I had the opportunity to go to New York during beautiful weather.  I enjoyed just walking around the city taking pics of the buildings and the street scene.  I toured the MOMA and was totally confused.  This painting looked totally black, but upon closer examination, there were slightly different shades in boxes.  Then, this hanging looked like a whiteboard.  So I took a picture of the exit door, which I thought had equal merit.  There was Van Gogh's Starry Night, lots of Picasso's (which I still don't get), big Claude Monet water lily painting, and Pollack's famous paint splashing.  I broke up my MOMA trip with lunch at the Modern restaurant with a tiny crab salad that amazingly was fulfilling with delicious tiny French loafs of bread and a knockout drink.  I tried Blue Bottle coffee and Grumpy coffee in my attempt to get over jetlag.  I thought neither compared to Philz.  The National Debt sign was scary, as was the nearby Berlin Wall segments.  The view of the 9/11 memorial from above was beautiful and sobering.  I loved the Apple store in Grand Central staton - bought an Apple TV.  I had dinner at the New York Yankee themed restaurant, NYY, and had a humongous bone-in rib-eye, mostly so I could get Tanaka's name burned into the bone.  Tanaka's Kanji characters are the same as my Chinese name!

I love how Eva airlines is now part of Star Alliance, so I can stop in Taipei on my way home.  We had a big dinner with friends and relatives to celebrate Taiwan's Father's Day on Aug 8 (8/8, because eight in Chinese sounds like father, almost like Da-da, but "Ba-ba").  I had a couple of other meals with my Dad and stepmom, and drinks at night with friends.  I stayed at the super central Home hotel, where I had a view of 101 on a huge full moon night.  They had access to a gigantic fitness gym as well.  Loved my stay in Taiwan!