we planned on leaving by 7am. i set my alarm to 5am, since i needed extra time to get ready. it wasn't hard to wake up, the sun was already out, filling the living room with diffused sunlight. i went to use the bathroom and take a shower. while i was in the shower i thought i heard some try the bathroom door (which i didn't lock). a few minutes later my father was muttering something. "i'm taking a shower," i said, as he hurriedly left, mistakingly thinking it was my mother.
i went into the backyard to take some photos, figured my big aunt (who's into plants) in flushing might like to see what we're growing. i'm rarely in belmont that early in the morning. so early in fact, the squash flowers hadn't even fully opened up yet. the most popular plant seemed to be the mulleins (verbascums 'snowy spires') growing underneath the grapevines: at least two bumblebees were already visiting their flowers.
when i used the bathroom this morning i didn't have a satisfying poop. a good poop is essential before any long trip, so whenever the bathroom was available, i'd go back and try again. i must've tried 3-4 times, each time making a bit more progress, but still wasn't wasn't entirely satisfied with the result. but at least it was something: sometimes before trips i get so anxious, i can't poop at all.
we didn't leave belmont until 7:15am, a little behind schedule, but google maps told us the ride down to flushing would only take 3+ hours, so we had time. we took the turnpike (90) to interstate 84 (around sturbridge), then onto interstate 91 in hartford. instead of cutting through new haven, google maps routed us into route 15, which it said would be 2 minutes faster. we connected onto interstate 95 around fairfield, and pulled over at a rest stop to use the bathroom. we continued on 95, and went south onto interstate 678. once over the whitestone bridge we were in flushing. the whole trip took us 3-1/2 hours, plus a 12 minute rest stop. we made good time, and driving on a sunday morning there was no traffic.
we actually passed by where my big aunt was staying but didn't stop because we first had to find a place to park the car. not knowing how parking works in flushing, we didn't bother looking for any street parking, worried you might need a resident parking sticker. in hindsight, realizing that parking was free on sundays (like most cities), we definitely had a lot more options. the place we wanted to park at was the flushing commons south garage. not sure the rate, but a 2021 photo of a posted sign on google maps showed $22 for 24 hours. as we got closer, we came across a big empty municipal parking lot. we checked the rates, it wasn't too bad, $26 for 24 hours. so we decided to park there, instead of trying to find the original place where we wanted to park. the only bad thing about this lot was there was no shade, but because it's out in the open, there was probably less chance of our car getting broken into. later i'd learn it wasn't a municipal lot, but rather operated by SP+. all their payment machines were broken, so to pay, you scan a QR code that takes you to a parking.com website. after creating an account, you into your license plate info and the amount of time you want to park before paying. no ticket, everything done virtually. the total cost was $26 plus a 99¢ service fee.
from the parking lot it was just a short 12 minute walk to where my cousin's daughter tangtang lives. my big aunt met us outside. the place is actually an airbnb, but tangtang pays for long-term stay, at $1300/month. she also rented out a nearby bedroom for $1350/month for my big aunt (her grandmother), and for my 2nd aunt when she came to visit (and stay) about a month ago. this bigger bedroom has its own bathroom, which the other bedrooms don't (there's a shared bathroom). there's also a shared kitchen and dining area, but it seems like nobody goes there other than to put food in the common fridge.
we dropped off our stuff, chatted briefly, before heading out for lunch. tangtang was still asleep (nearly noon) so she didn't join us. first stop was of course new york food court for some authentic taiwanese street food. even though it wasn't that far (should've taken us only 12 minutes to walk), everyone walked at different speeds, with my big aunt walking the fastest (always a block ahead of everyone) while my mother and 2nd aunt were the slowest. we'd also stopped occasionally to look at a store or restaurant, especially for my parents who haven't been to flushing in ages. we finally made it to new york food court (on roosevelt avenue) a bit after noontime.
my big aunt said she'd been to new york food court before, but wasn't impressed with the selection so never ate here. i noticed a bunch of restaurants in the back were all closed, which i hope isn't a bad sign that the place itself might go under. business however was good for the other places, and there was a decent crowd for sunday lunchtime. besides two servings of stinky tofu, we also got two servings of squid nugget soup, as well as a plate of salt & pepper chicken. the chicken was kind of meh, strangely served with some corn, pickled radish, and half a braised egg. the tofu was excellent as always, but took a while to fry. the squid nuggets were a little too chunky, but the flavor was very authentic. while waiting for the food, i got caught in the middle of a shouting match between a man and woman. apparently the woman was on a date with the man but when he showed up so late, she exploded and unleashed a series of obscenities at him, with him replying back in kind. i was tempted to record this on video but didn't want to get too involved. it basically reinforced a persistent stereotype that people from mainland china are of a lower class and will never disappoint when it comes to showing others how uncultured they are. the woman even had a child, who was pulling his mother's hand, trying to stop her from further embarrassing herself.
