Tomoe Book Arts: 9/1/08

Last Friday was our 10th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, we decided to treat ourselves to a trip to New York City!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I remember to take the camera? Of course not! Why would I do that?? :( But we had an phenomenal time nonetheless.

We arrived on Friday about midday and shopped at the Taschen store, where I got a bunch of cool style books like this one. We also went to the Anna Sui store and to Purl Soho, which was so cool! I finally got to see the physical store. We also went to their sister store, Purl Patchwork, which has what I really love: fabrics. I got a couple cute bag handles and a book called Zakka Sewing which has tons of cute Japanese sewing projects.

After that we had some bad Japanese food at a little restaurant and then kicked ourselves because right in the Theater District there were a bunch of Japanese restaurants catering to the Japanese tourists, so we made plans to go there the next day. That evening, we went to see Chicago the Musical and it was really excellent. We were able to get half price tickets online and we were in the second row!!!!!!!!! We were so close we could see the sweat on the performers' brows! It was amazing!! Now we want to see the movie version again so we can compare them.

We had a snack and a drink after the show at a little Irish pub, which was OK, but not the greatest, and then took the long and tortured train route (three trains, 30 minutes on one platform, and finally a taxi) back to the hotel. We thought we'd save money being across the river, but with the time and money spent on the trains/taxi, we might as well have stayed in town.

On Saturday, we decided to have breakfast at the hotel, since we knew that the train would be a long ride in, so we had a cold breakfast bar, with lukewarm eggs, sausage and some muffins and stuff. Blech. In the city, we went to the Frick Collection, which was amazing: Titian, Giorgione, Holbein, Vermeer, Ingres, tons of great art. I've never been so impressed with a small collection before. And the building (Henry Clay Frick's former residence) was pretty damn impressive as well.

Kurt and I were also drooling over his collection of books in the library. Every one of them leather-bound gigantic editions of classic books. And they were bound in dark-colored leather so they blended right in to the decor (dark wood paneling). It was beautiful. Then we went to have lunch at the ramen place we saw on Friday, and that was great. I can't believe it had been 7 years since we had good miso ramen! We then went to Kinokuniya, to continue the Japanese theme, and I got some Japanese craft books. Then we hopped on the subway and caught the wrong train, so we had to double back after heading all the way up to the top of Central Park, near Harlem. We got off at the right stop and walked up to the Met, where we only had a little time. All of the exhibits having to do with textiles and fabric were closed (evidently they have an amazing costume collection) which was such a disappointment! We got up to the 19/20th century paintings a little late (and in my case a little pissed because of the costumes), but they had Whistler, Mucha, Bougereau, Sargent, Van Dyck, all sorts of excellent work. But by the time we got up there, we only had about a half an hour, and we were both so tired that we really couldn't make the most of it. We went back down to the theatre district by bus, and we found a pub/restaurant there where we had a reverse dinner. (We had drinks and a dessert first, then realized we were more hungry than we thought, so we ordered some food.) And we took the train back again. I kind of liked the reverse dinner. You get to eat the dessert when you can savor it most. :)

Sunday, we decided to sleep in a bit because we couldn't really get in to town early enough to make it worthwhile, so we left around 11, stopped in Stamford Connecticut for breakfast at a greasy spoon, and continued on to New Haven, where we visited the Yale campus and saw their art collection. We also stopped at some of the little shops, where I saw some earrings that I loved but didn't buy (idiot that I am) and some glass bangles which I did buy.

We got back home at about 7 and picked up little Whiskey. (I missed her so much!) Bob and Susie, who dog-sat for us while we were away, said they didn't want her to leave because she had been so good! We were relieved that she had been such a lovable pup. Whiskey now has about 5 new toys. They really did spoil her. :)

Now we're back at work and wishing we could spend more time in the City. My friend Alex will be moving there in a while for a whole year, so guess who's going to be crashing at her place every chance she gets? :) My next Broadway show: Billy Elliot.