America Trip 2007 (part 1)
Jul. 25th, 2007 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lishesquexI really should be listening to the recordings of the lectures that I skipped today. I really should. But because I'm such a procrastinat0r, I'm going to do my epic EPIX post about my trip. There will be many pictures. Because pictures are pretty.
First, we stopped over in Shanghai for a couple of days. Stepping out of the airport, I had to force myself to keep breathing because the air looked and smelled so disgusting and polluted. The Huang Pu Jiang river was near the airport and it stank. And then Dad and a group of his friends all started smoking and I seriously almost threw up. I survived, though. Barely. -.-
This is a picture taken from my apartment window on the first morning after we arrived:
The next couple of days were full of meeting relatives, dad's old friends and colleagues, and shopping. I received a lot of red envelopes (those little packets of money that relatives traditionally give you when they meet for the first time) from relatives, and spent it all. I spent over ¥1000 (about $200 AUD) in like two days. Shopping in Shanghai was pretty tiring. Lots and lots of walking in horrible humid summer heat. On the second day it started raining and we didn't have an umbrella... The rain stank of sulfur, and made my skin itchy afterwards. I've always been amused by Chinese peoples' fear of rain and their need to put the most ridiculous things on their head to shield themselves from the water - OH GOD NO, NOT WATER! ANYTHING BUT WATER! (lol) - but I understand now that this is 100% necessary in Shanghai. The rain is truly deadly. o.o
People in the rain, riding bicycles. And a red fire hydrant (!!):
Speaking of bicycles, there were a great deal less of them than there were eight years ago. More people are driving cars these days, and I saw almost as many scooters as bicycles. Craziness. And dude, Chinese buses and subway stations are outfitted with flatscreen TVs now. o.o We don't even have those in Melbourne.
I didn't see a single beggar or busker in Shanghai this time round. I hope it's because people are genuinely better off these days, and not because they've simply been banned from public places and/or carted away to the countryside. It's probably a little of both. :-/
Anyway, since I have no pictures of beggars because they've all mysteriously disappeared o.o, here is a random picture of me and my sister enjoying a mango slurpee at the "Nine Dragons Ice House":
And now, TO AMERICA!
This was not our plane (but I took a picture of it anyway):
We arrived in NY at around 10pm local time. Airport security and customs people weren't as draconian as they're made out to be, which was a nice surprise. But other than that, I didn't really like New York. The taxi driver that took us to our hotel ripped us off and charged us $130 for a trip that should have cost $55 (we found out the next day). And the hotel I'd booked and paid for told us that they were out of rooms and made us walk 6 blocks with all our luggage in the middle of the night in an unknown city to get to another of their hotels. -.- Much rage. And the other hotel was sooooooooooo crappy. The rooms were tiny, the beds were squeaky and unstable, the rooms had no internet like they'd said, and the bathrooms were shared. And the frickin' elevator got stuck on the third level every time if you didn't close the door properly. Gah. So, anybody going to NY city - never EVER stay at West Side Inn because they will screw you over. Bastards.
This was the lovely view from our lovely room:
To make matters worse, my cell phone had no signal even though I'd switched on global roaming and it had worked just fine in Shanghai. So no internet, no cell phone... I almost DIED. I was pretty stressed out that first night, and suffering terribly from jetlag. AND dad was on the bunk bed below me and it squeaked every time he moved, and he was snoring loudly... so little wonder that I got practically no sleep.
The next day we wandered around Times Square before going up the Empire State Building and then going to China Town for lunch. The China Town thing was dad's idea of course. The last place I wanted to go while in NEW YORK CITY was Yet Another Chinese Restaurant, but dad and his narrow minded taste buds rules over this family, so there we went.
This was me atop the Empire State Building:
And me and Rianna posing with some fine looking NYPD officers:
We had another plane to catch after that, so off we went to JFK again. My feet were killing me from walking all over NY (and from the days of walking around Shanghai before that) so I was quite grateful to sit on a plane for a few hours. And American planes have American TV on the back of their chairs! It was the first time I watched American TV - it was very exciting. :D I love how they have like 50 channels. Australia only has 8. *shakes head*
We arrived at Orlando International Airport in the early evening. I have to say... that airport is so much nicer than JFK. We took a taxi to our hotel (The Florida Hotel) which was, again, much nicer than our New York "hotel". I was also excited and in a much better mood because I was going to meet my good friends![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wickedkiwi and 4youreyesonly.
