nacken

Will post more about the activities of day #2 later, for now let’s focus on food.

Julius really enjoyed Hooters. It was actually not his first visit, but the previous visit in Switzerland was just very different and he was too little to remember. The Hooters girls were all over him and he was all over the curly fries.

Later we met mama at a Korean restaurant (Gahm Mi Oak) down on 32nd street and had some very nice dishes … Julius was not too impressed as he had have a long day and eventually fell asleep in my arms.

Julius woke up at 3 AM and by 4 I was also up and running. Since I had one shopping priority (Apple Store 5th Avenue) and this store is open 24h, I thought this might be a good chance to get this done. And to give Ritsu some extra time to sleep, I dressed the kid and off we went … but the night reception guy was a bit inept and the allegedly called taxi never showed up.

Instead we walked 20some blocks to the next grocery store and got some breakfast items.

At 8 AM we all left to take the train and invade Manhattan. We walked through my first old neighborhood (midtown) and then strolled around the south-east corner of Central Park.

After we said goodbye to Mama (who had to go to the office), we walked further north and passed the zoo, where we watched the seals being fed. We found a nice playground and overall Julius enjoyed the chance to run around like crazy. Gladly the weather played along.

The Apple Store was a lot of fun and Julius was glued to the kid’s computers (which actually made it kinda hard to look around) but later he even got professional help from one of the staff members.

To get him to cooperate better I had earlier promised him a cheeseburger for lunch .. but as Murphy’s law dictates, when you actually seek a McDonalds, none can be found (while otherwise they are on every street corner) .. so after much more walking (and lots of that with him on my shoulders) we opted for a place called Goodburger ..

And indeed, their burgers are good (judging from a) that they asked me ‘medium rare?’ and b) from that one bite Julius let me have) .. They only have full size burgers, but besides that one bite for me, he ate the whole thing … well, not really .. he declared that ‘we share’ .. which meant that he picked out the tomato slice, the pickles, the salad and the onions

… and that was papa’s share …

We then took the train again to get back to the hotel and make sure that Julius takes a nap, to help facilitate his time adjustment process and after long discussions, bribery snuggling, scolding and tears, he finally realized how tired he was and fell asleep.

To meet Ritsu at our favorite sushi restaurant from 5 years ago, I had asked reception again for a taxi, this time I saw the lady actually call someone … but what arrived was a private car and the driver, after radioing his dispatcher, told me that the ride would be 27$ !!! (It turned out later that on the way back we paid 13$, incl tip, for a yellow cab) .. so, I dragged Julius out the car and half carried / half dragged him to the train station and we made it in time for a fantastic dinner.

We had been to Tsuki many times when we still lived on the Upper East Side (and that was before they got this glowing review from the New York Times) … but it had been 5 years .. incredibly, the owners remembered us.

Most of the menu had stayed the same and we were very happy to eat all our favorites, plus some new things, plus some specially made items that since have dropped off the menu.

8:40 AM

After a night with nearly no sleep for me, we get out of the house and the taxi struggles through the morning rush hour but delivers us to the airport in time (9:10AM)

We check in, confusing people with our mix of business and economy class tickets, dance through security and get to the gate on time.

10:30 AM

Boarding is a bit late and we start to wonder if we will have enough time in Frankfurt to get from one plane to the next. Julius buckles up like a pro and restrains himself from playing with the tray table. He does not at first realize that mama is not sitting with us, but then when some stranger takes the seat next to me he looks a bit worried.

10:50 AM

Finally we move towards the runway, then we stop again, then we notice that the lights and the air conditioning turns on and off and flight attendants move around, checking things here and there … suddenly we hear some weird engine whining sound, which gets worse when we apparently move back to the gate.

11:10 AM

We are being told that there is a technical problem and that we have to get off the plane … no one is telling us that we are supposed to get our luggage and then get out of the secure area and walk back up to check-in … chaos left and right, and by the time we have all our stuff we are pretty much the last of all people on that plane who line up again at the check-in counters to re-arrange flights.

noon

Everyone is getting hungry, the lines move like molasses and people look frustrated … We hear from time to time that people are getting re-routed through Munich, with overnight stay, the lady before is does not even get to leave Turin today, so .. we fear for the worst.

