Hurricane Irene

View all

Get your own

Hurricane Irene came and went. Fortunately, the photos above aren't that exciting. I just documented the "before" and "after," which almost look the same. There were no downed trees or power lines on my street. The rain started pouring last night and the winds sped up at about 1am. Heavy rains continued throughout the night, but seemed to stop abruptly at around 9am. The eye of the hurricane was supposed to stick around until 12pm, but it seems like it flew by much faster. It's still very windy right now, but the worst of it is over. If this was a weekday and I still lived in Congers, I'd probably keep up the paper airplane routine!

Hurricane Gloria

Original Date: September 1985

Hurricane Irene is coming soon! It's been in the news for the past few days and its path is still headed straight for New York City. The last time there was this much preparation for an incoming hurricane was back when I was a kid in 1985. It was Hurricane Gloria. All public schools were closed on a non-snow day for the first time. We were warned not to go outside, but it turned out to be a pretty nice day. They sky was gray and the winds were a lot more powerful than usual, but the Gloria did not hit us directly. I remember going outside to play with paper airplanes in Mike's backyard. We were all happy to have the day off from school for nothing!

Giant Bee

All sorts of things like to find their way under my car cover as I have it wrapped up for the week. There was a huge dead bug today. When I first saw it, I thought it was a cicada based on the size (almost 2"). Then I went closer and discovered it was a giant bee.


Check out the size of the stinger...

The Australian

Location: 20 West 38 St. (btw 5th & 6th Aves), New York, NY
Cuisine: Australian
Hours: SUN-WED (11:30am-12am); THU (11:30am-2am); FRI-SAT (11:30am-4am)
Phone: (212) 869-8601
Website: www.theaustraliannyc.com
Prices: $20/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 7
Value: 7
Environment: 7

Frequency: Unique


I've been trying to go to The Australian for a while now, but it didn't seem like anyone was interested. I suggested it about 3 times to various friends, but the plans changed all 3 times. I finally made it there today during Kelly's visit to the city. I already knew I was going to order the meat pies as my entree. The in-restaurant menu was a little different than the one they have online though. Like other cuisines, they had a lunch special. So the meat pies entree was $2 lower than I thought. It's served with either fries or salad. On the website menu, they don't mention kangaroo skewers, but they actually had it in the restaurant. Kelly was adventurous enough to try it out, so we shared it as an appetizer. How can you go to an Australian restaurant and not try kangaroo!?

The restaurant had a comfortable crowd with most people eating at the bar... probably office people on lunch break who were by themselves. There were only a few tables taken up. I imagine they get most of their audience at night or during rugby games. Service was pretty good as the food came out at a reasonable time. The waiter was polite and paid a lot of attention to us. In contrast to the rest of the place, the bathrooms weren't that clean. That was the only tiny negative.

Dragonboat 2011

For the first time since starting this blog (and probably a few years before that too), I missed the NY HK Dragonboat Festival in Flushing Meadows. I was busy @ MoMA on Saturday and Sunday was just bad weather all day long. I'm really not sure how they got through all the races and events because we had non-stop thunderstorms. I don't regret it though. It was getting repetative and the Talk to Me exhibit alone was worth it.


Here's a look at the past Dragonboat events:

- 2008
- 2009
- 2010

Cu Family NY Trip

For the second weekend in a row, I had out of town family coming to visit. This time, it was Audrey, Uncle Johnny and Auntie Linda from San Francisco. I decided to combine all of the days I spent with them into a general blog post and Picasa album. This includes:

Tung Yi Fung
As with all visitors, we took them to the usual place. I met up with the rest of the family on Thursday night after work. With the light weeknight crowd, we were able to enjoy an unrushed meal with the best dishes there.

View all

Get your own

MoMA
On Saturday, I met up with Audrey to check out the current exhibits in MoMA where I have a corporate membership. Auntie Linda and Uncle Johnny went shopping in the Midtown West area. Most of the MoMA photos can be found on my Dragonsaber News site.

Sentosa
After the museum, we headed to SoHo to meet up with one of Audrey's friends. Then we all headed to Flushing for a family dinner at Sentosa. We got there around peak dinner time, but luckily got a table for all 7 of us on the first floor. We got all of the usual dishes except the lobak and skate.

Family Lunch
On their last day, today... everyone met at my parents' house for lunch.

Andy & Wesley's Birthdays

View all

Get your own

New World Mall

View all

Get your own

The New World Mall opened a couple of months ago, but this is my first time walking around it because it's been too crowded. I went early in the morning to get these rare people-free shots. There aren't a lot of shops inside the mall, especially for its massive space, but it's setup for profit. The food court in the basement, grocery on the ground floor and banquet style restaurant on the top floor are the foundations to the mall. They take up the most space and provide people with more of the usual in Flushing. Only part of the first floor and second floor have actual shops and they're all what you'd expect in an Asian style mall... gift shops, salons, clothes, movies, etc.

It's located just outside of the subway entrances and takes up a good portion of Main St. and Roosevelt St. in the downtown area, so you can't miss it. It should be a lot more successful than the Caldors it used to be decades ago.

Red Bowl Noodle Shop

Location: 40-52 Main St., Flushing, NY 11354
Cuisine: Chinese, Noodles
Hours: DAILY (24 hours)
Phone: (718) 353-7683
Prices: $12/person (Lunch)
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 7
Value: 8
Environment: 7

Frequency: Unique

The Red Bowl Noodle Shop is one of the most noticeable buildings on Main Street because there's a large bowl at the top and you can see if from several streets away. I ate there once, many years ago, but it was a different restaurant at the time. The Red Bowl Noodle Shop is new enough that it doesn't have much of a web presence yet. My mom knew about it from friends, so we decided to try a new place for my Dad's birthday.

View all

Get your own

The food was good with portions varying on each dish. The restaurant looks like a fast food place, but the food is pretty good and better than take out. There's a lot of variety too as they offer the usual safe Chinese dishes combined with some less common ones.

Service was OK, but it took a little long for them to setup a table and seat us. The place wasn't even crowded at 5:15pm. They also took too long to refill our teapot. The place had nice decorations and is relatively clean for the amount of traffic that passes through.