Places Recommended in NYC

Instead of my usual month wrap up post of a hodgepodge of links I like over the course of the month, I thought I would shake things up by writing about some of the places that I have visited and enjoyed very much this spring break. The major and more obvious ones like the Met/MoMA/Guggenheim won't be mentioned here since they are well known on their own right. I hope this will be useful to anyone who plans to visit New York sometime in the near future.

MORGAN LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
225 Madison Avenue
Aside from the fact that both the Morgan Library and Museum are completely gorgeous and worth checking out to just see how beautiful the interiors are, the huge collection here is absolutely beautiful. Having visited the Frick, I thought I knew what to expect, but the museum and the library still managed to blow me away. Man, I knew J. P. Morgan was rich, but I didn't know omg-he-has-three-Gutenberg-bibles-and-other-first-edition-manuscripts rich. It's a different from knowing that he is worth billions and to see that he has a copy of Debussy's work in progress music score in the composer's own handwriting. If you are a bibliophile (like me), the rich collection here will be right up your alley.

ASIA SOCIETY
725 Park Avenue New York, NY 10021
I forgot to take a picture of the museum itself but here the magic is all on the inside. At the Asia Society, they have an ongoing exhibition on the late Mughal paintings that are utterly spectacular in their meticulous details and brushstrokes of the different works. The museum is rather small and only has two exhibits on at a time but this particular exhibit of Mughal art is so good, that I would say it is the most memorable out of the many I have seen all break long. I hope I am not the only one who thought it was hilarious to see an Englishmen in full traditional garb lounging around and smoking a hookah lazily.

BROOKLYN BOTANICAL GARDEN
725 Park Avenue New York, NY 10021
Everything is in bloom (or in the process of). The sun is out. The grass is green. People are lying about in the sun and taking the glorious weather in. What's not to like?

BROOKLYN MUSEUM
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY
I totally underestimated the size of the size of this place – it is BIG. I didn't look at the type of collections they had inside before I went and therefore had no expectations of what things will be like inside. The quality and quantity of their Egyptian came as a pleasant surprise, and the rest of the museum collection was equally wonderful in their careful blend of the ancient and the old with the more contemporary works.

CAFE MINERVA
302 West 4th Street New York, NY 10014
Nice small café that serves simple brunch and great coffee. I totally dig the atmosphere and the French bistro feel of the interiors.

I hope you enjoyed the brief change of pace here – it's great since now I am eager to get back to writing about all things fashion and style, and I'm sure the more enthusiasm I have for it, the better the posts will turn out. I will update on week two of the 15-30 project sometime real soon as well. If you have any recommendations of some small and yet to be discovered places, please let me know so I can check them out the next time I'm in New York.

New York Etc.

Apologies for not feeling terribly wordy again – still trying to adjust to the tempo of classes again after a nice spring break spent in NYC. The exhausting trip back to the Big Apple again to meet with alums didn't help in getting back to the routine (though I loved the trip) and it also meant that there is less time to finish school work then blog, yadda yadda yadda. To pacify and tide everyone over until my next post (fingers crossed to squeeze another post in before the month is out), here are some of the photos I took at Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The weather was exceptionally beautiful that day. My photography skills are still rusty but I've been trying to take photos at every opportunity, so hopefully I'm improving and learning bit by bit through each successive batch of photos.

Also I must make for the shyest fan girl ever! I went to meet up with some high school friends in the Village and saw Nick Wooster as we exited the café where we had brunch. He looked very cool and AWESOME but also super intimidating...if you know what I mean. All I could muster was "OMG that's Nick Wooster" in a loud but also soft kind of stage whisper. It was probably a little annoying for him – and he did look back my way – but what could I say, I was too star-struck and that never hapens to me EVER.

Nom

Jada and I went and visited a lot of places during her stay here, but what we mostly just ate, A LOT (and these photos only feature the majority of the meals we had, not all). While I spent more than I intended, it was all worth it since there was no better opportunity to discover restaurants and cafés where I wouldn't have been able otherwise with some of my rather unadventurous college mates. I've discovered a lot of new places with her, and many of which I hope to return to in the near future (including a great crêperie by a wonderful Greek lady whom I am now buddies with). We were in the mood for anything pseudo Middle-Eastern after watching A Separation (2011) and lo and behold, we find a restaurant serving Persian cuisine. I love finding out new places to eat with friends – so much fun! More fashion-related posts to be headed your way in the future, I promise. Maybe this is all just from reading a lot of food blogs as of late...who knows?