After 100 minutes in that line, we are offered to fly Air France (instead of nicer Lufthansa) via Paris (hate that airport) and we would still arrive at JFK (instead of further away EWR, yeah!) same day, albeit 6 hours later as initially planned.

1:40 PM

The Air France counter is still closed so we are ‘enjoying’ the ’sorry, you missed lunch on the plane’ voucher for the not so great self-serve restaurant. Of course we have to keep dragging our luggage around, which makes things really tricky, you are not supposed to leave it anywhere, you have to balance a tray with foot and drinks around while keeping a patience loosing 3 year old under control … not an easy feat. The food is bland, the pasta soggy, at least the fish is nice, but we had to fight for that one (we were told with that voucher we can only have the dry looking chicken)

2:20 PM

We check-in with Air France, basically we start all over again, at least we are getting rid of our heavy bags. Once more through security and then the waiting at the gate begins.

3:50 PM Our flight to Paris leaves on time and Julius falls asleep before the plane gets to the runway (and he keeps sleeping until 5 minutes before landing, but he got to see the Eiffel tower in the distance)

5 PM

Somehow CDG is much quieter than last time when we went to and came from Jordan. We reached our gate for the JFK flight with time to spare. Security checks and boarding are no problem and Ritsu is so generous to give me the business class seat for this long flight.

First times I tried to check on them, there were always food carts in the way, but when I finally got through I found Ritsu sound asleep and Julius enjoying the TV. Good that economy was not totally full, there were seats free here and there, so also next to Ritsu.

I am not overly impressed with Air France business class, but at least the seat is very comfortable and I really love those sound cancelling headphones. I get to watch “The Bucket List” and “Asterix at the Olympic Games” .. both quite entertaining … food is ok, but the menu mentioned an additional light meal, which the FA’s did not feel like bothering with.

8:50 PM local time (2:50 AM in Turin)

We arrive safe and sound and Julius is out, I have to carry him all the way to immigration and keep holding him while we line up … once again we are pretty much at the and of the queue .. but we get a very nice immigration officer who tells us about the interesting people he has seen coming through. Chatty guy, very nice, no hassle … they need more of his class.

10 PM local (4 AM in Turin)

We get out of the airport building and immediately some limo drivers offer their services. 55$ sounds too much and as it turns out, the yellow cab gets us to our hotel for 40$ incl. tip. (Though the driver has NO idea where our hotel is and is not very helpful at getting the luggage in)

10:45 PM We arrive at our hotel, very nice one, though the location itself is a bit funky and even the front desk lady discourages me from strolling around at this time, looking for food. Instead we study delivery menus, but find out that most places have already closed, the only open ones (pizza and a diner) do not tickle our fancy … hungry we go to bed.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we have arrived (finally) in New York … it was a very loooong and stressful day, starting with a plane that did not work (Julius thought he broke it) and from then on it was all standing in line … but we managed to get a new flight which would still get us to NYC the same day.

Will write more in detail about this tomorrow … but now it is really time to go to bed! I have been up for 27h now …

I am not really sure what I was aiming at with this mixed display of meatballs, carrots, peas, broccoli and potato croquets … but somehow it looks like a monkey.

As a mother’s day gift I got Ritsu (and the whole family) the new Wii Fit. It was just released here (had been out in Japan for half a year, but still has to hit Australia and then the US market … maybe they have to beef up the hardware … as they did with the EU version .. the Japanese version is rated at max 136kg of body weight, the EU version at 150kg … I guess the US version will be 180kg )

So .. basically it is a step shaped foot controller … but the software that comes with it is more than we had expected from the promotional videos (official and a brilliant spoof)

It is way too early to give a full review (and later I will probably just forget to write one) .. but the first impression is very good.

