Our family drove up to New York City this weekend and spent a short but fun two days in Manhattan. We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Rockefeller Center, the Manhattan Center, Times Square, met up with family friends, ate a whole lot of good food… and more! I was born in Queens, and although we moved to the DC area soon after, there’s something about New York City that resonates with me. It’s too busy and fast-paced for my taste and I could probably never live there, but it’s still part of my roots. I spent most of my childhood and adolescent years in Northern Virginia, but we used to take annual trips up to New York City during the holidays as a family so it was really nostalgic to be up there with the family for the first time in almost a decade. Here are some photos from our short trip:
Eating ramen lunch at Sapporo in Manhattan
Sapporo Special
the parents
New York subway
Brother harassing the hubby.
The clusterfuck that was the Met that day.
Entering the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
samurai exhibit at the Met.
Sculpture garden at the Met.
Renoir painting.
We stayed at the Skyline Hotel.
sushi rolls for takeout.
Rockefeller Center and its huge Christmas tree.
St. Patrick's Cathedral
The ginormous New York Macy's.
Madison Square Garden
Empire State Building
So sunny compared to the previous day's torrential rain.
sweet treats at a Chinese bakery
First time seeing Sylvia in years! So good catching up!
Miwa, Mari and I at Tick Tock Diner. I've missed you Mari!
Merry Christmas to all! Hope that everyone is having a relaxing, enjoyable time with their families and friends.
Christmas Day also happens to be my birthday, and today I turn 27. We arrived in Dulles airport last night with no delays and a relatively smooth flight. Once I got home, my friend Angel picked me up to go have dinner together, since she is leaving for China and Thailand tomorrow and I would not see her for the rest of the holidays. We were going to have a quiet late dinner at Tachibana, a Japanese restaurant in McLean. Once we got there, I was greeted by some of my closest friends, great sushi and cake, and ton of colorful birthday balloons. I was stunned speechless, and it was totally unexpected. Dan and one of my best friends Hanna had apparently put the whole thing together and coordinated it. I was really touched because with my birthday being on Christmas, I rarely get to celebrate it with friends since everyone is with their families, and things are just so busy in general over the holiday season. There were so many thoughtful presents that my friends had gotten for me, but honestly the biggest gift to me was that they had all taken some time to come out on Christmas Eve to celebrate with me, especially after I’d been away for so long and I had missed them so much. So a heartfelt thank you to all of my friends who came last night, as well as to those who wanted to but were unable to. You guys are the best, and I love you all!
Surprise birthday dinner at Tachibana in McLean
The cutest birthday cake ever.
up, up and away!
Dan had also gotten me a Tiffany necklace for my birthday! I immediately felt guilty for bugging him about getting a Kitchenaid stand mixer for the past couple months, because when he gave it to me he said, “You can trade it in for a Kitchenaid mixer if you really want it.” As much as I want the mixer, I am too much of a Tiffany fan to give this darling up. The mixer can wait. 😉
Tiffany necklace from Dan for my birthday
It's good to be home!
Christmas Day has been fun and relaxing so far. In the morning, we exchanged gifts among the family, and we siblings have been spending much of the day playing board games and on the Wii. My mother made some delicious hot soba noodles for lunch, and we’re going to have a sashimi dinner tonight! Not the traditional Christmas dinner, I know, but I’ll take raw fish over ham any day. 😉
Christmas morning
A Wacom tablet from my parents and brother!
And the snow! Although much of it has been shoveled off the roads or has started to melt, there is still over a foot of snow blanketing the ground. This is the first white Christmas I’ve seen in years and I’m loving it. The white landscape is gorgeous and makes for a true winter wonderland. Time for snow angels and snowball fights!
snow in our backyard
We’ll be taking a weekend trip up to New York City tomorrow, but we’ll be back in the DC area on Monday. Looking forward to all the fun times ahead with our friends and family! 😀
This past weekend was our last weekend of the year on this side of the country, as we’ll be leaving to go back East in a couple days. We spent it celebrating Christmas early with friends and family here in California.
