New York City Trip - May 2026

With a two week notice, I was told I gotta spend a weekend in NYC for a commissioning project. Not quite wild about it but I like NYC and this is a large project so it is what it is. This'll be nice city travel practice for Japan. 

I'm writing this as each day goes by and will post it when it's all said and done.

5/27

I had a train ride from Baltimore to NYC. It was fairly uneventful. I was unable to watch anything so I just kinda listened to stuff ony phone. 

Upon arrival, I walked from the station to the hotel on 54th St which was about 20 blocks. That was a miserable walk with my luggage and set of tools and I won't be doing that on my way back. 

After checking in, I had the rest of the evening to chill. I went to Nintendo NYC to check stuff out. I'm debating getting this really slick pokemon hoodie. Odds are I'll leave with something to treat myself but I'm currently weighing my options. I still need to visit Kinokuniya and the 5th Avenue Barnes and Noble.

Obviously I don't wanna spend too much money as I'll be in Place, Japan later but this was a nice hoodie and I might as well make the most of the trip. 

After that I walked over to the Lego store. This was awesome! I regret not getting any pictures but that was such a cool store. Lots of Lego decorations and such. What was funny though was the Avengers Tower/Empire State Building display. There was no swinging Spiderman Minifigure on that. Normally I wouldn't be disappointed but even the Lego Space Needle in Seattle had it and Spiderman doesn't even go there. 

I met up with a friend there and we kinda just hung out for a bit. We went to Midtown comics afterwards which is always a cool store. Afterwards we grabbed dinner at the sushi izakaya next to my hotel. We both got some amazing Kimchi fried rice.

Before going to bed, I had a drink with my coworkers at the hotel bar which was nice. The bar tells me exactly the kind of place I'm staying in by their whiskey selection. 

A pour of Pappy 23 is $780 here. Absurd. 

5/28

Today was more eventful but less I can talk about due to work. The day started at 7:30 AM with Dunkin donuts and a 45 minute train ride. 

For lunch, the project manager and I stopped by a Hibachi place in the Bronx. It was okay. I kept things simple and cheap by getting beef fried rice. It probably didn't help I had amazing Kimchi fried rice last night in comparison.

Once work was all done, we went to the Other Half Brewing Company at Rockefeller. Fantastic beers there as always. Afterwards we got dinner at an Italian restaurant on 50th Street. My barometer for a restaurant like this is it's plain cheese pizza and yeah it was really good. Shocker, pizza in NYC is good. I have had better though. 

The cocktail I had was called The Godfather. The base spirit was averna amaro. It was very different than what I expected but very good. It was a highball with a kinda bitter yet sweet with a fruity and citrusy flavor.

5/29

This day was not good. I was in pain for a majority of the day due to my work shoes being very uncomfortable, and the work day lasted basically 12 hours so that was not really fun. I really don't like that my weekend is being eaten by this but it is what it is.

For lunch I had a breakfast sandwich. It was fine. I saw this funny sticker placement. 

We got done at 6:00 pm, the train was delayed and we got back by 7:30. We then went to group dinner. I got fish and chips at this pretty decent pub.

When I returned to the hotel I still felt like a drink so I grabbed a French Martini. That was quite good. 

Honestly today was incredibly draining so I didn't put too much effort into this day of the blog. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

5/30 

Yay, this was better than the day prior. Work was largely the same. After though, I managed to find some time to be by myself and walked over to Kinokuniya. 

I absolutely love this book store. I know it's basically "book store, Japan" but truly there's no other place that's so directly catered to my interests, and it has a lot of stuff that I can't really find elsewhere. 

They had a lot of JoJo stuff on display with Part 7 being animated. 

This was honestly an interesting experience. Right now, my goal is to not buy a lot of merch like this because I'm about to go to Japan, but I did wanna get something. Unfortunately I also thought to not get anything that I could just get in Japan so not a lot was grabbing me. The price would also be much better in Japan. I did think about getting this amazing looking Ghost in the Shell art book. It was about $60 which is fairly high but that art is very cool. I'm also in the mood with the upcoming movie. I opted to pass though. 

