Saturday :
Rising bright and early at 8.30 am, we were all pretty excited that we were finally going to see the Niagara and the "Maid of the Mist". Now, I need to give some back ground on why the M of the M is so significant for me. Ever since I was a kid, I had cousins/uncles/aunts who visited from the US. They all had 2 very prominent pictures- 1) sitting in the "cup" in the "cup and saucer" ride @ Disneyland and 2) of course- the M of the M.dressed in the blue ponchos and shivering , standing on the deck of the M of the M. So, these two iconic places were very much part of my " I want to go to America" dream.Thanks to going to grad school in University of Floria, I have the "cup and saucer" picture from a trip to magic Kingdom, 3 years ago. I was so close to completing my childhood dream. Anyways, coming back to the topic, we drove to the Niagara falls park and to my utter horror, we learn that that M of the M is not operational owing to bad weather.There goes my big balloon :(- so I sulked for sometime and managed to bark at both our friend S and HD.After I came to my senses, I realized that there is not much those 2 poor souls could have done anyways.We went to the souvenir shop first (yes- that was HD's idea to lift my mood and I hate to admit that it did work!!). After buying customary souvenir that are always over prized, we took the free park-bus ride to the next stop. This was an aquarium and it was so much fun. The three of us had a blast here, esp HD who loves fish and aquatic creatures in general.I also got a bonus--a Mumble soft toy ( the Happy feet penguin :))-- My HD definitely knows how to pamper me.. hehe.We then took the park-bus again to the next stop.This was a place called the "cave of the winds".We took a guided tour to the bridal veil falls , the American falls and the Horse shoe falls. The HD was very thrilled by the fact that Canada was so close from there. For some reason , he has this strange wish of visiting Canada some day.We took lots of pictures there. We were starving by this time and boarded the park bus for the next stop- a "top of the Niagara" restaurant.Our bad luck strikes again and we found out that the restaurant was closed. We then boarded the bus back to the parking lot and to our surprise found an Indian restaurant right opposite the park. We had a sumptuous meal there and embarked on our 7 hour drive back to NJ-NY.Again, a round of napping and back seat driving from me and 3 hours of driving from both the guys, we came to NJ and dropped off S around 9 pm. We started to drive to NYC around 9.30 pm. As we entered NYC there was an accident in the Lincoln tunnel and we were stuck in traffic for about 1.5 hrs. Finally we made it to the rental agency and were starving by this time.Our hotel had sent a pick up car for us-- we asked the kind Chinese driver to stop at a Mc Donald's to pick up some much needed dinner - this was around 12.00 mid night.I was sitting in the car with the driver and another hotel guest , while poor HD was waiting in the queue to get sandwiches for us. The driver suddenly told me that the line is too long and so we would go back to the hotel, drop off the other guest and come back to the hotel. I casually called HD on the way to hotel to let him know that we were going to be back in 10 min.He started to freak out and that's when it stuck me that I was in a car with 2 unknown men in an unknown place in the middle of the night and they could take me anywhere !!!So,after calming HD down and nervously holding my cell phone, we made the trip to the hotel and to my relief drove back to Mc D, where my poor HD was standing with tension written all over his face. After this minor upset, which gave another reason for a small fight we went back to the rooms and sank to our beds thankfully.
Sunday:
On Sunday, to my utter dislike, we had to wake up at an ungodly hour of 6.00 am. We had a guided city tour of NYC for that day and the bus started at 7.00 am. So the two poor souls- me and my HD landed at the assigned place at 6.45 am. To top it all, it was freeeeeeeeeeeezing cold!
We got into the bus and groggily waited for the guide/passengers to arrive.When the bus finally started, to our horror, the guide starts to speak in Chinese!! That's when we notice that we were the only two non-Chinese people in the bus. After trying to attract the guide by various forms of hand waving / coughing /loud "i cant understands " ( from me ) and the more polite "excuse me"s ( from HD of course!), still no avail.We then stopped at China town for breakfast. I walked very fast to the driver ( as the guide ahd already vanished somewhere), and fired my fiery questions as to how we were supposed to understand mandarin , do we look like Chinese people etc.After my (what seemed like) lengthy questioning/ranting - the driver is wearing a " crazy lady in my bus" expression and says " i no English.no understand." That was enough to send the HD into rolls of laughter--though initially irritated , i too soon saw the humor in the situation and we Had a healthy dose of laughter. Thankfully, the guide moved us to a smaller van, where he said the instructions/descriptions will be bi-lingual.Here too we were the only non-Chinese people :).
