Make New Friends, but Keep the Old...

A few weeks ago, I finally met Julie, Val's sister.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Val and I went to law school together and have friends in common, but never met until recently.  Val and Julie both came to New York on this visit, so I had a chance to hang out with them and Lena.  We had a delicious brunch at Julie's friend's restaurant before walking over to do some retail therapy around SoHo.  

As an added bonus, we popped into a body and bath store that touts itself as one of the world's oldest pharmacies starting in Florence.  As we wandered around the store, Val was the first to notice that the store's only other potential customer was none other than Usher!  It took me a bit longer to notice that Lena and I were standing right next to him.

The following day, I met up with Amena and some classmates from high school at a yummy dim sum restaurant in Brooklyn's Sunset Park.  Pacificana was packed with hungry dim-summers, and because I was a tad late, Amena, Grace, Joni, Carsten, and their adorable little girl, were all chowing down.  It was really nice catching up with them, as I had not seen Joni or Carsten in years and I hadn't seen Grace in a number of months.  All of them live in Brooklyn and urged me to check out the borough's neighborhoods.  Although I didn't have time to explore Sunset Park, it seemed to have a significant Chinese population, with interesting stores and restaurants in abundance.  

Last weekend, I volunteered along with about 20 other Punahou alumni through New York Cares, an organization that facilitates volunteer work in communities throughout the boroughs.  We spent a good part of Saturday organizing the textbook closet, painting the fences, and painting the playground of PS 107X in the Bronx.  It was a great, albeit short, volunteer experience, and I had the chance to talk to a number of fellow alumni living in New York.

CT Covered Bridges, VT Maple Syrup, NH Fall Foliage, and ME Lobster

Eduardo's father had been staying with us for two weeks on a trip from Caracas.  We hadn't seen him in about three years, so, over the three-day weekend, the four of us (Nori included) took a road trip through New England.  After living most of my life in either Hawaii or California, it was a rare chance to drive through seven different states in just three days.  Route 7 was a picturesque, two-lane road winding through the small towns and green, orange, yellow, and red fall leaves.  With only a skeleton schedule to make it to Vermont for our first night's rest, we stopped anywhere that piqued our interest the first day out.

We had never seen a covered bridge in real life, but we pulled over no less than four times to walk through the covered bridges of Connecticut. Seemingly simple structures, I'm sure they work wonders in the winter months.  There were also a number of fly fishermen (I'm not being sexist, since we didn't see any fisherwomen) alongside the rivers.  Eduardo's dad was particularly interested in watching them for awhile, as he had never seen such fishing techniques.

One of my favorite stops was the Sugarbush cheese and maple syrup farm in Woodstock, Vermont.  There, we ambled through the maple trees with their leaves fluttering down and little chickadees hopping from branch to branch.  It was a peaceful stroll where we read the descriptions of maple syrup collection before taking a look-see of some of the farm animals and heading to the syrup and food sampling rooms.  We did not escape successfully without buying some maple syrup, cheese, jams, and other goodies!

We then stopped to have lunch (seafood and corn chowders with sandwiches) before driving through New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest along the Kancamagus Highway, stopping to walk across a wooden swinging bridge, admire the fall leaves, and take a breather along a beach.

Our last destination was Portland, Maine.  One day, I'd like to explore more of coastal Maine, but our three-day weekend was coming to an end so we spent most of our day in Portland.  Portland is a coastal town that reminded me of some of Northern California's coast towns, such as Carmel or Monterrey.  A bit touristy along the waterfront, but with unique, local shops selling things like pickled ferns, craft beers, lobster oven mitts, and "Moose Track" ice cream, and art galleries galore.  We stopped at a shop for maple and chocolate donuts before having brown butter (Eduardo and his dad) and ginger scallion (me) lobster rolls. A perfect end to a long weekend in New England.