Climb aboard

It is New York City without the glass and steel.

As part of the grand celebration of the holidays, the New York Botanical Garden charms its visitors with its annual Holiday Train Show. It is not just any train show; it is elaborate and highly detailed.

There are about 150 miniaturized replicas of New York City landmarks and mansions made completely out of plant materials. The glass is made from pine sap. Look for chimneys, shingles, roofs made from pine cone scales, twigs and acorns. Leaves, barks, berries and other fruits, grass, seeds and other natural materials found in the garden make up the buildings.

More than a dozen model trains, from late 1800 steam engines to modern high-speed passenger trains make their way through the recreated landscape. Ten train lines are running on more than 1000 feet of tracks throughout the Enid Haupt Conservatory. The small engines are puffing and tooting past more than 100 iconic buildings and structures in New York City and Westchester, disappearing into tunnels and crossing bridges high overhead.

It felt good to be a kid again. What a charming fairyland.

Enjoy.

Guggenheim Museum

Grand Central Station

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Brooklyn Bridge & Empire State Buikding

Rockefeller Center

Yankee Stadium

Christmas in New York

If shopping is not your favorite contact sport then you have no business walking along Fifth Avenue or anywhere near any department store in Manhattan these days. They are like greyhounds. Be alert or else you'll get mauled by the sea of down-to-the-wire shoppers. It is also gridlock alert day in the city. Buses crawl you probably can outwalk them. I know, I know. What am I doing in the city if I'm not shopping? I just happen to be here among the hordes of tourists for my annual holiday pilgrimage to watch the holiday displays.

The towering tree at the Rockefeller Center and the horn-blowing angels are a New York tradition. And that would not be complete without Prometheus and the crowded ice skating rink . From my front row seat at the coffee shop I was amused watching skaters take pratfalls and run into each other head on. I shouldn't laugh, I remember being traumatized by this humiliating experience many times in my younger days.

As usual the stores are competing for the best dressed windows with their holiday displays. Some have gone high tech with digital screens playing computer generated animations like Saks Fifth and Macy's. I've whittled down my favorites to a few stores with traditional decor. Bergdorf's antique looking props, Mikimoto's strand of pearly white balls, the elegant windows of the Plaza, Cartier's mainstay - the building gift-wrapped in red ribbon as if it were a giant present and Van Cleef & Arpel's garland of magnolia leaves adorning the entrance.

And who says FAO Schwarz is just for kids? I was smitten by the neatly-stacked Teddy bears and other big cuddly toys.

Walking into a crowded store in New York can be overwhelming but don't panic, there are other options. The streets are full of vendors hawking everything you can imagine. No need to trek to Chinatown for those Louboutin and Fendi knock-offs. The sellers compete for the best spots on Fifth right outside of Armani or Tiffany.

There's always something different on the street stalls each year; this time they are the earflap beanie hats and fingerless gloves. They may not be the Rolls Royce of winter knits but they sure look like the real thing and they're cheap. I think they are intended for one-time use as in disposable, or as in I won't cry if I loose them thing. They'll serve the purpose for travelers who don't want to pack their good woolens or those who've packed them but lost their luggage in transit.

"One of Andy Warhol's favorite stories about Dom Perignon was when he and his friends founded the 2000 club - a group of 20 people coming together to purchase 2000 bottles of Dom Perignon and will be drinking them together to celebrate the millennium. For them, the running joke was who would be around to drink it but sadly, Warhol wasn't there to celebrate the millennium by popping a copious amount of champagne".

Below is a liquor store display featuring Dom Perignon's exclusive bottle as a tribute to Warhol:

Christmas Fair, yes we do have them too but don't you worry. There's nothing in our Christmas Shops at Vanderbilt Hall or Bryant Park that could cause the Germans or Austrians to sweat. The Christmas markets in Germany are known to be the best in the world.

It's a pity I couldn't take a picture of the Christmas tree and the Neapolitan baroque creche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's another tradition - a twenty-foot blue spruce decorated with a collection of 18th century Neapolitan angels and cherubs. The groups of realistic creche figures flank the nativity scene at the base of the tree. With Christmas music playing in the background it is simply breathtaking. How I got in the museum for free is another story. That's for another post if I ever get around to it.

