The leftovers

I talked to my grandfather yesterday morning. Once we got back from New York, I developed a thick wad of photographs for my grandfather and had them sent over to him. He adores photography and has several photo albums close by his bed. I think he went out to buy a new photo album just for these photos because I developed a good 100+ photos. I included some of the ones I took from Thailand. He really liked them. I think the photos are really good to help him take his mind off the cancer. I don't like asking him too much about it, so on the phone we just talked about how nice Thailand was. He said the photos looked really good and that Thailand had amazing scenery.

After that conversation, I've realised that I haven't really talked about the rest of my New York/Flushing trip. I'm just going to post up all the remaining photos I've neglected. They're mostly of food and snow and me looking dorky.

I hope you enjoy these.

My uncle took my father and I to West New York to get a good view of the city. My photos do not do the view any justice. It was amazing and vast!

My uncle then took us to this Japanese Shopping Mall/Food court for lunch. It was a very quiet shopping centre but the place was really clean and there was a very interesting Japanese supermarket. For lunch, I ordered some kind of udon soup noodle. I was still in my "no appetite" phase so I wasn't in the mood for an intense meal. I got the noodles and a piece of prawn tempura.

My dad ordered some kind of Japanese-esque cordon bleu type set meal. See that giant deep fried prawn? No, it's not a massive prawn. It's actually made out of "crab meat"!

My uncle ordered the deep fried pork cutlet meal set. It was all very good value. Huge meals!

After a few days, my other uncle had me and my dad over for a few days. My dad's cousin and his wife also came to stay. My uncle owns a motel in Virginia so my dad and I stayed in one of the rooms. It was awesome to have cable. I think it was around this time where started to get my appetite back. My uncle made that yummy platter of sushi. He was a trained sushi chef when he was younger. He says his skills are little rusty because he hasn't made sushi in a while. He wasn't happy with how it turned out. I think it was because the knife he was using wasn't sharp enough. Regardless, it was yummy as!

That morning, my aunt went to Popeye's to buy me some deep fried chicken because I told her the previous night that I was super into deep fried chicken. It was so good! She also showed me her collection of knitted and crocheted scarves and beanies. She's really talented!

It also snowed that afternoon! It was a big deal for me and my dad. We were pretty excited. My relatives thought we were silly. I was overjoyed! I look like a 12-year old boy in that photo! I'm such a dork. 

I'm at Times Square with my dad on my right talking to someone on the phone and my uncle. I hear it's prettier at night. We went on a bus field trip around New York. Probably not the best way to explore the city (we spent 5 minutes outside Central Park). We kept driving past all the awesome food places like Shake Shack etc. I was bummed I didn't get to do all those things.

We ended up going to the Empire State Building. It was all right. The view was fun but the novelty wears off, especially when the process of getting to the roof top was like going through customs at the airport.

This guy somehow managed to sneak his cat into the Empire State Building! Even a security guard was stunned. He asked him how he smuggled the cat in. However, we were in the same queue as him when we were leaving the Empire State Building AND WE COULDN'T SEE THE CAT ANYWHERE! I hope the cat is all right.

We also went on a boat/ferry trip to see the statue of liberty. It's not a great photo but you get my drift. I have so many more photos but I don't think anyone wants to see photos of me and my family posing in front of various monuments.

I think by the end of my trip, it was mainly positive albeit incredibly emotion. I was shocked at how vulnerable my father was and it reminded me that we are all the same on the inside.