TravBlog: East Coast Reunions

End of October marked 3 months since Steve and Anna have left London…It seemed like a pretty fair timeframe to give them time to settle in so that we can visit and crash the party (or join their Halloween party, to be more exact J )

This trip was a power 3 day weekend of jetsetting, catching up with amazing friends, discovering a new city, and re-discovering another. It all started at 9 pm Thursday night, when Mark and I arrived to Philly. By 9:45 we were at Steve’s and Anna’s new (an sweet) apartment, in our firefighter and beer boy Halloween costume, having welcome/catch-up shots at the request of the hostess. The rest of the night was a whirlwind of meeting and partying with Wharton peeps, and our faves: fellow firefighter girl and the green crayon. I must say, the Wharton partying lived up to its reputation and Steve’s stories, and a food fight at 3 am at McDonald’s was a nice finishing touch hehe.

It was nice and early when Mark came to wake everybody up (classic Mark) for a day of exploring Philly. I have to say, that Philly pleasantly surprised me, as it is a lovely city. We made our way to the Wharton for ‘the best food truck’ Philly cheese steak sandwiches, followed by a tour of the Wharton and Penn U campuses, which I was very impressed with…plus we got some wicked cookies from one of the cafes there, which impressed me even more. The walk back took us over a bridge to a pretty river and a very cute shopping street, where Anna and I obliged to spend a couple of hours before hopping on our bus to NYC. Sadly we didn’t spend enough time in Philly to try the infamous Philly restos, but I guess we would have to save it for the next trip. I could petty much tell the food would be good by the quality of those cookies anyways!

I will skip over the painful bus ride from Philly to NYC, but I guess it’s all part of the experience :D We arrived to Manhattan just in time to get pretty and ready for our Peter Luger resos – the coveted steak place, a visit to which has been on our radar for years. It is a classic American family resto in Brooklyn, with massive portions of steak and delicious greasy sides. I will admit that perhaps we have set our expectations unrealistically high, and didn’t walk out blown away, but nonetheless it was a tasty dinner.

The next day was the first day of snow AND the first snowstorm in NYC. Good timing there! It was also the day of our reunion with Mr Jay Shek and NYC Halloween party. Being weather conditioned Canadians, no snow could stop us at that point. Armed with an umbrella, Anna and I started our awesome day by going to the top rated raman place in NYC, Ippudo. I must admit, not being a fan of soups, I was quite skeptical about this place at first, but their pork buns quickly won me over. The place is so popular that it does not take resos, and it’s first come first serve. Anna and I have probably broke all their records by being the first ones to get seated 2 consecutive days in a row, which required getting up extra early and lining up in the cold. Now that's dedication to food. Also, Anna, we are so fat haha.

Part 2 of the day was all about shopping in Soho. Not a bad activity when slush is falling from the sky. NYC shopping was fab for me, having already gotten used to prices in pounds. ‘How can everything be the same price but in dollars?!’ I thought hehe. Our food destination #2 for the day was another Japanese place – Sushi Yasuda. The same sushi Yasuda where S&A ate next to Martha Stuart, and same Sushi Yasuda that I’ve been dying to go to ever since. Well, the sushi was delicious, and we didn’t see any celebs, but we had a funny ‘small world’ incident – we ended up running into the same group of girls who took a pic of me and Anna earlier in the day at Ippudo. They must be fellow Japanese food fans!

It was then time for Halloween party #2. More importantly, it was time for a reunion with Jay Shek, which was UBER awesome! It’s so great to see and catch up with old friends! This time around Mark and I went as a theme: German beer boy and girl (pretty much taking advantage of our unused Oktoberfest costumes that we dared not wear in Munich, on account of how everybody else was dressed in the traditional ones, and ours were from Ebay…) Steve joined the theme and Anna was ½ of the Hello Kitty crew. We spent the night Halloween partying in a local NYC scene, which was a ton of fun. The highlights included Mark/Anna battle for the glowing necklaces (Anna won), managing to take a pic with pretty much every single dressed up person there, open bar, and late night Korean (not so much for Mark).

I was secretly hoping that the bad weather would persist allowing us to stay in NYC for a couple of days longer, but the skies cleared up completely on Sunday to give us a sunny, cloudless day. Boo. But I guess I can’t be greedy, as we had an amazing 3 days with S&A, which gave us our fix until we see them next in Hawaii (3 days from now!)

Here’s a photo album to capture our reunion:

The firefighter squad