Day 5 (9/3/08): Okay so on Day 5, we decided to go to American Museum of Natural History. I'm not exactly a museum type of person but i wanted to go see because this is where Night At the Museum was taken. So, all this while we were at Upper East Side and since the museum was at Upper West Side we got to cross Central Park and go check out Upper West Side which was just as beautiful and the buildings were rather European looking (those on the way). and the ticketing guy actually asked my mum and aunt if they were still studying?! hah. there were all these cultural exhibits, animal exhibits, evolution exhibits (all the skeletons and stuff)!

 Lunch was greaaaaat. haha, we went to the only place which looked nice, the Museum Food Court and we had... hmm wait, i'll go check in the photos.. Cheese Hotdog, Chicken Nuggets (they were shaped like DINOSAURS!) oreo brownies and pasta. and the fries tasted better than Swensons! at a FOOD COURT. but not a surprise because all these stuff chalked up a bill of 50 plus dollars, so that totally isn't food court price so i dont get why they call it FOOD COURT and not Museum Restaurant. after eating, we were really very tired so we just went to see the Sea Exhibits, polar bear exhibit and dinosaur fossils OMG that was soo interesting. all these huge, gigantic and towering fossils! and there was this exhibit with fossils of many different kinds of dinosaurs lumped together when there was some natural disaster millions of years ago. After admiring and reading all those fossil exhibits :) we decided to walk across Central Park but we struggled greatly BECAUSE IT WAS MINUS TWO DEGREE CELCIUS. freezing, as if you were locked up in the freezer. and no, i'm not exaggerating!  but it was worth it because Central Park was just so beautiful and there were like all these dogs, joggers, cyclists. (how do the dogs take the cold?!)

Day 6 (10/3/08): THIS WAS ANOTHER AMAZING DAY! We went to the United Nations Building, which is right beside the East River! there were almost 200 flags hanging outside!! and many abstract paintings trying to show the message of "world peace", and cartoons framed up by people all over the world, young and old. It was so nice. Then we went to get tickets for the Tour around the UN Building. There were beautiful things all over, donated by various countries eg. thailand, china etc. The view of Chrysller Building from inside was nice! So, we went to the Secretarist Building, and saw the Trusteeship Council Chamber (donated by Denmark), Economic and Social Council Chamber (donated by Sweden i think), Security Council Chamber (from Norway) and General Assembly Building. One of the Chambers was designed purposely halfway and stopped, to show that the work towards peace is never-ending. All the chambers were so shockingly awesome because they had the interpreter rooms (Have you watched the Interpreter-by Nicole Kidman?) and they looked so omg, like all the country names listed out and seats with mikes in front of them. and all the important decisions for the world are made there, and it looks so formal and well-organized, that is just so WOW-ish. we even saw bombs and guns previously used in wars, and landmines too! Then we saw the guestbook of the UN Building and people had all these weird stuff written there like "NO olymics in China" and  some stuff about Iran which i dont recall. After admiring East River, we cabbed over to Columbus' Circle and Lincoln Square. On our way, we saw many people carrying flags and protesting against China Olympics. AND THAT WAS THE FIRST Protest i ever saw in my life! We went to Wholefoods for lunch. its a supermarket with foodcourt on one side, which is styled very much like Marche.. they have beautiful chocolate cakes.

After going around to shop at Lincoln Square we decided to exercise and walk all the way across Broadway to Times Square. (which we could finally go to cos there had been a minor bomb on the day we arrived in NYC) omg it was like such a cold walk haha, but very worth it as we saw great stuff on the way. For instance, hundreds of people queueing up to go into the "David Letterman's Late Night Show"! so cool! i thought you needed tickets to go but apparently you just need to queue but it was so cold we didn't want to wait! There was Oprah Winfrey's place too. Passed by great places like Mamma Mia, the Hallmark shop, Hershey's (omg they had amazingly beautiful chocs there, which i never saw in Singapore), M&M World which was just opposite, Swatch shop, Virgin (the play), Planet Hollywood, Miskoff Theatre where Lion King place, the super large Mcdonalds in the middle of Times Square, the humongous Toys R Us and Billabong, Bank of America, NYPD office and all. Then we went to sit at Mcdonalds (with this window seat which had a great view of Times Square) and sat there eating for 3 hrs, till it became dark and they switched on all the flashing lights. and i saw a Joakim lookalike hahahahah,. I got my long needed billabong hoodie jacket yay:) at times square billabong.

