OJ Diaries

Snowy New York

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 17:08:00 +0000

We hit the ground running as soon as we arrived back to JFK two months ago. Bossman had a product release, I had deadlines every friday for a full month with travel to Durham, North Carolina and next week to Oklahoma City for a few days.

The winter here has been long and it's been nice to look thru our photos from holiday 2 months after the fact and reminisce the warmer temperatures. We're all getting used to the snow dump and anything past -18 deg seems the same now -Anja doens't wear gloves at -26 deg temperatures! scary huh. Safe to say most of us are done with this weather and Missy is waiting for Spring.

Kayla, Anja and Peyton fascinated with kids competing in "The Voice"

Our little snow bunny! at ski school

We got to go skiing with some friends twice this season so far and give Anja a taste of it... Thankfully she quite likes it. We went to Camelback and on way back, the kids got to do a horseride thru the lovely snow covered forest

Anja's school organized a ski trip to Bellayre, it just unfortunately happened to be the start of really cold temperatures in the state, it was -22 deg and the lifts were slow, my hands froze before we could ski down the slope. A few boys cried after their run from being so cold and the girls seemed a lot tougher, all smiles and no complaints!

Top: Anja, Olivia and Skyler; Skyler & Anja
Bottom: Helwieg family, us and Anja on the greens with Bossman

Japan (Day 4-6)

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 04:28:00 +0000

It was January 2 and we were greeted with the best view of the city with Mt.Fuii at the background. The remaining days in Japan were spent walking the crowded streets and absorbing the spirit of the new year that Japanese people hold so dear and spending it with friends.

First stop was to check out the famous Shibuya intersection. You can observe the moment of organized chaos from the second story window of the Starbucks in Tsutaya building, along with other tourists without having to be a Starbucks customer!

I spun around and took a panorama shot.

Takeshita Street- yep... it was crazy busy and this is all we saw of it.. it was a no go zone for us with child in hand.

These gorgeous girls were off to the temple.

For lunch, we met up with Bossman's old friends when he did uni a long while ago. They took us to an Izakaya! I could enjoy the Izakaya alot if I lived here! We sat on tatami mats and cooked, drank some great sake and enjoyed listening to their stories of good mischief when they were together 15 years back! It was easy to see how happy they were back then, still the same even after all that time...and that's what great friends are.

Before and now!

Day 5- On our second last day, we stayed in the Asakusa district and experienced a Japanese guest house stay aka Ryokan. After we checked in, we spent a few hours with Imade's and Ishii's, bossman's former host parents. Last time we saw them was at our wedding and so they were thrilled to see Anja.

Having Okonomiyaki for lunch!

After lunch, we had a good wander and decided last minute to join in the crowds and visit the temples and count our blessings, Japanese style.

View from the temple steps....We made it thru this crowd!

After a full day, it was really nice to head back to our Ryokan and spend the last night in Japan this way. Our Ryokan had a public bath as well and it was a good way to finish up before a long flight back to NYC. Oh Japan, we enjoyed our stay here and hope to return again.

About to head to the hot public bath.

New Years in Japan (Day 1-3)

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 05:21:00 +0000

From Singapore, we headed next to Tokyo, Japan with the first stop being in Kyoto. 9hr Flight, 30 mins to get into Tokyo City + 3 hr skinkansen (bullet train) ride to Kyoto. Long day of travel but this sand a good way to break that long journey back to NYC and acclimatize to winter. I was quite impressed with this city from the moment we arrived, customs was easy, smooth and our luggage was already there waiting for us and I couldn't be more shocked! Everything was spotless, super clean, sanitized. Public toilets had heated seats and cleaned to level of hotel rooms. I was falling in love with this city.

Day 2: Kyoto. Two words: Just Lovely. We visited 4 temples on the first day! Temple #1 Ninna-ji. Great intro to Japanese palatial style, tatami mat rooms, lovely terraces and just brilliant landscaping.

Temple #2- Kinkaku-ji (Gold Temple)

Temple #3- Roanji- We took public transport wherever possible as it was easiest. The word "bus" was possibly the only English word I had seen in the first 3 days here in Kyoto! crazy but true.

Temple #4- Ginkaku-ji (Silver Temple) - certainly not as grand as the Gold one but nice contrast against the moss covered grass.

Day 3- The last temple we wanted to see in Kyoto was Fushimi-inari Taisha, the famous temple of the red gates.

Later that afternoon, we took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo and stayed in Ginza- the financial district of Tokyo. Incredibly quiet as it was new years eve and it's such a huge day in Tokyo that most things were closed and we had our first western meal in an italian place down the road and thankfully it was very good and an early night after a very full 2 days in Kyoto.

