The last day

It was already the last day of our 5-day staycation. It feels like all we did was to get on the bike, eat, hang in some park, sleep, and do laundry. At least it was nice not to cook for a few days, especially with this weather. Another very warm day, and we were out in a beautiful neighborhood Seward Park in the morning. There was another kids' event there this morning presented by SummerStage- they had larger audience, but the hip-hop dance performance was pretty lame. We headed to the library and Taiyo went crazy over books. When we left the library, Taiyo pointed at his favorite cafe across the street. It's time for lunch.

Lunch: Cafe Petisco at East Broadway and Jefferson. Fairy kid friendly, although they have no high chairs and some of the staff are not really kid friendly. Maybe because of the location where we don't have many other similiar dining choice, there's always other parties with kids and or babies there, which makes it look kid friendly. That maybe another reason Taiyo feels comfortable- there's always other kids. Today we ran into Carissa, my long-time customer at SOY, and the service was much better than past visits, with a friendly waitress who talked to Taiyo a lot. She also brought us extra napkins- which surprisingly is not a common treatment we get in many restaurants. Other times he liked cous cous, but todeay we went for a plate of falafel, which Taiyo really liked to enjoy with ketchup. He didn't like hummus although they are also made with chickpeas. He's generally a very good eater, but it's still very hard to tell what he may like or not. He didn't touch my coconut chicken burger, which was really good. Another plus about this place is that we always meet kid-loving older people there. Taiyo charmed older man sitting next to us, and he also loved attention.

In the afternoon Taiyo practiced his hip-hop moves at the laundromat. His nap was later than usual I knew we were going to miss another perfect swimmming pool day.

Dinner: SobaKoh East 5th Street between 1st and 2nd Aves.
I was thinking of their cold noodle for a while, and it was the first visit with Taiyo. At 7pm the place was pretty busy already, and two empty tables were reserved. Taiyo couldn't understand why we were not allowed at the table and protested by kneeling down with face down on the floor. He was not comforted by any of the staff. We settled at the end of the counter, which was fine with me. The owner already finished making his soba for the night, it seemed, and I had no entertainment for him. But when tamagoyaki (egg omlette) arrived, he was happy again. He also enjoyed goma-ae with broccoli rabe. After that, we waited for our soba a little too long. He became restress and cranky, and started running around the floor, but didn't get any response from other patrons or staff. He eventually began screaming that he wants to go outside, but I didn't want to just walk outside during our meal. He kept fussing for quite a while but we were very much ignored. Finally I asked the young waitress if it was going to be a while before the soba in Japanese, without realizing she wasn't Japanese, and she said, 'sorry,' and didn't say anything to our waiter. So after another long five-minute of seriously fussing Taiyo, I walked up to the waiter, less than 10 feet away, and asked if it's going to be much longer I should take it to go. "It's coming right now," which it did, after two more long minutes. Taiyo did settled back into his seat and ate half of the noodle. But we were very much ready to go after the meal. The food is excellent, but recommended with a little one? Not really, although the floor is fairly spacious it feels quite accomodating with a stroller. It just didn't give us a good-feeling dining experience. There's no high chair available.

To make ourselves feel better, we stopped at an empty little playground at Houston and Christy. An older guy was working out, doing push-ups and jogging around the park. Then a lady with a kid with a red do-rag walked in. I smiled and said hello to her. The kid went to say hello to the guy who was working out, and the woman and the man exchanged some words in - sign language. Then another older man walked in and he started signing also. I remembered about one night when I went to a bar on Essex with a friend, and it was packed and full of people talking loudly in - sign language! Taiyo hit it off with the boy, who was 4-years-old- I think that's what his grandmother told me in sign. We all hang around until the parks employee came to kick us out because they had to close the gate.