Category Archives: Friends

Mutual friend outreaches in the last couple days

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On Monday afternoon, I went out for a coffee catchup with a friend of a friend who lives in Hong Kong. She used to be a friend’s roommate way back in 2011-2012 when my friend temporarily lived in New York. I haven’t seen this person since my friend’s wedding in 2012. While we hung out in larger groups of mutual friends, I realize that I never had a clear picture of her personality because I’d never had a real 1-on-1 conversation with her before. She contacted me about a month ago to let me know that she would be accompanying her husband on a work trip to New York and wanted to see if I’d be free for a catch-up. I agreed, figuring it would be nice to chat with a familiar face and actually get to know her for her as opposed to group chat. It’s been 14 years, so a long time had passed! And I’m always happy to give people a chance and time assuming nothing negative had previously transpired between us.

It was actually a really good catch-up and filled my cup. We talked about what we’d been up to since 2012, including work, relocation for her, change in partners, marriage, and IVF and a baby for me. We ended up chatting for nearly two hours, which I wasn’t expecting. She said that she’d likely be back more in New York given her husband’s work, and she insisted that I reach out the next time I’d be in Hong Kong.

It always feels good when someone else takes the initiative in your life to organize a catch-up. A mutual mom friend I met at this last Saturday’s birthday party emailed me to follow up on something she said she’d share with me about Chinese immersion programs in the city (how thoughtful that she’d remember and ask our mutual friend for my email address!). In her message, she asked if I’d be open to catching up over coffee or a drink in the coming weeks. So we exchanged numbers, and we’re planning to meet for coffee in a few weeks.

For a long time, I felt like it was really hard to make and meet new friends in New York City outside of work; in my 20s, it was pretty much impossible. But now, in my late-30s and early-40s, it seems to be happening a lot more naturally for me. And it feels really nice. I’m always happy and willing to meet new people as long as we have similar interests and values, and I’m even happier to meet with them if our backgrounds are nothing alike because it means that I will likely learn a lot I’d never previously been exposed to. And that is always exciting for me.

A 4-year-old’s birthday party

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Even though I am a parent to a four-year-old, in the grand scheme of early child parenting, I really haven’t attended or taken Kaia to that many birthday parties. Most of the “birthday parties” she has been to have been held at her school within classrooms, and the kids get some version of a cupcake or cake/ice cream, along with a goodie bag of toys/treats to take home. A friend in our building, whose son turned 4 today, told me that she really hated kids’ birthday party setups here, such as the ones at places like kids’ gyms and play spaces because it was really all about the kids playing and goofing around, along with some crappy “included” food like cheap, greasy pizza and soda — none of which grown parents would enjoy and would just suck up since it was part of the overall fee. And the fees are quite expensive: they are not something to sneeze at, especially when your kid is so young and will barely remember most of these things — other than through photos.

So she said that she preferred intimate gatherings with local friends and their kids. If they were traveling, they’d have dinners and cake cuttings with family. Today, she hosted us at her place just several floors down, where along with some local friends and their kids, we ate Popup Bagels (today, I learned these are for dipping, not for slicing and filling!), drank champagne, and also enjoyed two delicious, very “adult” cakes from Delice Macarons, a local French bakery on the Upper West Side. One was chocolate mousse cake (gluten free!) shaped like a mini chateau, while the second was another chocolate mousse with a very delicious and refined raspberry gelee. While I chatted with the other parents and kept a casual eye on Kaia to ensure she didn’t break anything, I thought to myself — this is such a refined birthday cake for a four-year-old child. Most kids of his age would never appreciate or even know how good they had it to have a cake this meticulously made — and probably very, very pricey! What a little dream to have a chocolate chateau as your birthday cake!

But that’s also what I think of Kaia Pookie: she has no idea how wide and refined of a palate she actually has. She doesn’t realize that she has such a breadth of cuisines, and has really only been exposed to fancy, gourmet chocolate — with the exception of that Twix she ate last October. ‘Tis the life of little kids who have food-appreciating parents as their mamas and daddies.