Day 4- New Years Day- Happy 2015 all! We expected it to be quiet one on New Years and as we couldn't get a 3 nights stay in one place, we moved out of Ginza and on to our next hotel in Shinbashi, where hotel staff suggested we go to Odaiba as things would be open there and you know what, that's where the rest of Tokyo seemed to be too.

Daikanransha, 115metre Ferris Wheel

As for food, Bossman and I made effort to not have the same type of japanese meal on the trip and it was great idea. As for Anja, she has her picky days but when she realized pasta is not offered here, she enjoyed Katsu Don, fried octopus, rice and edamame as her staple diet.

We found a little Lego Land and Anja experienced her first 4D movie which thrilled her to bits

Whilst Anja napped, Bossman and I took the pleasure of enjoying a Kaiten sushi bar.

Notice the Statue of liberty is in Tokyo too?

Rainbow Bridge connects Odaiba to Tokyo

to be continued.....

Oh Singapura! Dec 26-28

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 02:27:00 +0000

After almost a week in Indonesia, we headed to Singapore for a short 2 whole days, where our aim was to join in another family reunion of about 40 family members -cousins, aunts, uncles from my dad's side of the family. I hadn't seen some of cousins' kids since they were just born so you can imagine the surprise to see them grown up and about to have kids on their own.

First day or so, my family made sure we ate every delicacy we had missed in so long as well as catch up with long time family friends. Bossman and his family did a bit of sight seeing.

Here's us and my aunt's family together

Christmas in Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 02:49:00 +0000

This year we were lucky to head to Manado, Sulawesi in Indonesia and celebrate christmas with my grandmother, 89 years old with almost all of the family. She's had dementia for quite some time now and deals with all things that comes with old age and so we are just grateful she's still with us. We had quite a bit of family head over there to join in the celebration so it was a nice reunion.

Clockwise from Left: Me and my niece, Leticia; hanging out by the pool; family dinner at Seafood; Leticia and Anja

View of Bunaken Island on Left from hotel in Manado

As Bossman and his parents headed off to the one must see destination in Manado, Bunaken Island, owned by a dutchman and famous for diving, coral and beautiful sea life. Sorry no underwater photos..

From Bottom left; Dad with Anja; Kids on a local Bendi ride; Leticia and Anja; Girls with Uncle Oni; Mum and Anja; with Grandma

Day 3

View of Tomohon village

All of us headed to Tomohon for remaining days to where my grandma and other friends live. It's a village up in the mountains about 1.5 hr drive from Manado.

Day 4
Bossman, his folks and Adrian went on a day trip to Mt Mahawa and Lake Tondano

Lake Tondano

Gunung Mahawa crater, with Gunung Lokon in the background

Each bamboo is stuffed with rice or chicken, or pork etc.

This is one of my favourite Indonesian meals, rice, pork, chicken etc are all cooked in banana leafs and stuffed into each bamboo poles and is slow cooked against hot coal for several hours.

Four generations, Anja with my grandma, Adrian with the girls

The cousins went up for a walk up Bukit Doa

At night we had a good group of family and friends for dinner and yes with a nice roasted pig.

Manhattanites in Brooklyn :)

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 00:38:00 +0000

Not much happened this weekend but we had Ricardo and Inga and their kids Chloe and Charlotte come over our place initially for brunch but as neither of us had any plans, we all hung out till the late afternoon in time for some early apperitivo and margarita time!

Charlotte (3 yo), Anja (4yo) & Chloe (5.8 yo) in front of Tom Fruin's installation [Kolonihavehus 2010

steel, found plexiglass, paint 12 x 12 x 14 feet]

The 3 New Yorkers enjoying ice cream from Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory

We realized this weekend we had met 6 years ago before either of us had kids! Still look the same and thankfully still living in NYC but how time flies!

School photos

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 16:26:00 +0000

Photo by Lindner Photography Group

Pick the most serious one....

I admittedly poached this off the site! Doubt they will print very well but last time I paid for the photos I didn't even have time to post them. The photographer did a good job I think.

US Postal Service couldn't be slower these days for posting overseas and I nearly had a coronary seeing how much the rate has gone up for a tiny package, it was more than the goods itself! Plus it's a 45 min process to actually send one piece of mail as now each clerk has to manually type in the details of both the sender and receiver... they do not know how to type so as you can imagine, for me, it's like watching paint dry and if they didn't have the security glass shield in front of me, I could see myself reaching to grab their plastic covered keyboard and type these myself.

The school is looking for volunteers for their yearbook committee and I am tempted...well not really but parents are required to do 25 service hours total per year or pay up and 1 month into the school term, our chances of completing this are looking pretty slim already.

