Samomatic

So Thursday after work Jeff, Brandon, and Yassir met up in Waterloo and began their trek toward New York City. Brandon started a blog using his blackberry [www.djdeanre.tron09.com] and let us know the situation inside Jeff’s van and how many times they have missed their exits.

Ryan and I took the Lucky Star! after work and arrived in New York City Chinatown at around 11:30pm. We went to Mike’s place, chatted for a while and then went off to bed.

I managed to drag Mike along to see the sunrise and we were out the door at 5:45, we had to cab it away from Manhattan Island but neither of us nor the cab driver knew where we were going so we just got dropped off by the water. Eventually we figured out where we needed to go…we ran about 3 blocks and then up 200 steps of stairs. I had to sit down after taking a few slanted shots :)

It was worth it though and we did see the sunrise despite the thick cloud covering.

We took the ferry back to Manhattan. Brandon and crew came around 10 and we head out to Grand Central and other attractions

In the evening we went to Carmine’s near Time Square. The food was family style and was really tasty.

This dessert was called “Titanic” and it had fruit and nuts on top of cream on top of ice cream on top of brownie. Total weight: 5lb+

This little girl was really cute and after talking to her I bought a bobble-head dinosaur, which now has two broken legs after taking the notorious Fung Wah busline…

The Waterloo crew left shortly after noon so we wandered the street some more. Ryan and I waited for about 2hrs to get to the top of the Empire State Building.

We got out of the subway at 7:55 and tried to catch the 8pm bus by running across Chinatown with all our bags. We ended up taking the 8:30 bus and got into Boston at 12:15am.

This past long weekend I went to NYC and met up with Elvin, Kathy, and Elton. I hopped on the LuckyStar bus at 3pm but didn’t get to New York until 8:40pm. I was ready to chew on the armrest… Well once I arrived in NYC Chinatown I had a hard time finding the subway station so I had to run to Union Square with all my luggage to meet Elvin by 9pm.
We went to his place, dropped off my stuff and then walked north of Time Square to get some Chicken & Rice – Elvin nearly froze to death. We went to HA! Comedy Club and the show was harlious.

Saturday I told Elvin to be prepared to walk all day (he is too nice to tell his touristy friend he doesn’t like walking or the cold), fortunately, we had blue sky and near zero temperatures.

There are lots of unique things happening all the time in New York. One of my favorite moment that weekend was when 2 people got onto the subway and start started singing acappella, many of the passengers were already numb to these street performers. But soon their joy spread throughout the monotonous subway car, some tapped their foot, some sang along softly and looked looked around and smiled at others.We got home around 7pm and I got an email from AJung: “Have loads of fun and be safe ok? And don’t exhaust those guys with 23 hours of walking!!!”
We both burst out laughing, I guess the damage has been done already..haha




Kathy and I wanted to cook, we went grocery shopping and whipped out some chicken parm, mashed potatoes, and veggie. I am quite proud that I am learning to cook a thing or two living in Boston.
We had lunch at Little Italy. Elvin ordered so much food it could barely fit on our table! The pizzas were fantastic with lots of flavor and very little grease.
I hopped on the 2pm bus, the ticket lady would not start the bus because she was missing ONE ticket stub and had to check everyone on board. Arrived in Boston at 7:30pm, it is so peaceful, different but nice too.

After much planning and reading about New York, Randy and I decided to go visit the Big Apple. Right at 5pm we dropped our work and caught the subway to downtown Boston. We took the Fung Wah Bus (got to love the Chinese run businesses) which is half the price of Greyhound and is scheduled almost every hour of the day.
The bus ride was brutal, not because it is a Chinese-run business, but we had chosen to site in front of 4 twenty-ish ultra Air-Head girls that would not shut up. This girl wanted to be a fashion magazine designer and she told her friends about this machine that flashes ads in front of an audience. If their pupil dilates then that means they are interested (umm I can see lots of bright white pages in her future magazine).

At approx 1am, stepping out of the subway station into Time Square felt like the sun has just set. Big screens on buildings flashing, taxi screaming by, street performers making noise, carriages trotting along, and hot dogs stands grilling more meat. The street was filled with people and it took me a while to adjust to the honking, shouting, and motor noises. New York has quite an extensive subway system. The trains run 24hrs a day and it is the only city I know that people have to fight for seats at 2am in the morning.
Grand Central Station: Central Park: The FASTEST carousal! It’s even got seatbelts. These postcards are so old some colours have faded. Good deal for pranks *hem* Museum of Natural History (really cool):

Coney Island, a bit sketchy but still very fun. Too bad the freak show was closed. Walking across Brooklyn Bridge at 2am:
Ever had fried chicken and fries at 3:30am and then straight to bed? It kept me full for the next 14hrs!

Overall, New York is quite a crazy city. It is filled with lights, taxis, and people.

At first it was pretty amusing but after the novelty wears out it is difficult to find a place without them. The city is also flooded with tourists and they take pictures of everything. We were near the World Trade Center site and I saw this group of foreigners taking pictures left and right so I thought there must be something interesting, turns out it was just a truck shipping dirt away from the site.
The only time I felt unsafe was in Chinatown where the street was packed and both sides were lined with merchants selling watches, handbags, DVDs..etc.
When we got back to downtown Boston it felt strange to hear no shouting and honking on the street.