 DAY 7 (11/3/08): We started the day with a walk to Central Park, passing by all the avenues mentioned earlier (Lexington/Madison/Fifth etc) and there were all these middle schools with super cute kids. and one kid seriously looked a lot like Daniel Radcliffe in Philosopher's Stone. Passed by Museum of Modern Art and went to take pictures with a few landmarks, and the bears at Central Park. It was freezing cold and my mum and aunt actually wanted to jog! My mum couldn't take the cold though haha. omg i just realized that i have many pictures of random kids. there was actually a whole class of kids at Central Park during school hours. hahah hope nobody thought i was a kidnapper or something haha. so unfair, like at their age in singapore. we were like doing maths and all in class lah. Oh then on our way back, we passed by this apartment building which was facing Central Park and there were like really a lot a lot of reporters and News station vans, like all the american news channels (eg. Fox News, ABC News etc were there) 

so i got all excited and i said we should wait till whoever is inside comes out (okay i actually thought some celebrity or hollywood star lived there haha) so my mum said no because we were all already so cold. So, i went to ask this cameraman (who looked so fierce) so i asked "Who are you waiting for?" and he gave me this "Duh, you dont know?!?!" look and said "Elliot Spritzer of course!" which made me feel so dumb because i didn't know who he was. (However, that night on the news we found out that Elliot Spritzer was the Governor of New York and apparently he visited a sex ring and stuff and then he was forced to resign a few days later so all the reporters were waiting for him to come out!) We went to Big Daddy's American Diner for a true American breakfast which was the most filling and best breakfast i ever had, definitely! We had like a hot choc, jumbo hotdog, fries, wait let me go see the picture again heh, hashbrowns, a burger, omelette, pancakes and we shared everything. After we got home, i just checked my mail and watched a few movies like "THE BRATZ" and "BIG FAT LIAR" (frankie muniz and amanda bynes)

 Then my uncle suddenly said that we should rent a car and go to Atlantic City and then Washington D.C. and then i got so excited and went jumping up and down. So, at 3pm, my uncle and i walked about 30 blocks (passing by yummy restaurants like Luigi's Pizzeria:) to go to Enterprise Car Rental. We got this nice Honda car and drove back to Upper East 82nd to pick up my mum and aunt who were ready after packing our stuff for the road trip. We drove past Central Park West, CNN building, Times Square, Macy's, Madison Square Garden,  Greenwich Village (OMG greenwich village is so cute. its like, you're travelling on a road, and on both sides of you, you see tall skyscrapers, then after 10 minutes when you're still going on that road, the buildings suddenly change to small buildings resembling those in European Villages and as the roads were rather narrow, we saw these two policemen on Hudson street who were waiting for the traffic light to turn green and they were on HORSES!).

we also drove past Chelsea Piers where we saw this super nice advertisement by Burger King (i'll put up the picture).We drove past Holland Tunnel to Jersey City , New Jersey which was a very creepy, eerie and unmordern place, much unlike NYC. We saw NJIT (NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECH&SCI) apparently this area has a lot of robberies and the students there are mostly asians and not americans! We then entered the Garden City Parkway which is really long, like it leads from NYC to Washington and apparently it even connects you to Florida which is so far away. So every couple of hundred metres away, they have people collecting money and there are also restareas, with toilets, souvenir shops, restaurants like KFC, Macdonalds, Roy's Burgers, BK and Wendy's and vending machines with soft drinks and DIPS ice cream. 

They have illuminating lights on the road which was pretty cool. After a 2 hour plus ride, we reached Atlantic City which is situated beside the Atlantic Ocean and it was built because the rich in New York wanted a weekend getaway to gamble but they found Las Vegas too far away so Atlantic City was built and its exactly like Vegas, just much smaller. We drove to Trump's Casino Resort which has beautiful chandeliers haha. We checked in to our room which had very nice beds and toilets and then my aunt and mom went to the casino while my uncle accompanied me to the restaurant to have cheesecake for dessert. Then we walked all over the hotel, looking at the ballroom and stuff omg the casino was so cool, as much as i saw because people our age aren't allowed in and the jackpot was this very beautiful mercedes benz car. We then went out to take pictures and i was freezing because i forgot to bring down my winter jacket. there was this thing outside which said that donald trump is a great humanitarian hahah so self praise lah. oh and we saw a very amazingly beautiful golden limousine. that was all, we went back and slept because it was long past midnight.