A lot changes in just a few years in the baby gear world

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Five years ago when I started researching baby gear and equipment, it seemed that pretty much every single parent, nanny, or caregiver on the Upper West Side was pushing around an Uppababy Vista or Cruz stroller. For about a hot second, I considered the Cruz on a short list… until we tested it out at the Nordstrom flagship (great place to test out strollers!) and immediately had to ex it out because it was far too heavy and bulky, especially considering we’d be going up and down subway stairs, and not every subway station is elevator accessible. Back then, we settled on the Nuna Triv stroller, which was very sturdy, well-built, but still light enough to carry up and down the subway stairs (assuming two people are carrying the darn thing). We were a rarity on the street, though: almost no one else has the Nuna Triv stroller. A few people had the Nuna MIXX, but most people who owned Nuna products had the car seats (which we also had). The most popular travel stroller at the time, which we saw constantly on the streets and at airports, was the Babyzen YoYo. Over the course of three years, we also borrowed a friend’s YoYo since they didn’t use theirs at all while at home given they live in the suburbs.

Well, fast forward to today: very rarely do I see Uppababy Vista or Cruz strollers on the street. In fact, the most common stroller I see now is the next generation Nuna Triv or MIXX, the Bugaboo Butterfly, and several variations of the Cybex or Joolz strollers. Babyzen got bought out by Stokke and I had no idea (this just shows how much older Kaia is now since I no longer pay attention to this stuff!), plus the updates to their latest YoYo model have been poorly reviewed by the current wave of new parents. And the only reason I found this out was due to some light stroller research for a friend, who is about to adopt a 2-year-old child and will need a toddler-friendly stroller.

A lot changes in just a handful of years — it’s actually a little scary how quickly our “knowledge” can become obselete. In another four years, I may not even know any of the latest stroller or car seat brands at all!

1915 Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles – lives up to the hype

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I met a friend for dinner tonight at 1915 Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles, which has two locations in Manhattan, one in Kips Bay, and its second in Manhattan Chinatown. I was first introduced to Lanzhou, Gansu, style hand-pulled noodles from a nondescript restaurant in Boston Chinatown. A friend’s boyfriend, who was also originally from Gansu, said that as a little boy, he grew up eating these noodles, and there was nothing quite like it. When the little noodle shop in Boston Chinatown eventually closed (with no reasons noted on their shuttered doors), he was devastated and said he had no idea where else to find the taste of his childhood. Simply watching noodles being pulled by hand was mesmerizing to me at the time, as I’d never seen any food craft quite like it. Even today when I watch this being done, I’m in awe.

When I eventually moved to New York in June 2008, I ended up in the mixed neighborhood of Elmhurst, Queens, where my cousin introduced me to Lao Bei Fang, a neighborhood staple in the budding mini Chinatown there. Lao Bei Fang specialized in hand pulled noodles and dumplings, and it was there that I became a hand-pulled noodle and dumpling regular. The owner always pulled the noodles then; he was truly a noodle master. If you came during off hours, he would even sing Chinese opera for you as a side bonus. As someone who grew up Cantonese and eating lots of Cantonese food, I found northern style noodles and dumplings to be a total revelation, one I was eager to delight in and slurp up.

Eventually, Lao Bei Fang expanded and moved into a bigger space off Whitney Avenue and onto the main drag of Broadway in Elmhurst. This required more staff, and this also meant that the owner and his wife were rarely seen at the restaurant anymore. Instead, they hired others to make all the dumplings and pull all the noodles. Sadly, the food was just never the same again. I tried going back twice to give them another chance, yet I always left disappointed: Once, I was given cold, previously fried dumplings. Another time, the noodles were gummy, and the beef soup tasted one dimensional and even canned. My beloved hand pulled noodle shop of my early 20s was no longer the same.

So when I read about 1915 Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodle, I figured I had to try it out. I got to the restaurant a little early to find that a small line had already developed; there were eight people in front of me, and all were White! I wasn’t sure what to make of this or whether the line would move quickly. But within 10 minutes, I got a little table and was seated, even without my dining partner. And when my friend did eventually show up, she got confused that this was the right place because, “Why are there so many White people lining up for these noodles?” I let her know about the New York Times write-up, and she smiled and understood.