So , we set off on our NYC tour--I still felt that the mandarin version of the commentary was much longer than the shortened English version. We stopped at Wall street, NYSE, the "lucky bull" and other important places in the financial district. I got all excited on seeing the Waldorf Astoria, which is where Serendipity was shot! :)!
Our next stop was the World Trade Center / what is now Ground Zero.Though HD wanted to walk around, it was too cold for me to have any fun :(. I just posed for a couple of customary pictures read a couple of boards and went back to the cozy van. The next stop was the Top of the Rock building in the Rockefeller center.Thankfully, our travel agent had bought tickets for everything and so we skipped the long lines and went right in.We went to the 67,68th floors and the view was just breath-taking. After another session of pictures , its-too-cold-lets-go-indoors cribbing from me and you-need-to-adjust-and-let-me-spend-some-time-here from HD, we finished our tour of the Top of the Rock.We still had plenty of time - so we came out of the Rockefeller center and wandered in the street (much to my disdain!)-debated over eating kabobs form the street vendor and decided against it owing to my affinity to fall sick during trips.The next stop was the Central park and Trump Building. We did not have enough time to go into the Central park-just outside. I managed to buy 2 pretty pictures of NYC in fall and NYC in spring for our apartment.We just drove past Time square and stopped at Madame Tussuad's wax museum. We were supposed to finish the Museum and lunch in a hour and a half. Again, our travel agent had purchased tickets- so we went in happily.Of course, this was a very exciting stop for both of us. For me, I got to meet the likes of Jon Bon jovi, Magic Johnson,Elvis Presley,President Kennedy,Julia Roberts,Gandhiji,The Back Street Boys,Will Smith,Jennifer Aniston,Richard Gere . For the HD, he shot pictures with Shakira,Marlyn Monroe,Beyonce,Rachel Ray,Spice girls,Hugh Grant,J Lo, Paris Hilton etc.After another argument over if we shop for souvenir first or eat -- we entered a souvenir shop opposite to the museum :). We then ran to a Pizza joint nearby and barely had 10 min to hog down our pizza slices.When we came back to the van, we were the last ones to board and I got an "its all because of your shopping" look from HD.Happily settled in the van , our next stop was a 2 hr cruise that goes half way around NYC and around the Statue of Liberty.This was the most relaxing part of the day. Withing 15 min of boarding the cruise I was fast asleep on my able shouldered husband :).He had to wake me up periodically, so I don't miss-out on anything. The lady Liberty stood tall , welcoming all the aspiring immigrants to the land of dreams.It was a fun cruise and the guide was a true New Yorker who had interesting anecdotes to make our trip very interesting!The only bad part was that it started snowing as we were finishing our cruise. The guide even said that this was the coldest Easter he had seen.
After coming out of the cruise, the last stop for the day was the UN head quarters. This was a very educating experience. They had a very good photo exhibition on landmines, which moved us to tears. We then proceeded to the book shop downstairs and bought " In spite of the Gods" which is a book on the growing Indian economy. After more pictures, we sat down exhausted, in the van.We were so thankful for our warm and cozy bedroom, after a tiring day out in the cold. We took a small nap and got up a little refreshed. I wasn't up for going out again in the freezing cold- so we ordered food in our rooms and watched some mindless TV till late in the night.
Monday:
We decided to sleep in to compensate for the previous day's tiring trip and woke just after 10 am. Having missed breakfast already, we started packing and went down to the lobby for our airport ride. After a grueling ride to the airport (because of the traffic), we arrived at the airport about 2 hours before our flight.Oo yeah-- the hotel had a special deal with the cab company, so we got to ride in plush and trendy limosines evrytime we asked for a cab :).After getting some packed lunch from an airport cafe, we boarded our flight.Thankfully, they had "pursuit of happiness" playing on the flight. We landed in LAX, after an uneventful flight.After bidding a teary goodbye to my HD, I came back to SJC.
Sigh! Sigh! there goes an extremely long post--I wish I could go on a holiday again really soon.
