My Experience On APSA’s New York Trip
Submitted by Michelle Ewton
On December 3, 2022 APSA held their annual New York City trip. This was my first time going on the trip though, so I was a little nervous. Before this trip, I had never been on a school trip in college. This seemed like a good opportunity though, it was only for a day and it was free. Well, I had to make a down payment of $10 just to secure a spot on the list, but afterwards they gave the money back. Even if it was $10 to go on the trip, I would have wanted to go anyway because it would have been a nice break from school and I could hang out with friends in a new setting. The trip was indeed free though, which I’m glad that they did. I’m always so happy when clubs try to be all inclusive and break down as many barriers as they can for members, be it financial barriers or social ones. I applaud them for doing this, as it must have been hard to plan.
As I mentioned before, I wasn’t going on this trip alone. Originally, four other friends and I signed up for the trip together. A couple days later, we found out that one of our other friends also signed up on a whim but didn’t have any plans, so we swept him into our group. There were some others that I or my friends knew going on the trip, so it made the car ride fun because we could just talk through most of the car ride. You know, when we weren’t sleeping since we left early in the morning to New York and late at night back to UD.
At first I didn’t know that APSA did a New York trip every year. It became apparent though when Daniel Lin, the president of APSA, gave us a funny mini seminar on how not to get scammed in NYC like he has in past years. This was very helpful, especially since I’ve never been to NYC before and didn’t know what to expect. Long story short, don’t interact with strangers. After our in-flight safety lesson was over, other members of the e-board spoke about the significance of NYC to the Asian American community and culture, which goes back many many years.
The trip starts off a little bumpy. When we get into NYC we get dropped off at a different place than what was expected. We get off and we do a headcount in the middle of the street and get into our groups. The rule was that groups were at minimum three people for safety reasons, and if you didn’t have a group then you could hang with the e-board. After that we tried to get everyone to Food Gallery 32, but there was a little confusion and my group just ended up wandering off. Oops, but whatever. We ended up having lunch at a Korean restaurant that also served Vietnamese and Thai food. Honestly, we tried all the different cuisines and it was pretty good, not the best pho by any means, but better than some other dedicated pho restaurants.
Before going on the trip, we made a game plan for what we wanted to do in NYC. Rockefeller Center, Line Friends, Nintendo NY, Paris Baguette, Kinokuniya, and back to Bryant Park to meet up with everyone and get back on the bus. All this in five hours. And we did it. If you want to see how our day went, check out this YouTube video:
Overall, it was a very good experience. I would recommend this trip to anyone, even if you don’t have someone to go with you’ll still have fun with everyone else. If APSA has a NYC trip next year, then I’ll definitely sign up to go again. Hopefully next year I’ll be lucky and escape scammers two years in a row.
