travel

I wasn’t quite sure about visiting the two Universal Studios theme parks in Orlando (Universal Orlando and Islands of Adventure), seeing as we already have something very similar back home and c’mon, Universal just ain’t no Disney. Not by a long shot. I was leaning towards spending those 3 extra days soaking up more of that Disney magic instead but I was in two minds about it because The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was beckoning.

The husband and sister and I, we’re all potterheads and the rules are that potterheads have to stroll down the little lanes of Hogsmeade at least once during our brief muggle existence to pick up some Bertie Botts every flavour beans and take a swig of rich, frothy butterbeer (which by the way, is exactly how I imagined butterbeer to taste like – it’s delicious).

In terms of theming, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was splendid.

(Lots of pictures coming up, brace yourselves!)

//Hedwig taking five on a snowman wearing a Gryffindor scarf? Love it!

//And doesn’t Hogwarts look just grand? Within those towers lie the Forbidden Journey, the best ride in all of Universal.

//We had lunch at Three Broomsticks and a drink at Hog’s Head. That was all kinds of awesome.

//I might have actually squealed when I saw the Hogwarts Express.

The kids weren’t infected with potter madness so they were quite bewildered by all our effusive shrieking at random objects like train schedules and butterbeer carts and puking pastilles window displays. (Even the toilets had a looping audio of Moaning Myrtle, how about that?!!)

They were, however, quite interested in Honeydukes, because candy!

Speaking of, I thought of being contrary and trying Bertie Bott’s vomit and earwax flavours so I asked the lady at the counter if it really tasted of vomit or it just had a mildly-flavoured artificial vomitty sort of taste and she looked at me without flinching and said, “100% real vomit. It’s very authentic.”

So I chickened out. I’ve tasted my fair share of other people’s vomit (3 of those people, in fact) so I think imma pass.

In any case, they had fun riding broomsticks and giving snuggle-kisses to pigwidgeon and princess sparkles.

The rest of the park (as well as Universal Studios) was disappointingly, sort of mediocre, languishing in 5/10 territory but I’ll qualify this by saying that if you’re a potterhead, the potter section (albeit a little small) is really cool and it bumps the overall score to a solid 7.

Verdict? If you’re a potter fan, you’d want to check it out at least once. If not, head on over to Disney (OMG DISNEYYYYY!!!) instead.

We’re home!! It’s been one epic trip, probably the best one I’ve ever had.

There’s the post-holiday euphoria crash and the jet lag (which is always worse on the way home) and the general exhaustion but I’m also glad to be home to see my baby, whom I’ve missed so, so, so, so, so, so (*insert many more so’s) very much. I’ve had to spend the last 3 weeks talking to him on skype and watching videos of him on whatsapp and now I know what it’s like to be on the other side of the lens looking at him from afar and you know what, it sucks. I’d much rather be on the side where I get to hold him and kiss him as often as I like. That side is much better.

Also FYI, babies are not meant to be skyped with. I don’t know what’s worse – not seeing him at all and going crazy or seeing him and going even more crazy because he’s so near yet so far and I just want to immediately fly home to feel his baby weight in my arms. These arms are made for holding my baby and they’ve felt so empty the past 3 weeks.

We got back in the middle of the night and the kids couldn’t resist showering their baby with a hundred kisses at 2 in the morning. They’ve been kissing him so much that baby Finn is all like “WHAT’S UP WITH ALL THE KISSES??? RESPECT THE PERSONAL SPACE, GUYS…”

But I think deep down inside, he really enjoys all the attention.

More posts on the trip coming up soon but I have a long to-do list today, of which all 750 items involve kissing my baby till he turns blue in the face.

Sigh. It’s good to be home.

I don’t think I can round up a trip to NYC without talking about the food, which by the way, is ridiculously good (and cheap!). I don’t usually talk about food here but I think the amazing food we ate deserves a mention. There were so many places we wanted to try and too little meals or stomach space to fit them all in.

Imma just wrap up with my top 5 favourite food places in New York (in no order of preference because they’re all tied for top in my book).

1. Balthazar in SoHo

We knew we had to visit the legendary Balthazar, a classy Parisian brasserie in SoHo with incredible ambience and even more incredible food. After our meal, I found out from a friend that this was the restaurant in Sex and the City where Carrie and Samantha got turned away from despite their attempts to convince the girl at the door that they both ‘are kind of somebody’. (thanks Lynn!)

