{"id":5336,"date":"2022-07-19T17:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T17:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=5336"},"modified":"2022-09-07T04:44:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T04:44:28","slug":"best-thing-about-nyc-is-you-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2022\/07\/19\/best-thing-about-nyc-is-you-and-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Thing about NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>I had planned to attend ASRS<\/a> in NYC as an opportunity to visit family and friends. But with my parents stuck in Davis and Melody attending a conference in Florida, it became a mission to keep Westley alive as I planned our father-son itinerary in the Big Apple. We secured an Uber car-seat<\/a> from JFK after our red-eye and quickly unpacked at my parents’ home before heading out. Westley was not a fan of my everything bagel<\/a>, but enjoyed our subway ride to Dumbo to visit Brooklyn Bridge Park<\/a>. Here, we watched locals work out, swing, roller skate, and play handball and pickleball along the Manhattan skyline on Pier 2<\/a>. I politely declined Westley’s request to assassinate me at the playground<\/a>, and instead shared a burger, fries, and Oreo shake at Shake Shack<\/a> to escape the heat. From there, we walked past a dead rat to cross Brooklyn Bridge, stopping for photos and a Brooklyn hat before passing City Hall<\/a> to reach the Oculus station<\/a> and 9\/11 Memorial<\/a>. My first visit to Ground Zero since the tragedy 21 years ago felt especially poignant having spent many high school days there, and watching videos with Westley at the 9\/11 Tribute Museum<\/a> was unexpectedly emotional for me. We hydrated with boba tea<\/a> and street vendor mangos to burn if back off at the Battery Playscape<\/a> and SeaGlass Carousel<\/a> on the way to the Staten Island Ferry<\/a> to see the Statue of Liberty<\/a>. Our exhausting first day ended with dinner with my cousin Minh’s family. I awoke Wednesday to share my childhood toys and crafts with Westley, then headed to the OIS<\/a> meeting while Westley got drawing lessons and new bakugans<\/a> from Minh and my nephews. I picked him up for a slice at Korner Pizza<\/a> and cone at Carvel<\/a> on the way to our hotel<\/a>, where a detour through Rockefeller Center<\/a> and FAO Schwartz<\/a> ended with an indoor booma<\/a> and E.A.K. ramen<\/a> for dinner. I stayed up late to practice my talk, and walked with Westley to Javits Center<\/a> next morning to upload it, but got kicked out of breakfast due to a sketchy building policy prohibiting children. We instead explored fighter jets, space shuttle, and submarine at the Intrepid<\/a>, shared pizza<\/a>\u00a0at Gotham West Market<\/a>, then returned to Javits in stealth mode for my talk, as my friend Parisa watched Westley fashion wikkistix<\/a>. We were relieved to return to the hotel, where Westley completed his Daiso 3D frontloader<\/a> before returning to Times Square for visits to the Disney store<\/a> and FDNY Fire Zone<\/a>, udon at Tsuro Ton Tan<\/a>, and macarons at Mia’s Brooklyn Bakery<\/a>. Melody finally joined us Friday morning to enjoy Krispy Kreme<\/a> donuts and NYC views atop the Empire State Building<\/a> that reminded us of Curious George’s<\/a> adventures. Lunch at Carmine’s<\/a> with Eric and Sumit was heavy and exhausting, but BT21<\/a> paraphernalia at Line Friends<\/a> helped energize Melody and Westley for our afternoon at Central Park Zoo<\/a>. Unfortunately, animal feeding was over at the Children’s Zoo<\/a> and the RC sail boats were absent at Conservatory Water<\/a>, but we recovered over dinner with Nancy and Meenakashi, whose Central Park West sunset view overlooking Lincoln Center’s<\/a> summer dance<\/a>\u00a0made for a relaxing end to the long day. On Saturday, we embarked on a Flushing food tour with New Flushing Bakery’s<\/a> egg tarts, Joe’s steam rice roll<\/a> with curry fish balls, White Bear’s<\/a> chili oil wontons, Chongqing noodles at New World Mall<\/a>, and lian pi from Xi’an Famous Foods<\/a>, but were disappointed by the closure of Sibling’s potato noodles<\/a> and Golden Shopping Mall<\/a>. A potty break interrupted our subway ride to the American Museum of Natural History<\/a>, but we made the next showing at the Hayden Planetarium<\/a> before hanging with Jing’s family at the dinosaur exhibits and Ed’s family for dinner<\/a> and dessert<\/a>. After a final ad board<\/a> Sunday morning, we headed to K-town for BCD Tofu House<\/a> and H-mart<\/a> kimbap for our return flight. The National Museum of Mathematics<\/a> offered fun, interactive exhibits of patterns and puzzles which kept us busy up to retrieving our luggage<\/a> for the flight home. We would’ve appreciated a break before returning to work, but it was fun tracing landmarks from the New York City<\/a> song lyrics with Westley as he navigated crowds, smells, and subway in my hometown.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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I had planned to attend ASRS in NYC as an opportunity to visit family and friends. But with my parents stuck in Davis and Melody attending a conference in Florida, it became a mission to keep Westley alive as I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5336"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5413,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5336\/revisions\/5413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}