earlier my mother had bought some portuguese egg tarts and we also ate some while we were there. my 2nd aunt got some drinks for everyone. we finally left new york food court about an hour later.
my mother seemed to be the de facto group leader, and wanted to visit the uniqlo at the skyview mall. i managed to talk everyone into the visiting the tangram mall first, especially since they had clean bathrooms. along the way, we saw spicy palace, the chuan chuan hot pot restaurant we'd be having dinner. once again, my big aunt had been to tangram before. what a change 1/2 a year can make! when i was here last october, the mall had just opened. some of the plumbing in the bathroom weren't even working yet, the place was empty, and just a few restaurants. today on a sunday, the place was busy with people, and a new food court had opened up. i showed my mother meet fresh, and we vowed to come back here for dessert after dinner.
we left tangram from its main entrance which was on 39th avenue (not prince street from where we entered). it was a little weird because we entered from street level, but went down one level inside the mall, to exit once again at street level. this is chongqing-style architecture.
we made it to skyview around 1:45pm. while my mother and aunts were shopping in uniqlo, my father and i went downstairs to gong cha to get some special pride aiyu jelly drink. having tasted authentic aiyu jelly, this didn't feel authentic at all. there were hardened maybe-expired sweet citrus tasting jelly squares at the bottom, while the supposed aiyu jelly floated at the top.
afterwards my father and i went to the skyfoods supermarket. we didn't buy anything yet, figured we'd come back later. we did make a note that if you buy $40+, you can get free validated parking for 3 hours, which might be something we want to take advantage of when we leave tomorrow. they had some stuff that were cheaper than boston chinatown (garlic chives for 99¢/lbs) and some more expensive. one of the cooler things i saw were small tablets used as price stickers, showing some video advertisements. despite the occasional higher prices, you couldn't deny the better selection here compared to boston. they also sold refrigerated zongzi for $3.99/each.
we went back upstairs to find my mother and her sisters. they were no longer at uniqlo, and that area of the store couldn't receive any reception, so calling was useless. we walked to the front of the store were there was better reception and finally got in touch with my 2nd aunt, who said they were at marshalls. so we went back and found them. waiting outside, we noticed the lack of benches for people to sit and rest. i suppose the corridor areas are reserved for kiosk wagons, but still, seems like a design flaw to offer so few seats. after my mother and aunts came out of marshalls, they went to old navy to do some more browsing, while my father and i continued to wait.
we finally left skyview by 3pm. my aunts took us to the place underneath the bridge that sold discount produce, where they got some tasty guava some weeks ago. we went there, pausing briefly to buy some douhua pudding from a place that looked like a florist. i saw some cool plants, including some potted pennyworts that i may come back and buy. we bought some fruit and finally returned to the apartment by 3:45pm.
so besides the two bedrooms, tangtang also booked another room in the house, a basement room, for $50/night. this was a much better room, with it's own bathroom and kitchen besides the bedroom. there was also free wifi, and when i connected and did a speed test, it was pretty fast, 200Mbps. only disadvantage is there's no window, other than the one by the exit going out to the enclosed backyard. so we moved all our stuff into the basement room. while my father rested on the bed, my mother went upstairs to chat with my aunts. not wanting to waste any precious time while i was in flushing, i decided to head out and buy some korean fried chicken.
there didn't seem to be any good spots in central flushing for some reason, so i headed east on northern boulevard, where they were a bunch of korean businesses (apparently this is the new korea town). i found a place online called 92chicken (150-29 northern blvd) that looked promising. i was originally going to order online, but decided to go in person, even if i had to wait. the only bad thing was the place was about a mile away, but i was game, and allowed me to explore the area. i passed by flushing high school, which i thought was a museum or possibly a military fortification at first. the building is actually pretty old, built in 1875. i saw a great wall (GW) supermarket, right next to an h-mart. i passed by witch topokki, which is a korean rice cake buffet restaurant.
i finally made it to 92chicken. inside were 5 late middle aged korean men just lounging around. none of them seemed to have ordered anything, and one of them even had a beer. a late middle-aged woman spoke to me in korean. i didn't understand what she was saying, but got the feeling she was asking if i was here to pick up. i told her i was here to order. i got the spicy garlic half chicken for $13. it was either that or the red hot pepper gochujang chicken, but i didn't want it to be too spicy. i noticed the prices in store were slightly cheaper than ordering online. she told me 15 minutes, i told her i was going next door to browse the flowers.
