The 10 things I like to do most in the NYC area

(in no particular order)

1. Go hear live classical music at Bargemusic with my husband. I like the cello-piano duos best. But that may just be my personal bias.
2. Eat cheese and drink great beer at Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn with friends.
3. Run a 10K around Central Park in the fall with my running buddies. It doesn’t need to be a race. In fact, it’s better if it’s not. Say hello to the cat statue as you run by him. We call him “Frank”.
4. Take the A train all the way out to Far Rockaway and watch people surf. I hear it’s even more fun if you actually surf on your own, but I think I would need a wetsuit for that to deal with the cold and the pollution.
5. Walk the streets of the upper east side in the evening.
6. Cheer for my friends in the NYC Marathon. Running it is nice too but not nearly as relaxing.
7. Visit the American Museum of the Moving Image.
8. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on New Years Day. For some reason, everyone else seems to be doing it that day too. I love NYC best when it's a community.
9. Go to the Met to see an opera with my friend who can tell me everything about what I'm seeing and hearing.
10. Go shopping at Anthropology (when I can afford it) in Union Square with my "personal shopper". Followed by hot cocoa (at the City Bakery), sushi (at Choshi) or a drink.

The 10 things I like to do most in the Washington, DC area

(in no particular order)

1. Go visit Lincoln at night. Pretend you’re Mr. Smith.
   
2. Run the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in good weather. I swear it happens sometimes.
   
3. Have tea and a ginger scone at Teaisms near Dupont Circle.
   
4. Visit The Awakening statue on a clear blue day.
   
5. Eat a Sweet Dreams cookie at the Firehook bakery off Farragut Square.
   
6. Go hear live jazz at HR-57. It used to be BYOB but I hear they have a liquor license now.
   
7. Canoe on Clopper Lake at Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg in the fall.
   
8. Have a beer at the Brickskeller on a weeknight (it’s just too crazy on the weekends). Don't forget to check out the juke box. It has some excellent piano music.
   
9. Ride bikes along the C&O Canal in Maryland. It’s a nice ride anywhere along the canal. But there are generally less people out in Maryland.
   
10. Take an open darkroom photo class at the Smithsonian Resident Associates program.

Vietnam-Hanoi/Ha Long Bay (Photos)

Foods of Thailand- Noodles

I have a friend who swears if you push on her tummy she automatically says "NOODLES!" It's certainly one of my favorites. You can get them pretty much any time of day but the best ones are to be had late at night because they're considered one of the great post-bar foods. If you're flexible, judge your noodle stand by what you see. If there is chicken in the window---order chicken. If you see fish---go for fish. You'll have a few choices after you pick your stand.

1. What kind of noodles. White noodles (small "lek" or big "yay") or yellow egg noodles "bamee".
2. Dry "hang" or with broth "naam".
   
3. Toppings generally include fish "plaa", fish balls "lukchin plaa", pork balls, red pork, ground pork, chicken "gai", various wontons, duck, tofu "dao huu", and many more. Although the items in the window are a good indication, many stands will have several different topics.
   

The photo is of dry yellow noodles with red pork. Vegetarians who don't eat fish will have trouble but there are lots of vegetarian restaurants in Thailand- and many of them will have noodles. Don't forget your condiments once you get your noodles! Red pepper flakes for spice. Peppers in vinegar for tang. Fish sauce for salt. Sugar for ...well...you can figure that one out. Oh and for my friend with an allergy--"mai sai phong cherot" means you want it without MSG.

Doi Tao- Thailand

Some friends invited me out earlier this year to Doi Tao, which literally means turtle mountain (in Thai) but turned out instead to be a lovely reservoir. We rented a house boat for the day and a nice guy in a motor boat drove us around the whole day. We ordered food and ate our lunch out on the water. It was a fantastic day and I highly recommend Doi Tao! It would be particularly nice if you plan to swim and I hear you can spend the night out on the boat as well. It's located about 133km from Chiang Mai and you can reach it by public bus.

Nara, Japan- October 2007

We arrived late in the afternoon into Nara and checked into the lovely little Ryokan Matsumae and headed straight uphill to the Nigatsu-do Temple to watch the sunset over Nara. As the sun was setting, the deer were making bizarre calling noises to each other. The deer in Nara were once holy creatures, now they’re pests. They did, however, provide great amusement for the hundreds of Japanese school children who filtered through the sites everyday. I think seventy-five percent of the photos most of these children took were of deer peeing, deer loving other deer and deer eating biscuits.

Nara was one of our favorite places. It was smaller than Kyoto but had many sites. It was easier to walk around the city, easier to find a nice place to eat and easier to get a hotel. We discovered our favorite sushi restaurant (in the covered market). We visited the largest wooden structure in the world. We had some excellent green tea ice cream. Most of what we loved was just strolling through the city. For those who have trouble, the only ATM that would accept our card was the convenience store in the covered market near the Kintetsu train station.

Here are the places we visited.

• Todai-ji Temple: The temple complex stretches through much of Nara and features the largest wooden structure in the world. The Buddha inside has fingers the size of a person!
• Shosoin Treasure House: We weren’t able to visit the place inside, but the outside was interesting and a good example of traditional azekura building style.
• Nara City Museum of Photography: A bit out of the way but a nice stroll through the woods if you take the right route. Great building!

Here are the places we ate that we liked:

• Kaiten Sushi Totogin was our favorite sushi restaurants. We wondered in off the street because it looked nice and we were very pleasantly surprised. The sushi seemed fresher on the conveyor belt than what we’d had before and the sushi chef kept surprising us with excellent choices.
• Ten-Ten Cafe was a cute little place we stopped into when we were starving. I can’t verify that the food was excellent but it tasted great at the time. Great tea!

We caught the train out on our second evening back to Kyoto then the night train to Tokyo.

Kyoto, Japan- Photos

Golden Pavilion in Kyoto.

Lanterns in Kyoto.

Just a sign on a fence in front of a rice field.