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MY NYC TRIP

Sept 1, Saturday, 8:30, Mississauga.
I, still carrying my cold from days before, sara and yifan finally got on our tour bus to newyork. It hasn't really hit us yet, but we've been expecting this weekend since my last term in waterloo. Our bus ride includes constant stops after every 2 hours, a movie (the Mummy, which i thought wasn't suitable for the little kids on board.. but oh well), and a few incidents with our tour guide (late 20s, chinese male, he had his eyes on us since the beginning now i think about it): he probably thought that we were trying to pick him up, by yifan asking for his number, in which he replies, uhhhmm, later..when i know my number ok? Yifan can only utter one word, DOh! aiya...

6:30pm, New Jersey.
Finally, our first real stop: Jersey Garden Outlet mall. With a limited 2 hours, we only managed to hit 3 stores and each ended up buying one thing.

8pm. Marriott to Sean's

Chinese tours were so unorganized, our tour guide, or as we call him, the dude really needed a little flag for attention grabber. By the time we got into our hotel room... traditionally we all jumped up and down on the beds, but yifan bumped her head when she jumped so high she hit the ceiling... truly kodak moment. After a long bus ride, our original plan was to stay at the hotel and do a little swimming, a little sauna,,, the whole girls night out. Only to find out later that Will is coming in 15 min, oh great, there goes that idea. Quickly freshened up, we met Will and his friends: Tim (whom we already know from uw), Dave and Haipo.
" girls, we are finally here, we are in new york!" i yelled out.
"Yeah..."
"Actually this is still in new jersey", will added calmly.
"Ok, then Yeeaa!!! we are in Jersey!!" me and the girls were still excited.
That night we ended up in will's other friend Sean's flat. We went to will's place before hitting Sean's. When we were getting out of the car, while dave carrying a backpack full of booze in front of him gentle as to a baby, we saw this first gorgeous looking chick coming out of a convertible....being a girl myself, i still have to admit, she was da bomb. No doubt she was a mix, she had combined the best of two worlds of asian and caucasian. Use your imagination guys....sorry, and no, we didn't take a picture of her. sigh. The party at sean's place are cool, pretty much like we all hang out at someone's house at waterloo.... just chilling, playing video games, and having some booze. I, being the only girl can't play video games well, felt into the trap when sean said, "hey alice, if you turn your body when you play, you'll drive better". Me, being so caught and concentrated on the race actually took his advice, so STUPID ALICE!!! aiya... they had a good laugh,, haha glad they were entertained. But i got my sweet PAY BACK time when i ask sean," so you speak mandarin? which one? the REAL one or the Taiwanese one? " haha take that!! >:).

Later on we found out that sean's sister was in her room sleeping this whole time! aiya....hope she got ear plugs on...The party turned out pretty good, with our witty discussion about china history, and other controversial topics which i don't quite remember.... we surprised the guys with our non-preppy styles. Which i wonder exactly what the girls are like in nyc? some other people showed up as well.. they are from uw,, what a small world, all these uw graduates met up all in Big Apple. It's so hard to just run away.

Sunday, Sept 2, 7 am. Marriott
with only 3-4 hours of sleep, we got up unwillingly. Being the morning showerer, sara woke us up with her perky smiles and laughs. She called to wake up the guys, "wake up guys,,we beat you, haha..." ah sara... We already decided that we weren't gonna follow the tour, but go with the guys instead since they wanted to do similar things with us. 8:15 will and tim came to pick us up, the other two were still gettin ready.. haha us girls beat them again!

8:30 am Hoboken-NYC!!
Finally when everyone is ready, we grabbed mcdee's on the way to the subway...btw, greasy hashbrown are bad ideas in the morning. Being half awake, fanfan threw her milk she just bought into the garbage can instead of the straw wrapper in the same hand.. it could happen to everyone.... haipo, the gentleman, offered his juice. AWW... what a nice guy. we saw the most amazing "instrument" at the subway station. There were these 3 by 3 inch little squares embedded on to the beam. There are about 10 of them, all spread out evenly on the beam. and when you reach up to touch them, they lit up in blue lights and we heard rain forest, tranquilize music to our ear. Each little square had its own tone and node... as we tapped on them one by one, i was so amazed by it and impressed that you can find tranquility in the subway station of all places.