Here, you can choose the thickness and cut of the noodle, which was fun. And there’s a big glass wall through which you can watch the dumpling and noodle makers at work. And I will say: the hype was real. The beef broth was beefy, rich, with lots of spices and herbs, and the flavor was deep. The beef was tender and melt in your mouth. And the noodles had a delicious and addictive springiness. I also loved the chili oil with its fruity undertones. The little fried buns (sheng jian bao) were super crispy on the bottom and juicy.

I will definitely be back here for my hand pulled noodle fix in the future, even with the lines. I think takeout might be in order!

All relationships are work

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The Oxford English dictionary defines work as, “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.” If you know the strict definition of work, I think most would agree that all relationships are work. It doesn’t matter if it’s the relationship you have with your spouse, child, mother, friend, or colleague: all require a certain level of effort in order to sustain the relationship — at least, in some semi healthy way.

Chris and I just hit our 10-year wedding anniversary last month. His parents sent well wishes on our family Whatsapp group. Then his brother wished us a happy anniversary, also saying, “Good work on reaching 10 years of marriage!”

I looked at his message and smirked. “Thanks!” I responded back. “Ummm, yes. It is most definitely work!”

I told my friend, who is uncoupled, that we had reached our 10-year wedding anniversary and had been together for over 14 years now. She was flabbergasted.

“Shit, I don’t know how you do it!” she said to me after wishing us a happy anniversary. “How can you stand someone for that long, constantly in your space and not doing things the way you want them done?”

This friend knows I am anal-retentive with cleaning. She knows I like everything done in a very certain way in the kitchen. She also knows that I have very strong opinions. And on top of all that, she’s met Chris a number of times now and has had the chance to speak with him a decent amount, so she said she could already imagine how ridiculous and intense our disagreements and arguments would be.

I always wanted to get married. Ever since I learned what marriage was, I wanted to get married and live “happily ever after.” But I don’t think Disney fairy tales or the example of what “marriage” is supposed to be like based on my parents’ relationship were ever the best examples that set me up for success. I’ve spent decades reading psychology and sociology articles and studies, and took a number of classes on these topics. Hell, I even took a sociology course on sociology of marriage and family in college. And when I did therapy two different periods of my life, I spent a good amount of time talking about my relationships with my parents, friends, and Chris, and what I want and do not want to be or become. All of this has been really hard work and required a lot of thinking and introspection. Sometimes, getting to a state of self-awareness can be quite painful. Yet despite all that hard work, I still mess up and do and say stupid things I don’t really mean to say or do in the way it comes out. It’s like every day, I am trying to break out of inherited intergenerational trauma and redefine what I want to be in my relationships with Chris and others I love. I guess everyone is a little bit like that: we only know what we know — until we try to break unhealthy cycles — again, assuming we have a certain level of self awareness, or someone helps point it out to us.

But the work we put into relationships with those we love most is important. It’s probably the most important work of your life. It’s hard for me to imagine a life without those who are closest to me who I love the most. Frankly, I don’t want to be my dad in that sense: I don’t want to be a total loner with zero friends. I also don’t want to be in a marriage where I feel emotionally estranged from my spouse. So while many reject close friendships or serious romantic partnerships, I guess at the end of the day, I am still a romantic and want all these things to be a part of my daily reality.

So, the work continues.

When Kaia wants to choose her clothes, even the under garments

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The last couple of weeks in the mornings, Kaia has had strong opinions about what she wears to school. She’s rejected a few of the pieces I picked out and insisted that she pick out her own t-shirt (which no one would see since it’s still cold, and she wears a warm sweater layer on top…) and even her own socks. I know that at her stage of development, allowing her some level of autonomy is key so that she “feels” like she has a sense of control. So in most of these cases, I relent and just let her choose… assuming she doesn’t take more than three minutes to select the substitute clothing.