Rising bright and early at 8.30 am, we were all pretty excited that we were finally going to see the Niagara and the "Maid of the Mist". Now, I need to give some back ground on why the M of the M is so significant for me. Ever since I was a kid, I had cousins/uncles/aunts who visited from the US. They all had 2 very prominent pictures- 1) sitting in the "cup" in the "cup and saucer" ride @ Disneyland and 2) of course- the M of the M.dressed in the blue ponchos and shivering , standing on the deck of the M of the M. So, these two iconic places were very much part of my " I want to go to America" dream.Thanks to going to grad school in University of Floria, I have the "cup and saucer" picture from a trip to magic Kingdom, 3 years ago. I was so close to completing my childhood dream. Anyways, coming back to the topic, we drove to the Niagara falls park and to my utter horror, we learn that that M of the M is not operational owing to bad weather.There goes my big balloon :(- so I sulked for sometime and managed to bark at both our friend S and HD.After I came to my senses, I realized that there is not much those 2 poor souls could have done anyways.We went to the souvenir shop first (yes- that was HD's idea to lift my mood and I hate to admit that it did work!!). After buying customary souvenir that are always over prized, we took the free park-bus ride to the next stop. This was an aquarium and it was so much fun. The three of us had a blast here, esp HD who loves fish and aquatic creatures in general.I also got a bonus--a Mumble soft toy ( the Happy feet penguin :))-- My HD definitely knows how to pamper me.. hehe.We then took the park-bus again to the next stop.This was a place called the "cave of the winds".We took a guided tour to the bridal veil falls , the American falls and the Horse shoe falls. The HD was very thrilled by the fact that Canada was so close from there. For some reason , he has this strange wish of visiting Canada some day.We took lots of pictures there. We were starving by this time and boarded the park bus for the next stop- a "top of the Niagara" restaurant.Our bad luck strikes again and we found out that the restaurant was closed. We then boarded the bus back to the parking lot and to our surprise found an Indian restaurant right opposite the park. We had a sumptuous meal there and embarked on our 7 hour drive back to NJ-NY.Again, a round of napping and back seat driving from me and 3 hours of driving from both the guys, we came to NJ and dropped off S around 9 pm. We started to drive to NYC around 9.30 pm. As we entered NYC there was an accident in the Lincoln tunnel and we were stuck in traffic for about 1.5 hrs. Finally we made it to the rental agency and were starving by this time.Our hotel had sent a pick up car for us-- we asked the kind Chinese driver to stop at a Mc Donald's to pick up some much needed dinner - this was around 12.00 mid night.I was sitting in the car with the driver and another hotel guest , while poor HD was waiting in the queue to get sandwiches for us. The driver suddenly told me that the line is too long and so we would go back to the hotel, drop off the other guest and come back to the hotel. I casually called HD on the way to hotel to let him know that we were going to be back in 10 min.He started to freak out and that's when it stuck me that I was in a car with 2 unknown men in an unknown place in the middle of the night and they could take me anywhere !!!So,after calming HD down and nervously holding my cell phone, we made the trip to the hotel and to my relief drove back to Mc D, where my poor HD was standing with tension written all over his face. After this minor upset, which gave another reason for a small fight we went back to the rooms and sank to our beds thankfully.
Sunday:
On Sunday, to my utter dislike, we had to wake up at an ungodly hour of 6.00 am. We had a guided city tour of NYC for that day and the bus started at 7.00 am. So the two poor souls- me and my HD landed at the assigned place at 6.45 am. To top it all, it was freeeeeeeeeeeezing cold!
We got into the bus and groggily waited for the guide/passengers to arrive.When the bus finally started, to our horror, the guide starts to speak in Chinese!! That's when we notice that we were the only two non-Chinese people in the bus. After trying to attract the guide by various forms of hand waving / coughing /loud "i cant understands " ( from me ) and the more polite "excuse me"s ( from HD of course!), still no avail.We then stopped at China town for breakfast. I walked very fast to the driver ( as the guide ahd already vanished somewhere), and fired my fiery questions as to how we were supposed to understand mandarin , do we look like Chinese people etc.After my (what seemed like) lengthy questioning/ranting - the driver is wearing a " crazy lady in my bus" expression and says " i no English.no understand." That was enough to send the HD into rolls of laughter--though initially irritated , i too soon saw the humor in the situation and we Had a healthy dose of laughter. Thankfully, the guide moved us to a smaller van, where he said the instructions/descriptions will be bi-lingual.Here too we were the only non-Chinese people :).