The step controller is not some cheap plastic thing, but rather a serious, heavy and sturdy piece of equipment (we immediately implemented the rule to wipe the thing after each use, since you are supposed to use it bare foot .. and I had seen just how dirty the test unit in the store looked).

The software (besides being highly entertaining) tickles all the right motivational keys to keep you going (e.g. unlocking new games and exercises the more you practice, high score lists and some serious info about balance, posture and weight change during the day.) and overall it is so much fun that Julius demands us to play, so he can watch …

And finally I got him through the rather tedious registration process (you know, the attention span of a 3 year old) and then he had a lot of fun with a simple game where you have to sway side to side to return balls and avoid the occasional flying shoe (and panda bears ?) … I had to help him some, but I think he gets the basic idea and I can see that in a few months down the road he will beat all our high scores …

I hope I can find a better way to record that cute animation that our wii family does … will write more about it later .. we are still in testing mode .. but so far highly impressed.

After our morning outing to the playground at the Parco della Remebranza … (in the forrest, so plenty of sticks to build stuff with, only to knock it down later)

… we drove over the mountains towards Pino and just followed some signs to a restaurant. We ended up in some tiny village right in time for lunch and found ‘Ristorante degli Amici’.

Very nice setting with outdoor seating and a nice view of the surrounding hills, friendly service and overall very yummy, home style food. Julius finished his pasta in tomato sauce without problems, Ritsu had veal roast with asparagus & a very tasty sauce while I gave my teeth a nice workout on some lamp chops.

A generous portion of tiramisu was shared for dessert.

The trip back was again along winding roads and took about 20 minutes, enough time to totally knock Julius out (after he had been running around all morning)

Ristorante degli Amici da Carlotta Via Tetti Civera, 7 Valle Ceppi - 10025 Pino T.se Tel. 011.81.11.757 closed on mondays Ok … for dinner I went a bit nuts again with the presentation of Julius’ jerk chicken …

It is kind funny how Julius understands now that he cannot just take other kids’ toys at the playground … instead he just drags us along for moral support and then check if we say ok, after we have made sure that the parents of those kids are ok ..

Today it was a real fun bubble making contraption, shaped like a plane, blowing just enough air to make plenty of bubbles.

I am very happy that Julius understands that he has to return the loaned toy and says ‘thank you’ (or ‘grazie’ in this case)

Quick mention of breakfast: Of course he wanted egg face again .. but as soon as I brought Mom’s hard boiled eggs, suddenly, those were more interesting …. But he ate well after a couple of reminders .. and he still enjoys the presentation.

.. and they are already all over each other:

Ritsu’s long trip back home only hit one minor snag: somehow the plane could not refuel in Dushanbe, so they had to touch down somewhere in Russia, before Moscow, to take on fuel.

Thus Ritsu missed her connecting flight to Frankfurt, but gladly there is quite a bunch of flights out of Moscow in the afternoon .. so with only one hour delay (and all luggage accounted for) she returned home and Julius was of course very happy.

Dinner:

Ooops, I did it again …

Unlike his usual requests for afternoon snacks (mainly carbo stuff) .. he first asked for a cereal bar that he had found (we tried that earlier and he did not like it .. so I made him promise he would eat it once papa opened it … and see .. he ate it …

Then he asked for an apple … and since I was awaiting Ritsu’s return and had postponed dinner, I was willing to give in to extra food questions, as long as it is not junk … so .. he asked for another apple … I said ‘how about a banana?’ … no .. it had to be an apple … but then again .. 30 mins later .. he came .. and asked .. for a friggin’ banana … and ate it all ..

Well .. once mama arrived, the fish, veggies and bulgur were ready .. and I was surprised again that he first went after the broccoli (what a little dab of mayonnaise can do … ) .. so overall he ate very well today. If he dreams of scary clowns tonight … I know it is all my fault.

I totally forgot that pic I took 3 days ago when I hung up the ornaments to celebrate tangu no sekku

Julius is wearing his fake photo smile and he is obviously outgrowing his jinbei … but he loves those big carps on the wall.

