Weddingbee Blog

I’m sure you city folk by now are really thrilled that I keep calling it “The NYC”, but I promise this will only go on for a few more posts. New York City was a complete blast. The best part, by far, was getting to meet so many East Coast bees. Mr. Pengy was so amazed that I actually “knew” that many people on the East Coast, and what’s more, keeps raving about how much he loved hanging out with everyone! (Enter my smug face. The Bees ARE awesome. Now I don’t have to keep explaining it to him.) But before I get ahead of myself, I thought I’d post a rundown of our days in New York, as several people expressed an interest in our itinerary, as they’re planning to head to New York themselves for their honeymoons! New York is an awesome place to have a honeymoon/minimoon. We were there for only a short 4 days, but each day was filled with amazing food and sights.

First off, I have to applaud NYC for its easy to navigate and CHEAP subway system! All the New Yorkers we know in San Francisco complain about the public transportation here, and we will no longer roll their eyes at them when they complain how hard it is to get from one neighborhood to another in San Francisco. It’s true… while the subway in New York is absolutely FILTHY in appearance (Purell! Purell! Stock up on Purell!), I would trade it any day for the (albeit, much, much cleaner) BART and bus/Muni system in San Francisco.

Thanks to all your awesome suggestions, we really crammed in as much tourism as possible! It was actually pretty relaxing… we concentrated on neighborhoods and most of the sights were so close to each other!

We stayed in Greenwich Village, a few blocks from where Mr. and Mrs. Bee live, at the Village Guest House. Rates are very reasonable, and we thought our room was HUGE, especially after hearing about how tiny apartments are in NYC. I highly recommend it!

Our room:

I mean… this is New York! The place was probably bigger than most peoples’ apartments. As you can see, it had a great lounge area where we were able to entertain Mr. and Mrs. Bee for a short period of time, and has a small kitchenette (not pictured) by the bathroom, so you could potentially stay here for a month (or more!) if you needed to!

The walls were very thin, though, and we were able to hear the saga of the couple next door to us… we think they were breaking up, so every night around 3AM a heated drama would unfold and we would wonder if we would hear them the next night or if they would finally break up for good right there and then. So. Much. Drama.

It even had a garden patio! Too bad it was freezing balls when we visited. We did not partake in basking on the patio.

I loved staying in the Village more so than I think I would have liked staying in a hotel in a more touristy area. It really made us feel like we were able to escape to a home base and the Christopher St. subway station is half a block away!

Day 1 - Rockefeller Center

We took a red eye and hit the ground running as we touched down at 7AM. We headed straight to the Village Guest House, where Colleen, the owner, graciously let us check in super early. We refreshed, changed, and headed out to meet Mr. and Mrs. Bee for the very first time! We picked up Murray’s Bagels and coffee and headed to the Bee abode. Being a skeptic, I didn’t think I’d be that impressed with a real New York bagel. I love Noah’s Bagels, and really… how much better could a bagel get? But Murray’s was really amazing. I could hardly finish a whole bagel! There is no need to toast a fresh bagel from there… the outside is hard and crispy, and then inside so chewy wooey. If you’re in New York, you have to check out this list and hit up at least one Bagel shop! They say the reason why Bagels and Pizza (dough-reliant foods) are so much better in New York is because of the tap water—NYC has extremely hard water, filled with minerals, and that’s what makes bagels and pizza hard to beat outside of the City. Whether myth or reality, I’m definitely a believer!

Mr. Peng and Smokey the Cat bonded (no pictures, sorry… it was an intensely private moment) like crazy. I could practically hear Smokey purr into Mr. Pengy’s ear, “ditch the Asian lady and take me home with you… I want to be with you forever.” I swear… it was love at first sight. We ate our bagels and left Mrs. Bee like the evil employee that I am to do all of my work for the week while I painted the town. Bye Beeeeee! Have fun doing all my work for meeeee!

This was our biggest “tourism” day, if you will. I’m glad we did it on the first day, while I was still enthusiastic about trekking miles and miles of city blocks. We took the subway to Rockefeller Center, and checked out the skating rink and all the morning show studios—I had Mr. Peng pose in front of the rink. He felt like an ass, so that was the last super posed picture I made him take. Laughably, the rest of our “fake candid” pictures looked rather… fakely candid, but it was one or the other! Witness:

Posed:

“Oh, herro! This is me being a tourist at Rockefeller Center!”

Fake candid:

“Ohhhh, witness my adoration for the frescoes and the what not at Grand Central Station”

I can’t decide which one is more hideous. Posed or fake posed.

Anyway, on this day we walked to St. Patrick’s Church (Where the Snow Peas got married, and where we spent the most time exploring… it is breathtaking!):

The Chrysler building:

Grand Central Station:

The United Nations:

Thailand represent!

And Times Square:

We did this all relatively quickly—it took us about 4 hours to see it all. We breezed through Times Square to meet BIL Bee at work… a highly anticipated meeting! I was so excited to finally be able to meet the Bee family that day! We didn’t want to spoil our appetites for our dinner that night, so we grabbed a quick Hot Dog from a street vendor, only to discover that we were 2 blocks away from a Gray’s Papaya location. So lame! As many people have mentioned, Gray’s Papaya is a must-eat for hot dogs in NYC… alas, it was not meant to be for us, this time.

At night we popped open a couple bottles of wine we brought from California at our B and B and headed to Babbo with Mr. and Mrs. Bee.

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I wouldn’t exactly mark Babbo as a disappointing experience by any means, but I wasn’t exactly blown away, either. I remember the first time I ate at Delfina, a well-known restaurant in San Francisco, and I was knocked on my ass at how delicious the meal was. So, I was expecting, AT LEAST, to feel the same way at Babbo. The service was okay, but I didn’t particularly feel “cared for”, and unfortunately a couple courses into our tasting menus, Mrs. Bee got very very ill! Not from Babbo’s food though, as she walked into the restaurant feeling sick, but she had to pass on 5 out of the 8 courses on the tasting menu. I was a little surprised that our waiter didn’t so much offer her a ginger ale, or show any recognition or compassion for her being ill. When we told them to stop bringing her courses, he kind of just shrugged.

I guess in the end, I wouldn’t particularly recommend Babbo, and I’m kind of sad to say it. I don’t like to go against the grain… if someone says something is amazing, and I feel differently, I fully believe that there is something wrong with me and my tastes. But there’s my 2 cents.

From there, we called it a night, and Mrs. Bee rushed home to fight her stomach bug as hard as she could so she could be in good form for the Bee bash that was only 2 days away!

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So, for those of you who want a day’s quick itinerary and want to skip the flouffy flouffy:

Day 1:

Stay: Village Guest House - 123 Washington Place

Take the subway to the Rockefeller Ctr stop (or catch a cab if you’re all fancy)

Easily walkable destinations:

• Rockefeller Center (Go to the Top of the Rock — this is something we did later in our trip)
• Radio City Music Hall
• Fifth Avenue
• St. Patrick’s Cathedral (you MUST go inside!)
• Chrysler Building
• The UN (not that exciting, but Mr. Peng wanted to check it out!)
• Theater District
• Broadway
• Times Square
• Grand Central Station

Dinner at Babbo - Call 30 days in advance to make reservations. They fill up quickly!

Can you believe that was only one day?