Okie, a short one. Better than nothing.
New York Part 1
22 Dec
We were at the lobby waiting for our shuttle van at 5.45am. We also tried to see if we could get some breakfast. Lucky for us, the staff had already started laying out the bread and muffins. The van-driver, this kindly old gentleman, told us to go ahead and eat while he loaded our luggage into the van. Now this is what I call service man... We checked in our luggage without much problems and actually had time to sit down for a game of taitee haha. It's been so long since we've played, my cards were starting to feel negelcted.
We arrived at LaGuardia sometime around noon. There was a minor hiccup at the airport. US authorities require people to leave their check-in luggage unlocked to facilitate security checks. They literally open up the luggage to check lor (siao boh...). So Jowyn actually left this lock (it wasn't hers) dangling on one of her check-in bags and what probably happened was that after the security personnel checked her bag, he probably closed the lock for her. Problem is, Jowyn actually didn't know the combination to unlock or something likedat, so I think she approached one of the security ppl to cut the lock for her. We boarded the bus for New York City and alighted at Grand Central Terminal to take another bus to Courtyard Marriott (our hotel. finally, no more inns haha). Well it was more like a mini-van which was absolutely filthy and reeked of cigarette smoke. The driver was the worst of the lot. Before helping us load our luggage, he told us he expected $2 in tips from each of us. I am under the impression that tips are freely given by the person receiving the service so we have no actual obligation towards him. Outrageous guy. If his mini-van was clean and if he had better manners, we would undoubtedly tip him. We did tip him in the end, but only after he unloaded our luggage. Gosh, the nerve of that guy...
Anyways, the room at Courtyard Marriott was fabulous, as could be expected for the price we paid. There was only one king-sized bed because we reserved a room for 2 for a lower price. It didn't really matter because there were still 4 sets of towels, plenty of pillows and even extra blankets each of us took turns sleeping on the floor every night. Kind of makes me wonder if the staff at Courtyard Marriott were expecting 4 ppl to turn up for a 2 ppl room heh. So we had a short rest in the room before heading out for Central Park.
Central Park is (like its name suggests) in the middle of New York City. And it is huge. We visited its open-air skating rink, went up some observatory tower thingy, walked by an abandoned amphitheatre and decided against going into the zoo. Along the way, we were accompanied by the stench of horse manure. Seriously. Cos there are horse carriages for tourists but no sign of horse toilets.
Sorry bad joke.
Dun think we did anything else after that. Probably returned to our room to eat maggi mee. And I watched tv while the girls swapped photos on their laptops. I've given up on Penelope. The coolest thing about the TV is that it's flat-screen and English subtitles pop up when u mute the sound. Yeah well I find it cool, dunno about you... :) The not-so-cool thing is that one of the movie channels switches to a porn channel after 12am. I found out about that accidentally. Please, have some faith in me yar.