Papa has totally outgrown the bathtub … but we keep trying …

I admit … I am going a bit bananas with this food thing for Julius these days … but it is so much fun and he loves it …

Tonight’s theme: “we all live in a chicken submarine” (yes, hum the Beatles tune)

The last time I saw him gobble up carrot like this was when it came in the shape of a duck (at our Asian restaurant)

While I fear that food like this might distract the kid from eating and rather promotes playing … it turns out that he actually eats all the veggies!

I am posting a bit more than usual these days to keep Ritsu informed on what the little guy is up to.

Nice weather, perfect for the playground … first the spiderweb a couple of times:

Then collecting pebbles and flowers:

And on the way back, at the pharmacy (the nice ones with the toys) he even found himself a new girlfriend:

I know … looks like I am having too much fun making food pretty for Julius .. but the good thing is that he does not complain if the food is not hot enough .. or overdone ..so .. I am abusing the artist’s edge here .. (thus kids get pretty food)

He loved it ! He ate it all … even the 5 pieces of celery … which is usually not on his hot-list.

(But the salmon wrapped in that batter sure is on it)

[now .. is it a train? or a poor attempt of building a mach 5 speed racer car with food items?]

This has been the latest smash hit sung by Julius several times a day …

It obviously has something to do with colors … and the only Italian word that slips in is giallo (yellow) .. which is close enough .. so .. I think this is something they sing in English class …

Anyone any ideas ???? (Specifically asking Jaelithe, ItalianTrivia, NoBadDays, Sound Bites, WeLoveAstrid and all the others I have not mentioned and who are now mad at me)

[update]The suggestions are in and I think “SugarFrosted” (check out her cakes!) sent in the closest in form of youtube video (in which a somewhat scary looking lady signs the song) [This is not a typo .. she does not sing the song .. she signs it!]

Julius had some outlandish wishes regarding breakfast this morning (including some cracker / snack food which he gets on rare occasions in the evening) … and after some pouting / cry cry / general display of having his own mind …

We settled on egg … and I prettied it up for him, plus some octopus sausage .. 3 of them, which he quickly named ‘mama, papa & julius’ …

I am not sure in which order he ate them … but he finished off his plate.

Over dinner Julius tells me how his day was … and as an Italian boy, he uses his hands and arms to emphasize certain plot points .. a LOT

Since Chris and I were chatting until 3 AM, we had a bit of a short night, but Julius slept very well in Lucca’s bed.

We had a very nice breakfast (Little did I know that Chris bakes his own rolls and breads for Sunday mornings, the olive rolls were especially yummy)

Below the whole gallery of the few good pics that came out (getting 2 kids to look in the right direction is tricky, and they tend to play with the back to the camera)

We hit the road back to Torino before noon (fearing that later on the traffic would get crazy) and everything went fine, Julius slept most of the drive until we reached home.

Fairly spontaneously we had decided to drive the 1:45 h to Como and visit Julius’ friend Lucca (+ Cris, Chris and Eric)

We checked out 2 different playgrounds, had pizza together, explored Lucca’s toys, built a highway on the balcony and enjoyed my semi-famous jerk chicken on the BBQ.

The boys were all over each other but also gained some valuable lessons in ’sharing’ and ‘playing together’ … e.g. their solution to sharing a remote controlled car was that one was hanging on to the remote, the other to the car = none of them could play … well .. all those things kids have to learn.

I will probably post a bigger picture gallery of everything tomorrow …

On today’s supermarket outing, Julius pointed out this large slice of dead cow and made it abundantly clear that this shall be our dinner … well .. I tried my best:

Recently, Ritsu had done such a wonderful job in making lunch for Julius for his school trip (I understand that the art of bento for school kids can be quite competitive … google for bento and you will see what I mean) .. so .. I thought ‘heck .. I can at least try to achieve something similar with a slab of meat the size of a vinyl record’ [not that Julius would know what a vinyl record is and what the different sizes were … I am talking 12″ here] …

Julius loved it:

Just to be clear .. this was NOT Julius’ portion … this was for both of us .. though I had to fight for my bits and pieces .. in the end we did not manage to finish it …

Before I came here, I heard many people saying that Tajikistan is one of the most remote and isolated places in the world… Well, having been to the remote island countries like Kiribati and Solomon Islands, Dushanbe does not feel so bad.

