My eyes grew heavy and my sight grew dim. Finally, I'm sleeping! The next moment I opened my eyes, it was 04:30am and I'm wide awake as it was 16:30hrs back home. I tried to go back to sleep, but my internal clock tells me I've had enough. 2.5hrs of napping or falling asleep in boring meetings is sufficient for the day. Tick tock, tick tock...05:00am. Still too early for breakfast. I took a peep out of my window, and saw that the Gym across the street was already full of people exercising. Funny New Yorkers. Don't they sleep? They must have gotten up early in the morning to prepare for such heavy exercising.
Finally waited till it was 06:00am where the restaurant for breakfast was open. Days Inn didn't have any restaurants so they had some sort of cooperation with this eating place across the street. I took a look at the printed note which they gave me at the lobby, USD6.5 for breakfast. As my body cried out for replenishments, I decided to venture into NY City for food.
As I stepped out of Days Inn and waited to cross the street, this peculiar odor flooded my nostrils. There's certainly something in the air as I sniffed out New York. I wouldn't say the smell was fragrant, because it reeked like garbage, mingled with sewage. And wait, there's this ocean smell along with it. To be honest, the air stinks! There's also a lot of trash on the sidewalks and not mentioning the big fat rat that's scuttling across the street with me, that's a minus 5 points to the poor air quality and bad hygiene.
As I started to cross the street, smell of bread, coffee, and cooking oil was in the air mingled with the other unpleasant stench. I finally reached the restaurant safely and read their exclusive breakfast sign: USD4.5 for full breakfast. I stepped in and asked the counter whether this "exclusive deal" was still available. The answer was yes, and he took my order. When I walked to the other side to pay, I noticed the cashier seeing my hotel note. He called out to the other guy (the one that took my order) in spanish asking, which translated into English meant, "Hey, this guy is from Days Inn with the breakfast note. Should I charge him USD6.5 or USD4.5?" The other guy replied, "Charge him USD4.5! He saw our sign for the exclusive breakfast set."
Now, I'm a smart guy, and lucky that I speak near-fluent Spanish, a message was going through my head immediately: If I hadn't seen the "Exclusive Deal" or asked about it, they would have suckered me into paying the extra two bucks for breakfast. Even though this was not a lot of money, the feeling is definitely not good. Another minus 5 for NY, adding up to -20 points in just one morning. I came to a quick conclusion: Trust No One In New York!
I paid my bills, USD4.5 + USD0.55 taxes and picked up my breakfast which consisted of a cup of hot coffee, two slices of buttered toast, two eggs sunny side up, and some baked potatoes. Not a delicious breakfast as the toast was over done and the potatoes were too dry and insipid. As for the coffee, it was too sweet and I would have preferred Cappuccino. But when a man's gotta eat, he's gotta eat. I stuffed the food down and headed back to the hotel.
Now more accustomed to the smelly air, I couldn't help but notice the pot holes on the road. Some were filled with muddy water and splashed up when the cars zoomed into them. I'm totally sure SF and LA is a whole lot better than NY. As there was no conference today, it's tour day till you drop. I got back to the hotel, checked my emails, and awaited for 08:00am where I should travel downtown to find the people that traveled with me, but staying at different hotel locations.
I decided to check out the subway as my means of transportation this morning which was just a block away from Days Inn. USD8 for 4 rides (with a bonus USD1.4 when you purchase the ticket), a flat fee of approximately USD2.25 to wherever you want to go. When I took the stairs down to the subway, I was greeted by a gust of warm breeze mixed with smells of burned rubber and non-ventillated air. And it was sure HOT down there. I was wondering where the air conditioning had gone to. The New York City mayor should check out the subway lines of Hong Kong and feel ashamed (to be neutral, I'm using 3rd party pictures from flickr). New York should be the richest city in US, but why are public utilities and roads so shabby? Where have all the tax money gone to? This is a good question for NY voters.
New York Subway
(Waiting space not spacious enough, Air flow not good, Trash on the floor, and Hot)
Hong Kong Subway (MTR)
(Spacious, Well ventilated, Air conditioned, Clean, and Clear Signs)
The subway train arrived, and I jumped on, heading south towards Penn Station (34th Street). Just as portrayed in the scary movies, the train's lights will flicker at some points constantly. The train itself is rather narrow, and the air conditioning is simply not strong enough. Announcements from the train driver was just not loud enough over the rumbling and creaking of this metal caterpillar zooming at high speeds. I have to strain my eyes to see which stations we are passing as not to miss my stop.
People got on and off, and it's getting more crowded the more we move southwards. Examining the people on the train, I'm starting to feel I'm small (don't get me wrong, I'm about 5ft 8, weighing xxx pounds), but some people are just HUGE! Some of their body parts (female counterparts) are bigger than my face! Just starting to feel good about myself and my body mass+weight, my station has arrived.
Hopping off at the 34th street station, I had to find my way to 42 West + 34th Street Comfort Inn. Taking the escalator to the outer exit, I had no idea which way was N, S, E, or W. Luckily, there was a cop at the exit and I asked him for directions. OK, I have to head west by crossing the street and take a long walk. To my surprise, people here are totally jay walking! No one was looking at the No Cross Red Light. Red lights are just for show. And to make things worse, a female cop was leading the charade of charging the red light against incoming cars. For a moment, I thought I was in some developing country! No wonder traffic is bad in NY! Minus 5 points for the disrespect of traffic regulations headed by a law enforcers.
Notice the white cap to the bottom right. That's the cop heading a run against the red light.
Block out West 35th St and Starbucks and you'd think you're in some developing country.
Valuing my life more than the $ from my insurance, I decided to stay put and wait till the Walk sign went green. It was a long walk to Comfort Inn and honestly speaking, it is not suggested for future travelers to stay there even though it was a block away from the Javits Convention Center. The room rate was approximately USD230/night compared to my USD138/night (similar quality rooms). Sure it came with breakfast, was closer to downtown, and closer to the Convention Center, but in terms of $, it was overly charged. Other than that, my friends got into a fight with the hotel manager over the definition of "twin beds." Anyone know what exactly twin beds mean in US? In Taiwan, twin beds meant two separate beds (as two were sharing a room, and this was double checked with the local travel agency), but the hotel manager was trying to convince us that twin beds in US meant one large bed. If twins were one large bed, why not just Queen or King size to make it simple? And from the grammatical side, twin beds come with the "s" making it plural. Deciding not to waste further time, we asked the manager to check with the travel agency. My gut feeling, they were overbooked due to the Convention that was coming up and were trying to weasel out of the fact they ran out of two bed rooms.
Our tour team moved out for a double decker 48 hour day tour and we also picked up ferry tickets to Ellis Island + Liberty Island (Statue of Liberty). Note: For future tourists, buy the ferry tickets some day before the actual date you want to visit the Islands and make sure you get to the ferry location before 09:00am or it'll be packed with people. The ticketing at the boarding location doesn't open before 09:00am, and by the time you get through with tickets, it'll be like 09:30 to get in line for ferry boarding. Then you'd have to wait for another 30 minutes+.