I ended up grabbing this Key Frames art book of Yoshihiko Umakoshi, who did the character designs for My Hero Academia. I still quite like that anime and the character designs are amazing so I really wanted to get this. 

I also...out of curiosity....bought Sword Art Online Progressive vol 4. I could write a novel on my love/hate relationship with this stupid franchise. I might just do a blog post on that later. This is the chapter that the 2nd SAO Progressive movie was based on. Those movies, I actually will defend because they're not bad. They're like a pretty good second draft. I wouldn't recommend it to many people but they're alright. I read the first few pages and it's not bad. It's very low level reading but there's a handful of lines that go hard. That's as much praise I'll give SAO for today. 

After Kinokuniya, I headed straight to dinner with my team. We went to a Greek restaurant called Delos. This was fantastic. The cocktail I ordered was called the "Athens Spritz." I don't quite remember the ingredients but the base spirit was gin. It was much more bitter than I expected of a spritz. It was like drinking a wine almost. I liked it. 

Unfortunately I forgot to photo my dinner but I had Giouvesti. This was a slow cooked beef stew with orza pasta. It was excellent. 

5/31

We're almost there. Today was a nightmare at work but I know I'm going home tomorrow. The work was pretty taxing but I got through it. 

I didn't attend group dinner tonight because I had to do laundry as I was out of clean clothes. Instead I got pizza at a nearby place. 

I honestly didn't like it that much. I've never been a fan of margarita style pizza. I prefer more even cheese. Also the sauce was pretty sweet and I've never liked that for pizza. 

I also stopped by the hotel bar. Per the bartender's recommendation, I got the Empire Martini. This was excellent. Very tart and fruity. 

6/1

This is it. Last day. Work went as it did the last few days. 

Once I left the shop, I head back to the hotel to pick up my luggage. I had a little time to kill and I thought about going to one of my favorite bars in New York City, McSorley's. It's an Irish bar As far as I that's been in south Manhattan since 1854. I went there back in November with my parents. It was so cool. They kept every tradition and aesthetic since they opened. The walls were full of old antiques. It's absolutely fantastic. They give you two 8 oz pours instead of a full pint. It's definitely unique. They also only have two beers: light and dark. They pour it very laissez faire and they give no fucks about how much head you get. It all comes together for an incredible experience just being there. The bar near my apartment does the same with the two glasses and was inspired by them. 

Unfortunately I was unable to get down there in time for the train, so I made up for it. As I was walking to my hotel, I passed a place called Flute. Its a champagne bar speakeasy. Unfortunately that had just opened and its Monday so I was the only one there. Fortunately however I still had a great time!

These photos don't do the place justice with how dark it was. It literally took me a minute to adjust in order to read the menu. I ended up getting the bartender's recommendation for a bourbon cocktail. It was weird but great! 2 parts bourbon, 1 part St. Germaine. 

I had a great conversation with Luke, the bartender. If you are near 54th Street and Broadway, I highly recommend this place. I can't imagine how much livelier it is in the evening. 

For dinner I kept things simple. I had two slices of pizza from Roma's Pizza. 

I'll be blunt, this was fucking incredible. It wasn't as good as that random place I went to in Brooklyn a year ago but holy shit, hole in the wall New York pizza is amazing. 

Once I got on the train I was able to get a seat in the cafe car. I always try to get a seat there because the tables are just really nice to have. 

I watched a movie on Netflix called Kill Boksoon. It's a Korean action movie and it's kinda like reverse Taken. It's about an incredibly skilled middle aged assassin woman who also struggles being a mom. The action is kinda fucking sick at times and it's met with a John Wick style universe full of other assassins. I took a pause to write this blog post before I forgot so I can't give a full score yet but I really am liking it. 

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Wrap Up

So yeah. That's the trip. I honestly didn't know what to expect given I had such short notice. I did want to do more things but the scope of the job was much greater than anyone expected so I wasn't really able to do much. I'm glad I got to experience unique food and such though. All that said though, boy am I glad to be going home.