My East Village apartment!

Without further ado, here is my apartment. After searching high and low (25+ showings) we settled on this little beauty. It's small, but it's actually much bigger than many of the others we looked at, it's clean and freshly painted, it has fabulous natural light, and it has all new kitchen appliances.

It's not quite a studio or one-bed. There's a little room with two glass french doors that is LITERALLY big enough to fit my bed and night stand. But, that's all we really needed because we just wanted something to separate the sleeping area from the living area. It's MUCH better than a studio!

The rooftop deck is definitely my favorite part of the apartment! As you can see, we have some pretty awesome views...

So, after a crazy apartment hunting experience, I'm not planning on moving any time soon! Come visit! :)

I tried Google Glass!

Last Thursday, I got to try Google Glass! I was so excited (as you can tell from the picture) to try Google's latest device because it's not yet released to the public, but there's been so much buzz about it.

Google Glass is a device that you wear over your eyes with a small glass square that displays a screen and uses augmented reality to overlay information on what you see in front of you. It's voice/touch controlled, and you can ask it to do things like texting someone, getting directions or taking a picture.

A member of the Mashable team was lucky enough to get a pair of Google Glass early, and because we're all pretty geeky, we gathered to try it out.

The experience was way different than I expected. The chunk of glass is pretty thick, and you have to tilt the glasses at just the right angle to view the little screen. To activate the glasses, you touch the side panel and say, "ok Glass," which I thought was a little awkward. Then, a menu appears with options like "text someone," which you then have to say, and it takes you to another screen. If you tell it to take a picture, it takes a pic of what you see through the glass lens. 

So I really didn't get to spend too much time using them. Obviously everyone in the office (who knew they were there) wanted to try them, and we were trying to not just completely zap the battery. It was kind of awkward how you had to look through them in the exactly the right angle, and I didn't like how you had to say "ok, Glass." It was really cool, though to be able to get directions, and to take a video of what you're looking at.

I'm not sure how many people will actually want to use these in real life though. It seems very intrusive and you really couldn't do too much different than on a smartphone. I could see people like doctors using the google hangout function to do remote surgeries or something, but it's harder to imagine in every day life. Although saying this, I feel like it's something old people say about technology! It'll be really interesting when these are released for real and all of the different apps are released.

Regardless if these are an everyday fashion accessory, or they're only used on special occasions, they're super futuristic and really cool! Apparently we're about a year away from them being sold to consumers. Who's excited??

Pocha 32

Last weekend I ventured into Koreatown for the first time. Even after living in the city for a couple months, I didn't know it was there! Korea Town is a couple blocks, but Pocha 32, the restaurant my friends suggested, was on 32nd between 4th and 5th ave. 

When you walk down these blocks, you really feel like you've been transported to Asia. All the signs were in Korean, they had karaoke bars everywhere (which is very popular in Asia, I'm told), and ALL of the restaurants looked very authentic. It was very cool!

Pocha 32 had a 30 minute wait at 10pm on a Saturday. The line stretched down a long, narrow stairway, and my friend had put our name in so I had no idea what the place looked like while we waited. 

When our name was finally called, we were seated at a circular table that had a barrel underneath holding it up. The ceiling was covered with green fish net with bottle caps hanging underneath. The lights were dim, and they had the weirdest mix of music playing. One minute it was Carrie Underwood, the next it was Backstreet Boys. Interesting choice.

Pocha 32

There were also at least 15 signs (in a tiny restaurant) saying that EVERYONE would have to show IDs to drink. One of the signs said that "Facebook profiles wouldn't count as a form of ID." Unbelievable that that's been a problem before.

The first thing we ordered was watermelon soju. It was basically half of a hollowed watermelon filled with watermelon juice and vodka. You ladle the soju into small bowls. It was VERY tasty. And it would be perfect for summertime. (Or anytime, really.)

Watermelon Soju from Pocha 32

We also got a stew filled with pork dumplings, peppers, beef, tofu and broth. It comes in a large pot over a little flame that keeps it boiling. One entree was more than enough for three of us! By the time we were finished it looked like we had only eaten half. It was delicious though! Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called, but it's in the "stew" section in the menu if you ever go.

Overall, this was a really cool place. The food was  good, but not the type of food I could eat over and over again in a short period of time. It felt very authentic. It was also reasonably priced; about $20 each plus tax and tip. Yay for trying new foods!

The move to NYC

Moving to NYC is one of the hardest things in the world, and for reasons that you wouldn't expect. Personally, it wasn't that hard to leave North Carolina. It wasn't hard to find someone to take over my lease in Raleigh, pack up my things and figure out those logistics. It was hard because the apartment rental market here is INSANE. Really. 

In New York, landlords have ALL of the power. There are so many hundreds of people moving around at a given time, that the best apartments come on and off the market in hours. This makes things difficult when one lives in a different state. I accepted my job offer a little over a month before my start date, and I thought that would be plenty of time to find an apartment. Not exactly the case.

I began searching on my own and quickly became overwhelmed. Personally, I'm over random roommates, so I didn't want to go that route. Also, the listings on Craig's List are all over the place. You can't tell if the pictures are accurate or not (and even if they are, it's really easy to make a tiny apartment look big in pictures). I had also heard horror stories about brokers posting fake apartments online to reel in clients, and then mysteriously pulling the apt off the market once someone is interested, just to get their contact info. SHADY.

Even after hearing some terrible things about brokers, I quickly learned that I couldn't navigate the listings myself. I researched reputable brokers, mostly on the review site Yelp. I found a company called Anchor Associates that had good reviews, and I liked their website because they were very up front about their fees. I wanted to feel like I could trust my broker. I didn't mind spending money on someone to help make appointments and help me through the process, but I didn't want to feel like they were being sneaky, or trying to get extra money somehow.

I ended up working with Andrew Vo, who was great. He wasn't pushy at all, and was very patient when I looked at 25+ apartments. His job isn't easy, and I honestly wouldn't have found my awesome apartment without him. 

I also saw some real hell-hole apartments. Dingy, dirty and small. I went into the search knowing that I would be down-sizing (a ton), but some apartments were shocking. I wish I had taken pictures of some of the terrible ones. But I did take some that I actually liked. Here are some of the runner-ups:

NYC apartment 1

NYC apartment 2

NYC apartment 3

In the end, none of these worked out. It was very frustrating at the time, but it worked out for the better. I ended up finding an apartment in my price range that was way better for me. Stay tuned for pics of the winning apartment. Let me know if you have any questions about moving to NYC from out of state!