We spent the day in Flushing and Long Island to see Seventeen.

Despite having been to New York over thirty times now, and living there for a bit when I went to college at a SUNY/CUNY school, I have never been to Long Island. My first college roommate was from there, and I was a bit traumatized by my experience with her. It was not great.

So I avoided going to Long Island for the longest time out of lingering trauma. I also had no reason to be there, especially after I moved back home to Baltimore, where I’m from, and went to graduate school there. But then the opportunity randomly presented itself in October 2024.

I will have to admit, this little excursion was definitely not in my agenda of things to do. At the time of writing this, I was two months into waiting for my Indian visa to arrive, and I was supposed to be there two months before this. So when my friends bought tickets to see the Korean idol group Seventeen, I was so sad to miss it.

That said, my visa decision had not been made yet, and a week before the concert, my friend ended up texting me to see if I was still around (I was) and if I wanted to go. Despite the resale tickets being a little pricy for UBS Arena, I still bought a Section 322 seat in there for $220. I was absolutely shocked by the prices for this concert!

And so on October 25, 2024, the three of us woke up at 6 AM and piled into a Jeep, driving all the way to UBS Arena, arriving at 10:30 AM, and spending our day in the area.

Here’s how we spent that day!

K-pop concerts always have a plethora of events before they start.

As I wrote before, we arrived in Long Island at 10:30 AM. We parked in the garage directly across from the arena, which was a two minute walk to the entrance, and then walked over to the arena. The merchandise line opened at 10 AM, and the line was already huge and wrapped around the side of the building.

We dropped our one friend off at the Carat line, which was already beginning to form a massive queue despite it not opening at 12 PM. There, we joined some people trading photocards and bracelets. It was during this time I somehow managed to get three Junhui photocards despite having nothing to trade with people.

My friend and I then left our other friend in line, as she planned on camping out the entire day and making friends. We went to Wendy’s after a bit to use their bathroom, purchasing some small fries, then at 11:40 AM booked an Uber to Flushing because we knew it would go up at noon. The Uber was unfortunately $37, which was surprising considering it was only twenty minutes away.

Flushing is one of the best and cheapest places to eat in all of New York City.

Flushing is one of my favorite places in all of New York City, and on this day we were meeting my friend who lives in South Carolina. She had arrived in NYC that morning, so we agreed to meet up at the restaurant Song Lai Xiang for meat skewers. This was actually my first time in the Korean part of Flushing!

Song Lai Xiang was really good. It’s rotating meat skewers at your table over charcoal, so we ordered about forty skewers and a side of green beans. The green beans here were really good, but so was the meat. I liked the beef the best out of everything we got, and with drinks the total came out to $36 a person.

After that the four of us walked back to Main Street to go to Chun Yang. It was nice to see the neighborhood of Flushing on a Friday afternoon, as it was still pretty lively. That area is always so crowded. We headed off to Chun Yang, my favorite bubble tea spot, and ordered drinks there. This time I got the orange cosmo guava drink—I really liked it!

We stopped by Eglance Bookstore, which has solid Chinese stationary and books, then got a Lyft to my friend’s hotel. There, we waited for her friend to do her makeup, as she was going to the concert too, then we all got a $60 Uber back to UBS Arena. The traffic was absolutely terrible, and it took about an hour to get there.

Seventeen is full of great performers, but the concert was so-so.

We got back to the venue at 5:00 PM and dropped my friend’s friend off into the Carat line, as there was a rush for the photocards they were giving to members of the fan site. My friend and I then wandered back into the parking garage for a nap in the car, gawking at how people were waiting to get inside an hour early, and then we took naps in the car until 6:30 PM.

After that, we went inside. We were stunned at how nice the arena was with its facilities compared to the ones we were used to back in Maryland. However, it was insanely expensive. A cocktail is about $31 with tax, which was such a sticker shock for me considering venues back home sell them for like $20.

I thought about getting merch, but I thought it wasn’t that cute. So I held off on it for now, and we took our seats ten minutes before the concert was due to start.

Seventeen took to the stage a little bit after 7:30 PM, and there was a lot of hype. Not many empty seats in this house, that’s for sure. I loved how my section didn’t stand for most of the concert, so I was able to sit and enjoy the bops in my seat.

Junhui is my favorite member, but he wasn’t there. The group was great live though, and the individual units having an entire section to show off their talent was great to see.

I did find the concert a tad disappointing though with the set list. I wanted more of the classic bops, but this was a set list that didn’t focus on those.

The encore was also terrible according to my friend and I—it seriously was not an encore, more like them just playing “Very Nice” over and over again and free styling some of their older songs. We’re not huge Seventeen fans, just like their music, so we didn’t care for the fan service that happened in this part.

At 3 AM, we finally made it back to Maryland.

Traffic was a nightmare getting out of that arena. The other friend we were with came back to the car at 11:00 PM, after we had gotten back, and we didn’t get out of the area about 11:30 PM. We made a pit stop for gas and Wendy’s, then hit the road. 90% of the traffic was getting out of New York City, as the Verazzano Bridge had an accident at 12 AM.

After driving for a bit, we did stop in Delaware, and we made it back home at 3 AM. They dropped me off first, and I pretty much changed into my pajamas and then collapsed onto my bed. I woke up at 10 AM that morning, but I don’t think I would do this again—it did wreck my body for that Saturday.

But all in all, it was a fun day! It’s always nice seeing friends I don’t get to see often.

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