New York Walking Tour - Part 3

We ended our day in NY by visiting the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Years ago, I worked in New York. My office was a block away from Rockefeller Center, and I walked past the tree every day.

Even though it was after Christmas, there were tons of people looking at the tree. We snapped a picture and continued on.

We started to walk up 5th Avenue to see the windows, but the crowds were oppressive. After pushing our way through the people, we made it up to 57th Street. And we were able to see a window up close.

New York Walking Tour - Part 2

After making our way through Chinatown, we went to Orchard Street in the Lower East Side. I had read about the Bargain district and wanted to see what it was like.

Unfortunately, everything was closed. I'm not sure if it is closed on every Monday or only on the last Monday in December. But, everything looked like the picture below.


We quickly decided to make our way over to Soho. We found stores that were open and bakeries for snacking.

My daughter loved the MOMA Design store. She found a book she loved and wasted no time in starting to read it at a local park.

New York Walking Tour - Part 1

We decided to go to NYC with our friends and see the city. We drove in, parked, and took the subway to Canal Street on the edge of Chinatown.

After being offered many deals for bags and watches, we made our way past several markets.


The produce looked great, and the prices were significantly less than at the grocery store. We would have bought some if we weren't walking around the city all day.


I took lots of pictures during our sojourn, so I'm going to separate them into different posts.

Next - What we discovered about shopping on a Monday.

Moqueca in New York

We are visiting some good friends of ours who live outside of New York City. We met them when we were young married couples in New York and before we had our children.

These friends lived in Brazil for several years and learned how to make Moqueca - a dish they made for us tonight. It is a type of seafood stew with a great combination of flavors - lime, cilantro, coconut milk, and peppers.

It is served with rice and is one of the best meals we've had.

Thunderstorms and flights don't mix

Part 1.

I left the house early Sunday morning to go to the airport. I was taking a quick flight to JFK and then on to Tokyo.

No problems between Logan and JFK, but after we arrived, the clouds started to roll into New York. Even so, we boarded the plane. Then the rain started to come down; so we waited.

4 hours later, the pilot took us back to the gate and announced that the flight had been canceled.


I booked a hotel in the city for the night. The only redeeming thing was that I got to watch the final episode of Foyle's War on PBS. The next morning, I took the picture above from my hotel window.

Part 2.

No problems on day two of my attempt to get to Tokyo. The worst part of the trip was the mini TV in the NYC cab that kept running the same 3 stories over and over. I almost memorized them by the time I got to JFK.

I arrived in Tokyo and took the bus to Shinagawa where I am staying. There is an elaborate bus system going from Narita airport to the various hotels in downtown Tokyo.

The weather here is sunny but very humid. Here is a picture from this hotel window.