New York, New York!

Click here to read Part I

( Conclusion )

Breezing through the Big Apple, dahlings, next on our itinerary was a quick tour of Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Korea and then the chic fashion districts of Greenwhich Village and Soho where we stopped for lunch at the super hard-to-get-into Balthazar resto.

The super-popular Balthazar is known for its excellently-prepared menu. The resto was highly-recommended to our groupie by virtual New Yorker, Pepper Teehankee, no less, who knows more about the must-go-to restos, bars and clubs in New York than even moi, though only next to mega New York chef instructress, Lorrie Reynoso, naturellement.

We continued our sight-seeing around the village and from there headed to Central Park. We strolled around this lush green area that occupies the whole center of Manhattan Island. It’s a gorgeous relaxing park to wander around, have a picnic or exercise in. It has a zoo, a famous hall, ponds to sail toy boats in, plus so many other sights to behold. This one-of-a-kind park is definitely the lung of Manhattan.

At our next stop, Ground Zero, moi instantly got goose-bumps looking at the monstrous hole in the ground and the cross way above street level. I had a vivid flashback of that horrifying, tragic day of Sept. 11, 2001. I vividly recalled helpless people jumping out of windows and also remembered watching thousands waving from the buildings just seconds before the first World Trade Center building crumbled down.

We entered the World Financial Center’s glass structure, the Winter Garden, now completely remodeled. We couldn’t believe how fast they did the job. From there we walked around Ground Zero where a rosary hung on a fence with one white rose. That sight broke my heart and I couldn’t hold my tears back. By the church close to Ground Zero were hundreds of letters, photos and flowers left by the friends and familles who lost their loved ones. It was really a depressing and sad sight.

That night, we were hosted at the super popular BOLO Restaurant at 23 East 22nd St. where the food was excellent. Joining us were friends of our angels Adin Gonzalez and Marica Cabrera. There was handsome Terence Lloren, brother-in-law of former Northwest Airlines rah! rah! gal, Tani Aragon L.

The resto’s owner Bobby Flay, a chef and renowned cooking TV host in the US and Europe, was in the resto by chance that night. He prepared our orders and personally came over to chat with us. BOLO is definitely a resto where true gourmands will discover that their dreams can come true.

The next day we continued our tour around New York, starting off at the fabi Metropolitan Museum of Art to view the fantastic photo exhibition, Richard Avedon: Portraits. The queue was so long we waited a good 20 minutes before we could enter the gallery where Avedon’s photos were admired by loads of people. We were mesmerized by the retrospective featuring portraits of famous writers, actors, artists, politicians and models. There are few smiling faces among the portraits. Through the lens of Richard Avedon, we saw Marilyn Monroe in a sad mood, Vladimir Horowitz and a wall-to-wall blow-up of Andy Warhol and his gang, including his good-looking lover. One portrait had 12 of the subjects fully clothed while in the next room was a blow-up shot of them all, naked as the day they were born! No wonder Avedon became known as the "witty whiz kid of American fashion photography."

Next stop was the Tenement Museum at the heart of Manhattan’s lower East Side, the immigration portal for almost 200 years, palanggas. 97 Orchard St. was home to over 7,000 people from over 20 nations from 1863 to 1935. We toured the restored tenement apartments and learned more about the lives of past residents that included families belonging to a German Jew (1870), another Eastern European Jew (1918) and the Italian Catholic family (1930’s). These tenements have been designated a National Historic Landmark.

Four walking blocks away, we had lunch at the super packed Katz’s Restaurant which became famous when the hit movie When Harry Met Sally was filmed here. At Katz’s you can partake of the best pastroni sandwiches in the entire US. They serve huge portions that come with whole Kosher pickles, olives and dijon mustard. The resto is so well-known it sells tons of pastroni in two sizes–long and short. If you visit New York and you don’t have a quick bite at Katz’s, your stay would not be considered complete.

That night we excitedly watched the third showing of Flower Drum Song at the Virginia Theater on Broadway. But not before every one pigged out on the tastiest fried chicken served at Popeye’s resto, another great suggestion from– yes, you guessed it!–Pepper T.

Well, a funny thing happened to us while we seated on our balcony seats. About 10 minutes before the show began, the usher showed four theater-goers to our designated seats. I stood up and told the usher it was she herself who told us those were our seats. She looked at the other persons’ tickets and ours and noted that they all were for the same seats! She then looked at our tickets again and said, "Honey, your seats are for Nov. 9!" We were there on Oct. 10 so can you imagine our shock? And to think there were 10 of us! Well, as always, our Northwest Airlines angels took care of everything and to our delight, we were given front seats instead. One thing’s for sure–to this day we have a big laugh when we remember that incident.

The next morning it was time to part ways. Some of our groupie jetted back to Manille, others to different parts of the US. Alex Van Hagen, Pepper and moi stayed on in New York for another week and a half. But not before our ever-watching and caring guardian angel Adin Gonzalez gave each of us a goodbye gift. Such thoughtful, super-appreciated gestures make Northwest Airlines hard to forget.

Needless to say, the flight home (with a real short stop-over in Tokyo) is still the fastest and best way of reaching New York, Detroit, or other destinations in the US or back on Northwest Airlines, naturellement.

For inquiries and reservations, do call Northwest at 817-0616. Or you may visit its website, www.nwa.com/ph.

Northwest Airlines (Boeing 746-400s) jets twice daily out of Manila to various cities in the US, Canada and Asia. Northwest will have additional flights out of Manila via Osaka, Japan on Dec. 29 and 31, 2002. and Jan. 5, 7, 12, 14, 2003. Northwest is certainly one of the greatest ways to fly, dahlings.

Do have the most blessed Christmas, dahlings!