In New York, there are constantly restaurants and bars opening and closing every single day, and that’s not an exaggeration at all. There are restaurants claiming to be authentic Cantonese or Korean fusion or Japanese-Mexican fusion with a twist. You can find all kinds of things here if you look and are willing to explore enough different neighborhoods.

Tonight, we went to a Korean fusion “gastropub” and had dinner, and then moved downstairs to their hidden jazz bar, where we had drinks and a fusion carrot cake served with a matcha green tea ice cream. The ice cream was notably sweeter than the matcha green tea ice cream we had a few times in Japan, and oddly, the texture ended with a powdery finish. I wasn’t certain if I was a fan of this until the last bite, when I decided I didn’t really want it anymore.

And so the withdrawal continues as the search for green tea matcha flavored things continue, even though we still have bags and boxes of green tea flavored things in our own apartment.

I love New York a lot, and after living here for over seven years, I wonder how much I will miss it one day when I leave. But then, I remember the things about it that I’m not very fond of, especially regarding how commitment phobic people tend to be here, and I realize that’s the biggest aspect I will not miss.

Planning things in advance is not something that people generally like to do here. I’ve always loved to plan things in advance, so I will usually ask friends at least a week in advance if they are free for whatever dinner or event I’d like to attend with them. In an age of texting and when e-mails get ignored and never responded to (and people think this is acceptable behavior), texts oftentimes don’t get responded to within a day, or two… or even four, despite the fact that these messages are “instant,” and most of us have our phone settings so that text messages pop up on our lock screen when we click to view the time on our phone.

In passing, we always say to people, let’s do this! Let’s have lunch at this place! Let’s get drinks at that place! Everyone is so excited and happy about it in the moment. Then, when it comes time to actually locking down a time and date, people freeze and don’t respond right away, if at all. It’s as though you are literally locking that person in a room for the hours that you will be with her, and she just can’t handle it. So she doesn’t. And it never happens.

It’s okay. I didn’t expect it to happen.

There are few things worse to me than saying that you will do something and not following through. And it’s the worst of the worst when it affects someone else’s life that cares about you. I experienced it from a very young age and then pretty much expected the world to be full of shit. I generally don’t believe anything anyone tells me about what they will do until I see it happen. But now, I’m a bit relieved to say I don’t take it as personally anymore and just sum it up by saying that the number of people who care about me — really, genuinely care — as in, will cry for days if I died and then be haunted by my (hopefully happy) ghost for decades after — in life is really, really small. And everyone will disappoint me. But what’s most important is how I choose to deal with that disappointment.

After Chris left for Cannes this afternoon (well, isn’t he all fancy for work), I took a long walk and came back to the apartment to find our bedroom AC unit leaking. The water got everywhere and destroyed a lot of accumulated theater tickets I had saved in a box for scrapbooking purposes. Needless to say, I was not happy about this and was frustrated I had to do extra cleaning on what was supposed to be a quiet, relaxing afternoon.

Our super came to inspect the AC unit and said that he would need to remove it to fully examine it tomorrow. He’s always been so quick to respond to all of our requests and so friendly, so I decided to give him most of our leftover baklava that a friend had brought over the night before for our dinner party at home. He was so excited — I’d never seen his face light up like that before. I warned him that it had pistachios just in case anyone in his family had a nut allergy, and he said they loved nuts, and it wouldn’t be a problem.

Supers do a lot of hard, dirty work, literally, for our apartments. I wonder how often anyone gives him anything nice or edible in the time he’s worked in this building. Maybe I should feed him more often when I see him so that he knows we are grateful for his work.

I’ve never really followed fashion trends much. It’s not that I don’t like to wear interesting clothes or jewelry, but more that I tend to get annoyed very easily by the mere act of trying on clothing or the actual search itself. I don’t find much joy in dressing up a shirt with a belt, or wearing piles of bangles on my wrists to make my outfit look more stylish. After high school, I really got over the excitement of going shopping with friends at a mall or shopping center and always dreaded the idea that I needed to buy something new for some occasion, whether it was a wedding or for an internship.

The other reason I get annoyed by shopping is that what I tend to like ends up being really expensive. I’m sure most people with any decent taste would agree with me when I say that. Today, I tried on a pair of aviator sunglasses with an interesting cross design above the nose. It seemed quite unique to me, and I noted the price even though I was undecided whether this pair really flattered my face. I went online and started looking at similar pairs and found a pair I liked a lot. And this pair ends up being over three times as expensive as the original pair I was unsure about. Okay, the search needs to stop right here.

I don’t know why, but there are so many restaurants in Manhattan Chinatown that claim to be Shanghainese. There’s Joe’s Shanghai, Shanghai Gourmet, Shanghai Asian Manor, Shanghai Asian Cuisine, just to name a few. All of them serve xiao long bao (soup dumplings). Most of them serve random Sichuanese dishes, like the hong you chao sou (Sichuanese mini spicy wontons), albeit they are not spicy at all and are actually quite sweet. That’s the problem I’m seeing with a lot of these restaurants. They try to do things they don’t know, and they replace the spice and heat with sweetness. When did spice become replaceable with sweetness? The eggplant dish was too sweet. The wonton dish was too sweet. The mapo tofu dish had absolutely no heat and was also too sweet. It’s probably one of the reasons that a lot of people who claim to hate Chinese food get mad. There are too many subpar restaurants who have goopy sweet or salty sauces that aren’t truly representative of how great and varied Chinese cuisine can be.

New York is one of those cities where you could co-exist with another person for decades and probably never run into them. It’s one of the greatest things about living here — it rarely feels small the way it does for most cities, especially after you’ve had a breakup or a falling out with someone.

At my friend’s birthday party today, I ran into an old friend who had moved to San Francisco to be with his now-wife three years ago, and I found out that he’s actually living in Hoboken now and has been back on the East Coast for over a year now. I had no idea, but it was good to catch up with him and see what he’s been up to. In the time that has passed since we last saw each other, he moved to San Francisco, got married and had two family-wedding ceremonies in Korea and China, moved back to New York, and got an apartment in Hoboken. I’ve since changed jobs, moved apartments, got engaged, and am planning a wedding. In three years, a lot of things change, but it’s always nice to see a familiar friendly face.