I need pants!

You can't go to a fancy restaurant without some fancy pants....so I had to go to Tjmaxx and get me some cheap fancy pants. I didn't wanna spend a lot of money because I might just wear them once. So I did find 2 pair, both in the same size, but only the one pair fitted. Strange, since they were both by Kenneth Cole. Ah, the mysteries of haute couture. Of course I also had to get me a sub @ subway now that I was in the area. I'm a hog for fast food, what can I say? I get so much knowledge from this, it's just ridicolus.

Later in the day we all put on our fancy outfits, got in a couple of cabs and got on the train downtown to the London Hotel. We were dining at "Gordon Ramsay at the London", apparently a hard reservation to come by, sis managed to get us in. She's good with that kind of stuff. We had a wonderful 4+ course meal, I don't even rememeber the number of courses, just that they all tasted great and that the staff was really attentive and suprisingly european in their demenour. At the end of the meal, sis asked the maitre'd if she could have a tour of the kitchen to talk to the chef, and guess who is getting invited back into the kitchen next tuesday. I'm so friggin proud I'm bursting in my seams. And not just because I've put on 6 pounds in 14 days.

We walked home, crossing Times Square, reminding me that I need to go to the Virgin Mega Store to get Nowhere...

Humanity and a warning

We were as usual going to sail today, and as always we didn't. Insted this was gonna be the big museum day. Back up to Central Park West, Upper East Side and so on. We got on the 6, (the train, not the JLo album) and got off around 83rd street and what ponders my eye on, other that D'agostino's. Major W&G location. Fun to see it in real life. But now for the serious stuff.

Serious old stuff, I should say. We chose to see just 2 exhibitions at the Metropolitan museum, otherwise we'd still be walking around in there now. The Egyptian was stunning. Really tomb raiding on a schedule. But the sphinxes were nice. I got a picture with one. Big big stone kitty. The jewelery from 5000 years ago was also nice, the mom wanted it all. A lot of mummies, tombs and treasure later, we walked over to the roman/greek department where we saw a lot of nude marble flesh and a lot of pots. Them greeks sure did like their pots. Leaving the museum we crossed Central Park, and encountered a squirrel so tame it came right up to us as if to say "you got any nuts, mister?". So cute.

After a lunch in the worlds probably smallest Starbucks we went to the American Museum of Natural history to explore our origins. We got to see real dinosaur bones! Awesome! They were huuuge! Are you kidding me? T-rex was a big badass, but the kind of dino that only ate veggies, they were like truck-and-a-half kinda big! Also in the museum, they had a clock showing earth's development. I really liked it. Life didn't exist until 5.00 in the morning, and human life only came into existence 23:59:59. Literally in the last second. So moving to feel you're part of a bigger scheme than yourself. After these two great museum experiences we were about to get another experience, oh my.

We got home, and had to grab a bite to eat rather quickly, cuz we were going to the movies later. While my parents cooked i checked the weather channel for tomorrow's forecast and suddenly a loud alarm sounded like "beep-beep-beep-beep" and the sound of the tv went down. I was like "what the heck?" and then I saw it. On the lower half of the screen a text scrolled from right to left saying:"THE NATIONAL WHEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A SEVERE WEATHER WARNING FOR FAIRFIELD AND NEW HAVEN COUNTIES. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION OR ALREADY BE FINISHED!" I totally freaked out and started yelling and screaming, like a lunatic. My parents came rushing and we called my sister,and thankfully she told us that it was another part of the state, so we went on our merry way to the movies.

The movies were cool, the drinks oversized, the popcorn also - and with butter of course. Mom was in horror, I was in heaven and Catheine Zeta-Jones was on the big screen. All around lovely movie, not too little, not too much. We walked home and went to sleep like babies, knowing tomorrow would bring even more shopping and eating. :-)

Nintendo, like in heaven

So today was gonna be the day when we sailed, but we opted out of it to go shopping instead. Our first stop was Rockefeller Plaza on 34th where I went to heaven. And by heaven I of course mean the Nintendo World Store. I've yet to buy any games over here, cuz the local GameStop was closed, but today the pearly gates opened up to me.