New York City Ballet

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 16:12:00 +0000

Photo by Philip Hugonnard

This week I started a new design role with a well established woman owned architecture and design firm and so far am happy to have made the change. Location wise, it's nice to have Madison Square Park right outside and be greeted with the beautiful view of the flatiron building as I head in and out each day. So far everyone is most respectful, smart yet incredibly humble and gracious. I mean, I was in the lift with the maintenance and superintendent in the building and he shared his thoughts on how nice everyone was in the firm!

As my weekends are finally free of study and work, I finally have the time to schedule mum & daughter things with Anja on weekends and so this Saturday I took her to the ballet. They have a Family Saturday's program over Fall and you get a great performance and excellent seats (if you're quick on the buzzer and book them) all for $20 per ticket!

Weekend in Westchester

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 03:11:00 +0000

Anja (4yo), Margeaux (4 yo) and Vogue (6yo)

Last weekend, we went up to visit our good friends who moved up to the burbs, Westchester County... its usually the next place to go after moving and living in Brooklyn. It was lovely to just be with them again as we missed all the banter. As for Anja, she counts them all as her brother and sisters.Thankfully it's only 25 min train ride so we'll be coming back for sure.

Anja, Ben (8yo), Margeaux, Vogue

PK-4

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 02:59:00 +0000

Here's the obligatory first day of school pictures... we were on a wait list to get into this school and of course when they gave us a spot, we were some what relieved that we didn't have to keep looking for a place that will instill a drive to learn to the degree her previous day care program did! Day care programs don't have to follow the standard school curriculum, meaning they can teach kids as much or as little as they want. She left her last school speaking back to teachers in chinese, learning basic addition and writing grocery lists! It was impressive but at some point all the kids have to move on to regular schools and almost "slow down" and join the masses and learn the Core Curriculum that the School Board stipulates which, we have found is not as advanced as what she's used to. At the end of the day, we just don't want her to loose her drive to learn because as we all know, as long as you want to learn, you will.

I do love that her new school has a uniform because all of a sudden the focus is not about "what am I going to wear today" but more so "what am I going to learn"..having said this, I feel she considers uniform wearing as completely restrictive to her creative being. Nevertheless, she's adjusting.

Out and About in NYC

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 02:37:00 +0000

Thanks for coming to visit Ben and Jen, it was great to have you all here.

US Open 2014

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 02:29:00 +0000

Ben, Jen and Bossman headed to US Tennis Open to check out Kyrgios vs Youzhny.

and Girogi vs Rodianova... just so you know, the booty shots (yes I saw them Bossman) did not make this blog post!

Washington D.C

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 02:13:00 +0000

Ben and Jen came over for about a week and during that time we celebrated both Ben's b'day and Bossman''s 40th and also took a weekend trip to the nation's capital to re-visit some sites and see some new ones. Anja has never been but had been learning a great deal about it in school so this was quite a treat for her.

Lincoln Memorial

National Monument

The Whitehouse, Federal Treasury Building and time in The Smithsonian Museum

Capitol Building

Long Island City

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 01:24:00 +0000

Here's a part of New York which has gone thru much change, complete urban renewal and only a 15 min subway ride from Times Square. A couple of our friends have moved out here and it's quite lovely, spacious too. It was tempting to consider moving out to this area but it lacked grocery stores...hmmm they should have thought about that one. I personally cannot be bothered schlepping groceries in crowded trains after work.

Sonderborg, Denmark

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 01:43:00 +0000

Line and her family took me down to Sonderborg, Jutland to her hometown. It was so restful, peaceful and wonderful home away from home company with her parents and family.

This installation was created by one of Line's schoolmates!

The Queen of Denmark was visiting Sonderborg Castle (just behind) and this is her yacht!! We missed the parade to greet her.

I had a really nice break, slept a lot, plenty of girl talk, laughter and caught up with some old school friends. I'm glad I took the break and glad to be back refreshed!

R&R in Copenhagen

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 01:32:00 +0000

If you haven't heard already, I completed my studies about 3 weeks ago, I had what I thought was a week off to catch up on sleep which ended up being a mess as after not hearing from any firm about jobs and deciding to rest, I was rushing about going to interviews. 2 days later, I was offered a job and accepted it that week only to start the week after. The stressful part was just after 2 days, my new boss left me to my own device to figure things out and take on a massive high priority list of things to do whilst he was out of town. A good friend of ours basically said I was losing it. I really was. My chest was tight, I felt like I couldn't catch my breath.

I'm grateful that Bossman encouraged me to take the time off, sort my visa and spend it with my friend Line in the city that I love. At same time, my paranoia's about leaving the family and traveling on my own reached an all time high especially since the crazy disappearance of MH370! I managed to get on that flight and away I went and I'm glad I did.