Our first stop in NYC, is Times Square. I could have imagine how bright this place would be at night. With an encounter from a scouper, a strange girl standing as she belongs to a part of our group, instensively listening to our discussion, we managed to come up with our next step. Will stayed behind to line up and buy musical tickets for us as we followed Dave to the Moma. Dave, our lovely tour guide walked extra blocks to the Moma so that we can see more of NYC, although he said that he got us lost.

The Moma was amazing. i forgot how fun it was to stare at an abstract painting and just let your imagination carry you away freely. and of course, we took a group picture in the lobby when Will joined us with Cabaret tickets. we gave all of our cameras to some chinese dude.. the poor guy had to do all 6 of them.....i felt bad so when i thanked him as i took over our cameras i asked for his name. and of course, this act of politeness leaded into everyone thinking it was my AJ Action kicking in... aiyo... but it's all good... After moma, we checked out this real expensive, but classy moma gift shop... i wish i could buy the whole store..... one day, i promise, i will be able to afford something there.
Then, we arrived in front of FAO Schwarz--- sara's main purpose of this trip. It was huge…. Wish we could've stayed there longer. However, I wasn't lucky,, this 13 boy grabbed me from behind… I was so shocked…. Of all the places in new york, I was violated in a toy store, for heaven's sake….Trying really hard to erase this memory from my poor brain. We then walked through Central Park. Tim and I wanted to go on the horse ride,, however due to our time limits, we only took pictures. However while walking on the sidewalks, I started talking to this well dressed couple walking beside us. It turned it was their daughter's wedding… ah how nice, wedding in Central Park. Fanfan couldn't resist,"ahiya, alicse you get picked up everyone, even an old couple."

2:30pm Cabaret

We arrived at Studio 54 where Cabaret was playing. Brooke Shields starred as Sally Bowles, similar to Molin Rouge,, however I thought Molin Rouge was classier. Studio 54 was however really impressive. There were little round tables with this cute little red lamp on them, like a comedy club set up. However the show was outragously provocative and strong sexual graphics....i thought it was a little too much at times...Brooke shield's performance was good, but her voice were so loud that it was breaking my ear drumbs.... TOOO LOUD. and me and sara felt alseep a lit.. believe it or not....considering we only had 3 hours of sleep the day before.. i was amazed that we hold out for this long anyways... we decided to get a little souvenir for him down at the gift shop thanking him for lining up for us for cabaret tickets. as soon as the show was over, me and sara rushed downstairs,,, meanwhile i tried eyeing dave to stall will, to create a diversion of some sort....but without previous concent... dave failed and will started followin me and sara... aiya... finally yifan,, to the rescue..."will, wait here for me,, i got to go to the washroom" aiaa!!!! mission accomplished... will enjoyed the little cabaret shot glass we got and this chapter all ended in good laughs :D ... Passing by David Letterman's Late Show,,, couldn't resist,,, we each pulled out our cameras.... you just had to .... after all we were tourists.

7pm Dinner
Hungry again,, we walked thru nyc for a decent asain restaurant,, and when we got there! they are closed!! DOH!!! so hungry.. couldn't take it any longer....finally a Tai restaurant looked decent and close enough, my feet couldn't take anymore walking on concrete... we all crashed in comfy seats and enjoyed our spicy tai food . yummi....After dinner,,, we walked by United Nation.... which was where will stepped on my sandle from behind causing me flipped out of my sandle and almost PKed... so bad.... there went my left foot..

