Category: ahiko in NYC

On a contrast of what people says, we discovered La Guardia airport was so easy and fast to access by subway and public bus, and of course we loved to use our Metro Cards too.  So, it’s time to go back home.  Thinking about checking my office e-mails almost kills me, but let’s face the reality.  This NYC trip meant a little more for me than our other vacation trips.  By taking my hubby to all the tourist spots, I remembered how much I missed him and wished he had been with me ten years ago.  My wish finally has been granted after a decade!  As many things can happen in ten years in general, things happened in our lives too.  Putting small things aside, I am truly thankful for my life that I still have my loved ones and my hubby with me after all.  I hope I can keep my life in this way as long as I can, and come back here with him again in future, maybe after an another decade?!  NYC is an interesting place as it is hard to separate majorities and minorities there since they live so closely each other in such a small city.  People in NYC are good with respecting diversity, I think.  They may not fully accept the difference, but they get along with it.  This is something Tokyo may want to learn from NYC towards 2020.  As time flied so fast, it will be hard to believe soon that we were actually there.  But my 10th wedding anniversary Tiffany will always be our witness.  

The good things about our hotel are; the room has a kitchenette, a refrigerator, a couch, and, complementary breakfast and evening snacks.  Though there is no room service (at least, I didn’t find any signs), we are allowed to take fruits, bagels, muffins, coffee and tea, or whatever served at breakfast and bring them into our room.  When breakfast opened at 6:30, a couple of men with a tray showed up everyday and put two of each food in his tray with two cups of coffee to deliver breakfast to each of their partners who probably still in a bed.  Thanks to this lovely culture, I got to eat breakfast in a bed today:)  We started our exploration from  St. Patrick’s cathedral on 5th ave in midtown.  It was new for me to know about Patron Saint of cathoric churches.  Then, we moved to another skyscraper in NYC,  Rockefeller Center.  As it is much closer to Central Park, the view towards the park was good as it was seeing miniature park made of broccoli.  Our lunch today was lobster and shrimp hotdogs at Plaza food hall.  Though lobster costed a double of a shrimp hotdog, it completely defeated shrimp.  After taking a little detour by taking a wrong subway line, we arrived at American museum of Natural History, our last ticket of the City PASS.  This place was packed with kids as usual, and bones of giant dinos welcomed us all.  As we had a little spare time after that, we decided to visit Fishs Eddy, a popular tableware shop.  We bought a couple of mugs just hoping they would make it home without cracks.  Our final event of this trip was another musical, Le miserable.  It was sad to see everyone died at the end, but we could not take our eyes from each cast with beautiful voices.  As the stage closed by a curtain at the end of the show, now our trip is closing too…

We started with walking around in Central Park in cloudy and humid weather.  We took a self-tour there by counting on Google map information, and found two bethesda fountains.  Then it’s our shopping day.  We walked down to 5th avenue, stopped by at Tiffany’s –  Bought nothing there yet.  Then moved to 23rd st to visit Trader’s Joe and Whole foods, two organic supermarket stores which I wanted to go.  Our lunch today was a huge 400g steak and a nice cold Greek wine at Keens.  We were saved by the “to go” system as we could not finish all.  Then we were ready to go back to more shopping.  We walked around Macy’s, went back to those organic stores, and visited Chelsea Market for the souvenir brownies.  Yes, we  are leaving here soon…

The UN tour was scheduled at 9:30 and the website requested us to be there in an hour prior to the start of the tour…, and we ended up arriving there so early at 8:10.  So,  after having gotten a temp. approval to go into the UN headquarters buildings, we took a walk to E. 49th to see my old condo where I used to live.  The condo looked as nothing has been changed.  We learned a lot from the UN tour (though this wasn’t my 1st time, it felt like so.  haha..).  Our guide kindly notified us that it is the memorial day of nuclear explosion in Nagasaki today and we both were glad to be there and remembering importance of peace.  After the UN, we went to Grand Central to eat lunch.  My tammy was ready to eat a slice of pizza, however pizza shops had been gone from the food court surprisingly.  Hubby was happy to find another Shake Shack there.  He enjoyed his 2nd time of experiencing the burger and beer combination while I was satisfied with my 99c pizza bought at a shop near by.  Then, we headed to the Metropolitan museum.  As the place has been known as one of the biggest art museums in the world, it was enormous.  Since we had only limited time, decided to see major art works only.  Still, we needed to walk a lot to see them.  My two favorites were “The Charles Engelhard Court” and paints of “Giovanni Paolo Panini“.  Then, it was our musical day!  Eating $8 Ice cream twist, we headed to the hotel to get ready for musical.  We had upstair sheets for the Phantom of the Opera.  It was just awesome, my tear just came out with no intention.  The role of Phantom has been replaced to a new actor from the one I saw in 2006.  The both were truly good.  

