My vacation in the US Part III: New York

The train ride to New York pretty much sucked. To be honest, the train ride itself was pretty good. The chairs are pretty comfy, and the first train (Denver - Chicago) had a nice lounge where you could just hang out and have a snack. As such, I prefer it compared to a plane, since it’s much easier to just get up and walk around (though the plane would only take a couple of hours instead of 2 days).

The bad part is that the schedule apparently never works. My first train was more than 2 hours late in arriving, and it was more than 4 hours late when we arrived in Chicago. I was planning to have dinner in Chicago (since I originally had 5.5 hours till my next train), but now I just had time to grab a quick burger at McDonald’s before going to the gate.

I was willing to give Amtrak another chance though. If the ride from Chicago to NYC went well, I’d be willing to forgive that first delay. But this time, the train would arrive 2.5 hours late in NYC. It’s not so much the delay itself that annoyed me than the fact that the staff doesn’t give you proper information. In the first train, they told us at one point that we would arrive in Chicago around 7 pm, and it turned out to be 8:15 pm. And in the second train, when someone asked how much longer it would take, the staff said one more hour. It turned out to be 2.5 hours, and in both cases, we didn’t experience any extra delay as far as I could tell (since we didn’t make any extra stops). Even so, nobody bothered to inform the passengers of the correct time afterwards. I’m just hugely disappointed at the level of service. Next time, I'll probably just take the plane.

Thanks to the delay, I had trouble meeting up with HyeWon as well. Her phone died when I messaged her about the delay, and she went to the wrong station at first. But we finally managed to meet up at 10pm (the original planning was 7pm). We had Japanese for dinner, and afterwards, she brought me to my hotel. Next time, I’m definitely getting a more expensive hotel. The hotel smelled like piss when I first entered, and I had to share the bathroom with the entire floor. And I saw a mouse (or rat?) scurrying around when I was just getting ready to leave. Good thing I didn't see it during my first day, or I’d have felt more uncomfortable sleeping there.

Still, the location was good. It was a 2 minute walk to the bus stop, and the Port Authority bus station in Manhattan was just a ten minute bus ride away. From there, it’s just another 2 minute walk to Broadway/Times Square, and a lot of different subway lines also run from Port Authority, so travelling around is easy.

Anyway, HyeWon was busy with a bunch of other stuff (she also just bought a new house), so we only met up for a couple of hours. She showed me around Times Square, and afterward we walked on the Brooklyn Bridge and visited Chinatown and Little Italy.

I was pretty disappointed in Chinatown. I expected to see a lot of typical Chinese stores (i.e. grocery stores, cake shops, herb shops and restaurants), but instead most shops there sold stuff like jewellery, perfume, handbags as well a bunch of “I love NY” t-shirts. Every few minutes or so, someone would ask you if you’re interested in buying anything, and I couldn’t even understand what they were saying, or even in which language (I assume English, since they were mainly directed at HyeWon). And of course, there were lots of people selling bootleg DVD’s. If anything, I think it just reinforces the stereotypes Americans may have for Chinese people. It’s such a shame that there weren’t more typical Chinese stuff there. Still, I haven’t walked through whole Chinatown; it might be that only the main street was like this, and that the outskirts are better.

After that I spent a couple of hours at Central Park, which was huge. It would probably take a whole day if you want to walk around the whole park. After that, I went to Battery Park, where you could take the ferry to Ellis Island and Liberty Island. Only problem was, I got there at 5pm, and the last ferry departs around 4:30pm, so I couldn’t get to Liberty Island, which was the reason for going there. I spent some time walking around the park, and at night I walked around Manhattan a little bit more, and had dinner in Little Italy.

The next day, I went to Battery Park again, and this time I was able to take the ferry. I didn’t get off the ferry at Liberty Island, since I was on a tight schedule, so I didn’t see the Statue up close. I wasn’t able to go into the Statue anyway. You have to make reservations beforehand via phone or internet, which was a safety measure since 9-11 according to the lady at the ticket counter.

After that, I walked to Wall Street and the World Trade Centre site, both of which were pretty close to Battery Park. There wasn’t really much to see at the WTC site. They are starting to rebuild again, and the building site was naturally closed to the public. There were people there selling photo albums, where you can see the planes fly into the Twin Towers picture by picture, which seem a bit ghoulish to me. Anyway, there was a sign there urging tourists not to buy anything.

