My first trip to the US! Many many poser shots! All photos are from the boys who had digital camera back then when all I had was my trusty Pentax film camera - which means no individual shots of mf here, sob sob! :p
Written years back, edited 3 Apr 2011.
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24 Mar, Monday
MS, YS and I left the UK just after lunch and arrived at Logan Airport, Boston, at 430pm. By the time we settled into the Boston Irish Embassy Hostel, it was already dark. One satisfying meal of burritos later, we were roaming the streets, taking in the night view of the city from the other side of the Charles River across Charles River Dam. We strolled past the Science Museum as a dino stared menacingly at us... From Longfellow Bridge, the skyscrapers across the river in the Back Bay area were so pretty we kept taking photos. Trigger-happy!
Our riverside gaze...!
25 Mar, Tuesday
Our itinerary today was to cover the entire Freedom Trail by 2 pm. Since we stayed close to Charlestown, we began from that end.
Charlestown Bridge brought us into Charlestown. We were walking along Cordis Street which was lined with quaint lamps which looked as if they really were oil lamps.
The first monument on the trail was the Bunker Hill Monument, a tall granite obelisk commemorating the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill (which actually took place on Breed's Hill!). What happened after we left the hill was a minor disaster as we seemed to have taken the exact opposite direction to our next destination: the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world. But a friendly driver saw our lost faces and sent us back onto the Trail to the Charlestown Navy Yard.
The guys posed at Bunker Hill:
We then crossed the bridge back into the south side and followed the red marking on the pavement to continue our Freedom Trail. Along the Trail, we passed by Little Italy where we started to feel hungry amid the many Italian restaurants. But we did not stop there. Faneuil Hall was famed for its multitude of food places and we MUST eat there. It consisted of Quincy Market and the North and South Markets. The pavement between two markets reminded me of La Rambla in Barca!
One thing we realised: the churches here all seemed to have the same structure of stone lower half with a white peak! At one point, we thought we had somehow turned in the wrong direction and gone back to a previous church.
We then carried on to a more city-like area of Boston until we reached Boston Common, a big park which should look prettier in summertime. From there, we took the T subway to Cambridge.
It was mid afternoon when we reached Cambridge, home of Harvard and MIT. We came out of the T onto Harvard Square, where an all-girl acapella group was singing to the cheers of the public audience. A minute away, Harvard campus was all red bricks and green grass. Once inside Harvard Yard, I sort of lost my bearings. We were at some corner of the campus and took a poser shot pretending to be looking at posters, as if we were students there. And another such shot featuring two of us reading a map with Houghton Library and a church behind us :p
We carried on along Massachusette Avenue to reach MIT. The campus seemed much bigger and we could walk straight into the Science Library to check emails!
A long walk along Harvard Bridge later, through Back Bay, we arrived at Copley Square, home to the Trinity Church right next to the John Hancock tower. My picture of the reflection of the church in the shiny tower came out so well! =)
As we would be leaving for NYC the next morning, we went to Chinatown to buy bus tickets. A whiff of roast meat swept us off our feet and we HAD to have a Chinese dinner! Succulent roast duck SKIN… oooh... But I lost my gloves somehow =(
26 Mar, Wednesday
Bad news early in the morning: the money we put in the locker at the hostel was gone, though our documents and mobiles were intact. Oh well! Life goes on! We arrived in NYC Chinatown at 1130am. On the way, we crossed Williamsburg Bridge as we entered Manhattan. The view was fantastic!
Riverside Inn Hotel was easy to find. Well, with the grid-like streets and avenues, everything was pretty easy to find. What was not easy was figuring out the normal and express metro - we went up and down a few times *.*
Our first stop in NYC was the Yankee Stadium which was, unfortunately, under some renovation and closed to the public. In order not to waste our trip there, we took the chance to take a picture next to a statonary school bus! Just one of our many poser shots :p
We went on to midtown to explore the area as the sky started to turn grey. Times Square was bustling with everything! The skyscrapers with colourful LCD displays, the noise of the vehicles, other people on the road passing me by, they all had me swirling in excitement as I suddenly realised, man! I missed a busy city! It struck me how different this was from the many European cities I’ve been to. However, we did not hang around too long as strong winds carried rain in their wake.