the flowers turned out to be the storefront of H & Y market place, which seemed like an open air produce seller. it was late, so it looked like they'd already put back a lot of their vegetables and fruits. the flowers included some potted vegetables, like bitter melons, peppers, and shiso. this market was also attached to a more formal korean supermarket, hanyang supermarket. (later i discovered H & Y and hanyang are the same). i looked inside, trying to find drinks. i ended up leaving with two bottles of cold korean rice wine, one regular flavor, one peach. the old cashier greeted me in korea as i paid for my items.
i went back to 92chicken. i still had 7 minutes left so my food wasn't ready. those 5 guys were still sitting around, chatting amongst themselves and with the cashier. i kept on waiting until my time was up. that's when the lady seemed to remember something and said my order was already ready, she just forgot about it. i laughed it off and left with my food.
i didn't make it back to the apartment until 5:30pm. we were planning on leaving for dinner by 6pm. my father told me my mother and my aunts went back to skyview mall again, this time with tang tang, to return and buy some more stuff, so we had a bit of time. my father and i tried the chicken. it looked promising, but the sauce was not spicy at all, more sweet than anything else. it reminded me of general gao's chicken actually. the chicken were cooked to perfection, maybe could've been a bit more crunchy, but they were tender. they did something cool which was to quarter the chicken breast, so it wasn't just a big chunk of white meat. we tried the rice drink, which actually had a surprisingly large amount of alcohol (6%). we ate half the chicken, saving the rest for later. we left a bit before 6pm.
we were to meet everyone at spicy palace, where earlier tangtang had already called to make an reservation for 6:30pm. we walked through the parking lot where we left our car. the lot was maybe about 70% full, not too bad. the xinjiang skewers barbecue cart was outside the parking lot, and there was a line of people waiting to get their meats on a stick. we also went inside queens crossing food hall. frances and i came here a while back, the food selection hasn't improved since then, but they still get a decent amount of business. i noticed upstairs with spring shabu shabu, that hot pot buffet place that also has a restaurant in allston. when we finally arrived at spicy palace, we noticed there was an actual municipal lot next door. the price was pretty cheap, $5 for 2 hours of parking, maximum of 3 hours. we made a note of it, figured we might try parking here tomorrow when our 24 hour parking expires at the other lot at 11am.
my mother and everyone else finally showed up a few minutes after 6:30pm. we went inside spicy palace for dinner. for our party of 6, they gave us a private room, not sure if there was an extra charge for that. my mother ordered a bunch of meats from the menu before i could tell her that a lot of that stuff you can also get from the glass refrigerators. i've found the second time around spring palace wasn't as delicious as that first time i came here with frances and her family. maybe back then i was just super hungry, or super tired, or both. it could also be because i just ate some korean fried chicken before coming, so my apetite was already a little full.
after chuan chuan hot pot, we went to tangram mall across the street, a bit after 8pm. we went to meet fresh to get some taiwanese shaved ice. they close at 9pm, but we still had time to order and eat. we took turns going to the bathroom we while waited for our orders to arrive. 4 bowls of shaved ice, tangtang's treat, as she was disappointed she didn't get to treat us for hot pot (my father had snuck off and paid them in advance).
we left tangram by 8:45pm, leaving by a third different street level exit, this time facing 37th avenue. i'd lost my bearing, but we followed tangtang who seemed to know where she was going (she lives here after all). we finally go back to the apartment by 9pm.
after my mother took a shower, she went upstairs to hang out with my aunts. my big aunt would sleep with tangtang tonight, while my mother and 2nd aunt shared a bed in the other bedroom. my father and i had the basement. i took a shower before bed. hot water, good pressure. only weird thing was the ceiling to the shower was lower than the rest of the apartment, so low that i could touch the shower ceiling with my hand. there was also a convenient shampoo/conditioner/body wash dispenser, wasn't expecting that, figured i would just clean with the provided hand soap. but the dispenser was mounted rather high, such that i was looking at the bottom of the dispenser (i guess it's to prevent water was getting inside the container).
i sleep head to toe with my father because the wall outlet was on the other side, and i accidentally brought the wrong long length charging cable. i was rereading between two fires by christopher buehlman, didn't sleep until 11pm, which is still early. the basement also has an AC unit, but we turned it off because it was noisy, and the basement was already plenty cool. regardless, i still had trouble falling asleep, kept worrying about bed bugs every time i felt an itch, or mosquitoes. didn't help that earlier i killed a mosquito, which made me worried they were coming in from cracks along the edge of the AC unit. oh, i also failed to mention that flushing is probably one of the noisiest neighbors in new york city because the LAGUARDIA AIRPORT IS RIGHT ACROSS THE BAY. all day long we heard and saw planes flying overhead, low enough to see the windows of the plane. i guess you get used to it eventually, but this noise pollution is never ending, constant roaring of jets overhead. you'd think it'd stop late at nights, and the flights are definitely less, but still pretty frequent. eventually i did fall asleep, don't know what time, must've been late, 2am or so.