So, last weekend I was at the Manna alumni retreat and stayed over at Jane and Ted’s for the weekend (Jenn was there too), drove from Philly back to work Monday morning, went up to the city the next day (tonight) to have dinner at Kellari Taverna (Hellenic cuisine, 44th between 5th and 6th) and listen to Tchaikovsky and Bernstein at Carnegie Hall with Suanne from California, and am now posting this from my phone on the train back to my place where I plan to do laundry and pack before I leave for Taiwan and Japan in 5 hours.

I took the train into the city last Saturday to grab dinner with Jeff, Jamie, Gabby, John, Dan, Josh, and Jung at Sake Bar Hagi on 49th street between 6th and 7th. The dishes were small but reasonably priced and very tasty. We only had one order of sashimi (yellowtail), which was fresh though a bit more red than I was accustomed to. The rest of the dishes were also delicious, including the soft shell crab and a number of noodle dishes. I highly recommend the place.

After dinner, we met up with Joyce at Third Floor Cafe in K-town (corner of 32nd and 5th), which has a very loungy feel with good music and decent drinks and food. I liked the ambiance, although it was pretty loud and it’s easy to lose your voice trying to talk above the music. My hearing must be pretty bad, because I kept having to ask people to repeat their words even when they were screaming into my ear.

I ended up staying over at Jeff’s place even though I hadn’t planned on it, and the next morning we went to Redeemer (Tim Keller spoke on Job and how to deal with hardships; it was good). Afterwards we– Jeff, Jamie, Dan, Christine, Jimmy, Erin, and her boyfriend (I forget his name)– had lunch at Fig & Olive on Lex between 62nd and 63rd. I had poached eggs on some kind of freshly baked bread, which was better than I expected. Their seafood salad also looked good.

I usually use POP to access my various gmail accounts, so I rarely look at the spam folder, which is only available via their web interface. Just now I checked the online spam folder for one of my gmail accounts and saw that it’s been spammed 2822 times in the past 30 days. That’s roughly 4 spam emails every hour. I’m not sure if I should be impressed or dismayed.