Back from New York

Marco and I flew back in from New York on tuesday. We were there to see two friends, Zoe and Mitesh. Zoe is Korean-American from Long Island and one thing I like a lot about her is her sense of design. She always wears the most trendy creative clothes, and has great home decor. Her home by the way is an apartment on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River that looks directly upon the Manhattan skyline, right in the axis of the Empire State building. Amazing at night! The skyline sparkles and moves all night long. It is true - the city never sleeps.

Mitesh came in on Sunday. He's from India. He's starting a business there right now. He's trying to create door-to-door polling devices using cellphone that can enable non-profit organizations to do better data gathering in hard-to-reach rural areas. Previously he's worked for educational development organizations in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Both Zoe and Mitesh are super cool.

Zoe knew all the best cheap restaurants in Manhattan. My vote for best place was a quirky Japanese beer bar with 1950's pin-ups of Japanese movie stars on the walls and shaggy long-haired young Japanese hipster dudes serving the tables with an air of detached coolness. Everybody around was young and mostly Asian and getting sauced and hip and cool. There were Japanese nudie photos on the walls of young ladies dressed (or undressed) like sumo wrestlers and Pachinko machines from the 50's along one wall. At the end they gave you a little cup of pink powder, and when you walked out you put it in a cotton candy machine by the door and left with your own puffy ball of cotton candy.

Another highlight of the trip was a group of black teenagers that did a crazy good breakdance routine on the subway. They were doing flips and a sort of jumprope with the youngest kid (about 10) and dance moves. They were incredible! They put out a hat for money at the end but they seemed to be doing it more for fun and to show off their stylin' moves. How cool! I wish I could do that.

I fought off a cold the whole time. It never really got me but I did have some sniffles. I'm in a mood lately to ditch conventional medicine, so I tried something that the lady at the natural foods store recommended to me - a tea of elderberries. You just go to a co-op or natural foods store and go to the bulk spice jars. There should be one called elderberry. It looks like small black peppercorns but it's a dried berry. You heat us some water and make a tea with it. You can also add mint and/or ginger. The flavor reminds me of plums a bit - very pleasant. It warms you and soothes your sore throat and runny nose. But it's much more gentle and rounded feeling than a crappy over-the-counter cold product. Remeber the name: ELDERBERRY. I highly recommend it. (and by the way it's cheap).