For spring break this year we took the children to NYC to visit my parents who recently moved to the Big Apple, and to see my new nephew, Lucas. Baby Lucas was such an adorable sight. He was so well behaved and sat quietly staring at all of his cousins' faces. His baby noises and grunts were so cute that I just had to hold him! But the second I did, Maddie protested in jealous dissent. "Ack! Mommy, I want hold you.", which is her way of saying, you are mine and are only allowed to pick me up.

This much-anticipated trip required careful planning and coordination. Good fortune found us a large, one bedroom apartment located in the heart of Times Square. We chose the larger non-hotel option to have an extra bedroom for Maddie. The place was clean and modern and spacious enough to get us actually thinking about moving to the East Coast.

We arrived at JFK and were greeted with the car service that I had prearranged with the apartment staff. When the driver directed us to a spacious black Escalade SUV, I knew this was gonna be a good trip. "Riding in Style, baby!" exclaimed Jin as we loaded up the vehicle. A short 30 min drive later into Manhattan, we were in the thick of rush hour traffic. Cars inched along the busy streets, but the kids couldn't stop staring out at the sights and sounds of busy New York. As overcrowded and congested as the city is, there's always something about the excitement and city lights that quickens my pulse. One look at the excitement in Bella and Maddie's eyes, I knew they were excited, too.

Creepy Mickey and Minnie...

Oddly, being in Times Square was reminiscent of being at Disneyland, with Characters dressed as Mickey, Minnie, and every other children's cartoon character luring parents to take photos with children.

Maddie didn't find the characters fun: "Get me outta here!"

It was an odd concept to ride taxis everywhere and to have them accessible at your whim on every possible corner of the city. But what was strangely liberating was that the children could ride without the obligatory straps of a confined car seat. The kids merely climbed into the backseats, strapping themselves in using the regular seat belts. They were so overjoyed by this new concept that they even created a sing-song chant, "yellow car, yellow car, yellow car" to celebrate this new liberation. It was especially cute to hear Maddie's chant, "Yeh-yo cah, Yeh-yo cah, Yeh-yo cah!" in her effort to chant along with Bella.

After settling into our apartment and scoping out the high-end kitchen that I planned to use to save on restaurant costs, we traveled by yellow car to my parent's apartment to have dinner. They live in a beautiful part of the city near the south end of Central Park near Columbus Circle so the sights at night were breathtaking. My Mother greeted us with bagsful of toiletries and other living essentials. Dinner was a la New York-style takeout from various delivery restaurants. The kids had a great time meeting my cousin David's kids, Sophie and Jacob. The long day of travel made the spacious apartment and bed all the more inviting.


Rare family photo

Sophie and Jacob

The next day, Jin and I had tickets to the Nicks game at Madison Square Garden. I know very little about the NBA or about any sport for that matter. That is, until about 3 months ago, when the little-known Taiwanese Harvard graduate known as Jeremy Lin hit the pop culture circuit. Now, you don't even have to be in New York to feel the "Linsanity". Unfortunately, Lin was injured two weeks prior and was forced to sit out the remainder of the season. But that didn't stop him from showing up to support his teammates. If you squint really hard and use your imagination, you can actually make out the profile of Jeremy sitting on the bench. Squint harder...harder, squint...

Lin Second from the left after the hoop

I don't recall the details of the game, so as a brief recap, the Nicks tied it up to go into overtime and then won in overtime by a game-winning three-pointer by...someone on the Nicks team.

Ok, clearly, I don't have a career in sports casting. You can read the details on the internet for a real recap. Needless to say, Jin and I had a great time and commemorated the occasion by buying matching Lin jerseys and t-shirts for the whole family. We even bought the girls Linsanity tattoos. Overboard?

The rest of the week was filled with family dinners with jin's cousins and my family. We made our obligatory sight-seeing trips to Lady Liberty, but also explored some not-so-known beauties of the city.

Outside Statue of Liberty

Coochy-coochy- coo!

me n Maddie

With Grandma

Park Avenue

Steffanie Leigh as Mary Poppins

With Gongs and PoPo

Bella also had her first taste of Broadway by seeing the musical, Mary Poppins, which by the way, was a fantastic musical for children of all ages (myself included!). I was so enraptured the production and the magic that I got suckered into paying for a backstage tour. We even got to meet the cast, including Mary Poppins herself!

I'm a Broadway Star!

Backstage at Mary Poppins

And what trip would be complete without a trip to the famed FAO Schwartz Toy store?

The kids played on the life-sized piano made famous from the Tom Hanks movie, "Big" and we even found a large statue of liberty made entirely of legos!

Since Maddie's birthday was just around the corner, we celebrated with a little cake with the family: