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Monday, October 20, 2008
I should have done this post on New York City early, but I've been struggling/ still struggling with my heavily-weighted midterms right after I came back and really could find no time to pen this entry... It's still kinda surreal because the trip went past so quickly, yet, because of the packed itinerary, it really did seem that I went for a bit of everything..5.30am. The 4 of us were at the Student Service Centre, waiting for our cab to arrive. We began to panic when the cab didn't come on time, so we made another call to the cab agency and asked for another one to pick us up. But all is well, and we made it to the Bloor-Yonge Subway station in time to catch our coach.
 We met up with the rest of the group, and together, the 9 of us boarded the coach and began our journey to New York City!  We da-bao-ed breakfast to munch on the bus and pretty much slept throughout the journey there. Geraldine and I were up the whole night mugging, because we had SO MUCH to finish before we could leave. In an attempt to feel less guilty, we also brought some notes over to study, DUH, the notes remained untouched. But we were so tired...   We got to see the US side of the Niagara Falls when we were nearing US customs. Our tourguide, Noam, kept reminded us not to talk during the customs, only to answer the officer's questions and say nothing else, not to look at the security camera .... His tone and repeated advice made passing the customs seem so scary, but it was really not that terrifying an experience really! And the queue wasn't even long in the first place!  There were loads of Mexicans going with us on the trip, and they were pretty rowdy, to say the least... Like the girls were taking off the guys' clothes, doing wild dancing and singing loudly on the bus... The Singaporeans were simply sitting at the back of the bus doing what we enjoy best, EATING (and sleeping)~! Everyone brought different snacks so we were busy passing all our junk food around the group most of the time...The tourguide commented that we were very communal, and that he has never seen a group that took care of each other so much! heh!  There were a few stops along the way. Food was pretty expensive, so we spent most of the time out in the sun, taking photos and talking with each other...Got to know Meryl, Sam and Alex from the University of Toronto, which effectively broadens my circle of Singaporean pals in Toronto, to a grand total of 11 people!   See! The trees are really pretty now, because some are green, others turned yellow and some are red already!  The traffic was pretty bad, and we were an hour late in reaching our hotel.. We stayed in the Marriot Inn hotel that was in New Jersey, slightly off New York. We had to leave right after dumping our bags in the hotel that night though, because we had to rush off to Times Square for the night! 10 hours plus bus ride okay! It reminds me of the horribly long plane ride I have to endure when I go back to Singapore in December... but I shall not think of that first.. But I really liked the hotel. It was comfortable, bathroom's big, with 3 huge mirrors, and the best thing about the room, seriously had to be the heater. haha!    I had expected myself to go crazy shopping in Times Square, but surprisingly, this place was not at all THE place to rave over when it comes to shopping. Mostly high-end shops (with no sale), and tourist shops...       So, the group of us was attracted by this huge M&M flashing advertisement board, and we went off to visit the M&M speciality shop, and it was SO COOL! It was 3 storeys of M&M products, they had chocolate everything! No wonder the shop was so crowded.   This was super tempting!    We didn't have time for dinner, so we just grabbed $1 ice cream sundae from Mac before heading back to the hotel to retire for the night :) It comes with free peanut toppings here!!!!!! 
10:55 PM
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