After that, I did some souvenir shopping, and visited the Toy ‘R’ Us and Virgin stores before I headed back to the hotel again.

That concludes my 2 day stay in New York, and I would fly to Chicago the next day.


High Point:Central Park
Low Point: The hotel…

My vacation in the US Part II: Denver

The ride from Ankeny to Denver took about 11 hours including stops, if I remember correctly. I was afraid it would be exhausting at first, but it was actually a pretty good ride.

We stayed at Seve’s place in Denver, who was living with her boyfriend Nathan. We didn’t do much in the first evening. We went to a Korean restaurant, and afterwards had a couple of beers while watching the videos HeeRa made in Korea, and doing some catching up. I still often find myself thinking back to the time I spent in Korea, and it was just so much fun reminiscing.

We went to the Garden of the Gods the next day, which was just amazing. I did some souvenir shopping at the visitors centre, and Seve and HeeRa gave me a shot glass and a souvenir penny. We walked around the park for a while, enjoying the beautiful sights. I really loved it, definitely one of the highlights of the trip. At night, we went to a club and had some fun.

To be honest, we didn’t do a lot the last couple of days in Denver. I think we were all feeling a bit tired. We did walk around downtown Denver. We mainly walked down 16th street, which was the main street. There were free buses riding up and down the street, which I thought is a great idea. You’ve got to love free public transportation. We also had dinner one night at Rialto, where Seve works. The food was pretty good, and I really liked the atmosphere there.

We also watched the Simpsons movie at the theatre, which was largely disappointing. To be honest, I actually expected the movie to be disappointing, but still, it’s the Simpsons, so I had to watch it. The show used to be such a perfect blend of sarcasm, satire and just plain silly humor (and even the silly humor always had a hint of cleverness to it), but somewhere down the line the balance shifted more and more toward silly humor (without the cleverness). Just watch the rooftop scene in the movie to see what I mean, it’s just so unfunny that it just saddens me to see what this once great show has degenerated into.*sniff* Ok, so it wasn’t really that terrible, but still a huge disappointment nonetheless.

On Sunday, HeeRa had to start back home early, while my train left around 8pm (though it would be more than 2 hours late in arriving). Seve and Nate took me to Waterworld, the biggest water amusement park in the US. It was fun, though the lines were very long, and 30 bucks is way too much money to pay for an amusement park.

My last dinner in Denver was at the Cheesecake Factory. They made us wait for 10 minutes, even though there were still a lot of empty tables in the restaurant. They were probably doing this to improve their stature or whatever, but I think that’s pretty stupid. In fact for me, that’s enough reason to never go back to the Cheesecake Factory again.

After that, it was time to say goodbye to Seve, and to start my 2-day train ride to the Big Apple…


High Point: The Garden of the Gods
Low Point: Not really, there were maybe some minor annoyances (e.g. the lines at Waterworld, making customers wait for no good reason at the Cheesecake Factory), but nothing that qualifies as a low point.

My vacation in the US Part I: Iowa

I just got back from my 2 week vacation in the US, which was a lot of fun. Seeing HeeRa, Seve and HyeWon again was great, and I hope it won't be three years again before I see them again.

My first stop in the US was in Chicago, where I had to transfer at O’Hare International Airport to Des Moines. Before I went through Customs, I had to fill out an immigration form. One of the questions was whether I was a terrorist. They must have caught hundreds of terrorists already. That form has definitely made this world a safer place.

I wouldn’t recommend O’Hare Airport to anybody. It took me about 1h 40min just to get to gate where my next flight is. Part of this however, is due to Chicago being my point of entry in the US, so I had to pick up my luggage, have security check all my bags, and I had to check in my luggage again. And the train connecting the different terminals was pretty bad. You only have a couple of seconds to get in before the doors close again, and they are usually fully packed. They actually have employees there shouting behind us when the doors open. *You only have a couple of seconds before the doors close!!* *You have to hurry up!!* God! I’m already fucking irritated as it is. I don’t need those people shouting at me while I'm fighting through the throngs of people in front of me. Fortunately, I always pick a connecting flight which gives me a couple of hours to check out the airport. If I have picked an earlier connecting flight, I would’ve been totally stressed out. Which brings me to the terminals. They have the worst terminals of any airport I’ve ever been to, in terms of eating and chilling out when you have time till your next flight.