Talk about Mekka. Real Nintendogs puppies! I'm loving it! Mario everywehere! Yesyesyes! I love this stuff, and you know? I felt so justified. Like everything coming together and making things right. Kids playing DS all around me, like a regular love fest. A Nintendo retrospective exhibition upstairs. So beautiful, I was tearing up. So after the Nintendo World store, we walked over to Macy's where we much to my dad's dismay ate McD's one more time. This time I had the Chicken selects, the folks had the Big Mac.

Then mommy dearest went shopping in Macy's and the pops and I sat down for a Tall Skinny Late and a Venti Raspberry Mocha Frappuchino. Add a chocolate chip cookie and a slice of chocolate chip banana coffee cake, and you got cloughed arteries before you know it. ;-) After all the shopping we thankfully chose to relax a bit a sit down in Bryant Park and just relax and breathe a little bit.

I really like Bryant Park, everyone enjoying the relative peace and quiet and on their Blackberries and laptops. Busy city alrite. And on the way home tonight, the liqior store was open, and the locals were stocking up like crazy. Drunks, all of them. :-P

Leather, tarts and a blackout

The theme for the day: Shopping! Mullé, the queen of all things motorized had arranged for a rental car, from the leasing firm Enterprise. A Chevy. Mmmm. Me approve. (we actually also rented a gps navigation system, but that chose to cop out on us a couple of miles out of SoNo. Total piece of garmin crap.) We drove to a place somewhere I've never been, where an outlet shopping mall had been built in colonial/disney style. Totally corny.

After a really nice slice of pepperoni pizza I found the leather store and I fell in love. Ask me about it. Bought some more stuff and made it back along the 95 interstate, where we passed a couple of Denny's restaurants. I'm probably not gonna go there, but I'm curious. On the way back I also conducted a McDonalds density field study, I'll look into the results soon.

Just stopping at ShopRite for a few things on our way home, we fell victims to a total blackout in the store, where I got severed from the rest of my group. Humid and very, very dark. And a heck of a lot of fun. Oh yeah and when we got home Mullé didn't dance for me, but she made a salad. I now know why Hurley loves ranch dressing so much. Oh yeah, and I bought Poptars. That word is so dirty, I love it. :-)

Imagine the Day after Tomorrow

Possibly the best day of our visit so far! I got to feel like I was in the middle of a movie today, when we visited the New York Piblic Library...as efficionado's may know The Day After Tomorrow has some really intense scenes taking place there. I was standing in the exact spot. Quite funny. Afterwards we took it to McD's for the first time in the US, and it was not as bad as I had feared. Bread not very sugary in texture, a very good thing. Parents too enjoyed the Quarter Pounder.

After walking all the way down to pier 83 we realized we were not going to sail today after all, so we went right back down to midtown. My favourite part of Manhattan, no question about it. Another special and great moment was the next stop on the list, Central Park. What a beautiful and tranquil place. We entered the park from the west, around the Dakota building, saw the place John Lennon was shot dead, and the apartment that Yoko Ono to this day still lives in. Like walking around in a history lesson. Quite uniqe. In the park our first stop was Strawberry fields and the memorial over Lennon that says "Imagine". Very moving stuff.

We walked towards the east and passed Bethesda square, a beaufitul pond with small boats in it, and finally made it to the Hans Christian Andersen statue. It was a bit like coming home, and it was hard to contain your excitement over finding him sitting there, reading aloud The Ugly Duckling. When we came back to SoNo we had a nice dinner with the sis, and later she got to try out her new Carmen Curlers. Oh happy day.

If I could reach....higher...