But she’s actually shown preference for clothing since she was as young as 2.5 years of age, if not younger. She does not like plain tops of any kind; she needs to have a design of some sort on them. So when it comes to layering pieces, I often have to force her to wear a plain shirt underneath. She’s always loved lighter, summery clothing over the thick layers of winter. She loves colorful printed dresses and is completely obsessed with tutus. And she really does not seem to be a fan of warm winter dresses at all. She refuses to wear anything black, with the exception of a black t-shirt we got her that has a spider web fully made of rhinestones. And she needs to be cajoled into wearing black pants (everyone needs something basic, even at that age, right?).

Today, she asked to wear her Mickey Mouse and mango shirt we got her while in the Philippines. This t-shirt was part of the Uniqlo location-specific collections: this one was themed “Mickey goes to the Philippines.” But on top, she wanted to wear her Elsa sweater. Chris watched her undress this evening and said, “Isn’t that kind of a waste to wear that underneath since no one will be able to see it?”

Yes, it kind of is. But at the same time, Kaia wanted to wear it underneath, and she knows she is wearing it underneath, and that makes her happy. And sometimes, if not all the time, as long as she knows she has it and is wearing it and likes it, then that’s all that really matters, doesn’t it? I think of it like nice, super comfortable or fun-printed (and oftentimes expensive…) underwear or bras. Most of the time outside of maybe your partner or kids, no one will ever see you wearing these under garments. But they make you happy and feel good. Therefore, your happiness, knowledge, and comfort are all that should matter when deciding to wear them.

Sluggish two days later

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On Friday night when we had dinner and a comedy show with friends, our friends got to the restaurant early enough for Happy Hour, so they ordered a bunch of items off the Happy Hour menu, including two orders of Korean fried chicken that came with two buckets of beer, for a total of ten beers. I figured they would get a single order of fried chicken with the beers, but I didn’t realize they would get two buckets. I had asked my friend to order me a specific Happy Hour cocktail without realizing they got so many beers. And because I hate waste, I felt bad leaving so many beers behind. So I decided that on top of my cocktail, I would have a beer… and then I opened a second beer and probably had a quarter to half of it. During dinner and the show, i felt completely fine. I did not turn red (no, I don’t get Asian glow). I felt sober and clear-headed.

That was until the next morning, when I woke up feeling sluggish in the mind and body. I wasn’t in pain, and I did not have that “hung over” feeling. It wasn’t like I couldn’t think straight, but I definitely did not feel good or refreshed in the slightest bit. I just felt… off. I could still follow conversations, do my usual tasks, and even did some yoga that morning. But “off” is the only word I can use to fully describe how I felt. And if that was not enough, today, which is two days later, I still don’t feel right. It’s like a foggy brain without being fully foggy, if that makes any sense at all. My motivation to do anything productive is extremely low. And given it was threatening to rain and did rain today, we ended up staying indoors all Sunday. I made one dish, and that was it.

I wonder if I would still feel this way if I didn’t actually know I was 40. I feel like because I know I am in my 40s now that I’m feeling more of these “your metabolism is slowing” feelings. As I read, your metabolism doesn’t just fall off a cliff at 40; that’s not really how metabolism works. It slows gradually over your late 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Regardless, this wasn’t a great feeling, especially as I’ve actively cut back on alcohol in the new year. And I don’t think I can drink that much anymore — for my mental clarity, but also for my general fitness goals.

Friends for all different reasons

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Last night, Chris and I went out with our two friends for dinner and a comedy show (Jo Koy!) at Radio City Music Hall. We were talking about how I recently came back from my 40th birthday girls trip with two of my best friends, and they asked me how it went. And I answered it the way I’ve been answering it with everyone I’ve talked about it with since coming back.

“I had a lot of fun,” I said. “I loved the cave spa at the hotel. We caught up on a lot of things. But my main takeaway from the trip was that it served as a reminder to me that they’re my childhood friends.”