When we got to the place on a Sunday morning, we were initially told (by an equally stone-faced girl) that the wait would be 90 minutes for a table. Then somehow my sister managed to pull some jedi mind trick on this other really nice girl who gave us a seat within 3 minutes.

We tried the scrambled eggs in puff pastry (pretty good) and the lobster and tomato linguine (OMG PARTY IN MY MOUTH!!)

2. Lobster Place at Chelsea Market

Chelsea Market has a ton of great food but only one makes it to the list – the Lobster Place for freshly steamed whole lobsters.

This is a fuss-free lobster place that doesn’t muck around with ambience or any of those fancy frills. They don’t even have chairs, just a couple of high tables where you can stand around while you eat but that doesn’t even matter because the focus is on the amazing lobster.

There’s only one choice, freshly steamed with a slice of lemon and butter on the side and that is all you need.

I have never tasted lobster this fresh and juicy and tasty and succulent all at the same time in my life. In fact, I need me some of that lobster now!!

3. Grimaldi’s Pizzeria in Brooklyn

You can’t not have pizza in NYC and one of the best places for piping hot coal-brick oven pizzas is Under the Brooklyn Bridge at Grimaldi’s.

All the pizzas are given some TLC in a coal-brick oven for that deliciously authentic brick oven taste and this thing is massive, probably big enough to share among 4 hungry adults. We had a ham + mushroom white pizza (without tomato sauce and topped off with extra cheese) that was out of this world.

4. Shake Shack (various locations)

Shake Shack needs no further raving because c’mon, it’s the shake shack. It’s fast food done right – burgers, hot dogs, fries, shakes and custard ice cream. Most of the time, I eat any of the above items from various places and end up regretting once the junk food crash hits.

But the shake shack? It’s fresh and delicious and worth every bit of the calories it contains. Oh yes, it does.

5. Babbo in West Village

Mario Batali’s Babbo is a real gem in terms of food quality and pricing. It’s got great ambience and given the exceptional food quality, we certainly did not expect most of the entrees to fall within the $20+ range.

Babbo was one of our final meals in NYC and it was an amazing place to round up the NY leg of the trip.

*Special honorary mention to the Momofuku compost cookie and cereal milk ice cream, which didn’t make it to the list only because they’re more like snacks instead of a meal. But they were equally yum.

Space captains Truett & Kirsten reporting for duty at the Intrepid, y’all!

Checking out the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum was one of the final things we did in The Big Apple and boy was it a fine way to spend a lovely NYC afternoon.

Especially if you’re a space geek like Tru.

My son is obsessed with all things related to fighter jets and space travel so this was a huge treat for him. An entire museum dedicated to sea, air and space vehicles??!! He got up to see the row of super rad fighter jets set against the gorgeous Manhattan skyline and almost fainted from happiness.

Jets with missiles, jets of all shapes and colors, jets with huge propellors! And copters too!

Truett was dragging the husband everywhere telling him about all the jets and it was so sweet watching them like some major father-son bonding type thing was about to go down.

We also got to see the space shuttle Enterprise, an actual shuttle that went into outer space. It’s retired now, resting at the Intrepid Museum waiting to tell its stories of adventure to excitable kids while newer, techier shuttles take its place in space.

It was extra awesome that they were able to get on board some display helicopters and boats. I mean, reading about fighter jets is great, imagining it in your head is cool and seeing it up close is pretty darn incredible. But it’s nothing like being on board an actual one to fiddle with the buttons and controls like they were real fighter jet pilots.

I didn’t think Kirsten would be into it but she loved it just as much.

Such is the stuff little boys’ (and girls’) dreams are made of.

Turns out that I really love the MET. Much more than I was expecting to. I wasn’t quite sure about the MET at first because I’m not one of those artsy types who can tell the monets from the rembrants but a friend was telling me that I absolutely had to visit the MET and I was all “It’s like maybe #6 or 7 on my list of things to do in New York” and she was like “but it’s the American Louvre!!” and I said “that’s not making it any more compelling for me” but long story short, we ended up going and I am real glad we did. 

We started out at the Ancient Near Eastern Art section on the third floor and just a tip, that’s maybe not the best place to start for a noob.

We were so excited like YEAH ART!! but there were all these really ancient-looking remains (like old pots or spittoons or carpets that I’m guessing ancient asian people threw out) that were only sort of moderately interesting.

Like what is this? I’m pretty sure some pieces are missing from this tile collection and I’m also pretty sure I’ve seen something like it (a complete piece at that) back home along Arab Street.

When we got to the paintings and sculptures though, I was a thousand % sold.

