Naturally New York: Part 1 (Bryant Park and The High Line)

Spring in New York City is just as fabulous as everyone promised.  

The parks were colored with every shade of flower imaginable, and birds were endlessly serenading the passersby.  

Our first park of this trip was Bryant Park to see the Kelpies.  

What a nice surprise to have such gorgeous flowers everywhere, too!

If you are not careful, the Kelpies will steal you away!  Eek!

But we got away safely and headed to the Easter Bonnet Parade on 5th Avenue, then to see Newsies.

After the show, we headed to The High Line.  

I'd been wanting to visit this park for a while, and some friends suggested walking The High Line and finding dinner nearby.  

What a great plan! 

While we were waiting for our friends, we watched the birds flitting in the trees, finding snacks here and there.

All kind of birds. 

And then we started walking.

Spring truly has started here, even though it's still a bit more chilly than down south.

A treat from The High Line was a lovely view of  Lady Liberty!

And then the sun set, and we wandered back down to the streets for the most delicious pasta in the city.

Beijing, China - March 2014

My teenaged son and I had another adventure in March 2014: CHINA!  My sister and her two teenaged sons joined us, along with another friend and her teenaged son, and another friend with no kids.  (I suggested that she bring earplugs!)

Our tour company, China Spree, was excellent.  We stayed at the Traders Hotel, which had both a fantastic breakfast and a fantastic view.  (Notice the blue skies?  Yes, we *mostly* had those, too!)

We spent our week in Beijing, with side trips to a foster home in Langfang and to the Great Wall of China.  At the foster home, we learned that SkipBo and Phase 10 are not limited by language barriers.

I cannot say it enough: the Great Wall was ah-maze-ing.  AMAZING!

We were lucky to see the highlights of Beijing, including Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (also called the Palace Museum), both of which were closed the next week due to heightened security in the area for the National People's Congress.  

The Summer Palace was one of my favorite places!  I can definitely understand why the emperor would want a summer home in this beautiful setting ... though the lake was still mostly iced over during our visit.

In addition to famous tourist sites included on our tour, we also did some fun things on our own.  We visited the Wangfujing night market - twice!  None of us were brave enough to try a scorpion or a silk worm or a star fish ... but finding crawfish was almost like being at home in Louisiana.

On our last free day, we visited Beihai Park, where locals were dancing and singing and painting.  My sister danced with a group at Beihai, and I danced with a class at another park, Temple of Heaven.  The parks were so nice and so filled with activity!

Also at Beihai Park, the boys found cotton candy ... though my nephew jokingly called it silk candy, since we had visited a silk factory the day before and the cotton candy was very much like raw silk.

Beihai Park was just beautiful.  There were walking trails through trees, a beautiful lake filled with ducks, and a stunning White Dagoba.  I was so glad we had the chance to visit this park!

So how did we get around the city?  By tour bus, by taxi, by subway ... and by rickshaw and vintage sidecar!  Zipping around the city attached to a motorcycle was sooooooo much fun!!

I was so happy to see Beijing's Olympic site -- both during the day and at night, during our sidecar tour.  The Olympics are one of my favorite sporting events!  And who could forget the eight medals Michael Phelps won during the 2008 Beijing Olympic games?

And finally, we got to see China's most famous residents: PANDAS!  Although the pandas are not from this area, the Beijing Zoo has two panda houses, where we visited the pandas during their breakfast.

This trip to China was truly an incredible experience.  A few pictures here can give you a taste of what we experienced, but nothing can compare to our short time in and around Beijing.  The food was excellent and abundant, the locals loved taking pictures with the "big-nosed people" (i.e. Americans), and the sites were something we couldn't have seen anywhere else in the world.  If you get the chance, go ... you won't regret it.

A Southern Garden in Fall

In much of the United States, gardens are closed for the winter.  The temperatures already get below freezing on many - if not all - nights, and perhaps the first snow of the season has already fallen.

But here in south Louisiana, the gardens are happy for a break from the summer heat!  The flowers are still beautiful, the "winter" vegetables are planted while the summer ones continue on, and the citrus trees are so full they're dragging the ground.

These pictures were all taken November 15, 2013, two days after our first 32* night of the year.  

The City and its Green

When we think of Manhattan, we often think of theater and shopping and tall buildings and lots of concrete.  In fact, I've never heard anyone say, "hey let's check out all the green space in New York!"

But truth be told, there are little splotches of green everywhere!

Sure there's Central Park ... as seen from the air ...

... or in the summer, from 59th Street ...

... or in the fall, near the Guggenheim Museum.

In fact, you could spend an entire week exploring Central Park and perhaps not see all of it. But there are so many other green spots tucked here and there. For instance, behind this stunning building is Bryant Park, though you might never see it if you just hurry by.

If you live in the city, you may want to live in a building with a rooftop garden. Wouldn't it be nice to have a glass of wine here after a long day at work? Or just sit, perched on top of the world, enjoying the summer breeze?

Or on this rooftop?

And if you're very lucky, you find fabulous gems like Union Square Park, where you can wait with friends for yummy places like Mesa Grill to open for brunch.

Although New York is concrete-laden and traffic-filled, there are places of peace and rest in between. Most of the areas are landscaped, rather than being filled with wildflowers, but they are lovely just the same.

Of course, if you want to feel the grass between your toes in the city, you may wish to skip Mondays.