the older men in my life

every once in a while i get a glimpse of what life out of school would be like. it reminds me of the days of yore when i could go out and enjoy the luxuries of restaurants and drinks in manhattan bars. man that feels like ages ago.

i met up w/JCrew for dinner and drinks at South Street Seaport. i know there are tons of bars and restaurants in that area, but, for the life of me, i really couldn't name any. i googled a bunch of places and found an interesting bar called Nelson Blue. it's an Australian bar altho i wouldn't really be able to tell you about that b/c the only indication the bar's Australian is with regards to the good it serves and we didn't try any of it. we stayed for 2 drinks and then moved on to have dinner at Stella Maris. i def recommend this place for the summer b/c it's off the main area of the seaport so not too many tourists are running around and the setting is small and intimate with large glass doors they leave open so you have the feel of the summer. if i didn't know JCrew since high school it would've been a perfect date (especially since he paid-yes, i still get impressed by that. word of advice: if you want to sweep a girl off her feet, do not ask her to go dutch with you. it just feels tacky). we had a bottle of wine and the food was really good (focus on seafood) and the service is impeccable-that kind of classy attentiveness you should expect from a small restaurant.

now let's compare this with my dinner with Oppa which happened a few days later. Oppa just bought an apartment in Jersey City and we decided we wanted to go out for cheap dinner and opted for somewhere in Chinatown. however, the only places i really like to eat at in Chinatown are all noodleshops. somehow, i didn't think that's what Oppa wanted so i called Snoopy for recommendations. we walked to Bowery from the WTC, and kept going from place to place until we finally found the place Snoopy recommended. did i mention that the whole the time this was happening Oppa had a cast on his leg? and it was brutally hot out. yea, my bad.

when we finished dinner, it started to rain and we were scurrying from awning to awning until we got to the subway and i directed him how to get him. and i paid for dinner. it was such the opposite of romantic but super low-key and chill. ironic how contrastingly different the experiences can be...