Seriously, photos aren’t going to do it justice. We stood there looking at all these magnificent paintings that were so imposing and beautiful and they have a way of drawing you in if you let it and I could feel myself turning into an art snob like “NOOOOO it’s happening to me and I can’t stop it!!!”

(The kids fell asleep just as we arrived at the MET and they basically slept for 5 hours straight while we were there (thank you jet lag) so we had all the time in the world to explore and take it all in.)

I’m gushing now but it was wonderfully breathtaking.

A connoisseur would be able to tell you about the brush strokes and the composition and form and palette but mostly, what I loved was how each painting made me feel. Some were so profoundly sad and some were lots of fun and some were just so, so grand. We spent almost half a day walking around till we could hardly feel our feet and it wasn’t even enough to see everything.

The other sections I really loved was the armor hall and the Egyptian art.

Oh and the Victorian furniture section too. It was so Downton Abbey that I was half expecting to see Carson appear with a tray of tea.

MET, oh MET, I’ll have to be back for you soon.

We did lots of fun stuff in NYC but one of the funnest was visiting the Big Apple Circus in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. We don’t have circuses back home and I’ve never been to one but I knew enough about them to know that I’d really love it. In fact, numero uno on my bucket list is to join the circus for a day. Maybe one day I will but for starters, I got to visit a circus so I guess that’s counts for half a bucket list achieved. Sort of?

I hear there’s no better circus for a first visit (or second or third visit) than the Big Apple Circus. It’s a proper circus with that delicious old school charm and a big top and a ringmaster and tightrope walkers and trapeze artists and everything else circuses should have. Including hotdogs and popcorn and lots of candy floss. It ain’t a circus without candy floss, amirite?

All the acts were so, so good. Kirsten’s favourite was Ty Tojo, 15 year old juggler extraordinaire. This guy has mad juggling skillz yo. During the show, I had no idea he was 15(??!!) because he’s insanely talented. At one point, he had 7 balls up in the air at the same time and he caught every last one of them with his 2 tiny 15-year old hands.

All the other acts were equally impressive. Half the time, I was on the edge of my seat trying not to look (because OMG stop all that crazy flinging in the air!!) but at the same time, it was all so fascinating that I couldn’t look away even for a second.

And Truett’s favorite? The Dosov Troupe or as Tru likes to call it, the human catapults. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. They made it look so effortless as they teeterboarded each other up into the air for backflips and somersaults. It’s the kind of thing one dreams about doing as a kid – having someone flip you up into the air with a giant see-saw.

I can’t believe we actually got to visit a real circus and I loved, loved, loved every single minute of the 2-hour show. I almost wanted to yell for an encore when it ended but the husband told me that’s not how circuses work. People clap and then get up to leave politely. But seriously, this circus should totally do an encore, it’s that good.

*Hat tip to Phil from the Big Apple Circus for the invite and tickets. 

I have one observation to make about New Yorkers and it is that they can really walk. That and the fact that they’re so very nice (make that 2 observations!) We’ve had so many random people hold doors open for us, offer their seats on the subway and this super nice lady gave up her spot in line for the toilet because Kirsten was in a bit of a pee emergency – all without us asking.

But back to the walking. New Yorkers walk briskly and they walk a lot. 10 blocks? Without even breaking a sweat. It seems like everywhere is within walking distance, more or less.

Over the past few days, we’ve been walking and walking and walking everywhere. We must have clocked about 50 blocks a day – from 5th Ave to the MET, from 81st street across Central Park to Rockerfeller, from Chelsea to the high line to the Hudson river. We catch the subways whenever we can but once the kids fall asleep, it’s brutal having to carry the strollers up and down the steps so we end up hoofing it instead.

I practically can’t feel my feet at this point but that’s a small price to pay, I guess. Especially since I’m loving the beautiful fall weather and it’s been such a pleasure walking around the city.

One of my favourite spots for walking has been Brooklyn Bridge and DUMBO (which stands for Down Under The Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a pretty neighbourhood just beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s got a bit of the Melbourne vibe with a handful of cool kid stores, artsy home decor stuff and nice cafes.

It was such a gorgeous day for walking and both kids fell asleep on their strollers while we took our time taking in the view. We were there right around the golden light hour so it looked like the entire bridge was bathed in a gentle, warm glow. Y’know, exactly the kind of moment epiphanies are made of.

Across the Brooklyn Bridge, we made our way for a triple scoop of frosty goodness at the Brooklyn ice cream factory, followed by a walk around DUMBO and dinner at Grimaldi’s.

All the ingredients for a very spectacular day.