We walked down towards the river to meet up with Yuka & her family. She & her 2 daughters were waiting for us in the foyer of their apartment block. The girls (Aki 5yrs & Kaho 3yrs) were wearing their special party dresses & looked just like princesses. They have a lovely apartment overlooking the river & we were also lucky enough to meet Yuka’s Mum & Dad who are here on a visit from Japan.
We left the girls with their grandparents & walked a few blocks to meet Yuka’s husband Shige at the restaurant. We had a lovely meal with them & it was great to catch up with Yuka & also meet Shige. They have been here about 9 months & hope to spend another couple of years here before being posted elsewhere.
After leaving them we walked back to our hotel & had a drink up on the roof terrace like last night. Sara, the Irish waitress was working again & surprised us both by buying us a drink—-surely it’s normally the other way round!! It is 26 yrs since we were last in NY & boy has this city changed. People are friendly, you can walk everywhere, the traffic is less manic & aggressive— it seems an altogether nicer place.
I forgot to mention that this afternoon we walked back via Bryant Park & tripped across a game of Pétanque in progress. And they were good! It is a lovely park on 6th Ave with a board game area—chess & backgammon were being played— & a dance band was just setting up for an evening of Waltz music with dance lessons between 6 & 7pm & general dancing afterwards. Clearly, New York has changed since we were last here 26 years ago!