Day 8 (12/3/08): i liked this day a lot. i woke up and saw my mother sitting on the side of the room chairs looking at the view so i went to join her and the view was amazing because it showed the vast Atlantic Ocean. and the beach was so weird because all the beaches i've been to so far are pretty hot and windy but this beach had freezing winds and the water was slightly frozen somemore!! so after taking many pictures of the view (i even took pictures of the gabions, groynes and seawalls which were visible hahah i remember geographyy), i went to bathe and we checked out the swimming pool which children cannot enter till after 11am because the European tourists like to swim naked or something. but we didnt swim because it was already so cold and i felt so lethargic. Beside our hotel there was a whole fun fair and outdoor amusement park set up but it was closed. they only open it in summer because i think winter's too cold to even go out lah we were just freezing. Oh so we went down to the beach which was beside the hotel, the sand and all was nice. there were many huge seashells too so i went to pick some up. We also went to touch the Atlantic Ocean water hahahaha. The place had very sweet-looking cats and white pigeons:) Atlantic City's avenues are named after the USA States so its like "Carlifornia Avenue" and "Pennsylvania Avenue" and stuff and this city had many factory outlets which i was dying to go shop at like American Eagles, Express, Aripostle,Nike, Converse, Adidas and oh you get my point. But then there was not much time so my uncle said i had to choose between shopping there and going to see Washington D.C. After much thought on the pros and the cons,i finally decided to see Washington so we sadly left the factory outlets awwww.

We roamed around looking for Atlantic City Expressway and we finally found it so we passed by many states on the way to Washington like Newark, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Delaware (where we saw the Sessquiotein River),  Virginia and Maryland which is where Washington is. We also passed by Baltimore which reminded me of Hairspray. We stopped at BK for lunch and reached Washington at 6+pm. My uncle was telling me about this super nice sounding museum there where he saw Neil Armstrong (the first man on moon)'s space suit attire and all that kind of stuff so fun i wanted to go. However, we wanted one last day at beloved NYC so we decided to just pass through the main places and return. According to my mum, "Washington is like a city made with lego" because everything and everyone is so organised, clean and perfect, as in you see all these sweet little buildings and some are so roman looking and they have small streets with all these important-looking,business suit-clad men. So we saw Capitol Building (i loved it! it looks exactly like in the movies, so unreal!!!), Jefferson Memorial and we stopped at Potamac River which was a very scenic river. We parked near the city gate and walked over to the huge, magnificent Lincoln Memorial built in the memory of Abraham Lincoln.

 On the steps of this attraction, i was amazed to see people from all over the world, not country-wise, but continent-wise as in there were people from Australia, Africa, Asia, many from Europe and of course America itself. There was an American teacher teaching his class (who looked so bored) but he seemed like a very good teacher. He was talking about America's history and Abraham Lincoln. Not only that, there was a spot in the middle of the memorial steps where there are these words engraved on the floor.

"I HAVE A DREAM

-MARTIN LUTHER KING"

Wow so inspiring. At time of racial problems in America, he gave this speech about the Civil Rights Movement to many people standing exactly where those words are engraved. Washington is SUCH a Historical Place! Inside the Memorial was a gigantic statue of Lincoln with these words,

"In this temple, as in the hearts of the people
for whom he saved the union, the memory of
Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever"..

Did you know that Washington Memorial is in the middle, straight ahead is lincoln memorial, and exactly the same distance behind Washington Memorial (exactly at 180 DEGREES) is Capitol Building. Exactly on the right, at the exact same difference is the white house. see how well-planned Washington D.C., the Capital of the World is? WOW. i was so shocked when i saw because its so perfect. like when you see capitol from lincoln memorial, you can't see it cos its exactly hidden by the Washington memorial..we walked on the mall (which is the Reflecting Pool connecting Lincoln Memorial to Washington Memorial) and there were ducks haha. We visited the War memorial which has the names of all their states and is a dedication to their many soldiers who died in war. We sat on the car and tried so badly to go past the White House but it was 7plus pm so the traffic was at its peak. 

then we were almost there when the traffic got stopped and there were two or three motorcycles, then several vans and then a limousine and a few more vans at the back going towards the White House so it was obviously George Bush and his entourage. so unfair they blocked all the traffic and we only caught a glimpse of the White House which was looking very grand. We then left Washington and stopped at a nearby rest area for Roy Roger's yummy cheeseburger for dinner. What i love about that place is that they have a self decorating burger bar so you have to go put in your own lettuce, tomatoes and all and its extremely convenient for people like me who don't eat them! My mum was car sick so we stopped by CVS pharmacy (which is like our Guardian) to get some pills. We drove past Verrazona the super long bridge and Battery tunnel. We passed by all those states again and it took us 4 hours to get back to New York. My uncle wanted to stop at Holiday Inn and spend the night but the rest of us were persistant to go back to NYC and we reached at like 1am plus.I don't remember much about the ride back because i was overly exhausted!

