The Lobster and Fried Clams Place...you know where I mean

We went to the big G again, yes, for the fourth time...and we will be going again when my mum and bro arrive in May. Woodman's of Essex (Essex is the seaside/seafood town just next to Gloucester) has made lots of money from us and will be earning more to come!
Yen's friend, Toh from army days paid us a visit last week. A blog about his visit is definitely warranted, after having driven 10-12 hours from Akron, Ohio to our place. I've always wanted to make a road trip like this, but with a toddler in tow, it probably isn't wise to do it now. It was nice to entertain a friend from home, to be able to use words like "shiok" and "lah" and a bit of good ole Hokkien without inhibition! We talked about the differences between life here and back home and the quality of our lifestyles here.
We took him for his first lobster meal and then to Super 88, a huge Asian supermarket in Boston. I think he was overwhelmed by it, as there's no such luxury where he lives. He bought lots of stuff to take home to stock up. We enjoyed having him here for a few days.
We're supposed to be into the Spring season now, but it really isn't Spring yet. It's still chilly cold and even more so in Gloucester, which is northeast of Boston and by the sea.
At Woodman's of Essex with our lobster meal. Since it's off season for lobsters, the market price has shot up to usd$18 per pound. It would probably be about 12/lb otherwise. But since time is of the essence, just "chiong" lah!
Exactly how I felt before I ate my first lobster!

The Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park

We went for a photographic exhibition at the Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA with our friend Toh who visited us over last weekend. Toh drove for a personal record time of 12 hours each way from his home in Akron, Ohio to Boston. Also a photo enthusiast, we were all game for a little visual stimulation and the current exhibition "Presumed Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children" was the perfect opportunity (along with Toh's car) to drive a half hour away to the beautiful museum park.
The exhibition features works by Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Larry Fink, Dorathea Lange, Alex Webb, Sally Mann, just to name a few famous names. The place is worth a visit. It's one of the few museums in the world to have a sculpture park with over 35 acres of wooded land featuring at least 75 large scale outdoor contemporary American sculptures.
What a cool sculpture! Hasn't everyone felt like doing this at some point? I know I have!
A new addition to the 75 sculptures on display. What's more, she's suspended in mid-air!
The DeCordova Sculpture Park provides the only large ongoing exhibition of contemporary outdoor sculpture in New England, and is one of the few sculpture parks in the world to maintain a constantly rotating program.
My "artistic" contribution.

The Rest Of The Day...

This is actually a retrospective blog. I'm entering it as I sit in our apartment in Boston. We got back on Thursday night, but I haven't been able to keep up with the several posts, so here's the last of it from New York. Nothing much to say, just wanted to share some pix of the activities we managed to squeeze in on our last full day there. These were shot on the same day we visited Ground Zero, but I decided to put them in a separate blog because I don't think it's appropriate to blog about Meg jumping on giant piano keys and the destruction of human lives in the same breath.

This set of giant piano keys at FAO Schwartz is actually for sale. The 22x8 ft "Dance-on" piano costs $250,000 to take home and was featured in the movie "Big" starring Tom Hanks, if you remember!
A "child-puller". It was difficult to get the kids to leave! The different keys light up in different colours as you step on them and they work! Take a look at this

Ground Zero

Ground Zero is now just a construction site. That's what everyone says, and it's true. However, it doesn't stop people from all over the world visiting the ground where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood. The site is massive and there is a small exhibit of photos at an area where one can see the construction site on one side, and peek through man-made holes in the green canvas covering the other side. I felt a slight constriction in my throat, (despite my telling my friend Ginnie that I wouldn't get all emotional) knowing that almost 3000 people died here, and two iconic buildings crumbled into dust 7 years ago. This catastrophic event must affect everyone in some way...

An American flag flies in the wind with the names of all who perished listed on a board in the foreground.
A closer view of the construction site from the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) station below ground level. Not many people know that you can get a better view of the site from here. It was a kind man we met on the subway who told us about it. This guy happened to live in Singapore in the 1980s!
The small exhibit draws a steady crowd. One of the boards has pictures of people grieving, and one of the rubble, but none of the twin towers upon impact or after.
Right next to the 'Tribute WTC Visitor Center' at Liberty Street (just a stone's throw from the small exbition space shown above) is the FDNY "10 House" a fully functional fire station which suffered "significant damage" after the Sept 11 attacks. It was re-opened in 2003 after a major repair and is home to the FDNY memorial wall, a 56 foot bronze relief sculpture. On one of its windows stands a photograph of firemen carrying an injured away.
The National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center is being built on the site where the original towers stood. 5 new skyscrapers are being built around the site, including the Freedom Tower, (the tallest building in the artist's impression) which has the address 1, WTC.