The folks and yours truly decided to visit the quitessential New York landmark today, the Empire State building. It's so tall you can't even see the top from street level. No expedition to the top can come without catering, and we decided to pay the Subway restaurant on 34th street a visit.

The lines for the tower were really smooth and before we knew it (and a great elevator ride with a lot of dutch people later) we were standing on top of the city, so to say! A really good audio tour told us all and more about the city....really nice.

Afterwards I got to take my parents to a Starbucks coffee for the first time in their lives, and that was a little special for me. Also the raspberry frappuchino was kick-@ss. :-) Following the drinks, my mom went a little crazy in the garment district, but hey powershopping just runs in our genes, I guess. Just ask Bad Twin. :-)

Ah, the UN! Mindjob alert!

Now talk about the weather! As cold and rainy the weather was yesterday, just as awesome and totally schorching it was today. We caught the 10.16 train out of SoNo and and got to the pinnacle of the trip so far, at least for me: Visiting the UN. As people who know me know, I care deeply about the UN and what they do, so going there was like going to my own personal town hall, which also happens to be the town hall for all the world. Totally awesome.

After this great visit, we went by foot down to Rockefeller Plaza, a personal favourite of my sis. She showed me the NBC store, and that was quite spectacular. I was so close to getting my own pair of scrubs, until I realised that that would be retarded. :-) Still on foot, we walked down 5th avenue, passing the famous flat iron building @ the 5 boroughs, walking down through SoHo, passing Washington Square Park on the way. Had lunch @ Caliente Cab and getting served by some very shady looking spanish waiters there. Food was nice though, albeit a little on the heavy side. But what do you expect when you order enchilladas.

We visited a yarn store where they had a lot of....well, oddly enough: yarn would you believe it. Then made it back up to midtown, caught the train and went shopping in SoNo @ TJMaxx. I got a couple of caps, at serious discount. Me like.

Oh yeah, and just because we could, Mullé, Sistah and moi went out and had dinner @ Wasabi Chi on the corner of South Main Street. Went totally overboard and had both Salmon and California rolls and Salmon nigiri....! I loooooove sushi!

I need a boat in Chinatown! Now!

So today the sis had the day off, and she joined us for a day of fun in the....well, torrential rain. A massive amounts of clouds over NYC and rain all day. So we started out with a hearty and super-unhealthy breakfast at a local diner, I had pancakes, sausages and eggs washed down with orange juice.

After arriving in NYC we grabbed the subway to 86th street and paid a visit to the Guggenheim museum. Not bad at all, even though I might prefer MoMA over it. I got to see a lot of Kandinsky art and some really gorgeours turn of the last century revolutionary italian art. Spectacular. And they had a disco floor. How can you not love that??? Lunch was eaten at sbarros all-you-can eat buffet pizza place, and i gorged like a maniac, as did everyone else. Pheeew. After lunch, we spent a good hour in chinatown browsing all the cheap sh*t stores there.

We finished our shopping frenzy in macy's where all I got was a dry pair of socks. Quite unimpressive and agnostic, I might say.

Sunshine and a gay hosedown

So today we've done nothing but stay home and chill in the still amazingly good weather. Mullé and Sistah + me and the folks took the party to the porch and later onto the front lawn grass for relaxation in the sun. Just chilling and talking, a can of coke, a handfull of potato chips, and a laugh and a half.

Only real thing that happened today was going shopping @ bestbuy and stop and shop, didn't buy anything at bestbuy, bought everything @ stop and shop. Oh yeah, and we nailed the discount for the first time today. Nice, $10 off the bill. A frame of cherry coke for me and I'm friggin' over the moon. The rest of the day was spent cooking dinner, that was about everything under the sun, from beef to pasta. Went out on the porch and looked at the gay guys across the street that live in a dollhouse. They hose down the entire house every night. That's a little avantgarde, even for neatfreaks that don't have kids. It wouldn't happen @ our house, that's for sure. Hehehe.

