After work today, I went home to pick up two massive bags of old blankets to walk up to the ASPCA about 14 blocks away. As I walked up First Avenue, I noticed all these new wine bars, restaurants, and little shops I’d never really noticed before. It must be because I just never really paid attention, as well as the fact that this neighborhood has changed so much over the last five years I’ve lived here. It’s become trendier, more diverse cuisine has become available and actually stuck, and of course, more expensive and shiny high rises have gone up. Every day this neighborhood is changing, and soon, we’ll be gone and won’t see it evolving anymore.

New Yorkers have such an attachment to certain neighborhoods. I’ve grown to really love the Upper East Side, which I once thought as a food-and-drink area was quite mundane. Now, it’s flourishing with all types of cuisines. I noticed a Chinese-Hawaiian fusion spot on First Avenue in the 90s today, as well as a hip looking Korean spot just a block over.

I wonder what interesting things we will find in the new neighborhood. Who knows – maybe in another five years if I come back to this current neighborhood, I may not even recognize it anymore.