But more of that tomorrow. I'm very tired and need to sleep, so I will continue this post later.
GODNATT.
First, we stopped over in Shanghai for a couple of days. Stepping out of the airport, I had to force myself to keep breathing because the air looked and smelled so disgusting and polluted. The Huang Pu Jiang river was near the airport and it stank. And then Dad and a group of his friends all started smoking and I seriously almost threw up. I survived, though. Barely. -.-
This is a picture taken from my apartment window on the first morning after we arrived:
The next couple of days were full of meeting relatives, dad's old friends and colleagues, and shopping. I received a lot of red envelopes (those little packets of money that relatives traditionally give you when they meet for the first time) from relatives, and spent it all. I spent over ¥1000 (about $200 AUD) in like two days. Shopping in Shanghai was pretty tiring. Lots and lots of walking in horrible humid summer heat. On the second day it started raining and we didn't have an umbrella... The rain stank of sulfur, and made my skin itchy afterwards. I've always been amused by Chinese peoples' fear of rain and their need to put the most ridiculous things on their head to shield themselves from the water - OH GOD NO, NOT WATER! ANYTHING BUT WATER! (lol) - but I understand now that this is 100% necessary in Shanghai. The rain is truly deadly. o.o
People in the rain, riding bicycles. And a red fire hydrant (!!):
Speaking of bicycles, there were a great deal less of them than there were eight years ago. More people are driving cars these days, and I saw almost as many scooters as bicycles. Craziness. And dude, Chinese buses and subway stations are outfitted with flatscreen TVs now. o.o We don't even have those in Melbourne.
I didn't see a single beggar or busker in Shanghai this time round. I hope it's because people are genuinely better off these days, and not because they've simply been banned from public places and/or carted away to the countryside. It's probably a little of both. :-/
Anyway, since I have no pictures of beggars because they've all mysteriously disappeared o.o, here is a random picture of me and my sister enjoying a mango slurpee at the "Nine Dragons Ice House":
And now, TO AMERICA!
This was not our plane (but I took a picture of it anyway):
We arrived in NY at around 10pm local time. Airport security and customs people weren't as draconian as they're made out to be, which was a nice surprise. But other than that, I didn't really like New York. The taxi driver that took us to our hotel ripped us off and charged us $130 for a trip that should have cost $55 (we found out the next day). And the hotel I'd booked and paid for told us that they were out of rooms and made us walk 6 blocks with all our luggage in the middle of the night in an unknown city to get to another of their hotels. -.- Much rage. And the other hotel was sooooooooooo crappy. The rooms were tiny, the beds were squeaky and unstable, the rooms had no internet like they'd said, and the bathrooms were shared. And the frickin' elevator got stuck on the third level every time if you didn't close the door properly. Gah. So, anybody going to NY city - never EVER stay at West Side Inn because they will screw you over. Bastards.
This was the lovely view from our lovely room:
To make matters worse, my cell phone had no signal even though I'd switched on global roaming and it had worked just fine in Shanghai. So no internet, no cell phone... I almost DIED. I was pretty stressed out that first night, and suffering terribly from jetlag. AND dad was on the bunk bed below me and it squeaked every time he moved, and he was snoring loudly... so little wonder that I got practically no sleep.
The next day we wandered around Times Square before going up the Empire State Building and then going to China Town for lunch. The China Town thing was dad's idea of course. The last place I wanted to go while in NEW YORK CITY was Yet Another Chinese Restaurant, but dad and his narrow minded taste buds rules over this family, so there we went.
This was me atop the Empire State Building:
And me and Rianna posing with some fine looking NYPD officers:
We had another plane to catch after that, so off we went to JFK again. My feet were killing me from walking all over NY (and from the days of walking around Shanghai before that) so I was quite grateful to sit on a plane for a few hours. And American planes have American TV on the back of their chairs! It was the first time I watched American TV - it was very exciting. :D I love how they have like 50 channels. Australia only has 8. *shakes head*
We arrived at Orlando International Airport in the early evening. I have to say... that airport is so much nicer than JFK. We took a taxi to our hotel (The Florida Hotel) which was, again, much nicer than our New York "hotel". I was also excited and in a much better mood because I was going to meet my good friends
wickedkiwi and 4youreyesonly.But more of that tomorrow. I'm very tired and need to sleep, so I will continue this post later.
GODNATT.
