If you secretly wished to experience some of the aspect of the saying, here I can guide you through.

Have you ever felt that you are subject to age discrimination when you tried to ride that small slide in the playground of your neighborhood where there is a sign saying no living soul over 13 or something similar?

Now today, forget about your big multiple sighs and big sagging disappointments around that playground.

Just visit the New Museum in my neighborhood, Lower East Side.

http://www.newmuseum.org/

There, you can experience the Carsten Holler exhibition until January 15th, 2012.

You can ride a Big Sci-Fi slide that’s piercing through three stories of the building. Of course, no worries about age discrimination. You can ride a shiny merry-go-round with pride (no shame, thinking of your age). Sci-Fi alien Santas will greet you with space ships and you can walk around with a big sci-fi helmet that will distort your vision upside down.

Don’t dispair around the playground in your neighborhood any more. Be happy at the New Museum. The Artsy Sci-Fi Playground will await you in the shiny silver armor.

Have Fun!! And Greet 2012 with futuristic ideas~~ ^^

Tons of younsters and superpower hero/heroine enthusiasts flocked together in groups to see who is attending to show off their super power this year. Some of them may not be living in the city. But the heck, Who cares? As long as you are here to make your presence, you’re part of the community.

Spotting some of these half-naked super heroes and Roman soldiers walking by on the street of LES (half way down in Manhattan) at chilly night was a big secretive amusement for a person who was a part of the super-hero group during the day.

Why don’t you join the festival next year? You’d better hurry. It might take a whole year to develop such a cool persona.

(Photos by Unjoo Na, Copyright @2011)

Music of Precision and Perfection!!!

Did u notice? The studio camera peeking through the audience’ camera. Blended lines of UGC and professional shots.

It’s sooo late 2000s.

Reminds me of my old days, going to independent bands’ performances, hopping over underground cubs here in NYC.

Key Word here: SCANDINAVIA!

Many of these attractions are enticing and luring me to their decorated and aromatic dens on a daily basis while walking by, like the Sirens from Greek Mythology.

Despite these restaurants’ attractive group sing-alongs, I always feel like nothing is more delicious and satisfactory than cooking at home.

I grew up in an environment where my mom always cooked three meals a day starting from scratch everyday, always with fresh ingredients. My mom always used freshly squeezed homemade sesame oil from the best organic sesame available and she also made soy sauce and spicy pepper paste (so-called “gochujang”) herself, cooking without using sugar or any artificial ingredients. She even grew some fresh organic vegetables in the garden. And my grandmother always sent us boxes of juicy fruits harvested from her back-yard orchard every year. I still remember the sweet taste of all the apples, figs, pears, and persimmons around the harvest time each year.

Living and working busy in the city, surrounded by countless restaurants, is the kind of environment that pulls me back away from my childhood experience as farthest as possible. But there is one thing that keeps me on the ground and pushes me back to appetizing home cooking. It’s the farmers market that opens every week all over the city. My favorite usual destination is the Union Square Farmers Market which opens every Wednesday and Saturday, which encourages me to undertake more than 20 blocks of traveling northbound every Saturday. Since saving time is important to me, it has become my key strategy(?) to buy fresh ingredients at the Market as much as possible like mushrooms, apples, apple cider, fresh plain yogurt, vegetables, eggs, etc. and to cook a large amount of food during the weekend. I shamelessly admit that I don’t have many cooking skills and recipes, so I just cook a large amount of stew whatever I feel like making that weekend. If I have the cooked meal stored during the week, I always feel like very safe and sound, perhaps on cloud nine over the whole week, just by peeking inside my big refrigerator everyday.

I happened to know one New Yorker with a similar growing up experience of mine, whose name is Rocco Dispirito, a well known chef living in the city. I saw him at the 53rd New York Emmy Awards Gala earlier this year, who happened to take pictures and have interviews right next to my table. But frankly, I had no idea who he was at that time (sorry, Rocco~). Later I realized that he’s a famous chef who promotes healthy home cooking. I think it’s a real good thing to encourage people to do more home cooking and to have healthier lifestyle. I think I’m gonna say some good words to him when I see him next time, thanking him for his endeavors in promoting home cooking. Every human being really needs that kind of home cooking experience everyday like all moms would do for their kids~ ^^

Hope that you could explore locally grown fresh ingredients for your home cooking experiments this coming weekend…

(Photos, Copyright 2010 by Unjoo Na)

One day I was hanging out at my friend’s spacious rooftop, enjoying cool beer, a ping-pong table, a cool hammock, and cool breeze, and cool buddies.

At that perfect moment, it did strike me that something was missing. That was music. So I proudly took out my iPhone and started bragging about having some music in my latest digital gadget. What a big mistake.

Since my always cool friend had an iPod dock station ready on the rooftop, we were soon able to enjoy our music moments, electronic, rock and jazziiii. It was a random play from my playlist and it was just perfect spring moments…until when… All of sudden from that dock station I hear some words about Ken and Barby (intentionally spelled incorrectly). No offense to the song, but I had no idea how the song ended up in my playlist (a typical denial).

My always cood friend gave me this sudden look and said “I can’t believe you have that song!!” Badly blushed, my upper head area was spinning pretty fast in an effort to find a perfect excuse to escape from being a ‘so uncool friend.’

“Oh, I didn’t know that it was there.” “Oh, actually, it’s not mine.” “It’s randomly shuffled, so it’s not my fault.” Blur, Blur, Blur. I think I used up all these excuses within 5 seconds right away. Sounds very convincing, right?

After brief awkward silence and drifting away from the topic a little bit, My always cool friend said again the magic sentence “I can’t believe that you have that song.” This time, he even shook his head.

After the long brooding months of deliberation, this is my final declaration. “I blame shuffles. Damn shuffles!”

So nowadays I directly go to the Pandora App on my iPhone and carefully choose artists. And play QuickMix, keeping my fingers crossed. So far, I’m pretty happy with my newly found identity.

Have you ever felt that “YOUR PLAYLIST =(equals) YOU”? And have you ever made desperate efforts to reestablish your true identity and regain your self-claimed innate coolness? If so, then say something to me, so that I know I’m not alone in this world.

If you want to find real machines with these nostalgic-classic games in the city, try to visit the best hot dog place in the East Village, on Saint Marks between 1st and A. The place is called “Crif Dogs,” with a big “Eat Me” sausage sign dangling outside the half-basement space. Bring your real coins when you visit. There is no “Insert Coin” sign to click, but real machines with real coin slots. Hope that they didn’t do anything to these machines while I was not visiting.