SURPRISE: New York, New York!

As promised, here are pictures and details on our trip to New York City. I surprised Myke with a tip to NYC. I planned this back in September, when I learned that Jennifer Garner was appearing in Cyrano on Broadway.

Myke is totally infatuated with her and calls her his "tv girlfriend". So, I decided to plan a surprise, rather than tell him. He had never been to NYC before and even though he isn't "a city boy", I think he still had a pretty good time. We arrived on Friday afternoon and left Sunday evening, so it was short, but sweet!

By the time we got into the city and checked into our hotel room, it was time for dinner. We walked around a bit and decided on Pescatore - Italian seafood. It was pretty good, even though the tables are so close that we could hear everything evryone around us was talking about.

Then we headed over to Rockafeller Center to checkout the famed "tree".


It is quite beautiful and occasionally, the led lights start to "sparkle".





The skating rink was completely cleared off. We just missed a wedding proposal! How sweet is that?



We also saw the windows at Saks 5th Avenue. I never had any idea how elaborate these windows were! I thought they were just mannequins with fancy clothes on them!



Snowpeople was the theme and they were all mechanical, moving and animated.



They actually had a line for people to walk through to see the windows! The whole entire block was all lit up with light displays and Christmas music too!







Saturday morning, we slept in (surprise, surprise). And then headed over to the Museum of Science and Natural History.

The front entrance of the museum: President Roosevelt on horseback statue from "A Night at the Museum"




Myke loves archeology, so I knew he would love to see the dinosaurs.











We both really enjoyed the ancient cultures exhibits they had. Guess where we took the most photos? Japan & China, of course!

We would do anything to have this picture hanging on our wall!



Check this out! It is the traditional chair they carry the bride in for a Chinese wedding.



And all these details represent the bride's dowry. It was so amazing to see this.





I wish I wrote down the rest of what it said, because of course, I cannot remember now.

I also wish I had a whole picture of this origami Christmas tree they had, but I guess it did not come out. But these are the little origami ornaments they had on the tree. They were really amazing. They were all mystical animals: unicorns, dragons, fairies, phoenix, and other mythological creatures and such. It was a really beautiful site. The details of the ornaments represent such talent!







After the museum, we took a walk through Central Park. It turned out not to be the greatest idea, because the temperature started dropping quickly!



We made it through the park and decided to start to try and hail a cab to get to our dinner reservations at Tao.



Tao, is obviously an Asian restaurant. And the food is just as beautiful as the atmosphere! It was such a great experience. Being in the restaurant, you forget where or WHEN you are. It is so awesome, if you can imagine, it is exciting yet peaceful at the same time.

Ok, I have to admit, the first picture, is not one that we took, I grabbed it from the web because here is how ours came out:



The ceiling:



The lounge:



And after dinner, we took a cab to a very congested Broadway.



We ended up in a mad dash to find the theater and get there in time for the play. We made it in there just in time to see the beginning and thank goodness . . . . there SHE was! Our seats were great and it was so exciting for me to bring Myke to see Jennifer Garner. Kevin Kline played Cyrano and Jennifer Garner was right, when I saw her interviewed the week before when she said, "he was born to play this role". Myke liked the play so much, he said it would have been worth it even if she wasn't in it! After the play ended, they announced that they were raising funds for charity. They auctioned off Cyrano's nose signed by Kline and it went for $3500!! They were also going to auction off Jennifer Garner's eye lashes in the lobby and said that she would be available to take pictures and sign them for $200. Myke declined to take up the offer. Even if it is for charity, we had already spent so much for this trip, we thought it was best for us to pass on it.

We walked around on Broadway. The temperature was dropping to the low 20's and snow was predicted. It was sort of sprinkling, not really snow, not really rain, but did snow overnight.



Myke could not resist taking a picture of his favorite candy in lights: Reese's peanut butter cups! : )



Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel and headed to China Town to walk around, maybe do some shopping on Canal Street and try to find a cool place for lunch. While checking out some of the places in China Town, we caught a glimpse of this in the hallway:



Sorry it is a little blurry, we were trying to sneak a pic in case we were not suppose to - it is a Buddha shrine. The incense were strong and it was so much more beautiful than this picture could impart. We were walking around, kind of just wandering looking for some place to get some dim sum lunch and all of the sudden, we ended up in Little Italy by mistake! Ooops - had no idea that China Town and Little Italy were literally right next to each other. We were hungry and it was starting to rain, so we decided to have Italian instead. I wish we had found a good authentic Chinese food place, but an authentic Little Italy Italian joint on Mulberry Street was second best and not a bad move at all. After our lunch, we finished out our NY trip with a subway ride back to the hotel. Couldn't have the full NYC experience without a ride on the subway! We picked up out luggage at our hotel and headed to the airport and back home to hot, humid Florida.