On Saturday, we went to Megumi’s in San Francisco for a holiday party for the Nakayoshi core members. Megumi was a great hostess, preparing so many treats and goodies for everyone, and her apartment was sparkling with holiday decor.
Megumi's homemade cookies - too cute to eat!
The party was potluck-style, so everyone brought a dish and everything tasted amazing. It seems like everyone in Nakayoshi (especially the ladies) has such awesome cooking and baking skills! They put me to shame… haha* After eating, we had a white elephant gift exchange (accompanied by the characteristic silly gifts and lots of laughs), gingerbread house building, and board games! 🙂
cozy dinner conversations in Megumi's living room
more people crammed into the kitchen.
With my (almost) birthday twin, Emily! Her birthday is Christmas Eve, mine is Christmas Day.
Megumi starting the white elephant gift exchange.
Me with the lovely Miss Aileen!
Dan won some Jack Daniels... but it quickly got stolen away.
Dan and Aaron were really serious and intense about the building of the gingerbread house. Very exact and diligent...
Cyril, Megumi and I. Thanks for the great party, Megumi!
For more fun photos from the party, see the Flickr set.
On Sunday, Dan and I went to San Lorenzo to his parents’ house to celebrate and early Christmas and gift exchange with the Allens. We’re really grateful that they were flexible and moved Christmas up a little so that we could celebrate with them before we fly over to my family’s to spend actual Christmas Day with them.
Miwa with Choco
Dan's parents opening gifts
Dan and I at his parents' house
We’re leaving for Virginia early morning of the 24th, so we’re currently in a packing frenzy. Hopefully the weather will be kind and we will be able to get there safely and on time, with no complications. To our friends and family on the West Coast, thank you for a wonderful time, and to those on the East Coast… here we come!
Yet another great thing about the holidays is all the wonderful aromas and fragrances that carry us through the end of the year. Cinnamon, apple, peppermint, pine, gingerbread, sugar cookies, pumpkin pie… everything smells so delicious. Out of the five senses, smell triggers memories more than any other — no wonder we associate all these scents with happy memories of Christmases past!
So I saw my boss doing this the other day at our new studio, and it made the place smell so amazing that I had to try it at home. It’s super easy — you just slice oranges into thin wheels, lay them out on a cookie sheet, and sprinkle them with cinnamon and cloves (you can add allspice and nutmeg if you have those on hand too) and stick them into a heated oven for about half an hour and let the aroma permeate your kitchen and the rest of the house.
A more long-term way to keep your home smelling like Christmas is to make orange pomanders, but since those take two weeks to a month to completely dry, it’s a little too late for me to attempt them. I’ll have to remember to tackle making them next year! Can you tell I love the holidays?
This year was the first year that we got Christmas lights to put up, although they ended up being more for interior decoration since we live in an apartment. I’ve always preferred the colorful oversized bulbs to the mini lights that everyone has, and it looks like The Nest agrees — going bigger and bolder with your lights is becoming a trend! You just have to do it well so that it doesn’t end up looking tacky.
So Dan and I picked out some Christmas lights at the local convenience store but when we got home, we discovered to our dismay–or more to my dismay–that they were actually not as opaque as we had anticipated. In fact, they were totally translucent and you could clearly see the filament within.
translucent Christmas lights
The easy (and probably normal) thing to do in this situation would be to go back to the store and return them, but we decided to be a little creative with the mishap and try making them not translucent nor opaque, but frosted! You don’t see too many oversized frosted bulbs being sold, so we decided to “make” them ourselves.
Dan tested frosting one to see how well it would work.
What a difference!
Setting up the lights in an array to be frosted.
The secret ingredient!
Spraying the bulbs outside. (Please ignore the Trader Joes steamer clams box.)
Post-frosting: the bulbs are set out to dry for half an hour.
The frosted lights give off the soft lighting we were hoping for. Success!
Converting the Christmas lights into frosted lights was super easy. So easy, in fact, that this probably didn’t really warrant a post… haha* But it was a fun little collaborative project for the two of us. If anyone ever wants frosted lights but can’t find any, you know what to do!