This should be taken some time this day: frog for YS aka Frog!
And since we're on this, KLK was out one day in early 2010. We asked Kok if YS was joining us. Kok pointed to his shirt: he has brought Frog along!!!
By the time we reached Rockefellow Centre, it had been drizzling for a while. As the drizzle became rain, we left quickly and popped into Macy’s for a stroll, a long stroll achieving only the purpose of escaping the rainy weather outside. All hope of going up to the Empire State Building disappeared as the rain continued.
27 Mar, Thursday
Ambitious as we were, we set off at 730am to the Statue of Liberty. We should be among the first to get to the island that morning but due to security checks and the popularity, it was about 930 when we finally got to the island. The Statue was actually smaller than it looked in movies and pictures but nevertheless worth the trip - hey, you MUST go there when you're in NY right? Right??
And then, we must pose!
Next was our Lower Manhattan tour which began at Battery Park, where we alighted from the ferry. A series of sculptures in the park culminated in this metallic sculpture at the northern end of the park, The Sphere, which was originally in the plaza of the WTC and survived 9-11. A fire was lit in front of the damaged sphere.
We continued to walk on through various squares and buildings to reach Wall Street. The New York Stock Exchange stood on its own with a huge national flag over its front. However, since 9-11, it had been closed to the public. Now the area was also overflowing with security. Undeterred, to get something out of this trip, we took a picture with the NYPD State Troopers car with two officers! :p
Before City Hall Park, we sidetracked a bit to get to Ground Zero. It was solemnly barren and surrounded by high metal grills. On one side, there were the names of people who sacrified one year and a half before, as well as the history of WTC. It was hard to imagine this place bustling with normal everyday activities when all we could see now was destruction =/
City Hall Park had a happier mood though, the people in there did not seem to realise the vehicles screaming past on the roads bounding the park. And soon, it was the end of our walking tour, which was completed in good time.
We crossed Brooklyn Bridge where the views were spectac! Suspension bridges usually look good and this is no exception. We really took our time on the bridge and when we got to the other side, it was 4pm. A metro ride took us back into Manhattan. With time to kill before dinner with LS and SX, we visited Washington Square near NY University but we didn't like that area much..
We had dinner at Nonya, a Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown with fabulous food! Oh, the Chinatown was hugh! I felt like I was in HK..
After dinner, LS and beau went off for bubble tea while SX took us to the Empire State Building. It was so windy up there on the 86th platform that we were chilling to our bones! But the views were gorgeous as we could really see everything in Manhattan and beyond. Unfortunately it was too dark to take good photos (on my camera anyway!). However it was quite clear that the Times Square area was really really bright as it was surrounded by tall buildings with giant screens as a source of light.
Somehow managed a photo there:
But the night did not end there. On the way as we sent SX home, we went to look at LS’s room before saying hello to two other girls and then on to SX’s room. We were so tired by the time we got back to the hotel!
28 Mar, Friday
After walking for 18 hours (yes!) the previous day, we deserved a good relaxing day on this last day in Manhattan as we set off for Columbia University where an anti-war protest had taken place just a day ago, and Central Park.
Can you spot MS and YS on the steps pretending to be students there?
We were early for SX when we reached Columbia but we met MS’s friend AY (edit 3 Apr 2011: He turned out to be Sito's good friend and brother on our wedding!). SX brought us around the campus before we left for a pizza lunch. AY brought us for a stroll along Hudson River before we went to central park.
AY, MS and me somewhere in Central Park:
This must be somewhere along the river going by the reflection! Don't know what this pose was for :p
The next place we hit was Fifth Avenue where all the boutique flagship shops were located. I was happy I passed Tiffany’s, inspiration for the delightful "Breakfast At Tiffany’s"! =)
Weather was turning bad once more as we headed for the UN building. There wasn’t much really so basically, it was a really slacking day :p
The guys had an early dinner while I brought a giant bagel sandwich onto the coach to Ithaca. I was very much asleep when I was woken up by this man just diagonally behind me, singing to himself as he listened to his headphones – loudly! Had to endure that for most of the ride =/
We finally arrived at the Collegetown at 1130pm, and YX arrived on time with JD to fetch us to his house. After settling down, we spent some hours in front of the computer watching anime before we met Zhou Gong!
