Labor day weekend is October was spent driving to New York City with girlfriends. The weather was perfect after many days of rain. We arrived to a sun warmed afternoon, staying across from Central Park and went to the Meatpacking district to check out new stores and have dinner.

Stella McCartney and Scoop looked great, always inspiring for their take on store design, eco-friendly fashions and new collections. Dinner at the Fig and Olive proved to us that ambiance and freshness of produce are two things that a chef needs to create magic! Saturday had us eating a big south Indian style vegetarian brunch on Lexington street and heading out to hours of walking visiting boutiques and cafes.

We hit Noho (great street art shows going on) and Soho-(crowded with shoppers). Couple of boutiques really inspired us. One selling all things stylishly Japanese and the other a small fusion boutique with a Morrocan, Indian and French mix! Broadway took us all the way down to Greenwich Village, by which time another great street art fair offered great promise. A tea and pastry stop across from the Kate/Jack Spade boutique and we headed back to freshen up for dinner. Five women getting ready for dinner and one bathroom? It has it's challenges! For dinner we headed to Asia de Cuba. Nice atmosphere, good wine list. Bathrooms are disappointing, as we discovered! We always look for artistic ones in creative or hip restaurants!

The food...well, the portions were very large and the hearty fusion of latin with chinese cuisine left us all with doggie bags to take back to the hotel's fridge! We decided that we should walk to Times Square to see the bright lights. Midnight, people everywhere, bill boards, cab drivers, you know, very different from Boston!

Large oils, small sketches, use of color and metaphor that made me want to pull out some paints and canvas on my ride back to Boston! Lots of pictures included of fall trees, NYC and our out and about local life! Happy Holidays!