My Trip to New York City

Tuesday I drove to New York City with my co-worker, Beth, to check out the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show being held at the Jacob Javitz Center.  We drove to Weehawkin and took the ferry over to NYC.  The ferry drops you off behind the convention center and it's just a short walk from there to the front of the center. 

It was a beautiful fall day with just a slight nip in the air so we decided to sit on the top of the ferry to enjoy the view as we approached NYC.  It was so nice and it had me wishing that I had brought my camera, but I still had my cell phone so I sorta had a camera.  We took a lot of pictures but I didn't like some of them, especially the ones where I look like I weigh 5,000 pounds.

Anyway, we had a really good day at the show and got to see all the exhibitors Beth needed to see.  When we were done, we decided to venture out to find something better for lunch then the nasty food being served by the food vendors at the convention center.  Before we made it to any restaurant, we encountered this guy with his Urine Off box.

Urine Off is a product that removes animal urine stains and smells from carpet.  The people at Urine Off were giving away these boxes which had wheels and retractable handles just like suitcases.  So many people were dragging along their Urine Off boxes at this show and it made us laugh.  Could  you imagine the alternate names they could have used instead?

Think about it.  What if they called it Piss Off?  The slogan could go something like this:  "Don't get Pissed - Get Piss Off and tell those urine stains and smells to piss off!"  or maybe this:  "No need to tell hotel guests with pets to piss off when you have piss off." Anyway, we thought it was funny.

After we laughed at our stale bathroom humor we discovered this cool little Thai restaurant on Ninth Avenue between 35th and 36th Street called Aura Thai Fusion Cuisine.  It's a small place with an even smaller exposed brick bar with seating for about 22 people.  Everything is authentic Thai including the servers.  Lunch is extremely inexpensive with all dishes being $7.95 or $8.95 and they all come with a free spring roll.

Beth opted for the Red Curry with Tofu which included bamboo shoots, string beans, kaffir lime leaves, chili, and jasmine rice.  It came in a beatiful brimming bowl and although I didn't taste it, Beth loved every bit of it.

I love Green Curry which came in a big bowl of milky, green curry sauce with tofu, eggplant, bamboo shoots, basil, crunchy green beans, and somen noodles.  It was delicious and we barely spoke as we each enhaled our lunch.  Beth said it was my fault we ate too fast cause I was the "pace" luncher and I barely stopped to enhale between bites.  Oh well.

Oh, did I mention the free spring roll? It was a delicatley fried spring roll with a lovely sweet dipping sauce with little red specks of heat swirling within the sauce.  It was so good we gobbled them down before we thought of taking a picture.  We also ordered the unsweetened house iced Thai Tea (modeled by the lovely Beth in poor lighting with my lousy cell phone camera) which was delightfully subtly sweet on its own.  We were completely stuffed and at $25.00 including tip, it was an inexpensive treat to boot.  When we make it back to the Jacob Javitz Center again, we plan to return here.  What a gem!

On our way back to the car from the ferry, we encountered two Veterans coming home from the parade.  They were really nice guys and I shook their hands and told them how much we appreciated what they have done for our freedoms.  Beth insisted I take their picture.  The guy on the left is a Vietnam Vet and the other guy fought in World War II.  The WWII vet went into a story about how the peace treaty was supposed to be signed on the USS New Jersey but our president at the time was from Missouri and that's why it was signed on the USS Missouri instead.  These were great guys and we were so happy to get a picture of them with the NYC skyline in the background.

So that encompasses my day trip to NYC - beautiful weather, fun ferry rides, a succesful walking of the trade show, fabulous lunch, and proud US Veterans.  Some days are really good.  This was one of them.