Mac flew to New York on June 13, 1998 to join Denny who was there as part of the U.S. ASEAN Ambassadors Tour.  Because of thunderstorms and fog, La Guardia was closed most of the day and Mac arrived some 11 hours late after two unscheduled stops in Syracuse and Detroit.  As soon as we checked into our hotel on Broadway, we went for a walk to Times Square.  We watched the break-dancers and had a late night dinner at a sushi bar.

Mac wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, but the weather was still stormy on Sunday morning.  We decided to go anyway.  It was still rainy when we boarded the ferry, but the rain miraculously stopped when we arrived at the Statue of Liberty.  There were smaller crowds than usual, so we were able to linger for a couple of hours.

Our good fortune was largely due to the warm welcome we received from Al and Minda Chu who are old friends from Beijing days.  Al has retired from AT&T in nearby New Jersey.  He and Minda drove into the City to spend the whole day showing us around.

Al and Minda introduced us to some great food in Chinatown.  There are many new Chinese immigrants there.  It seemed exactly like China. We regret we did not have more time to explore the many interesting ethnic restaurants in NY.  On Olive's recommendation, we had a great kosher meal at Carnegie's Deli where she used to go in her jewelry buying days.

On Monday, Denny had to spend most of the day in meetings.  Mac was stranded in the hotel room watching TV and eating $25 hotel hamburgers.  When Denny was finally free, Mac's idea to go see "Godzilla" on the big screen at the Sony Imax theater seemed perfect.  After a frustrating day of meetings and hotel rooms, we both experienced a sense of exhilaration watching the loveable monster destroy most of Manhattan.

On Tuesday, we drove to Buffalo, NY to visit a high school Mac is considering attending.  New York is bigger than we imagined.  It was over an eight hour drive.  The scenery in the Catskills and the Finger Lakes region was beautiful.  Mac snapped this picture of the setting sun just as we arrived at Niagara Falls north of Buffalo.

It was dusk when we arrived at Niagara Falls just north of Buffalo.  It was even more magical in the evening light.  It looks like the postcards, but the power of the falls is indeed stirring when you are there.  The sound of the thundering waters resonates in your gut and the spray in your face is more like a typhoon than a mist.

We stayed until dark to see the falls lit by the colored lights.  It seemed almost irreverent to convert such a magnificent natural wonder into some kind of Las Vegas-like spectacle.  Actually, in a way it did impress us.  The powerful flood lights hardly lit the falls.  The falls are much greater than this ambitious tourist scheme.

Here is Mac posing in front of the clock tower at The Gow School.  The Gow School is a college prep school for bright dyslexic boys.  It was founded in 1926 and has an outstanding record of placing boys in the best colleges.  As it costs more than Harvard, we would not be able to afford it except that the State Department will pay all of Mac's tuition and expenses.  Our family is a little apprehensive about sending Mac away, but we both liked what we saw.

The classrooms at The Gow School are quite small as they typically only have 5-6 students.  The teachers encourage lively discussion and the students cultivate critical thinking skills.  Although the students were gone when we visited, from the warm welcome we received, we imagined that it would be a very nurturing family-like environment.

This is the Director of Admissions Rob Garcia, Mac and the Headmaster Bill Patterson.  Both spoke of The Gow School with an obvious sense of pride.  They sympathized with Mac's concern about leaving home, but assured him that all the boys liked the very rich life they had at The Gow School.

We took this 270º panarama from behind the gym to show how vast the 77 acre campus is.  There are six athletic fields, three tennis courts and a private ski slope.  All the boys are encouraged to play sports and in the winter they ski 4-5 times a week.  They have six mini-buses to transport the boys to theater, symphonies and museums in Toronto and Buffalo.