NYC - Statue of Liberty

I had wanted to go to Ellis island in addition to the boat trip to Statue of Liberty. But too bad, the long wait to buy the tickets took away 1 hour. And then another frustrating 1 hour to queue up for security check wiped out my hopes of going to the island.

Everywhere we go, there are so many security checkpoints. Other than the airports, we faced a lot of these checks at the many attraction spots. I can only say, its messy. WF commented that they do these everyday, why can't they "perfect" the queuing system?. Its so messy that everybody don't know where to queue and there, you eventually run into a confusion. And these loud mouth New Yorkers will just yell at anybody everywhere to get in line. Hell, where does the line starts anyway. Ask him, you won't get an answer because he doesn't know it himself. That's how frustrating (or idiotic?) it can be.

Fyi, when I meant security checks, its really security checks. Take off your shoes, take off your belts, take off your coat etc. I cannot imagine how tedious it will be during winter time. And I wonder if those officers seated behind the screen are really checking? Because most of the time, I see an obese person sitting on an almost breaking swivel chair, chewing a gum or worse, talking with another colleague.

Enough of complaints (yah, this trip, WF had so many compalaints about the people and system that towards the last day, we were dying to leave). Some information about Statue of Liberty:
- Its not entirely a gift from France. The Americans had to raise money to build the pedestal and the assembly works.
- If you've watched National Treasures: Book of Secrets (I watched this on the flight), Laboulaye was mentioned. He was guy who decided to sent America a gift that signifies freedom.
- Bartholdi was the guy who designed it. Eiffel, the guy who designed and built Eiffel Tower in Paris, came up with the interior structure to hold the statue.
- Pulitzer, a newspaper mogul at that time (and linked to the Pulitzer Book Prize), help raise funds in NY to build the pedestal.
- Emma Lazarus wrote a poem with reference to the statue.
- Due to security reasons, you can climb up the statue anymore. The highest point you can go is the pedestal. And there are limited number of tickets give out each day.

New York City (NYC) - Part I

We were in NYC at the beginning and end of our itinerary. Because NYC was the stop for us to land and go back to SIN, naturally, WF will want to visit New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

On the first full day, Wall Street and NYSE was the main highlights. NYC is designed like a grid. So its easy to navigate. People in NYC rely a lot on walking and the subway. We took a morning exercise of walking from 32nd street all the way to downtown. Passing through TriBeCa, Soho and then to the Financial district. And I chanced upon "Gray's Papaya" while walking the streets. Gray's Papaya is actually one of Anthony Bourdain's favourite hangout whenever he's back in NYC.

Since 911, visitors are not allowed into the viewing gallery of the trading floor unless you are someone rich and famous. There were a lot of security officers throughout the street which makes the whole place feel so "uptight". The bull that used to be infront of NYSE was taken away. Both of us joked that the economy is getting worse that the bull is missing in action.

We ventured two blocks up to the Federal Reserve Building because it was also the FOMC day. Such coincidence. But I was told off by a lady officer when I wanted to take a picture of the building. She shouted across the road that I "cannot take a picture of the main entrance of the building. But I can take it few steps down the street". I thought to myself, "what kind of logic is that?" Pictures of the building will still be taken and a professional camera person can still shoot the main entrance even if he take the picture "few steps down the street". Anyway, this is one of the many incidences I had with these idiosyncractic Americans.

Of course, we visited Ground Zero where WTC once stood. Massive works are being done to reconstruct a new building to commerate the heros and the dead.

A trip to Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty is a must if you're in the Financial District. Because the ferries to these islands are just across the street. One of our frustrations with Americans is their slowness in being efficient at things they do everyday. Imagine I had to queue for more than 1 hour to get the tickets to these islands. And when it was our turn at 2pm, the ticketing officer shouted across to us that ferries to Ellis Island had stopped because there "will be no time to visit both islands today." Crap, if they had just worked more efficiently, many of us can still get on the ferries to Ellis island. And mind you, the queue wasn't that long. It can't even compare with du Louvre's kind of long queue. 2pm and there won't be enough time? Well, they knocked off at 5pm. SHARP.

So onwards to Statue of Liberty Island. More will be shared in another entry with more idiosyncractic behaviours and rudeness I encounter.

The more exciting part of the day's trip, to me, was walking Brooklyn bridge. Nevermind that Victoria Beckham's son was named after this place. This bridge had been featured in so many movies, but somehow, Godzilla immortalized this bridge and etched deep into my memory. Maybe because it was the only movie I know that Brooklyn bridge crashes down.

The trick is to take a subway to Brooklyn and then start the walk on the bridge towards Manhattan. Because the skyline of Manattan is more beautiful as you walk on the bridge. And we planned it such that we walked in the evening to enjoy the sunset view of Manhattan as well as the night view.

That said, its still better just to skip my long post and go straight to see those pictures.

US Trip - The Flight

I realised, there were quite a lot of things to write about this "Land of the Free" country and thought maybe I should break down the different parts of our trip so that I don't write an essay long in my blog (which can be overwhelming for the readers).

So, let's just start with the most simple and boring stuff. The flight to NYC. We took the SQ non-stop flight from SIN to Newark Liberty International Airport (which is very near NYC). It pretty much an enjoyable yet tiring flight.

First we're stuck in the aircraft for 18 hours. Though this non-stop flight saves us a good 4hours of flight time compared to if we take the other flight with a stop in between, I landed in US soil with sore knees. I cannot imagine old folks taking this flight. It'll be a torture, physically.

The enjoyable part is that on the trip to and fro, I get to see 9 movies!! Trying to catch up my loss of entertainment after being a mother. The good thing about SQ is that it has AOVD (audio video on demand) for its inflight entertainment. So we can start, pause, fast forward the movies etc whenever we want. WF and I always look forward to taking an SQ flight (or rather he always insist because of the movies, not the food nor service) and the first thing we always do is to flip open the magazine to see the movies list. Having entertainment kills the boredom and time faster in the flight.

Enough said, I'll share more on NYC soon. Stay tuned.

I'm Back!

Yep... back on Saturday morning. Then the unpacking and adjusting back to local time zone. Our bio clocks were totally opposite to local time because during day time, its US night time. So I'm like so awake at 1am since its 1pm in New York's time.

Will be sharing on the blog about our trip soon. Right now I'm nursing an eye infection. NYC's air is really bad. I had sinus the 2nd day there and now, my inside of the left lower eye lid is infected. With a pimple with yellow pus!! The doctor refused to poke it for me. So I'm having a swollen eye since Sunday. He told me I had such infection because the dust got caught in my lower eyelid and it didn't get washed away by the tears. So eventually it blocked the pores and infected my eye area, just like a face pimple.

This is the second time I get such infection. The last time I had it was after consecutive flights to India. It was really bad that the doctor had to poke it for me.

I can only say, NYC's air is as bad as India's air. My eyes can tell.