Week I of the 15-30 Project

THANK YOU JADA FOR THE FIRST TWO PHOTOS

Day #3: Set off to NYC early on the bus wearing my black sweater + pair of black denim.
Day #4: Floaty nude-pink H&M top + pseudo jodhpur pants.

THANK YOU CASEY

Day #6: Black sweater + pair of blue denim
Day #7: Taking a break by staying in my jammies all day long with a few cups of English Breakfast tea and Netflix. Also finished The Hunger Games trilogy!

The Tally So Far (9 in total):

• Black Sweater (has yet to make appearance in photos)
• Red Breton Stripe Top
• Navy Breton Stripe Top
• Nude-pink Button Down
• UNIQLO Blue Jeans
• UNIQLO Black Jeans (yet to make appearance)
• G-Star Raw Coat
• Navy Gingham Button Down
• Pseudo Jodhpurs

I am totally not cut out to be an outfit post type blogger from my appalling inability to do something as simple as documenting what I wear everyday. Perhaps I should note that some slack should be cut since I don't have two important blogger tools, namely a tripod with remote or a photographer boyfriend. This, coupled with my discomfort in asking family and friends to take pictures of what I wear ("NO NOT MY FACE" and "just from the collarbone to the knees") is the real reason why I haven't had a photo for everyday of week one as I'd liked. Regardless, I'll be able to replicate and photograph all the different (well also rather boring) combinations I have been wearing so far once I'm back in the safe confines of my dorm room, since all I packed for my trip to NYC are three pairs of pants (one black denim, one blue denim and my jodhpur-like pants) plus my two striped UNIQLO tops and said floaty nude-pink button down. The main focus for packing this time round was functionality, so whatever I did not absolutely have to bring, I didn't (hence the simple "outfits"). Note to self: while it's great that you actually finished packing night before (!!!), try not to do it  when you're so sleepy that you only manage to toss a few things, say 'hmmm that looks just about right' and call it a day. You will regret it.

Un Vernissage

CHANDELIERS – SUMMER FICTION

I've been getting my knickers in twist just thinking about what to post lately (so weird to see this phrase applied in this context but it's purely metaphorical here I swear). I can't decide whether to follow up with more photos of my little adventures with Jada, update on my progress for the 15-30 project, or random blabberings of what I have been up to in the Big Apple so far. Rather than feeling even shittier about myself and not posting anything at all, here is a little preview of a style/closet interview to be conducted with my good friend C from ye yonder days in boarding school. I swear this is going to happen once we hunker down and actually go back to her dorm, instead of absentmindedly chit-chatting and catching up on two years worth of juicy gossip like we did today.

This post was to acknowledge the fact that I know that I'm behind on a lot of things, feel terribly bad and sorry about it (promised blog makeovers that have yet to materialise most of all) but please note that it will all be done in due time. Who knew that planning your itinerary along with compiling a whole laundry list of things to do in the city could be so stressful? And god do I sound terribly whiney when I complain about how confusing the subway is compared to anything back home in Asia (HK and Singapore for example) just because ya know, I can only handle one line per track and connected underground stations. Duh.

P.S. In case you don't follow me on Twitter (ahem you totally should ahem) and missed my tweets, I'm currently in NYC for spring break and would lurve to do blogger meet ups. Just tweet/email me :)

Spring Awakening

BUDDY FRIEND – YES PLEASE

Guess who came by my part of Massachusetts this Wednesday? If you guessed Jada of Minestrone Soup for the Teenage Soul then you got it right! I've visited her in Boston a few times already so it was fun to finally play host to her for a few nights. The photos here were taken on March 15th, which was the first day of the 15-30 challenge but I want save that for another post, since this one will be just on our adventures around town and campus. I've written a lot in in the past month and a half, and though I'm an ardent advocate for more compelling text-driven posts, I think it's time to take a break from typing away at the laptop. Here's a photo diary of our walk on the trail around the school pond, which we thought would loop back around the campus but lead actually to the middle of nowhere.

What I thought would take at most maybe forty minutes turned into a two plus hour long walk, as we continued further and further into the woods and eventually loosing sight of the school. Thankfully we had a GPS with us to make our way back, even if we were um, quite confused by the directions lawl. On the way back I spotted a house (the white one with baby blue shutters below) that would have looked like the house the Lisbons would have stayed at before it became overgrown in The Virgin Suicides. Fortunately we made it back on campus in all in one piece and unscathed. It has been in a while since I've really lost myself in the surrounding nature and it was an unexpectedly pleasant experience of just being unplugged, chatting with a good friend and taking pictures. This I think, will never get old. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!