We have friends that come out of lots of different periods of our lives — growing up through our parents’ friends’ kids, relatives’ friends’ kids, classmates, friends through common interest extracurriculars; then, as you get older, you meet friends at college, through friends of friends, social events you attend, work, and the list goes on. But the friends you make during childhood and may be lucky enough to take into adulthood and beyond — they are your friends because you happened to be together at a certain time and place out of circumstances out of your control. So, in many ways, you were all kind of forced to be together. With that, you carry and share history together, and given this, they become more like your family rather than friends you chose because of aligned values or life perspectives.

In this trio, we fall into the same familiar and oftentimes annoying familial patterns that are almost sibling like. I tend to be the leader, making all travel arrangements and setting up itineraries, restaurant reservations, and coordinating times for what activities happen when. I also tend to be the one who has to push for things to happen… like certain activities at set times given flow of day, or for inane things like trash to be put in the trash bin. A second friend tends to be the “peacemaker” for better or worse: she will actually put the third person’s trash into the garbage can even when it’s not hers because she doesn’t want to “cause trouble,” but then this ends up enabling our third friend, who is a bit of mess. This friend always wants to stay neutral and gets frustrated when opinions are shared that she perceives as too strong — which are likely the vast majority of mine. Oftentimes my opinions are met with a response along the lines of, “Well, everyone is entitled to live where they want to.” Which is obviously true, but I wasn’t really saying my opinion as if it was the only right one, more that this was what I thought…? And our third friend is living life without thinking past tomorrow. She contributed zero to this trip other than paying for her share and showing up; she even admitted to never reviewing my itineraries in detail. It’s a good thing ChatGPT and Perplexity AI did most of the “work” for me. And as noted earlier, she’s sloppy and doesn’t really take responsibility for a lot of the way she is, or her life’s circumstances. I am sure to them, I can seem stubborn, pushy, too opinionated, and too quick to challenge. To a degree to certain personalities, I can see how I am all those things. But the truth is — as I am getting older, I am embracing these qualities even more because I am just getting even more and more comfortable in my own skin, living my life the way I want to.

As I’ve gotten older, I have really enjoyed meeting people who have lived very different lives from me. I ask more questions because I want to know what’s different and what I don’t know. At this point, I really don’t feel a need to meet more people from the Bay Area or people who have had similar life experiences to me unless it’s convenient. And I actually really enjoy it when people challenge my opinions or stances on specific topics. I don’t see it as a put-down or an attack; I actually see it as fun. I think it makes me think more. But not everyone believes this.

I feel very lucky all the time that I’ve maintained friends since age 11. They are like family to me and always will be. But I also feel very, very fortunate and privileged to have made some really great adult friends, even as recently as in the last two years, who have really added more fun, challenge, and perspective to my life. They align with the way I look at the world and the meaning I am trying to get out of my time on earth. And it’s been very refreshing. All friends serve different purposes in our lives, and so that’s why it’s important to have multiple friends to fill our cups in different ways. I am so, so lucky.

The luxury of space while eating sourdough pancakes in a residential neighborhood in Asheville

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In many ways, I am living my dream from when I was a little girl: I get to work and live in New York City, the Big Apple — right in the heart of Manhattan, steps away from Central Park. But if I had to be honest, sometimes, I do wish we had more space. There are a lot of thoughts starting with, “It would be nice if…” we had a backyard, we had more space, we had a bigger kitchen, if restaurants and outdoor enclosed spaces could be bigger and more spread out for littles to safely run around. And my friends and I were all thinking about this while having breakfast this morning at the Liberty House Cafe in Asheville. This cute little coffee shop/cafe has been around for the last 10 years and is housed in a small cottage from the 1920s. While the cottage itself is quite tiny, its outdoor space is sprawling: it has two large patios that spread out from its left and right side, along with a massive green lawn with even more tables and benches for dining, sipping coffee, and relaxing. They easily could set up more tables and benches, but a lot of the space is just… empty space to breathe and just be space. It could be space for dogs to roll around. It could be space for kids to play and be silly. Or it could just be what it is, which is a lot of space.

My two friends live in San Francisco/the Bay Area, which increasingly is lacking for space; I live in the famous concrete jungle of the Big Apple. We all know that space is always premium in major metropolitan areas. So just sitting on this big covered patio, overlooking this vast green lawn and openness, while eating our indulgent, delicious, crispy-edged sourdough blueberry pancakes and drinking cubanitos, felt like an unspoken treat.