9pm Empire State Building
This is the reason why i was in nyc.... well one of the reasons.. after nearly 40 min of lining up, holding tickets that was a day old.. Luckily we got in no problems… thanx goodness… Once I was up there, all the waiting was well worthwhile. Many people seem to choose to all come up here for some time off. Time off the world I guess. At least that's how I felt when I looked down at all the lights shining from millions of buildings, I felt so insignificant yet safe in the way that I could just hide here to take break from my stupid little life. We all seem to be so self absorbed, in result becoming the center of our world whether we like it or not. It was so nice just to get lost in the crowd, I felt lost but safe and peaceful somehow…The world is way too big for us to get cooped inside our everyday routine life, there is just so much to do, so many places to explore in this world. Maybe this might not make sense to all of you, but it made sense to me.

10pm subway
Tired and sleepy, we stepped into the subway heading to will's. There were these teenager getting on the subways.. and they were so high, they were singing some kind of cheers back and forth in front of everyone... they were louder then Brooke Shields...if that was ever possible..crazy new yorkas!! Here, the guys are squatting down, pure asian style and having some korean walnut cakes. *Sigh*,, only in new york....

11pm will's place
We were supposed to go clubbing tonight.. but that's just physically impossible... with only few hours of sleep and a long day in nyc today,, we decided not to kill ourselves by going clubbing and crashing on the dance floor, but instead will suggested that they'd crash our hotel instead.... will and dave was up for it.. tim ended up driving us there and back to will's with haipo for some much needed decent sleeping time.

11:30pm Marriott sleep over
I don't know why we agreed for them to sleep over.. now that i think about it.. it was a little inappropriate... But we were so tired and sleepy when we got to wills....We agreed to pretty much anything… we were no longer 19 La

3am Finally rested
after some card games!! (can you believe it? After a long day like that? We were ALL Crazy)

Monday Sept 3, 8am Get rental car
I got up at 8, couldn't sleep with too many people in the room and constant snoring from whom remain anonymous. None of us slept well, most of us were sick either from each other or the damp air in our hotel room

10:30 am Meet up with Tim and Haipo

After will picked up a rental car, we first headed out for some Dockside picture. Sorta like central island in Toronto, you get the whole coast line of NYC,,, very pretty I must say. Brunch at a Mandarin Restaurant was interesting, for the first time in my life, the waiters didn't understand Cantonese for once!! Boy I was glad I was mandarin.

3pm Jersey garden shopping again
Woodbury was too far, so we hit Jersey Garden once again. After 3 and half hours of shopping we toasted with some Mrs. Fields cookies… A COOKIE TOAST!

7pm change for dinner in ten minutes
Since we were tight on time, we decide to go back to our hotel change and head straight to wills then to SOHO for some first class dinner. We locked Dave inside the washroom while the three of us change into our evening dresses. In only 5 min, we were all changed in to these one-piece, knee-high, thin-strap dresses, in different colors however. The weird thing was we didn't even plan to dress alike, I bought mine in Chicago, sara got hers in TO, and Yifan just bought hers today at Jersey Gardens… So there we were, me in red, yifan in white and sara in black red, together we could be a Canadian flag. But dave's expression when he saw us was like "wow," then "Damn! You guys look great! And so quick too…did you all change at the same time together in the same room?" ok, Dave, guys,, they are so typical.

*As of this moment, it's 9am, Sept 11. Hence explains the sudden shortage of the trip detail.. I just didnt' feel like writing about the good times...*

8pm Dave's old building

roof top view of downtown NYC skyline (which doesn't exist now,, goodness gracious)

9pm dinner at cenntine in SOHO

Best dinner, amazing service and i felt like i was somebody, like in the movies or somehting

11pm BAR 89 and the amazing washroom

For details on the amazing washroom, go to fanfan's community.. she post her nyc essay there... i wrote this after the horrible attack.. no mood to continue writing..

2am another bar name unknown

we were really really drunk don't remember too much

3am will's
yifan passed out,, i was outside getting some breather,, sara was dave inside talking

6am Marriott
finally got back to hotel... only had one hour to pack to meet up with our tour and start heading home.. again.. no sleep at all.. i guess it's the bus again...