2015-07-11 40 -73

Location

Back entrance of a small apartment building in Douglaston, Queens

Participants

OtherJack
Matteo, OtherJack's friend

Plans

Meet 6:30 at the LIRR ticket window in Penn Station. Take the 6:48 departure... arrive in Douglaston 7:20... so perhaps 7:45 at the hash? Then eat Chinese food in Flushing. :D

Expedition

The train ride was really interesting, since neither of us had been in Queens much before... particular scenic highlights included the '64 World's Fair grounds (looks like the dystopian future), Flushing (looks like mainland China), and the crossing of Little Neck Bay.

Just after the latter, we got off at Douglaston and started walking south. It was quite hard to believe we were still within the City of New York! Everything was suburban, forested and curvy, with big houses and modest lawns, though there were still a couple of taller buildings. We stopped at a nice bar / BBQ restaurant near the station to use the facilities. "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey was playing in said facilities, which made me laugh.

We continued south past a Korean Cajun restaurant, strangely enough, and then more suburban greenery and houses. As we neared the hash we turned into a vast subdivision of nearly identical, elegant, two-story dark red brick apartment buildings that looked straight out of a 1950s American family's dream. I tried to explain to Matteo (who is from Italy) that this is where my grandma might have wanted to live.

One of these cookie-cutter buildings sheltered the hash, and we eventually reached it. We took a driveway into a large inner courtyard/parking lot and quickly found that the hash was at a back handicapped entrance to the northern building, with signs pointing to a laundry room, deliveries, etc. There was a security guy hanging out by his car about 25 meters away, which made first-time hasher Matteo a little nervous, but he didn't seem to mind us. After the customary screen shots, happy-hasher shots, establishing shots, etc. we were on our way back.

The next train back was in about 25 minutes, and after that 55 minutes... we walked fast and luckily we barely made the first one, as it was running a couple minutes late. Very soon we were in Flushing where we found the basement food court of the New World Mall, which a local friend had recommended. Massive saturation of cheap Asian food from Asia (and of people.) I tried Lanzhou beef noodle soup (which I'd heard about) but it was actually kind of bland. I guess I'll have to really go back to China someday. Matteo's noodle stir fry dish looked a lot better.

Between this expedition and 2015-02-08 40 -73, geohashing has been very good at introducing me to Queens!