Farm to table dining, which is what Liberty House Cafe offers, is spreading everywhere across the U.S. You can find restaurants using hyper local produce and ingredients in major cities, suburbs, and in rural areas; it’s become ubiquitous. But to simply experience this setting while having these pancakes felt like just another luxury of this trip after our amazing spa and tapas day yesterday.

Omni Grove Park Inn and Spa, Asheville – the incredible cave spa

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When I told a few friends and colleagues that I was going on a 40th birthday girls trip to Asheville, a few people thought it was a joke, or when messaged via text, that I had done a typo and meant to write “Nashville.” No one understood why I had chosen Asheville, but when I explained, they quickly understood.

One of the many beauties of having access to AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, or Claude is that I can be very specific about what I want, what I am looking for, general geography, and price point, and it will give me a number of potential options without my having to scour multiple travel sites and blogs to find what might pique my interest manually. Back in January, I asked multiple AI tools something like, “I want to go on a 40th birthday girls trip with two of my girlfriends. Find me a hotel that has great spa treatments and amenities, is located in AZ, NM, NC, SC, GA, or FL, is 15-20 minute drive from an urban area, and is no more than 30-40 minute drive from a major airport. The urban area has to have some interesting culture and good, eclectic restaurants.” I was given several interesting options in the Phoenix/Sedona and Santa Fe metro areas, along with the Omni Grove Park Inn and Spa in Asheville. And after further scrutinizing reviews, prices, and spa amenities and availability, we settled on this historic hotel that is just an eight-minute drive from downtown Asheville.

The Omni Grove Park Inn originally opened, built on the side of a mountain, just a short distance away from downtown Asheville in 1913. It was built to be a premier arts and crafts style resort, constructed from massive Sunset Mountain granite boulders in under a year. It has hosted many U.S. presidents, celebrities, and foreign dignitaries. All around the property, they have displayed photos of famous people who have stayed here. F. Scott Fitzgerald rented two blocks of suites to stay in while his wife was receiving psychiatric treatment nearby for two summers.

In 2001, The Spa at Omni Grove Park Inn opened, revealing a 43,000-square-foot subterranean sanctuary that has rock-walled soaking and lap pools, waterfalls, and mineral based treatments. It’s built into a mountain and reflects the hotel’s original opening purpose, which was to be a health-focused, artsy destination. It’s now featured in many domestic and global travel magazines as one of the top destination spas in the U.S. When you’re inside, you forget that you’re in Asheville, or even in the U.S. The spa itself is immaculate, a true cave spa experience, and one that you’d never guess was in Asheville.

Today was our girls’ spa day. We all received different types of massage treatments. I had an excellent full body salt-stone massage by a masseuse who was clearly skilled and experienced; he did these interesting stretch/pull/massage moves on my neck and shoulders that I’d never experienced before. And after my treatment, I showered and then enjoyed the spa pools, sauna, steam room, and amenities. It felt like a real calm and relaxing place. Everyone abided by the no-device policy, and given it was a weekday, the spa was fairly quiet. At times in the lap pools, it felt like it was just the three of us along with some people lounging on deck chairs quietly reading or napping. As I swam on my back in the lap pools, I kept staring at the cave rocks above me and the twinkle lights set up, all surrounding some well appointed skylights, and I thought: Wow. This is most definitely the most beautiful, unique, and relaxing spa and spa experience I’ve ever had in my life. This place is truly a treasure. We spent a luxurious five hours there – such a treat.

I left the spa feeling very refreshed and rejuvenated. I wish we could have a second day to relish in the spa amenities, but alas, they didn’t even have spa drop-in passes the next day or the rest of the weekend since that’s how popular they are. While there, I silently thanked the AI tools for leading us here, and felt very grateful for the privilege to be in such a beautiful and distinctive spa. I don’t even know why you would opt to stay at this hotel without experiencing the cave spa. While the property itself is gorgeous, unique, and historical, this cave spa is really its true differentiator!