No you pervs, the title isn’t some sexual reference, I’m talking about actual stuffed chicken here!

It all started with a friend’s post on Yelp (a review site on almost anything, but mostly restaurants and bars) that mentioned a place in Flushing where they served chicken wings, stuffed with all kinds of interesting things. The post included this link (warning, clicking it will get you hungry!), which was all I needed to convince me I have to try it.

After almost two weeks of bugging the hell out of her, we finally managed to get a group going to the place. And it was well worth it…

There’s no point describing how good everything was since there’s nothing I can say that you can’t see in those pictures I linked before. I mean, chicken wings, broiled (I assume), stuffed with veggies, kimchi and shrimp(!) and covered in spices. What more could you possibly want? Add to it a slushy alcoholic drink – Soju – which I had for the first time. And second time, since we didn’t stop at the first pitcher (strawberry) and we ordered another one (apple).

We have some pictures, courtesy of Helena. Definitely a great place, I will go there again. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, when my friends from Romania will get here.

Friday we got off early from work (since Monday is Labor Day) so we filled up the extra free time by having a Wii party at my place. I bought Wii Sports Resort and 3 extra MotionPlus controllers (damn you, Nintendo) so we can have proper 4-player matches. It was fun – it’s a good game to play with friends over. We finished the day with a small stroll around the neighborhood and dinner at Plaza Lounge.

I woke up pretty early on Saturday and because of that I found myself falling asleep after noon. Around 3 PM my nap was interrupted by the gentle sound of a drill-hammer right outside my window. A ConEd truck was parked in front of my building and the guys were breaking up the pavement (later I found out it was about replacing a leaking gas pipe, so I guess it’s a good thing they’re doing it). I took it as a sign to get out of the house and enjoy the rest of the day out.

My plan was to go to Central Park and do some reading, but first I took a quick detour to Chinatown for some bubble tea. There was a place I haven’t been in over a year that had some great mango tea and good, cheap food – even by local standards (there’s cheap, and then there’s Chinatown cheap). I ended up paying less than $10 for food that could have easily satisfied 2 people, plus my mango bubble tea.

The “quick” detour ended up to last about 2 hours, with me walking afterwards from Chinatown up to Union Square. There were a lot of street fairs along the way, on Spring street, Prince and a bigger one on 4th avenue. I left the latter with a corn on a cob, which for some reason reminds me of my childhood summers at my grandparent’s place.

Around 7 I finally got to the park and camped on a bench close to a cross-street. Which made for an interesting experience, since I could overhear the horse-and-carriage drivers telling NY stories to the tourists they were carrying. I learned a few things about the park’s history and some of the many movies it’s been in. I left a little after 8, since it got too dark for me to read.

Back home the ConEd workers were still there, still noisy. It looked like a good time to pay a visit to my cousin, who keeps asking me to come crash at his place in Jersey for a change (he comes to Astoria almost every weekend). So I packed some extra clothes and headed out.

Following the recommendations of a handful of friends – some of which work in the field and some who are really good at taking pictures – I preordered a new digital camera, the just-announced Panasonic GF1. I don’t usually preorder things, especially expensive things, but this time I succumbed to peer pressure and pulled the trigger.

My old camera was – well, still is – an ultra-slim Sony T7 who had the advantage of being carried with me pretty much everywhere due to it’s tiny size, but fared horribly in low-light areas and indoors. After a series of botched pictures I took some weeks ago – some of which I really wanted to keep – I decided it’s time for a new one. Besides, I’ve been using it for over 3 and a half years.

It should get to me sometime in October, provided the stock lasts (my previous choice, a black Panasonic LX3, has been sold out – or heavily overpriced – for the past 6 months). Will post pics upon arrival.