Let me put it straight out: it was a horrid trip. And not because of the weather, as I originally feared. In fact, the weather was perfect. The weather people were wrong and there was no rain, and the temperature was relatively mild in the high 30’s. Instead, it was a horrid trip because the whole journey was just a series of unfortunate events. Small setbacks and discomforts, but add them altogether, and they link into a heavy chain around your neck that drags your mood and energy down to the drain.

Setback #3: My cousin disobeyed me and wore high heels to NYC:
Who does that on a day-trip to the city? Obviously we were going to do a lot of walking. And obviously, she started moaning after a mere 10 minutes of walking. Obviously, I yelled at her, “I told you so!”. Unfortunately, that did not help in the least.

Setback #4: We went to get lunch at a noodle place in Chinatown, called J.M. Family Noodle Restaurant, which supposedly got good ratings in Yelp:
The place looked sketchy and customers were flying in and out the door, always a sign of good authentic Chinese cuisine.
  I tried to order in Mandarin, but the server only spoke Cantonese, so we stuck to plain ol’ English. I ordered the wonton noodle soup:
I helped my cousin order the pan-fried noodle with mixed vegetables:
And I also ordered BBQ pork:
Where’s the setback, you ask? Well, the setback was that my cousin disliked the place. She was suspicious of the plates, wiping them clean herself again. She was suspicious of the pork, claiming it smelled weird. She was suspicious of the foreign-looking vegetables in her dish. She was suspicious of the strange “Chinese” taste of my wonton soup. And when you meal partner is suspicious and unhappy with the food, you can’t help wondering if she’s right after awhile.

To be fair, I thought my wonton noodle soup was rather good. I loved the plump, juicy wontons, which was stuffed with shrimp and pork:
The noodles were just mediocre, but the soup was flavorful, without being overloaded with MSG and salt. And because I was “home” in a truly Asian restaurant, I could wolf down my noodles and slurp all I want:
The BBQ pork wasn’t bad, either. The skin could have been crispier, but the meat was tender and flavorful.
But my cousin refused to eat it after giving it a single lick. She said it smelled porky and Chinese-y. And after a few bites of my own, I couldn’t help thinking it smelled Chinese-y either, whatever it meant.
As for the pan-fried noodles, the noodles were great, but the sauce was rather thick, which my cousin found that distasteful.
They also added some really funky Chinese ingredients like jellyfish or white fungus, which creeped my cousin out. She only ate the noodles, and left the rest for me.
Our first meal in NYC, and it was a disappointment to  both she and me, though for different reasons.

Next, we strolled down to SoHo in search of buying my cousin new shoes.
I won’t call this a setback, since we did find a decent pair of shoes for her for just $14, but I was bored out of my mind. Shopping doesn’t thrill me the way it used to now. I just can’t get interested in fashion anymore. But I did find my sweet spot here:
 Sur La Table! Yay! I bought a fountain spoon for my oatmeal.

Okay, then it was setback #5: We got lost trying to maneuver our way to Chelsea Market, so we took a cab. And you know cab = money gone. Cha-ching! The worse part? Chelsea Market was closed due to New Years. *head thud*

Okay, by then I was definitely, genuinely ticked off. The highlight of this NY trip was supposed to be a blogger meet-up, but that didn’t happen. Chelsea Market, which was second in line, was closed. Damn this!

Setback #6: We decided to just hike up to Rockefeller Center. Stupid. I didn’t realize it was a long, long walk away. And we desperately needed to pee. Well, my cousin did. So we stopped by McDonalds so she can get a drink as a legit excuse to use the bathroom, but she was too scared to ask the McDonald’s employee for the keys to use the bathroom. I yelled at her for being stupid and cowardly. I ended up getting the key for her anyway, but I was Pissed Off.

Setback #7: We wandered aimlessly around for Rockefeller Center so my cousin could take a damn picture with the damn Christmas tree, and when we finally arrived, it was crowded beyond belief:
And the tree wasn’t that impressive anyway. There was a Christmas tree right across my  house back in DC which was prettier. It was sorely disappointing. We took pictures of the tree from afar, and then went off to take pictures of nicer things:
 Pooh bear.

And the food tasted like cafeteria food, too. My cousin ordered a cheese pizza and onion rings:
The pizza tasted like cardboard. Where is that famous NY-style pizza? Because this is definitely not it with grainy crust and congealed cheese. Ew.
The onion rings were burnt. And as my cousin was purchasing them, I spied a bag of commercial frozen onion rings in the refrigerator. Too bad, too sad.

I had a bit more luck with my chicken gyro:
It wasn’t bad. Until I found a piece of hair in my sandwich. Ew, ew, ew!
I picked it off at once, but still finished it. At that point, I was actually just happy to  have food in my stomach.
But once our belly was filled and we were warmed up, discontentment build up again. To think we were planning a great lavish dinner of beef bourguignon and coq au vin!

So we stewed…
And we stewed in our disgruntlement. 
Plus, we were bored. We still had 2 hours to kill before our 10 pm bus back home. We fooled around with the camera:
But still got bored after about 8 minutes.

Finally, we decided to head back out in search of a good place for dessert. With new found rigor, we marched out and found a nice-looking place called Andrew’s Coffee Shop.

Setback #9: Names are deceiving. What seemed sounded like a coffee shop turned out to be a legit, sit-in diner. We were fooled. And we were stuck to pay tips for bad service. The waitress was…horrible. We ordered a strawberry shortcake sundae, but asked for cookies-and-cream and pistachio ice-cream instead.
It came looking thoroughly unimpressive. What’s more, the waitress brought us mint chocolate-chip ice-cream, not pistachio as we had ordered. We informed her of the mistake, and her excuse?

“Oh, we don’t have pistachio anymore.”

Um. Okay. Why the hell are you telling this to us now? Did you think we were dumb enough to be fooled that the mint ice-cream is pistachio just because they share the same green color? I was flabbergasted! And insulted. Maybe she thinks all Asians are stupid like that.
We got our revenge by not giving her any tips. The waitress, however, was really, really eager to get her tip. She gave us the bill while we were still eating, and practically pried the check away from our hands! Of course, we wrote a big fat “O” on the tip section of the check. The waitress was damn pissed, and she stood glaring at us until we finally decided to escape before her gaze burned a hole into our heads.

By then it was getting cold. So I asked my cousin for my hat. She dug into her bag. And dug, and dug.

Setback #10: My cousin lost my hat. My pink, fuzzy, lovely, expensive hat from Korea that I loved so much. My mom was gonna kill me. Heck, I wanted to kill my cousin.

We finally went into Borders, where I read up on a book about journalism:
I found out that I’ll never be a good journalist. Apparently you need a natural instinct for a good story and be able to sniff out lies and deceit. Boo.
So there you go. 10 unfortunate events all within the first day of the New Year. And you know what? They were not just strokes of bad luck. They were essential and necessary for the beginning of this New Year.

Let me explain: Yes, I was pissed. Yes, I was disappointed. Yes, I was miserable, I was irritated and irritable. But each of my reactions to all the things that happened to me revealed the flaws in me that I need to work on for the New Year. This is God’s humorous idea of reminding me of the third part of my New Year’s Self-Reflection: Prayer Topics & Renewals.

Since this post is already super-long, I will get to that in my next post. But I think the areas I need to renew about myself is already evident, don’t you think?

Question of the day: In preparation for the next post, what is one (or many) flaw that you’ve noticed about yourself?