It's a bird, it's a plane its...

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 23:25:00 +0000

Bossman! In case you had not seen the video on our facebook page somewhere, here's a snippet of what went on a few weeks back. Our friend James happens to be a trapeze instructor and got a few of our friends together to try it out. I was too chicken to try but that's James catching Bossman.

July 4th Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 00:31:00 +0000

July 4th fireworks over Brooklyn Bridge.. looks pretty amazing (Source: unknown)

When our new Mayor announced earlier this year that the July 4th fireworks was going to be brought to Brooklyn and will stay on this side, we couldn't be happier but we instead decided to spend it with our friends at their place out in long island. It had been awhile since we had been back there and the kids (Chloe, Anja and Charlotte) hadn't seen each other in a long while.

BBQ at Pier 5

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 01:54:00 +0000

The weekend prior (yes still playing catch up on here) we had a lovely long weekend... testing out the bbq along the pier near us which were installed in the last few months. It was packed as expected but still lovely to be able to have a bbq it's a rarity in this city. It was also the first weekend I've really been able to enjoy homework + stress free for about 3 mths and thankfully the sun was out for us and at 27 deg we felt it was boiling! We were so not used to it that it made us so sleeepy (I'm sure the champers and drinks helped with that)

Jumping about, trying out a hand stand!

Missy was loving being outside and dipping her feet in water and being quite adventurous about it all. She was so happy!

Kayla came by for a playdate

Girls just wanna have fun!

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 02:27:00 +0000

Margeaux and Anja running off to play ball

Our friends who used to live in our building (now about 40 mins away) came by for a visit with her 2 daughters and it was oh so fun to have them back even it was for a day.

L-R: Vogue, Margeaux and Anja

Vogue and her friend Phoenix, Margeaux and Anja

"Ring-a-round-the-rosie"

Pierced

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Fri, 30 May 2014 01:49:00 +0000

Ideally I would have had it done within the first year she was born but Bossman thought we should wait till it was her own decision. She seemed keen a few months back and so at her recent yearly check up at the pediatrician's office, she did it, bravely, just after receiving 2 shots of "super powers" (Dr's words for immunizations). She cried for a bit and during our 40min trip from Upper East Side to Chelsea (to her school) one of our conversations went like this...

A: Mama, when you were baby, did you cry when you got your ears pierced
Me: I am sure I did, I was little, and you know what, I had to do it all over again later on
A: why?
Me: the hole closed so we had to re-open it again, thats why the Dr says not to touch it too much we don't want the earring to fall out and close the hole.
A: did it hurt
Me: yes it did and I probably cried
A: but when you get bigger and bigger you must be brave right?
Me: yes
A: I am 4 now so I'm getting bigger
Me: yes you're getting bigger and you were so brave and you got super powers
A: yeah but if I have super powers I need my cape, where is it?
Me: that's right, where is that cape. Will have to dig it out of the box, you can help me find it.

At the ballet

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Tue, 27 May 2014 01:06:00 +0000

A couple weekends ago, I took Anja to watch the American Ballet Theatre up at the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Centre. Her school gave out super cheap tickets for the 1hr special and for it they also received autographed pair of ballet shoes! What a treat it was and she was awe inspired.

From a shakespearen play

A piece from Swan Lake

Anja's 4

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sun, 25 May 2014 00:50:00 +0000

Thanks to all for the pressies!

This year her b'day fell on same day as Mother's Day - one of the best report cards I had!

Her class b'day party. Bossman made the hello kitty cake the night before... amazing!

Her ballet recital (back in April)

Alex + Anja

Since I last blogged, Missy has turned the delightful age of 4, Alex has moved away to San Francisco and Anja is less shy about performing, I actually got to see a performance back in April.

Moonlit Sky

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Sat, 03 May 2014 01:59:00 +0000

A lucky moment for us to catch this.

Human Hamster Wheel

noreply@blogger.com (O) — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 01:35:00 +0000

Orbit installation, The Boiler Pierogi, Williamsburg

A few weeks back we made our way to Williamsburg to check out this awesome installation that was designed and built by these 2 guys (an architect + ex-sailor/boat builder) who were also living in it for 10 full days in what is considered a giant hamster wheel. The boat builder who was not afraid of heights and was great at knots, stayed on the exterior and the architect interior. Each piece of Shelley's furniture is aligned with its Schweder counterpart. So they both have to work at their desk at the same time, use the bathroom in tandem, they have the same bedtimes, etc. They move the wheel to each station by walking in tandem in opposite directions. They go pretty slowly, for obvious safety reasons. You can watch a video and more info about it here.