Central Park and Apple Store

We spent a good part of Tuesday around the upper East side of Manhattan, beginning the lovely day with a visit to Central Park. I've been to NY three times before, but I've never managed to see central park (I don't consider walking along the perimeter as having 'seen' it). So this time, we made an effort to go, not that it required any. I think it's a gem to have such a huge, lovely park right in the middle of a bustling city. It must've been a big decision to 'sacrifice' prime land for nature, but well worth every inch. Because it's so huge (843 acres, 4.1km by 830m), it's inevitable that there will be parts of it that become dangerous when night falls. We only scratched the surface of the park, spending about two hours on the southern part of the park (66th St and below) and were already impressed by what we saw.
Feeding ducks (with corn pops cereal) at The Pond.
A little bit surreal?
We even managed to do a little "rock climbing"!
Meg loved the carousel so much that she asked to go on it twice! I found the music a little too loud! It costs $2 a ride.
Taking in a bird's eye view and sunbathing at the same time.

I had to have a feel of the new Macbook Air. It's really thin and light, a little too flimsy for my taste...the 24 hr store on 59th and 5th Ave is always packed!
Everyone's welcome!

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

Located on Long Island, NY, this affiliate of The Museum Of Modern Art (MOMA) is "solely devoted to contemporary art". It looked like an interesting place to visit, judging from the photos seen on its website. It's a short train ride away from Grand Central Station, the regular subway station we use as our hotel is on the East side this time. The entrance and outdoor space leading to the museum building entrance is pretty awesome. It's a photographer's playground, where shadows of clean geometric lines are cast on its pebbled floor, and empty spaces stand , like a box for visitors to fill. We were rather excited by the architecture and design of the place, raw concrete walls, very zen like. The exhibition inside was another story. "WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution" is a little to weird for me and some were on the verge of pornography. Since we had the little one in tow, MJ had to "vet" the exhibition rooms before Meg and I went in. On the second floor, as we were walking down the hallway, popping into the rooms along it, one kind lady guard warned, "these have S*"! So we steered away.
I get excited when I photograph places and subjects like these.
The view of the main building as you enter the museum grounds.
This place was a public school from 1893 to 1963 and has 100 rooms now turned into exhibition spaces!
Pebble picking Meg fished out a respectable collection of different stones which she was so excited about.

The F Word

So we were walking back home from our usual "T" stop at Coolidge Corner in Brookline last Friday and out of nowhere, the little one said THE WORD, loud and clear. I did a double take and asked her what she said, and she gleefully repeated it. MJ, who had his skull cap on, didn't quite hear it properly and said "What did you say?" There was no doubt about it, she'd said THE F WORD! We didn't freak out in front of her, but my heart was racing and the clogs started churning in my mind, thinking how I should handle this situation. We decided not to say anything because she obviously doesn't know what it means, and we felt that by telling her not to say it, she'd only want to say it even more. Meanwhile, both MJ and I were conversing in Mandarin, thinking how we should tackle this problem at hand. He told me not to make a big deal out of it and it might've been just a one off thing, though I don't know why it suddenly passed her lips, without any trigger.
The word is used fast and furious in this part of the world. You can hear it at least once in conversations between people on the train, walking past you in groups, in restaurants, etc. It's nothing abnormal or shocking about it here, and to tell you the truth, I've gotten used to it and accepted it as part of the English language amongst people here. But when a four-and-a-half year old, your own daughter, no less says it, it's a different matter. She hasn't repeated it so far. We will deal with it and explain it to her if she says it again. We hope that by not letting her hear the word, she will forget it and not repeat it. It's not easy though, cos we just heard it again today when a guy who was talking to his wife, in front of their children, used the word uninhibitedly. I quickly try to distract Meg once I hear it, so hopefully it doesn't register in her mind.
On another note, she's been getting very rebellious lately. She won't listen to me, even after threats and a raised voice. It's highly frustrating for me, knowing that I have no control over her. And all this at the young age of 4.5 yrs! I dread to anticipate what it will be like in her teenage years! I'm definitely stopping at 1!

