I should have known a weekend trip to New York could be so much more. As it was, this was set to be an awesome long weekend: Panda and I would spend a day going through my old town of Brewster, then spend a day in the city before heading home on the third day to settle back in for a shortened work week. I was really excited to revisit the areas of my early teens, from Westchester to Putnam counties. It was also a chance for me to share a bit of my childhood with Panda. We were both looking forward to exploring New York City together for the first time – this was my first long weekend since starting work and I wanted to make the best of it (and we most certainly did)!
Don’t just have fun – document it and share it and tag it! Friends might just come knocking.
I’ll share more about the trip another time. What really struck me about this experience was when I posted a few items to my various social media channels. Something completely unexpected happened again and again: my friends in the area began reaching out to say they were nearby! This is exactly what social media is great for, encouraging connections that otherwise would have been easily missed. There were my Singaporean friends and former coworkers who messaged me that they were in the city for one more day before returning home. There was the Yelp comments from my college friend who lived in my building one year and was now in grad out in New Jersey. Then there was the Instagram conversation I had with another college friend, who did Orientation with me (and Panda) and was now doing her residency in Jersey. I mean, I knew I had friends out in the region, but it hadn’t occurred to me who I might be able to meet up with on our trip!
Each of them reached out to me on a social media channel last night and I messaged all of them through those different channels. Funny how they all found me through a different site/app! By this morning, I had arranged to meet with my grad school friend (Shadow) and the Singaporean coworkers (Starfish and Zen). Shadow met us at our hotel in Secaucus, where we had breakfast together. Panda knew her from when we hung out in college, so it was nice for the three of us to catch up and meet up so far from UCLA. I had thought she was still doing Teach For America, but she’s already well into her first year of a grad program! After she left, Panda and I headed into the city to meet up with Starfish and Zen at the MOMA. It was really nice to be able to introduce them to each other, since I talk about them here and there and now Panda has a better impression of who they are. We hung out for about an hour before splitting ways – they were off to a lunch meeting and we were due to head home.
I’m really glad I was able to get those two brief encounters with people I love seeing. Too bad Opti, my optometrist residency friend couldn’t meet up as well… that would have rounded things out nicely. Still, it’s great to know that next time I head up north I’ve got some friends to hang out with. And to think, it was all because I shared bits of my life on Facebook, Instagram, and Yelp! I guess next time I can do a better job of letting friends know my plans, since I probably could have met with a bunch more had they known.
I eat it all the time, I think about my life in terms of what to eat next, I socialize with people preferably with food at hand. It’s a great way of uniting people – after all, who doesn’t eat food? I even go around taking pictures of all the food I am served at various restaurants and gatherings. Sometimes it’s the presentation that makes it almost too good to dig into; sometimes it’s the delicious aroma that makes your mouth water and your heart fill with happiness. Seriously, good food can lift your spirits! The best thing is, it can be enjoyed over and over again – sometimes alone, sometimes shared, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
One of my favorite places to go as of late (and unfortunate for my health, I’m sure) is all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ. Between the cute little appetizer dishes, the tasty salad dressing, the rice paper, the egg soup, and the scrumptious brisket and bugolgi, what more could you ask for? Sure you come out smelling of meat and smoke, but that’s not exactly a bad thing, is it? I’m also a huge fan of BCD’s (which I like to joke is missing an A), which is a Korean tofu house that’s open 24 hours. Who needs Denny’s or IHOP when you can get those Korean appetizers, a small yellow fried fish, a bowl of fresh rice, a stone pot of boiling tofu soup, and a toasty rice soup at 2 or 3 in the morning? Granted, for those poor vehicle-less souls living on campus, I guess they have little choice, since they can’t get out to K-town. But hey, as long as you’ve got motorized wheels, you’ve got no excuses!
The great thing about LA is that you never run out of good food to eat. I can’t wait to go back to Buddha’s Belly in Santa Monica for some Asian fusion and chocolate fondue, or over to Daphne’s for some amazingly tasty shrimp pita, or out to cha for tea to get the best boba in town and some yummy treats as well. There’s still plenty to explore, like this other place that has chocolate fondue (which I only knew of from pictures that Opti put up), or the various places lining the streets I often drive along. From Chinese to Greek, from Korean to Persian, from Japanese to Brazilian, there’s a lot more to try! It’ll be slow going though, until I find myself a job and have an income again! For now I’ll just take advantage of UCLA Young Alumni events (like the one tonight) to meet people and try new restaurants.
It started Saturday with dim sum, where we also ate with Cherry (who was also an Orientation Counselor with us last year) and Envie (Panda’s brother). It was really nice to catch up with Cherry, who just completed a rigorous summer program, and meet Brother, who I’ve heard about over the months, but never gotten more than an impression of. After we filled our bellies with delectable tidbits, we went across the way to a photo sticker machine place and took some fun shots together. Between the six of us we managed to squeeze into one booth and split the sixteen copies of the four shots we printed, then split off. I took Panda, Envie, and Cherry back before spinning back to get Opti and Doc, who had gone back to Opti’s so she could pack for the overnight.
As I thought, the wait was drastically shorter than the guy told us, so we were seated about an hour after we had originally arrived. Unfortunately, restaurants of this type work at a slow pace, casually letting you soak in the atmosphere and enjoy your soup and salad before the chef shows up to entertain the table. We were ravenous and didn’t get fed substantial food until about 10 o’clock. The performance was fun, but not as flashy as others I’ve seen and the fried rice was very tasty, but the chicken was a bit chewy and bland. The vegetables were juicy, but not my favorite thing to eat and the shrimp was pretty good with the provided sauce. Overall I felt the experience was average and probably not worth the money, so I think I’ll look for cheaper alternatives to this type of dining next time. It was nice to share it in a double date kind of setting though.
This morning, Panda woke up early and couldn’t quite get back to sleep, but the rest of us slept in until we lethargically pulled ourselves up and decided that we were due for some brunch. We walked down to a cafe that serves breakfast all day and uses fresh ingredients to make tasty sandwiches, burgers, and of course, the standard breakfast foods as well. From there, it was time to resume our carding craze until dinner. Throughout the game, the boys got chastised by the girls, who were both whooping the boys for the majority of the time. We can get pretty sassy and have a fun time bantering back and forth flirtatiously. The guys learned that they just couldn’t win unless they placated us. 😛