But anyway, HeeRa and Curtis picked me up at the airport in Des Moines, and I stayed at their house for a couple of days. They made me some typical Midwestern food, and some of those dishes were good (I liked the green bean casserole for example), though I didn’t care much for the Rice Krispies Bars.

HeeRa and I went to Minneapolis the next day, where we went to the Sculpture Garden and met up with Ryan, a friend of HeeRa’s. Afterwards, we went to the world famous Mall of America, which is in fact the largest mall in the US. After that, we had dinner at Hooters. After all, what is a trip to America without going to Hooters, which is a shrine of American culture. Seriously though, the whole concept is as brilliant as it is ridiculous. And you’d have to admit, anything that manages to pull that off should be admired. As for the food, it was way too greasy for me (welcome to America!). I just felt unhealthy after a while, and I wasn’t able to finish my order.

We went to the Iowa State Fair the following day, which was pretty cool. Agriculture plays an important role in Iowa, which is reflected in the fair. We saw plenty of livestock, including the world’s biggest bull, pig and sheep. They were enormous, though all they did was lie around all day, which I suspect is about the only thing they are capable of due to their size and weight. Other attractions included the butter cow and the butter Harry Potter. If you ever need to come up with Iowan stereotypes, the state fair is the place to be.

We went to a Barnes & Nobles afterward, which had been a lifelong dream of mine, and it was everything I expected it would be. They actually let you take books from the shelves and just read them in one of their comfy chairs, while enjoying a nice cup of coffee from Starbucks. People actually stay there for hours reading without buying anything, and the staff don’t even get mad! This is truly a bookreader’s heaven.

On a sidenote, even though HeeRa already mentioned it in her blog, I want to express my outrage that the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die does not include anything from Korea. Surely the DMZ cannot be excluded from a Top 100 list, much less from a Top 1000. It does include the hawker centers in Singapore though, so I can’t stay too mad about it, even though I’m way too biased about this. And it has a couple of entries from the Netherlands, i.e. the TEFAF (in Maastricht!!) and the Red Light District.

The day after, we met up with another of HeeRa’s friends. We walked around the Iowa State University campus (where she attends college), which was huge. After that we had lunch at a place whose name I can’t remember (Update Aug 29: it's called Hickory Park, a tradition in Ames -- thanks to HeeRa!) . But I just wanted to say that I had a huuuge lunch. I was already full before I was even halfway through my order, but then the waitress called me out by bringing us take away boxes *before* we asked for them!! And 2 minutes later, she brought another one, and again, *without* us asking for it!! I guess I just had to prove myself. It was one of the toughest challenges I’ve ever taken on, but I finally managed to eat it all! After lunch, we looked around Drake University, where HeeRa works. We also visited Curtis at his office, which is in the only tall building in the whole of Des Moines.

Which concludes my stay in Iowa, since we would head out to Denver the next morning…


High Point: The State Fair
Low Point: The humidity

P.S. I watched 2 movies during my stay at Iowa, Hot Fuzz and Napoleon Dynamite. If you haven’t watched them, go rent (or download) them. They are absolutely hilarious.

Just 9 hours left before I’m on the plane to the USA. I’m probably not going to sleep anymore tonight, since there’s only less than 4 hours left till I have to leave for the airport (it’s 2:13 am now). Of course I haven’t done any packing before tonight, and I still had to do some ironing. And since I worked until 10 pm tonight just to finish up some reports I promised I would do before my vacation -- and no, I did not finish everything I wanted to finish -- that explains why I’m still up so late.

Very excited to see HeeRa, Seve and HyeWon again, but I have to admit, I'm also pretty nervous as well. We had such a great time together back in Korea, I’m just afraid that the trip won't be able to live up to the high expectations. I know I shouldn’t worry about it. Even if it’s not going to be exactly the same as before, it’s still going to be a lot of fun.

Anyway, it’s going to be a very busy two weeks. I’m flying to Iowa first to meet up with HeeRa, then we are driving to Denver to Seve. After that, I’m taking the train to New York, where I’ll probably meet up with HyeWon for 1 or 2 days. And then I’m off to Chicago to meet up with HeeRa again, and then I’m flying back to the Netherlands. It’s a pretty crazy schedule I think. I’ll probably have to visit New York again at a future date, so I can enjoy the sights at a more leisurely pace.

It’s 2:32am now, so that’s another 19 minutes closer to my departure since I started writing this. Really looking forward to it!