Vacation
Hanging out in Flushing, Queens, New York City
Vacation
You probably haven’t noticed this, but I’ve been gone the past little while.
The nice thing about blogging (and making YouTube videos) is that it’s pretty easy to make stuff in advance. Creating a bit of space for yourself means that you can go on vacation every now and then and not worry too much about it.
Of course, it’s a little bit hard to get back into the flow of things once you’ve returned — but that’s another story.
Flushing
We decided to take a little trip over to Flushing, New York.
I think I’ve mentioned before that my wife is from Taiwan. She’s always on the lookout for the best possible Chinese food, and organized our trip to Flushing.
In terms of food, I think the trip was a rousing success. The restaurants on and around Main Street in Flushing are simply marvelous, and I’d recommend them to anybody who is even the slightest bit curious.
Of course, this isn’t a food blog. So let’s get down to business.
The Mets
It turns out that our hotel room was less than a mile from Citi Field.
This wasn’t on purpose, of course. Had she been aware of how close we were to the stadium, I’m sure my wife would have insisted that we stay in New Jersey instead. As you can imagine, we weren’t about to pay $30 or more per ticket to see a game there.
In the early mornings, while my family slept, I took advantage of the proximity and did a little bit of exploring on foot.
The outside architecture is actually really impressive, as you can see from these photos. It looks like it really belongs in a city, almost like it could fit in smugly next to the other aging buildings that make up New York City.
Of course, to really get that effect you kind of have to ignore the parking lot on the one side, and the empty space that will make up a new soccer stadium on the other side.
Nostalgia
Of course, the other problem with the new, sleek ballparks is the lack of nostalgia.
It’s kind of hard to get really excited about Citi Field, since nothing has really happened there. Game 6 in 1986 didn’t happen there. It’s not the place where Dykstra hit that home run, or where Tommy Agee made those two incredible catches.
I was thinking about that the other day, when I decided to watch a few minutes of this game from the 1986 NLCS:
If you pay attention during the first third or so, you’ll notice that the crowd had not yet arrived (I think this was due to a rain delay). There are great shots of people rushing in from the 7 subway train.
You can kind of imagine that when you look at that subway station exit today:
But, still, it’s just not quite the same.
I know, I know, these things change naturally. You don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone, after all.
But sometimes I do wonder whether the new toys we have are really better than the old ones we threw away.