I Ate a Pineapple Pork Bun in New York City and I Think I Will Never Be The Same Again

If you thought that bad weather would keep the tourists inside, you would be wrong. We will see all the sights in New York City no matter how cold it is!

We got so turned around attempting to find the right subway line to get us to Brooklyn that we ended up near Rockefeller Plaza, so we figured that we might as well walk over and see if the tree was still up.

It was!

And then the big kid saw the line to get into FAO Schwartz and was all, "Toys?!? TOYS!!!", so somehow we ended up doing that, too.

Of course, as soon as we got into the store and she realized that it was essentially just a mass of wall-to-wall people she wanted to immediately bail, but I said, "Come on, we're already in. Might as well power through."

The first week in January is actually a terrible time to visit FAO Schwartz regardless of the crowds--they were so picked over from holiday shopping, I guess, that although all the shelves were full, they were full with just, like, one or two products per brand, basically. Great if you want a goat cheese Jellycat or a Schleich brachiosaurus painted to look like it works there (which, okay, is kind of cute...)--

--but I kind of wanted to look at *all* the Jellycats, you know? Not just 1,000 copies of the worst one.

Whatever. At least it was warm inside, and it turned out that the subway station we wanted was right near there, after all!

On to DUMBO!

Technically, all people actually wanted to do on this day was walk around Chinatown and eat stuff. But I tacked on first walking across the Brooklyn Bridge TO Chinatown because, come on, it's RIGHT THERE!, and then, well, I tacked on first finding that one perfect photo spot that everybody goes to in DUMBO because if you're at the Brooklyn Bridge, well, then... I mean come on, it's RIGHT THERE!

Just us and 1,000 other tourists seeing the sights!

If you look veeeery closely at the photo below, you can even see a tiny Statue of Liberty. We really saw everything on this trip!

There she is again! 

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge probably isn't something I need to do again, although I would like to catch a sunrise there, but it was a super easy and pleasant walk that puts you right into an interesting part of Lower Manhattan, a short walk from Wall Street on one side and Chinatown on the other.

We chose Chinatown!

And yes, I did force us a few blocks out of our way just so I could embody that Lumineers song.

It is SO hard for me to narrow down all the places I want to see when I visit somewhere:

But we did our best!

We bought buns and milk tea from Mei Lai Wah--

--and I need to tell you that this pineapple pork bun is the best thing that I have ever eaten in my life:

How do they make that crunchy pineapple topping? It was super crunchy, but it wasn't super sweet so it's not sugar. It was SO good, and I am devastated that I'm not eating it again right now.

We had no organized plan for what little shops and restaurants from my map we actually hit and in what order, so we got a lot of sightseeing done simply by wandering back and forth and around and around doing and seeing everything in the most inefficient manner possible:

Jin Mei Dumplings, cash only and window service only, but you get 15 delicious dumplings for $5!!!

I didn't see a tenth of what I wanted to see by the time we absolutely had to head out, which is always the way, sigh, and I guess it leaves plenty of reasons to come back one day.

Another place I'm coming back to: Madison Square Garden, where I once again managed to score the absolute worst seats in the house!

This game ended up being kind of heartbreaking, because I had to watch Shesterkin get injured (and he's still not back!), and then go on to watch the Rangers flat-out lose to the Mammoth, but at least they scored a couple of points in the meantime--

Here's a spot that I haven't yet made it to even once: the Empire State Building! I just like to look at it from the outside and imagine King Kong climbing it:

Fun fact: the best part of our trip is yet to come!

P.S. Come find me over on my Facebook page, where I often talk about my adventures, experiments, misadventures, and yet more misadventures as I'm doing them!

On the Way to College We Stopped at Niagara Falls

Thank goodness both kids are light packers, or I don't know how we'd have gotten them both to college at the same time. As it was, we fit four adults, two Frakta bags, four Frakta bag knock-offs (I can't believe IKEA discontinued this college move-in staple!), one duffle bag, and three backpacks into a compact SUV with a canvas car topper.

Oh, and in Cleveland we added a few bags of candy, as well... College kids need their snack hauls!

Geography is weird. Do I understand why the route that looks like it detours so far north is only 20 miles longer than the route that looks like it goes pretty much straight to Massachusetts? 

No. No, I do not. I picked it, though, because it's the road less traveled, AND because it includes one of my favorite overhyped but iconic detours into Americana:

The last time we visited Niagara Falls, we HATED the Canadian side, but parking in Niagara Falls State Park on the US side and walking around Goat Island is always a good time:

It's always SO crowded, though!

It IS kind of the perfect roadside stop, though. For the price of parking you can just wander around and get some fresh air, take photos, maybe buy an ice cream, and also, there's a natural wonder right there!

We did a bit more hiking than the kids technically agreed to (one of my many annoying traits, according to my children, is how I constantly goad everyone into sightseeing beyond the agreed time/geographical range by exclaiming that who knows when we'll ever come here again! We should seize this moment that has been gifted us, because our time here together is precious! These poor kids have been to Niagara Falls three times in their lives so far, and every time I act like it's going to disappear forever the second we drive away)--

--so much so that my older kid and I, having paused to look at a weird bird, looked up to notice these two criminals CUTTING A SWITCHBACK!!!

I guess I can't guarantee that my partner knows any better, but that teenager who's tugging him along is a Girl Scout who has listened at least once, and more likely four times, to my lecture to the troop entitled "Do Not Cut Switchbacks Let Me Tell You a Story about a Boy Scout Who Did That Once and Was Never Seen Again."

The two criminals looked up to notice us gasping and exclaiming and clutching our pearls and thought we were trying to gesture to them to pose for a pic. So... cheese, I guess!

Do you think there's ever an off-season for Niagara Falls? I feel like I would like it so much more if I had it all to myself, ahem. Like, forget taking a book and sitting on a bench and enjoying the view while reading and eating a snack--I had to wait in line in a crowd of tourists just to take these pics!

As beautiful as Niagara Falls is, eventually the groceries back at the car start to loom ever more appealingly in one's mind, so we walked the long way back to our parking spot, and continued our family road trip tradition of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of the back of the car, balancing paper plates and bread bags precariously on top of Frakta bags and backpacks, then hopped in and noshed our way the long way through New York, because we'll generally be damned if we take a toll road.

Next stop: the East Coast!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!