Last but not the least; it's often easy to forget that Central Park is a man-made wonder. The landscape behind the museum is a delightful sight for an invigorating walk especially on a crisp winter day. I roamed around for a bit soaking in all that beauty around me.

A walk in the Upper East Side occasionally means crossing paths with Toto, Coco and friends on their daily excursions through the streets of Manhattan. What a sight! And they're all perfectly behaved. With 10 to 12 dogs at once, you'd think that it's the dogs walking the walker. I heard it's a lucrative job, so if you want to earn some extra cash while on vacation in NY, here's one for you.

Off I walked towards the subways, merrily snapping away photos of beautifully decorated entrance doors to some of the most elegant brownstones along the way. The #6 train whisked me away towards Lexington Ave. where more of the holiday festivities take place - music, music, music underground. It's Christmas time in the City. For the outsider it must be dizzying but not for us.

Except for bedbugs replacing roaches, what's not to like about New York City?
New Yorkers are flexible. We give you oodles of choices in everything. We don't do things in half, remember? New York, New York.

We can be congenial and sometimes obnoxious. We are guilty of rolling our eyes and sticking out a middle finger, but little is known about how good we are at heart.

Merry Christmas.

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine

I can explain.
I don't have a drinking problem. I couldn't be more sure of this given the fact that I grew up with rum and gin as staples in my grandfather's house and the boys in my family celebrate their silly little basketball tournament victories not with a measly six-pack but by consuming cases of beer found stacked up high against the backyard fence.

Before the days of the H1N1 virus scare, at most I'll take a sip during communion. Definitely, a glass of bubbly to welcome the New Year. Yesterday was an exception.

It's time for the quintessential winter office party. Something tells me I have to show up with my arsenal of retorts to save myself from embarrassment once Scott starts picking on me. He is a seasoned sales manager, nice guy but annoyingly persistent and is on a mission to win me back or so I thought.

The party started with hugs and greetings, introductions of the big kahunas and the yearend thank you speech from Santina. Another productive year, yeah, yeah, so where's the bonus? To tell you the truth no one was paying attention to her, we were busy stuffing our faces with the tasty appetizers served up at this Greek restaurant Ammos Estiatoria.

Seated to my right was Jimmy, whatever dish he did not recognize ended up on my plate. He is not allowed to drink alcohol so the bottle of wine got shoved next to my plate also. For some strange reason I didn't mind. I guess I knew I needed some help fending off Scott's relentless pursuit of his prey - yours truly.

Alcohol! That's it - that'll help dust off my defense skills. Let's see.

Averoff Fresco Nemea Red. It's all Greek to me. I never had wine so smooth and fruity. It was love at first sip. Then another glass, followed by another until I became talkative. Maria couldn't believe her eyes, Scott and Mary were amused and Jimmy thought I was a natural. You don't mean natural drunkard, do you now? I started to feel tipsy.

Scott started teasing me about this returning to work bit. I'm never good at repartee but in this case the alcohol worked its magic. The answer is a flat No! I'm not returning to the workforce ever. Little has changed since I left. Val is still Val, Meaningful Use requirements, whatever, just means more work and less pay, so why bother. I'm not knocking you down my good old colleagues, I do enjoy your company but let's keep it this way - once or twice a year is plenty. I'm so totally embracing my retirement and I have no plans of giving up the good life.

And who are you kidding, Scott? I smell a big fat referral bonus behind all this recruiting business.
Everyone laughed. He was busted.

Aha! There is indeed some 3 or 4K incentive. You're so full of it! All along I thought I was being courted for some hard-to-fill-in job. Did you really have to burst my bubble my friend?

At this point I'm feeling woozier. Still determined to have a good time.

The food was great. Jimmy stashed away three of the chocolate gift boxes, I got one. Val won the raffle prize for the third year in a row and I'm convinced it was rigged. So what if it's a Kindle? Val can't even read. I don't care for e-readers. I'm a dinosaur remember? I love my dead tree books. The world must march on I agree but death for the printed books? That will never happen. There is no digital equivalent for rich printed images, woodblock prints, calligraphy and words.