Up, down and up in NYC

Sistah was getting off work @ 4 today, so we took her with us to NYC. On her recommendation we started out by crossing brooklyn bridge, from the brooklyn side, and quickly found out about the lack of public restrooms in the brooklyn area. When we came half way over the bridge, I realised I was looking at the southern tip of Manhattan, and what was absent from the area. I knew right there it was gonna be hard to go to Ground Zero. And as predicted, I teared up when we went down to the crater. The empty space just stands as a sad monument over the war of today. After the sombering and depressing experience we needed some cheering up, and we took the subway to stardust diner next to the mamma mia! theathre. Singing waiters, are you kidding me? Cute singing waiters, are you kidding me pro? Totally rad experience. Finishing the day, we took it to Times Square, and enjoying bumping into people for a good time. Throw your hands in the air for New York!

Long lost love, and chocolate

Today Mullé didn't have to go to work before 4pm so I had the pleasure of eating breakfast with her. We didn't have a lot scheduled for today, because tomorrow my sistah is getting off work early and going to NYC with us. So we just took nice and slow all day. I didn't go take a shower before 2 in the afternoon, just being lazy lazy lazy. So today all we really had to do was to go to the supermarket for some grocery shopping. As mentioned the other day, I had already been there before, but for the folks it was the first time, as just as I expected they found it big and confusing. It doesn't help shit that things are place neatly in isles, when there's 27 different versions of every product. Just like me in Puchong, or Sunway Pyramid. But we managed to get some delicatessen foods (buffalo chicken salad, yum) and some organic greens, milk and bread. Took a taxi back home, with a gazillion bags. And The Rick was reunited with his long lost lover, Cherry Coke, this time in a Zero calorie reduced version. Pure bliss.

After eating dinner, we took it to the cafe on South Main Street, for at chocolate eating frenzy. I think I was spilling ganochè out of my ears. So damn good. The benefits of knowing someone in the business are huuuuge.

New York: Meet Rick

Morning! Ah how lovely. Or is it? It's hot as fuck and I'm sweaty like a beaver. But anyways, today we went to New York for the first time. Actually it was like a lot of firsts. It was the first time @ the local train station, the first time we saw an american family of fatties eat lunch (pepsi+lay's) and getting on the train and off @ Grand Central Station. Grand central is truly grand. It was beautiful, in short. Unfortunately there was the midtown volcano the previous day, so we were kinda limited in the exits, there was military personel and police officers everywhere. At last we did find an exit, around 47th street.

The folks were extremely flabbergasted, I was less impressed, as I have been to other major cities and they basically all look the same. So we made it by foot in about 45 minutes and a couple of wrong turns to the Museum of Modern Art and it was awesome. The total highlight of the trip so far. See pictures below. Yes those are originals. As you probably know, I love pop art and Andy Warhol in particular. After MoMA, we decided to try and make it to the 24hour open Apple store on 5th avenue. We had a few rain showers every now and then, but we made it fine. The Apple store was so beautiful, I could cry over it. Of course there were way too many pushy people there, but lord how beautiful it was. AND I GOT TO TRY THE iPhone! A slice of Apple heaven.

After the apple store we made it back to 45th street and there were a lot of police officers and news crews all around. I guess there was quite the asbestos scare from the blast the previous day. All the coppers were wearing protective masks. Kinda makes you wonder. Just by chance we happened to walk by the biggest catholic church in the United Stateds, St.Patricks cathedral, so of course we just had to pay our respects and bow our heads in silence. (Actually we just really needed to stretch our sore backs, and we're lutheran, but don't tell anybody.) Regardless, the church was magnificent and etheral.