It was funny & happy feeling to sit with my hubby in Bryant Park, as he was on the other side of network when I was sitting there last time.  After Bryant Park and NY public library, we climbed up to Empire State bldg. which was after-21-years experience for me (Am I really such old?).  Then we decided to fill my stomach at the famous hamburger shop, Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.  Though I could not find it the best, the patty was good, indeed.  Then, moved to Wall Street and new WTC.  The Charging Bull was popular among the tourists as usual.  Getting a luck from the bull’s balls, we were ready to spend some money.  We headed to a tea shop followed by a brownie store.  Our original plan was going to a couple of organic supermarket stores in next, however My energy went out there.  After the brownie store, we came back to hotel as I was too tired since I had been up since 3:00 am..  But our day was not closed yet.  After a nap, we headed to our 2nd visit of Empire State Bldg. to see the night view.  Despite my expectation that there won’t be many people as it was after 10:00 pm, the ovservation deck was as busy as in the day time.  Needless to say, we were exhausted at the end of the day.

Our day started from visiting the center of NYC – Times Square.  Since it was before gift stores open, was not packed yet.  There were a couple of mascot costumed people trying to attract tourists for  a tip.  Those fake Disney characters walking slowly towards the tourists with asking “a hug?” was a bit of horror.  Circle Line cruise was our next.  We took one and a half hours of a boat tour from the west end of 42nd st.  While the boat went around the mid and lower Manhattan, we were able to see Empire state building, the statue of Liberty, the new WTC, and BMW bridges – Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg.  Our boat commissioned in 1934 gave us a nice and calm cruise.  Then, we headed to Intrepid museum opened in Nov. 2006.  We got inside of Glowler submarine  and Intrepid aircraft carrier.  Concorde which was much smaller than I thought was there too.  Sun was a bit too strong today, however, it was good new experiences.  

帰国から5日が経過。残暑が厳しかった東京も今日は20℃と低め。NYCから国際宅急便で送付した荷物がわずか5日で到着。さすが日系企業です。帰国日は仕事を終えて帰ってきたアヒ男さんとスパークリングワインで再会をお祝い。会ってみると3ヶ月の空白がうそのように思える位、自然な感じでした。帰ってきて変わったことと言えば、家のベランダに小さなテーブルスペースが。そしてアヒ男さんがちょっとオヤジ腹に。やっぱり一人より二人、何気ない東京での日常生活に新鮮さを感じつつ、アヒ男さんのご飯に舌鼓を打つ今日この頃。YUM♪
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計82日間。短く感じることもありますが、真っ先に浮かぶのはやはり、”ようやく”という言葉。今回の出張は、初めにも書いたように、希望ではなく会社要請。でも、私が承諾した理由は、微々たる愛社精神からというよりは、自分の目的達成の為。昔、NYC国連の中で感じた”いつか自分も国籍を超えた社会で働きたい”という思いを遂に満たすことができました。（もちろん理想と現実は違い、仕事のレベルも違う為、100%ではありませんが。）私のエゴ(?)を無言で理解し、完璧にサポートし続けてくれたアヒ男さんには心から感謝、感謝。

出社すると、行き先記入用ホワイトボード上に、”We will miss you very much!”の文字。そんな周囲と相反して、私自身は、荷物を詰め、電話を返却し、みんなと挨拶をしても、全然実感が沸かない。帰りに同僚3名と１杯だけ乾杯。別れ際に見せたランチ仲間の涙で、これまで実感がなかったのは自分で実感しないようにしてたのだと気付かされました。帰国は嬉しいけれど、そんな時でも別れは悲しく、今日はちょっと複雑な気分です。