NYC Part II

I don't know what it is about this city that attracts people all over the world...perhaps it's the excitement it offers, its multi-national population, its statuesque skyscrapers, its visually stunning avenues lined with hoards of pedestrians and yellow taxi cabs, or most likely, it's probably the fact that it only costs usd$15 to get there from Boston. This is our second trip to the Big Apple in three months, and we're coming again in May. The little one was over-excited when we took her on the free Staten Island ferry to see the Statue Of Liberty. We went on a late afternoon boat, and managed to catch the American icon basking in the evening light, and on our way back to Manhattan from Staten Island, we got to see it at dusk, with a lovely sunset and splendid sky. This trip, however, isn't one that I can fully enjoy, as I have several deadlines waiting for me back in Boston after my Spring break. I don't know how I'm going to get through next week. I have three photo essays to shoot, and two of them haven't been set up. I'm trying to put it out of my mind for now, but I know I'll have to face the music soon. Hope your week's going well...

From Manhattan to Staten Island
On board the Staten Island ferry. It was freezing cold outside...
The Statue of Liberty was a gift of international friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States in 1886.
At Grand Central Station, another magnificent place.

Scabies

Doesn't it sound frightful? Like rabies, but thank goodness it's not! Scabies is a pretty common skin disease, with an estimated 300 million cases occurring worldwide every year! The downside is that it's contagious through skin contact (not airborne) and it's unbearably itchy, especially at night. I don't know why but I can tell you it couldn't be more true. Caused by a microscopic eight-legged creature aka an itch mite (ugh!), "The condition can strike anyone of any race or age, regardless of personal hygiene", in case you suspect we haven't been taking care of Meg properly!
So the poor thing has been very cranky and itchy, and giving us a hard time in the process! She can't sleep at night as the severe itch keeps her up. The lesions on her body, hands and legs are alarming. It looks very raw and unsightly. I hope she doesn't retain the scars...
So getting her to a pediatrician was another story. Basically, be grateful for our medical system in Singapore, with our ubiquitous general practictioners in the heartlands. I could not find Meg a ped as most, if not all of them would not take new patients. We were given the runaround until we finally decided to take her to the Children's Hospital not too far from our place to the emergency dept even though her condition was technically not an emergency. The doc at the A&E could not diagnose her problem and prescribed two types of EXPENSIVE medicines for her. After two days, she didn't seem to improve (well only a little) and we decided we had to take her to the ped. Luckily, we'd found one who'd take us and it was a good move to go to the experts. The doc immediately diagnosed her as having Scabies after consulting another doctor and prescribed a lotion which would kill the mites. The lotion has a stinging effect though, and as we applied it on Meg, she cried and screamed that our neighbours must've thought we were abusing our child! Meg's on the road to recovery now, although the itch will continue for a week or two more, and the blisters should disappear in about a month. Thank goodness she's not in school or we'd have to apologize til we're blue in the face!
At the emergency room of the Children's Hospital of Boston. We were there for more than an hour waiting for treatment. The doctor was very thorough, asking me lots of questions.
Moisturizing doesn't quite help anymore at this stage...the poor girl seems to be visiting the hospital once too often!
I don't have prescription insurance for Meg, so I had to pay for the medicines out of my pocket. I didn't realize the meds here are so expensive. This assortment of meds cost me about usd140 in total! Whoa!

Newburyport, MA

Yesterday, after having been cooped indoors for a day short of a week, we decided to use up my Zipcar credit to rent a car to Newburyport, in the northern part of Massachusetts, just before the state line of New Hampshire. My friend, Naoko, had mentioned it to me and when I checked it out online, it seemed pretty enough to warrant a visit.
The drive is about an hour long, and because it's winter, we were pretty much restricted to indoor activities like SHOPPING!, not that I'm complaining...but after a while, you just don't want to shop anymore, which was the way I felt when we dropped by a mall on the way back to Boston. The harbour and coastline at Newburyport is supposed to be very nice, but it was too cold for us to check out. The architecture is beautiful, somewhat like Portsmouth's. I really like going to small towns where one is prone to find hidden treasures and nice old style delis and shops.
State St is one of the main streets downtown Newburyport. It was lovely at dusk.
A posed shot of Meg walking in a weird way with an interesting alleyway behind.
Another view of that same alley.
Isn't the architecture and the colour of the buildings lovely?
Photographer in action. Some of the pix on my blog are shot by MJ, though I don't credit, haha.