the second runner up...



heidi's Project Runway premire party at the Aer Lounge at Meatpacking sponsored by Elle and Banana Rep... (Thanks GOD for the sponsors... ie. decent giftbags)



The place was packed -- I guess it made sense since it seems everyone in the world was a sponsor including banana republic, miramax, bravo, elle, and l'oreal. Supposedly, the 'movers and shakers' of the "industry" were there.



Can't complain, open bar + food... including shitake mushroom cups, steak prosiutto (i know i spelled it wrong), chicken satay (ho-hum)... wish they had those amazing mini burgers like they did at the p-diddy event last week... those were yummy!



The place was swarmed with models old and new like Iman and others I only know by face but not by name -- (what do u expect... they're models) - surprisingly the queer eye folks weren't there! Perhaps they're pissed they might be cancelled...



So people overlooking eachother's shoulders watching the TIVO'ed version of tonite's premiere... we really didn't bother.



Also, spotted last year's PRunway's winner... that fat guy - forget his name... SOOO apparently he's really a big rice queen!!! :-) We spotted him with this Asian guy and he shouted out loud "I'm a RICE QUEEN!" in the middle of the party. How totally embarrassing!!! :-)

THe party was ok, free drinks and amazing finger food -- i Loved the steak !!! Anyways, the best part is the $50 gift certificate we got from Banana Republic. :-)))))

First Day of Snow in Manhattan

Yes it was ! It finally came down for the first time. It was really nice and it did came earlier than last year. This one is from our backyard.



After a great FAB. night, we decided to go to Central Park to witness the real white snow, it was very dramatic, you can totally see the branches of the trees covered with snow but then at the same time you also knowledge that some of the branches are still have leaves which make it very wonderful feelings, is it really winter yet ? or its just the matter the snow just want to come down early this year for the New Yorker ????

Check out the cozy fire place at the Boat House.



Either way, it was still a blast for us, hopefully we will have a White Christmas this year.

We decided not to get a real christmas tree this year since we will be going to Asia in less than 1 month (and YES, we are so excited !!!) but check it out our 'tree' this year and yet compare it with the one last year.

Big E Bday

So it's officially winter -- at least FEELS like Winter! We were promised snow tonite but it's 1:30 and doesn't look like it's gonna happen :-)

Anyways, had a great day today roaming around the city taking in the holiday spirit - all the way from Herald Square down to Chelsea. Went to a sample sale today -- got some cool stuff -- couldn't resist although we totally VOWED to cut down on needless shopping...







We then headed home - turned on some Xmas music and lit some candles -- talk about getting in the mood for the holidays.

Still debating whether to buy a Xmas tree this year though...



Went to see Aeon Flux afterwards in USquare, amazing special effects, not much of a storyline. Can I just say Charlize is smoking hot -- even to a couple of a gay guys!



So today is our brit buddy E's Big 3-0 birthday. Went to good old Highline in Meatpacking for dinner, the wait was FOREVER (over 1 hour even with a reservation), but everyone ended up having a blast.







The waitresses were fab considering they were overbooked. At least they offered us wine and appetizer for free!

All in all, a great nite and the most important thing is that I think E had fun. Another eventful Sat. nite in the books! :-)