Day 9 (13/3/08): We all woke up very late in the morning and since it was no point having breakfast, we went for brunch at Tottino's about two streets away. It was an italian place with great pizza and was well-decorated with green clovers because they were celebrating St. Patricks' Day. the pasta was not that great, like i was telling my family that pastamania's better. We then walked back and took the car to Grand Central Station which yeah, obviously was so grand for a subway train station (its like MRT Station) but all the lines join at Grand Central. I think its something like our Raffles Place station. There were like chandeliers, pushcarts and even restaurants. However, the subway trains look good but smell horrible! All the New Yorkers were rushing here and there walking so quickly. Its a great place to people-watch. After roaming around, we saw LOVELY Chrysller Building close-up because it was like, just a little bit behind Grand Central. We drove past Metlife, which is a very easily-spottable building. I love the NYC churches, they are so beautiful. Oh and then we saw Donald Trump's "Trump Park Avenue" which was very WOW too. We went to check out Pinkberry after that.

 We drove past Noly (something like Little Italy), Chinatown (which had Peking ducks hanging and all chinese words reminded me of this Jackie Chan movie haha) and Soho (which is where the upcoming artists live in their lofts. There are many fashion boutiques in Soho and we saw this model being taken picture of by the photographer. we were laughing and taking pictures of them!) We also drove through a Justice court which looked so powerful and of course, Wall Street!! :) We then ended up at Downtown NY. We walked to the harbor and we saw Liberty statue again yay<3. We went to the World Financial Centre in the Financial District. We went into the winter garden where there were many restaurants and cafes and we found a french pastry shop to buy meringues and chocolate cake. We also climbed up to see Ground Zero (where the World Trade Centre was before 2001) oh well, i wish i could have seen it. Much construction is going on there now as they build the Freedom Tower. We went to see the model of how it will look. We then went downstairs and saw a high school but there were no students because it was pretty late. We had dinner at Curry in a Hurry and drove past Times Square and dropped my aunt and mum off as mum had to buy souvenirs for her collegues. Uncle and i went to see his old apartment which was near Central Park and then i had a great desire to go see how Plaza Hotel looks like in the inside and so we went in. It was so beautiful but we couldn't go in much as there were many restaurants and the lobby was all the way in. But really, I love Plaza Hotel! We then went to pick mum and aunt up. We went past a bridge to see the night view of the skyline and Hudson River. We saw this man exercising on top of his building and he looked hilarious haha. We then drove past the places we loved and for some reason, there were many limos that day in Upper East Side, like on every street. We saw a whole street lined up with Disney Channel vans and trucks and people crowding around cameras. they were shooting a movie. yeah, and then we went back to pack.

Day 10 (14/3/08)

We woke up early at about 6am and left for John F. Kennedy Airport, Terminal 7. I saw a last glimpse of the NYC skyline as the sun rose and it made me so depressed. We boarded the plane and they made us sit there without moving for approx. an hour and they finally said sorry for the delay as there was too much air traffic at JFK. So it finally took off and we could see a queue of like 12 + planes behind us! I had nothing to do so i was like doing my A Maths homework on the plane and then i just stopped doing because it was so uncomfortable. 15 hours later, we landed at HKIA and rushed to catch our next plane because the earlier flight was late. The flight back to Singapore was so urghughhh because mum and me were both like nauseous, depressed and tired of sitting and yeah i knew i had a pile of things to do and holiday homework waiting for me to do on the next tday which was the last day before school actually resumed. Jingyi and Jiahua came to the airport so we went to t3 for dinner and to chat. thanks :)

AND THAT WAS THE END OF MY TRIP TO NEW YORK. AND IT'S A REALLY GREAT PLACE TO GO TO.

SO YOU SHOULD GO TO.

hahah i'm helping them promote!

but really, i loved it!