29 Mar, Saturday
We woke in time for a late brunch. YX’s other housemates were D and Y. D made pancakes for us, so nice of him and the pancakes were nice too! We went to their supermarket Wegman’s and Yong Li Chinese foodstore to help get groceries before zooming off to the campus itself.
With our two tour guides YX and JD, we went into many of the campus buildings. Quite modern actually. I can’t remember much now as it was so freezing cold that day, with rain! But I do remember the clock tower with the Chime Master; it was interesting, which made the tough climb worth it afterall =)
Us outside the clock tower!
And we had a little performance inside!
Oh we also had bubble tea! It was good, better than all that I had had in Singapore!
It was cookout time when we went back to the house and, oh, the house, must describe it. It was more of a flat actually but a large one. Four rooms, all with queen sized beds! Argh! I am envious.. No, I’m JEALOUS! (But then have I mentioned that YX “abdicated” his bed? Heh! :p) Then there is the living room, big enough to accommodate many pple on two big new leather sofas comfortably. And I have hard wooden chairs in my flat =/ Anyway, the dinner.. It was good, we cooked four or five dishes for nine people as two friends joined us. In particular, A’s appearance made the PIG congregation (pending Oxford diaries...) complete =)
We were talking about going to the Niagara Falls the next day, to the Canadian side which was supposedly prettier. YX brought me to find PW, my OBS friend, who was staying near his place. YL came over late at night since we would be out the next day. However, rather embarassingly, I fell asleep while we were gathered talking (and me seriously dozing off) in YX’s room =o
The next thing I know, it was..
30 Mar, Sunday
And outside was covered with snow! Yay! It was so pretty I didn’t laze in bed! But the downside was we could no longer drive all the way to Niagara Falls. However, there were other options as JD had found. There were a few nice falls and such around town, ok, about an hour away? :p With nice names like Buttermilk Creek! But then Seneca Falls came up and hey, no one had been there before so let’s go man! But first, lunch at Applebees, BIG lunch for each of us =)
We drove and drove (JD drove, all guys talked, I slept) but falls? Finally we learnt that Seneca Falls actually refered to the super misleading name of a heritage town!! Oh well! There were other things on the way back. We bought some wine after some tasting at the Swedish Hill Winery and headed for the Taughannoy Falls which were beautiful in the snow! It was also where our poser guys did some amazing poses :p
First, they looked out into Cayuga Lake, pensively..
Then at Taughannoy Falls, they took off their coats and hugged each other, not in tears but in crazy laughter brought on by the cold!
Here's a non-poser shot of us against Taughannoy Falls:
Another cookout that night, with curry! But me, mf, gastric ah.. Didn’t eat much.. In fact I fell asleep with my hair still wet and the guys were talking. I remember seeing poor YX working hard at his table, and then, it was another morning :p
31 Mar, Monday
So I woke, with that yeeky feeling of a once cramped up stomach stretched as I stretched my back with a morning yawn. In a flash MS and YS were gone, off to Philadelphia to continue their trip. And me? Took my time packing, and watching bits of anime, then finally hopped on the bus back to Manhattan at noon.
By the time I reached the Port Authority, I just wanted to go on the plane immediately, so tired.. I made my way safely and swiftly to JFK Airport in about an hour, I was proud of myself (?!) :p But it was quite a long wait at the airport as I checked in about three hours before my flight. But well, there’s always the magazine section.
1 Apr, Tuesday and beyond – Credits (and discredits – what’s that? Debit? :p)
Ok! I’m back in oxford! Nice feeling..
Now the credits roll.. It was a really fun trip, thanks to MS and YS for jio-ing me along and for all the funny things esp the poser shots! :p And the kind gentleman who sent us to the USS Constitution when we went "holland".. It was really nice of SX and LS to bring us for yummy food in NYC, and SX and AY for taking time out to show us around =) And finally, the much needed rest at Ithaca wouldn’t be possible without YX and JD! Thanks a lot!!
Debits: The person/people who stole our money in the hostel in Boston – you owe us money FOREVER! * evil * The KTV champion on the bus ride to Ithaca – get a life!
