NYC Diaries: Tired and Jetlagged

Times Square, daylight

Paul and I were awake as early as 3 a.m.; Our body clocks still wired to 4 p.m. in Manila. After three hours of non-stop chitchat, we decided to eat anything. He brought large packs of instant noodles and I hurt my tummy laughing: Who the hell bothers to pack instant noodles for a 19-hour trip? Definitely not me. 

I swallowed my laughter (and pride) while the water boiled and, eventually, submerged our crispy wax-laden noodles. Bill was already up and lounging by the living room when we sneaked to the kitchen, ready to devour our oh-so-yummy noodles. But a wanting tummy is still a choosy tummy. It tasted bad—the dirty kind of bad, the knowing its dirty kind of bad but you can’t do anything about it because as the thought formed itself in your head, the bad thing is in your taste buds and is already halfway through your throat. I will never eat instant noodles ever again. Especially not when I travel.

Our room was temperate but when we stepped out, the cold immediately drizzled through my
peacoat. And off we went to our day trip; Jason, in his typical Chinese type-A self, was our leader for the day. He knew where the trains go and with my head still filled with cotton candies, I’m ready to follow him anywhere. 

I’m too lazy to do an itinerary—heck, it’s NYC, there are tons of blogs who will do the trip plans for any reader. So, here are my notes instead: 

Union Square: Surprisingly nice. We pretended (ha!) to be tourists and took pictures of ourselves everywhere. Nice benches. And squirrels who we fooled into thinking we have biscuits. Hohoho. There's a public bathroom where two people reached orgasmic highs while I checked myself in the mirror. Creepy.

Taking a leak... Oopps!

McDonald’s (in Union Square): Expect someone who brings instant noodles to choose fast food for breakfast. There’s a calorie count, which is totally negated by refillable drinks. I like the bagels, though, which is not in the menu back home.

Forbidden Planet: Toy store. Jason’s pick. (And where I posed like a Japanese school girl.)

Fishs Eddy’s: Paul said “Can we have a picture outside?”. Yes, we did—tons of them. My eyes caught sights of dishes and porcelain and all those pretty kitchen breakables. We walked in. I walked out with a pair of porcelain paint palette coasters after two hours.

Some Chinese Restaurant: Rice lunch with humongous servings. Before we leave, the girl in the 
counter spoke to us in Tagalog—finally! My first encounter with a fellow Filipino. It was weird how she didn’t talk to us in Tagalog while we chose food (and talked in Tagalog) but she did help me count my dimes and pennies.

Barnes&Nobles: Where nobody talked for five hours. And where we saw Paul on the floor, wanting to buy 10 books. We talked him out of buying half. And where I was sweating by lunchtime.

Some underground comic store (also near Union Square): Jason’s pick again. There are obvious perks at being team leader for the day.

Richard Rodgers Theater: Tried our luck at the Hamilton lottery. Lady luck, however, was not on our side that day. One of us was jinxed (I suspect its Jason. This was also his idea).

Wendy's: Dinner, another of Paul's choices. I got the Gouda Cheese meal, to which the lady said: "That is really good". I worried myself silly by suspecting there's some unnecessary saliva in there somewhere. I devoured it all nonetheless. There goes my second burger experience in America, another fast food fling. - 12/13/2015