So we had dinner at an Italian place, called Naples. I had lasagna, it was great. A really big piece. After the meal we caught the 6.42 to New Haven and met a very nice lady called Juliet who worked for Martha Stewart. She told us of the terrorist scare the previous day, and about how rude americans are. Of course we could just have bought the correct ticket, but the train conductor did have a bad attitude. Whatever. I'm already starting to sound like a New Yorker. We walked to the café after getting off the train, and I had a great raspberry smoothie. We took a cab home, and @ about 1:30 AM, the girls came home, and Mullé did a little dance for me. :-)

Yes, Another Day

So today was all about chilling out and gathering our strenght and getting over the jet lag as quick as possible. My sis and Mullé had to go to work and return cars and stuff, but my folks and I remained in the town house and chilled. I went online and that was a pretty soothing sensation, a bit of familiarity in the midst of a lot of foreign.

At about 5 pm the folks and I walked downtown to the café and it freaked me out and we had a really nice dinner og burgers and crepes.





Later the sis and the staff @ the cafe hosted a wine and chocolate tasting....that was pretty nice, getting a little sugar rush and booze going.



All 5 of us shared a couple of cabs home @ midnight and were dead tired and went out cold.

Me vs. Jetlag vs. USA

Day one of our excellent adventure! I haven't slept for 2 hours last night, but I'm still as alert and awake as ever. The drive to the airport was painless,and everything went smooth in customs, up untill we were boarding in Kastrup Airport. The announcer informed that our plane was delayed due to technical difficulties with the business class chairs and the in-flight entertainment system. Kinda nervewrecking to be told about electrical issues with our plane prior to flight. But anyways, we got on board, took off and besides a little bit of turbulence the flight itself was smooth. Of course we got seated close to a family travelling with toddlers that enjoyed screaming for the whole flight, but that was almost expected. Stuff like that always happens.


In Newark Airport, the first thing I noticed was the big-ass sign that said "Welcome to The United States of America". No chance of getting confused on our wereabouts. The immigration process was as could be expected, we were photographed, and our finger prints were put into some kind of database. The gentleman in immigration, John Ross, was polite and entertaining without ever knowing it. When we got to the arrival area, the biggest surprise of the year awaited us. It was my sistah and her co-worker Mullé, who were there to meet us.

They had leased a car to drive us from the airport to Connecticut.


There was tears, sobbing and a lot of joy over being re-united. After leaving the airport we took a wrong turn, and ended up in a questionable neighbourhood, kinda like a rolling start to the US.


I was digging it, I've tried alike in Malaysia and Indonesia. Anyways, we found our way back onto the interstate and drove to a gas stop and grabbed a few cheeseburgers from Burger King. The entire time I could not help, but think how similar everything looked to Malaysia. I really got a big revelation there, understanding on what model the Malay infrastructure was built upon.


As we got back home to Connecticut, we pulled up at my sisters house, and it looked so American, that my mother couldn't help but saying "I feel like I'm in a movie". I know exactly where she was coming from. Before we got back to the house we had first made a quick stop on South Main Street, where my sistahs restaurant is. It was super nice to see it in the flesh for the first time. Also got to meet the danish chef Torben who was working there. Shortly after getting home, my sis and Mullé took me shopping at the local StopAndShop, and again I got a heavy Malay flashback. Incredible.

Later the same evening we all went dining at Match, a upscale place owned by a friend of my sis called Matt. I was so close to tears because of jet lag, that I really just wanted to go home and curl up in a corner in a fetal position and cry, but I smiled and showed my teeth, and we got through it.



After getting home, my head didn't hit the pillow before I was asleep. Everthing is big and ugly and very surreal.

La Isla Bonita

I had a quiet day today, just going to town to submit my paycheck, pack my suitcases and meet up with my old friend Betanja, who on this picture looks more like La Isla Bonita. In her defence, she was hung over, and I'm a dick for posting the picture. :-) Can't wait to have fun in the sun with everyone when I'm back. But for the next couple of weeks, it's New York City for me, baby...

Yellow chicken!

The chicken has turned yellow! Michael Rasmussen is a real sports hero... He takes the yellow jersey, the dotted mountain jersey and he took the stage... Good for him!

"EEEEEEEEXIT LIGHT!!!!"