So , we set off on our NYC tour--I still felt that the mandarin version of the commentary was much longer than the shortened English version. We stopped at Wall street, NYSE, the "lucky bull" and other important places in the financial district. I got all excited on seeing the Waldorf Astoria, which is where Serendipity was shot! :)!
Our next stop was the World Trade Center / what is now Ground Zero.Though HD wanted to walk around, it was too cold for me to have any fun :(. I just posed for a couple of customary pictures read a couple of boards and went back to the cozy van. The next stop was the Top of the Rock building in the Rockefeller center.Thankfully, our travel agent had bought tickets for everything and so we skipped the long lines and went right in.We went to the 67,68th floors and the view was just breath-taking. After another session of pictures , its-too-cold-lets-go-indoors cribbing from me and you-need-to-adjust-and-let-me-spend-some-time-here from HD, we finished our tour of the Top of the Rock.We still had plenty of time - so we came out of the Rockefeller center and wandered in the street (much to my disdain!)-debated over eating kabobs form the street vendor and decided against it owing to my affinity to fall sick during trips.The next stop was the Central park and Trump Building. We did not have enough time to go into the Central park-just outside. I managed to buy 2 pretty pictures of NYC in fall and NYC in spring for our apartment.We just drove past Time square and stopped at Madame Tussuad's wax museum. We were supposed to finish the Museum and lunch in a hour and a half. Again, our travel agent had purchased tickets- so we went in happily.Of course, this was a very exciting stop for both of us. For me, I got to meet the likes of Jon Bon jovi, Magic Johnson,Elvis Presley,President Kennedy,Julia Roberts,Gandhiji,The Back Street Boys,Will Smith,Jennifer Aniston,Richard Gere . For the HD, he shot pictures with Shakira,Marlyn Monroe,Beyonce,Rachel Ray,Spice girls,Hugh Grant,J Lo, Paris Hilton etc.After another argument over if we shop for souvenir first or eat -- we entered a souvenir shop opposite to the museum :). We then ran to a Pizza joint nearby and barely had 10 min to hog down our pizza slices.When we came back to the van, we were the last ones to board and I got an "its all because of your shopping" look from HD.Happily settled in the van , our next stop was a 2 hr cruise that goes half way around NYC and around the Statue of Liberty.This was the most relaxing part of the day. Withing 15 min of boarding the cruise I was fast asleep on my able shouldered husband :).He had to wake me up periodically, so I don't miss-out on anything. The lady Liberty stood tall , welcoming all the aspiring immigrants to the land of dreams.It was a fun cruise and the guide was a true New Yorker who had interesting anecdotes to make our trip very interesting!The only bad part was that it started snowing as we were finishing our cruise. The guide even said that this was the coldest Easter he had seen.
After coming out of the cruise, the last stop for the day was the UN head quarters. This was a very educating experience. They had a very good photo exhibition on landmines, which moved us to tears. We then proceeded to the book shop downstairs and bought " In spite of the Gods" which is a book on the growing Indian economy. After more pictures, we sat down exhausted, in the van.We were so thankful for our warm and cozy bedroom, after a tiring day out in the cold. We took a small nap and got up a little refreshed. I wasn't up for going out again in the freezing cold- so we ordered food in our rooms and watched some mindless TV till late in the night.
Monday:
We decided to sleep in to compensate for the previous day's tiring trip and woke just after 10 am. Having missed breakfast already, we started packing and went down to the lobby for our airport ride. After a grueling ride to the airport (because of the traffic), we arrived at the airport about 2 hours before our flight.Oo yeah-- the hotel had a special deal with the cab company, so we got to ride in plush and trendy limosines evrytime we asked for a cab :).After getting some packed lunch from an airport cafe, we boarded our flight.Thankfully, they had "pursuit of happiness" playing on the flight. We landed in LAX, after an uneventful flight.After bidding a teary goodbye to my HD, I came back to SJC.
Sigh! Sigh! there goes an extremely long post--I wish I could go on a holiday again really soon.
6 comments:
Interesting to read :)
Keep continuing ..looks like u had very nice time :)
Thanks Logakka.. Inspired by you [:)]..lets talk.. call u soon ..
awesome..keep going...
"I wish I could go on a holiday again really soon."
You should until you decide to have kids;-) Before we used to go for long drives in snow but now we look outside the window & say "ohhh its soo cold outside to go anywhere";-)
Well what can I say ...You have very gud memory..Well done...
Thanks dalls
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