It’s Thanksgiving weekend. A few friends wanted to go to visit the only UNIGLO store in North America, which is in New York City. Of course Ho, being a “funaholic” and “fashionholic”, wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity. Our friends were very brave to invite us to join their 3 nights and 3 days trip to New York, as this would be the first ever long road trip for the kids. We are not talking about 2 hours to Niagara, it’s a 9-hour drive. Honestly, with our experience in Hong Kong, I believe my kids would behave “most” of the time. Yet still, riding in a van is quite different from on a plane where you can walk around.
The kids were very excited. We wanted them feel in charge of something, so we asked them to be responsible for the road entertainment department. After serious consideration, the 2 of them picked one DVD – Spy Kids. When I suggested other ones to take, they both answered, “We don’t want to lose it…” Great! We’re stuck in the van watching one movie for 9 hours.
It’s a brilliant idea to depart on Thursday. Even though we left our house at 7pm, after picking up D, Lou, and V on the way, by 9pm, we were at the border with no traffic at all. I made some smoked salmon sandwiches with my beloved Tang Zhong Toast Bread so we can save eating time too. I think it was about 2am when we arrived at the first stop. We only needed to stop once before then because Adrian woke up with his sleepy legs. He was going to throw a tantrum but Ho got him controlled by taking him out for fresh air. The kids were wide awake when we checked in the hotel at 2:30am. I only remembered asking them to brush their teeth before going to bed. Luckily they both went back to bed quite quickly after.
The theme of our first full day Friday was shopping of course. I was quite worried about what the kids could do for the day when we drove by the shops. You can’t imagine how relieved I was when I saw the big Scholastics store across the street of Uniglo. The kids and I spent at least 2 hours there reading and watching the Magic School Bus video while daddy shopped for deals in different stores.
Finally we got to see the Statue of Liberty on Saturday! It’s very tiny looking at it from the pier but we’re there to see it, not from TV or pictures! This was also Fifth Avenue day. Ho and I so wanted to bring the kids to FAO Schwartz. They went wild when they got on the Big Piano. Ho purposely showed them the movie before coming to New York. Livie loved the design your own Barbie computer and the fashion show too. Somehow Adrian fell in love with the life saber from Star Wars. He played with it whenever he saw it at the toy stores. It was so funny when I saw them playing with it and making their own sound effects. We also went to the American Girls store. I was waiting for Livie to ask me to buy her one, but she actually wasn’t even interested. She said, “They look so fat.” Oh my, no wonder she doesn’t eat well. She has weight control in her mind already!
On Sunday I took the kids with me following D, L, and V while Ho went back to Uniglo the 3rd time in 3 days! On our way to the 90K sq ft Forever 21 store at Time Square, we passed a huge Toys R Us store. Looked a like a lot was going on there. So I brought the kids in. Wow, it’s a flagship store with a 3-storey high Ferris wheel built on the basement and a live size moving T-Rex on the second floor! You can tell they really know how to do business because there was toy demonstration in every 10-ft diameter area. How can you not spend any money in the store? End up, the uncles and auntie came to look for us at Toys R Us too after their disappointing visit to the Forever 21 store.
We made one more stop at Muji and then we headed back to Toronto. We had a great time in this trip, seems like everyone got what they wanted in NYC. Apart from clothing for himself, Ho also bought me some very nice clothes and my favourites are the HeatTech undershirts from Uniglo! Kids went to one big toy store everyday, they were happy too. Luckily we found these toy stores so little feet of Livie’s can rest because we forgot to bring her stroller. Special mention goes to Uncle L who did an amazing job in driving us around in the crazy New York traffic. I love the combination of this group, I think we can go anywhere together! What made the trip more perfect was that we still had one full day before work and school day came on Tuesday.
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