New York, New York

Took the overnight Greyhound from Montreal to New York City last night. This was another first for me and I was looking forward to the people who I'll be making the journey with. There weren't too many, but they were all from different walks of life. There was a French couple who seemed to be going to NYC for holidays, there were a few black guys going back to NYC, and there was some young Canadian lady making the trip down for business. I did not talk to them much, just idle conversations now and then. It was interesting though. Anyway, same questions for me once the bus reached the US border. Where I live, where I work, what am I doing here, etc. I thought it was just me, seeing I was foreign, but it seems everyone on the bus had to answer the same(mostly) set of questions. I asked the bus driver and he remarked that this was unusual, normally, going across the border is quite a speedy affair. I guess it might be because we were the only bus around at that time(~2am) so I guess Homeland Security decided to make an example out of us.~shrugs~

In any case, the journey was rather uneventful, after about 7 hours or so, we finally sighted New York City. I must admit, upon disembarking, I was immediately engulfed in a whirlwind of activity. Our bus journey ends at the Port Authority Station, but for many New Yorkers, this is the start of theirs, and at around 730am in the morning, it was soon to be the start of rush hour. The fact that it was a massive complex did not help me much at all. Even with a map, it took a while to get out of the building and get my bearings right. Once I did, I realized that New York was a city that's laid out very methodically. Every street, every avenue; its all numbered very orderly and intuitively, which is more than what I can say for many cities,even my own.

For me, it was not too difficult to navigate once I got the hang of it. "Vertically" was the avenues while  "horizontally" was the streets. In other words, they function like a grid pattern to identify any location, For instance, Times Square is at 7th Avenue off 42nd Street. So all I had to do was go "down" the map to "42" once I found "7th". I walked to a few places, the Empire State building, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central,etc. It was quite awe-inspiring to me, with all the humongous buildings and all,  only problem I had was with the wind. For some reason, although the temperature was(only) about -1degrees celsius,  it felt a lot colder than Montreal due to the stronger winds, which was ironic because being in a city, I would have thought the tall buildings would have served as an effective barrier.

In any case, I got quite tired walking around the midtown area, no thanks in part to the sleepless night I had to endure on the Greyhound, so by around 4pm, I found a hostel to rest my feet. Thats where I am typing these now. I guess I won't be going out in the night, but I should be going out bright and early tomorrow. Got to check out the financial district as well as what everyone should see when they come to New York City; the Statue of Liberty. After that, I should just be in time to catch the Greyhound back to Berri-Uqam station in Montreal. For now, my feet are sore and I'm exhausted. I'll probably be turning in soon.

Here's to the last night in New York!

Flying.

The last week has been really hectic, but thank goodness that is now all behind me. I'm on leave starting from yesterday till after the Chinese new year! Work has been piling up and it's probably an apt time for me to take a break. Had an arrangement to go visit my sister in Montreal, and so off I went. I mentioned before that I have never left the continent so this was understandably an exciting prospect for me. I had to take 3 connecting flights just to get to Montreal as a faster flight will cost me about close to 3 times more, a marginal utility that I cannot make sense of, even if I wanted to.

The trip started ok enough, the first leg to Hongkong was uneventful, three hours on the plane, watched one Harry Potter movie and before I knew it, I was already there. The second flight was the killer for me; a 14hour nightmare from Hongkong to Chicago. To top it off, I had a window seat; while that was good for viewing the clouds, it was tough to go to the washroom. I only went to the loo twice during the whole flight. And being in economy, it was tough getting to sleep. The seats were cramped, there were lights from this other guy thats beside me, etc. Suffice to say, I was extremely glad when the plane landed.

Just when I thought I was just an hour away from Montreal, I had to hear that my flight has been cancelled due to a snowstorm in Chicago. So instead of a 5hour odd wait at O'Hare International Airport, I had to wait a whopping 9 hours for the next connecting flight to Montreal-Trudeau. Since it was snowing rather heavily, there wasn't much I can do outside the airport, which was too bad considering there wasn't much I can do in the airport as well. In the end, I just grabbed a bite to eat and tried to find a nice cosy spot to catch some rest before boarding time.

The flight to Montreal was uneventful. I boarded, I snored, and then I was there. Makes me wonder why didn't the airline schedule a flight directly from Hongkong instead. Anyway, it was already close to 2am local time when I landed, and suffice to say, Montreal-Trudeau is a very "sleepy" airport, sort of like the antithesis of Changi. ALL the shops within the airport were closed! There wasn't even a single one that was opened 24 hours. Getting through customs however, was a breeze, quite unlike the US customs, which asked loads of questions and even required me to take off my boots.0_0

Anyway, I was intrigued by the cab meter on taking the cab to my sister's place. You cannot believe the rate these babies move. I had though the meters on Taiwan cabs were ridiculous but Montreal taxis really takes the cake. A 15 minute trip through deserted midtown(it is after all, 2am) costed me 41CAD.O_O. Suffice to say this is probably the first and last time I am hailing one of these off the road. Anyway, now that I've all settled in, the local time here is about 420am. I plan to be up early tomorrow, so I'll probably be turning in soon. Can't wait for tomorrow!