The fun was not meant to end at dinner. Unbecoming as it was, I shuffled my way to the theatre which was six blocks from Ammos. Michael led the troop. Fela - the genius of Bill T. Jones' choreography and the life story of Nigerian music star and political rabble-rouser Fela Kuti. The Afrobeat music was very loud, the dance routines wild and exotic, beautiful black women wriggling and swaying their hips at times snaking down the aisles.

It wasn't as good as I hoped. Many times there were lengthy monologues, nothing seems to be happening, then suddenly followed by the same music and dance. It was monotonous. Come to think of it, I fell asleep most of the second half of the show. Or was it the wine?

Jimmy blatantly ignored theatre rules, I saw him recording one of the long dance numbers. He disappeared after the intermission. I wonder if he was picked up by the theatre police or he just died of boredom.

Our parting words:

Scott: When are you coming back to work?

Me: If you can promise me a party like this every Friday, maybe I will. But then again I might drink myself to a stupor I'd be totally useless to you.

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine
When you gonna let me sober
Leave me alone...... (Scott)

Playing like the other half

Well, la dee dah, what have we here?
All kids love to play, yet some not just in any playground.


Tucked away in the gut of the Financial District, they named it Imagination Playground. It's a kid's paradise, a state-of-the-art playground equipped with all the cutting-edge extras I have never seen before. Complete with fancy restrooms, sunning areas, beach volleyball and tennis courts, skateboarding ramps, etc., it is enough to make even a professional athlete weep.

It is hard to imagine that this was a former parking lot now transformed into a playground for the children of the privileged few. It's all in here, no need for their parents to flee to the suburbs for the weekend and get away from their affluent digs in TriBeCa. The esplanade surrounding the playground runs along the Hudson River offering postcard views of the New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island all for joggers and walkers to enjoy.

Aside from the play equipment you should see the fencing used to enclose the play areas. The materials used don't come cheap even for those with deep pockets like the residents of this community. My problem with this is the money spent to build this playground came from my pocket too.

They mean it when they put up the sign Dog-free area; Sally ended up carrying Oliver as we wander inside the grounds. Walk in like me with a camera and start clicking away and you'll get those strange looks from the parents or the nannies. It worked - I was able to steal only a couple of shots. Such snobs. The kids look happy but it felt like a world away from where I came. We don't have the Climbing Boulders or the Challengers. Kids have to wait their turn to get on a slide or to swing from a monkey bar but just the same they immerse themselves in pure, wholesome play.

I kid you not, this is not the cookie cutter City playground. I learned a lot about playgrounds when Philip and I surveyed our neighborhood before we installed our own at the Condo. Those found in Queens and possibly in Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx are way inferior to this Imagination Playground. They are non-imaginative and many have the old crumbling asphalt flooring. None of them are enclosed either.

One recreation center in Queens and the adjoining soccer field sits above ground of a waste water holding facility. It is hiding sludge and I can't say for sure if the swimmers and runners above are even aware of this. If they are not complaining of any smell emanating from underground, then it's fine. For about two years during its construction we were wondering what could possibly be coming out of this structure and I already had suspected it's got to be a treatment plant of some sort. Hide it if you must but I commend the Mayor for maximizing the use of city land for both recreation and sewer overflow mitigation. However in a wealthy community the residents will be outraged if this was even attempted. None of these are the children's faults and I'm happy for them, but what an inequity. And who am I to challenge the Dept. of Parks or the system?

How did I discover this playground? Sally is visiting New York for Thanksgiving and staying at her daughter Emily's flat in TriBeCa. She asked us over for lunch soon after which we took Oliver for a walk in the nearby playground and park. Lucky dog, I could get used to this. My heart stops when I think of the asking rent for this super-sized one bedroom apartment. It's a homey pad with picture windows and loads of space for entertaining. I did enjoy playtime with Cliff and Oliver.

The rooftop solarium serves up a 360 degree panoramic view of a world of skyscrapers. Like meticulously arranged matchboxes, some of the neighboring buildings are glass-wrapped with multi-million dollar views of the city and more. It's simply breathtaking.

Movin' on up? Not in this lifetime.

My friends know me well enough to know that it is not likely that I struck it rich. Let's hope they don't get confused if they see me up here on this landscaped rooftop terrace.