A Manhattan Getaway

On Friday afternoon we took the train down to New York for the weekend, getting into Penn Station around 7:30 and heading straight for the foodcourt on 32nd Street in Koreatown. There we had a delicious pork floss-filled bing; some fun savory filled bao and a croissant taiyaki from Mama; an excellent icy noodle soup; Pellicano fried chicken; and a freshly made churro spread with marshmallow, torched, then topped with chocolate sauce and more marshmallow.

With a matcha from By Grace next store, we rounded out the evening and went to the AirBnB we'd reserved on 30th Street.

The next morning we headed out to Doughnut Plant on 23rd Street.

They have fabulous decor, lots of fun coffee drinks we didn't try, and excellent, excellent donuts. Almost all the donuts, even the cake donuts and the square yeast-raised ones with a hole, were filled, and that injection of fudge or coffee cream or tres leches filling just made them moister and more delicious. Also the New York-style black and white donut was pretty neat all on its own (no filling there, but none needed).

We took a bus over to the West Side Highway and then walked up the Hudson River Park to the Intrepid.

We had a great time touring the ship, climbing all the way up the "island," seeing the space shuttle Enterprise which is now there, looking at all the planes on the deck (Helen loved the little Soviet "watermelon plane," as she called it, most), riding the large elevator hanging off the side of the ship--though, sadly, they operate it much more slowly than they did when the ship was in service. Then it would take six seconds to go from the flight deck to the hanger deck, and for us it took about thirty. Still, it was impressive!

The kids loved a large Lego mosaic-style mural of the space shuttle flying over Manhattan, and they also liked touring the submarine docked next door with Robert. Helen wasn't tall enough to go (no one under 40" permitted) so she and I waited in the interactive area inside meanwhile.

We had lunch at Gotham West food hall just a couple blocks away, eating some really excellent pizza at Corner Slice and also having ramen, while watching the Little League World Series on TV. Then we walked over to the northernmost High Line entrance and walked along that a ways, taking in the views, but stopping soon because it was really brutally hot.

We took a break from the heat in a mall and had soft-serve at Kith; I'm not usually a fan of overpriced, wait-in-a-line, soft serve with cereal in it, but somehow their signature creation (with blue sprinkles, Lucky Charms marshmallows, and Rice Krispy treats all swirled into vanilla) was delightful. The kids loved the murals in the building, and we all cooled off in the air conditioning.

Across the street we hung out in a playground in some shade for awhile until it was time to head to dinner, at Take 31, the little sister restaurant of Her Name is Han. We had a fantastic corn fritter, unlimited duk bo kee with fish cakes, a whole squid, some garlicky fried rice that Helen couldn't stop eating, fried chicken with honey butter and a whipped wasabi sauce on the side, and a really great pork belly in a rice crepe. Then I took the big kids to see Puffs off-Broadway--the story of the Harry Potter books from the point of view of the Hufflepuffs. Some of the jokes went over their heads, but they both enjoyed it a lot, and meanwhile Robert took Helen to another playground.

On Sunday morning we checked out, dropped our suitcase at a mildly sketchy but ultimately fine Vertoe luggage drop, and had Korean breakfast at New Wonjo--mackerel, bean curd chigae, duk mandoo soup, sul long tang soup, and lots of sidedishes. What a great way to start the day!

Then we took the 6 uptown (ahem, Robert...) to the Museum of the City of New York, a lovely little museum that my family has always been fond of since my grandfather did sheet metal work on it during the building's construction in the WPA era, and earned a spot on the National Craftsmen's Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C. as a result (we have an elaborate certificate with a seal, now beautifully framed, that always hung on Aunt Mary and Aunt Grace's wall). The museum had a temporary exhibit about the Blue Man Group--while they are not my favorite, their interactive music-making exhibit was a hit with everyone.

Of course there was also the doll house, which I remember from my own childhood, and which Samantha and Helen adored.

There was a great bike exhibit, and also one on Stonewall and Pride, and an interesting one on Jackie Robinson which both big kids liked.

Finally their interactive "imagine the future" exhibit was also a lot of fun.

 

We took the M4 down Fifth Avenue after the museum and got lunch at another food hall, this time over on 46th Street. Donuts for the road, plus ramen and Middle Eastern roasted duck for here, yum! Then we walked over to Koreatown again and got a boba with the cheese foam topping and a s'more cookie cake at Spot Dessert Bar.

 

From there, we picked up our suitcase from Vertoe and headed to Penn Station, where our train ended up being delayed two hours. The girls loved their kids' packs from Amtrak--though Samantha, sketching the train, was very critical of their spelling ("Shouldn't it be AmTRACK?" she demanded. "Did someone tell them it was spelled wrong?")--and we ate donuts we got from Dough Doughnuts, fresh and then beautifully packaged up in individual clamshells, and little Nathan's corn dog bites on the train home. Despite the bus replacement on the Orange Line, we did eventually make it home and got everyone tucked up in bed, after a lovely Manhattan weekend away.

 

Marcus's journal for the weekend:

 

And Samantha's:

 

 

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Created: 8/22/19. Last Modified: 8/22/19.