20: queens

new borough unlocked: queens

after falling asleep last night around 2:00, I was surprisingly energized when waking up at 8:00am today. although i felt rather gross from that alcohol tiredness from the day before, i still decided to stay up, eat, and get ready for the day.

today I met up with anderson and a new friend, John! John reached out to me on a facebook post about moving to the city after I said I was half filipino. John has lived an interesting life. he was born in the philippines, moved to england when he was 2, and has lived in california, north carolina, and now nyc. he's the first filipino with an english accent i've ever met. in manhattan, there are not that many filipinos out and about like california has. speaking of which, we went out to get filipino food.

we took the train to woodside, queens which is deemed "little manila." the filipino restaurant we had in mind was actually closed for a private event, but the street we were on had so many filipino restaurants that it wasn't a problem

it was anderson's first time eating filipino food so we ordered lumpia and pancit bihon for the table and each got sisig. not going to lie, the food was disappointing ☠️. the lumpia and pancit were alright, and the sisig was not very meaty. i told him anderson that this was not the best introduction to filipino food and John recommended a better place in manhattan that i'll have to try.

during our conversation, anderson spoke about really wanting to try Jolibee and John supporting his opinion that it's so good. I responded that it was alright and essentially don't get your hopes up. John put it into perspective that I grew up surrounded by Asian culture, whereas him and anderson lived in Arizona and North Carolina, where they didn't.

it's interesting the different walks of life that everyone is from, especially hanging with asians living in predominantly white communities. i always see the "California Asian" tik toks about other asians growing up in US being jealous of the sense of community and normalcy being Asian in California is. and i'm not even that asian ☠️

after eating and making stops at Jolibee and Red Ribbon, we took the train to Flusing, which is super asian. anderson wanted to check flushing out and potentially get some food, but we were all stuffed to the brim with food from lunch. we walked around flushing for a bit just chatting and decided to head back home, which was perfect because my social battery was drained.

i'm actually not sure if it was my social battery or if i was just dehydrated and tired but i fantasized about going home, drinking ice cold water from my hydro, taking off my socks, and just chilling. which i indeed did do and felt amazing. i took a fat nap and had a solid day