a burning question answered

the burning question: would i travel three-and-a-half hours and more than 100 miles on vague and possibly misinformative directions to an unfamiliar area of the united states for food.

the answer: yes.

manhattan, NY

the chinatown bus seemed like just about the cheapest way to get into new york from here, so i booked myself an 8 a.m. ticket for sunday morning. in a departure from my usual habit of being comfortably early for things, i arrived at the corner of 11th and arch at 7:58, and was faced with a terrible dilemma as i passed the wawa: do i stop and risk missing the bus, or suffer caffeine headaches for the 2 hours it will take to get into manhattan? i went for the coffee. i assembled the coffee in record time. i ran out of the wawa. and...i know i'm prone to hyperbole, but i literally made the bus 10 seconds before it pulled away. this was a very big achievement so early in the morning.

there's a reason chinatown bus tickets are so cheap -- the bus interior smelled like dried fish and star anise and semen. the ticket guy was a very dubious vietnamese dude who did not seem to understand the concept of an e-ticket, until a gang of us who had bought tickets online essentially told him that we weren't going to pay him again, and that he could take his luddite sensibilities and stick them you-know-where.

the journey to manhattan from philadelphia takes you over the benjamin franklin bridge, and into jersey suburbia, jiffy lubes and cracker barrels, then onto the highway bypassing trenton and new brunswick, the trees this time of year turning all their beautiful colors. it's a little over an hour-and-a-half to the NJ turnpike, not an uncomfortably long ride at all, and with good music on the ipod practically nothing.

i was a little early for (duke)ailian, which was fortunate because that meant i could go to mass, where there was a v good sermon on suffering, and why it is necessary, and why most people, if they are completely honest with themselves, will realise that it's mostly suffering that made them the person they are. i was reminded of thomas murray, who also would not have traded all of his suffering for anything in the world. it's a good lesson, but one of the harder ones. possibly one of the hardest ones. (the reading, incid, was mark 10, where the james and john want to sit on jesus' right and left in glory. also incid., while i would usually write about any new church i go to, the one last week in atlanta was very unforgettable, and full of old people. this one -- st. theresa's on the lower east side, has a large hispanic community, and gorgeous singing -- a lot of the time the organ just dropped out and left the choir to its own devices to harmonize with the congregation, and the congregation didn't drop the ball, and the choir nailed all the sevenths and ninths and seconds and other gospelly-type harmonies).

(duke)ailian called at 11-something, and we agreed to meet on west 4th and 3rd ave, which meant i had time to duck into one of the chinatown bakeries and finally buy a couple of lian rong mooncakes, $1 each. i ate one, and got on the subway, and it was really good so i ate the other one.

we ended up in a thai restuarant, where i finally got (d~)a~ to spill the whole story of how she ended up where she is (she was, actually, BONDED, but did something very naughty and immoral and should be roasted on a spit somewhere in the n-teenth circle of hell). anyway, it was a lovely story, except now of course she has to live with the devastating guilt of sin on her conscience while going to broadway plays and operas every weekend while earning four times as much money as she was. how one looks oneself in the mirror after such a misdeed i just don't know.

after pad thai we migrated to a cafe down the road (i'm sorry, i absolutely wasn't paying attention to names today), for cannoli and rum babas and cafe latte, and it was nice sitting there watching the saner portion of NY flow in and out, and chatting about american corporate culture and traveling and the eternal-suffering-of-phd- students-for-pitifully-little-reward. i kid, though. this is reward enough.

i still haven't got to the answer to the burning question, because rum babas, though nice, were not what i went to NY for, but i'm going to write that bit tomorrow and backdate, so come back in a while.