At least, the city is bigger than I expected with very wide streets, tall trees and quite many shops and restaurants. My colleague from NY and I arrived at the airport around 1am on 1st May. It took a while to understand what to do to get a visa-on-arrival (nobody spoke English and everything was written in Russian or Tajik) but once we got out of the airport, it was less than 10 minutes ride to the city and we had no problem checking in the hotel.

Next morning, we walked around the city. It has a huge main street with quite a few shops and restaurants. We even saw Benetton and Adidas! We thought everything might be closed because it was a holiday, but shops were open and we could exchange money into Tajik Somani. Had a nice lunch in a restaurant with a huge terrace and very Arabic feel to it. For dinner, we tried a Lebanese restaurant and food there was very good.

Overall, Dushanbe is a nice city although I can imagine I get bored if I have to live there. It feels extremely safe and peaceful. People are in general very nice. None of us speak Russian, and we just use the only Tajik word that we know “Rakhmat” (thank you) and we are still surviving!

Oh, we saw the weirdest thing on our way back to hotel from the restaurant yesterday evening… An old guy was walking his… bear… It was definitely a bear, not a dog or any other animal… Could someone tell me if it’s common in Tajikistan to walk a bear in the evening?!! (Too bad I didn’t take a picture!)

[edit: indeed .. very bad .. I could not even google a pic in this direction. Try to find this guy and his bear again!]

[edit: pics stolen left and right off the internet thanks to google .. will insert originals once Ritsu gets back]

[edit: no .. we are NOT on vacation again .. only Ritsu is on a mission]

Thanks to yesterday’s holiday, Julius’ school is closed for a 4 day weekend …

So … getting dressed

and then out for some shopping fun

.. at least the supermarkets are open again.

What to do on such a nice day?

First we went out to march with the communists:

Then we celebrated capitalism at McDonald’s:

(Julius has not had a cheeseburger in a while, but mentions it every time we walk to the playground, because we pass a big golden M poster)

Since this march blocked the street, the tram was not going, so we walked all the way back and thus Julius had deserved his gelato at our favorite neighborhood place:

Then off to the playground we went and the little man had way too much fun at the water installation, which still had lots of rain water in it:

And of course the usual playground stuff … we spent several hours there:

He also showed me that he had found a new way of having fun with the swing:

Finally Julius noticed his bladder being full and asked to go home … but before he had to investigate our downstairs neighbor’s mini garden (full of dwarfs, figurines, wind-wheels and other stuff that need exploring):

He just digs Lego so much and mainly builds spaceships, castles and robots these days (most of them have a clock) … at lightning speed.

Ritsu is off for another business trip tomorrow, so this was the last chance for a bit to goof around with mama in the bathtub and Julius enjoyed it as usual.

I am slowly digging up through some backed up data and came across this unfinished movie from our recent weekend trip to the Italian riviera:

Julius and Lucca thoroughly enjoyed the beach, no matter what’s the weather … and also running around in old town Finale.

(This is from the 4/12-14 weekend .. and I might push the entry to the correct date later on .. if I do not forget)

Another fun thing to do on a Sunday is going to Eataly, that fancy-schmancy Italian gourmet market / mall.

Though the parking lot was pretty full, it was not too crowded .. on the way Julius recognized the area and immediately asked to go see the crabs and lobsters they have on display in the fish section. He also very clearly asked for strawberry gelato.

For the first time we saw a market in front of the actual store which was also kinda neat and sold all kinds of ethnic food in addition to the usual Italian fare.

We behaved and ended up only buying some extra yummy duck meat based pasta sauce (and one based on rabbit, which we have yet to try) and we tried their wine bottle filling station. While we think that in general the place is totally overpriced, it is kinda fun … disnleyland-ish style food shopping in an indoor market atmosphere.