Apples...

Well, Janey's explanation was not the greatest, so here are the pictures to (re-?)establish my innocence. Haha... Basically, as part of the tourist attraction, a number of artists and designers got to design apples which were placed all over the city -- sort of like the moose around Toronto. And as you can see the weather in New York was great!!

The conference was nice to retreat into nature (with decent facilities) and just worship... just wanted to clarify in case you had a one-track mind. =p

Friday Recap, etc

Didn't realize how disjointed Friday's description was.

4am wake up (after sleeping at 2am) to get to airport for 7am flight. Landed 8:30am, trained all by myself on New Jersey Transit to NY Penn Station. Got out of station and was RIGHT at Madison Square Gardens -- where the Republican National Convention was. Luckily it ended the night before, so wasn't insane, but cops were still everywhere, as was most of the propaganda. Good thing about having cops everywhere, there were safe people for me to ask for directions =)

Found my way to B&H (turned out to be just around the corner). Spent about $230 USD in an hour!! Luckily it wasn't all my own purchases. And yes I finally got a bag =) Pretty sweet, it has a place for the tripod too!! =D

Finished shopping, then took the NY subway all by myself to meet up with GKY and ILC at Rockefeller. Was impressed that I didn't get lost, NYC has local and express trains, and something like trains A,C,E,G,Y,W,D can all arrive at the same station, but go on different routes. So complicated.

Did some shopping, then off to Little Italy for lunch, with ILC's friends. Bbt and street shopping in Chinatown. Then off to Ground Zero (and running into the Chengs). Walked to South Street Seaport to buy the cheap tix for Chicago (the Broadway musical), did shopping, and took pics of Brooklyn Bridge. Was cool, as we were taking pics, a contingent of huge army helicopters flew over the bridge. Hope those pics turned out well.

Also, we experimented with GKY's camera setting called "coupling shot". So funny, we tried patching pics of us together so that it looked like a 4th person took a pic of the three of us, when really it was us switching up, and trying to stitch the pics together. It was fun, but we all have shaky hands (BL, you're not alone!!! hahaha).

Virgil's for dinner, saw Chicago (their theatre was so small, compared to TO theatres!!), took pics at Times Square, then got back on the subway to Grand Central. All three of us fell fast asleep on the train ride back to Stamford. Did a grocery run at the 24 hour Stop & Shop before heading home.

Bright and early Sat morning drove into the camp site. Site was nice, pretty scenic. Painful part was walking up the HUGE hill to get to the cabins. We went out on a row boat as well. Was hilarious, the three Canadian girls on a row boat, GKY was rowing, ILC was holding up the Mashimaro umbrella so that GKY wouldn't tan her face, and I was shooting =) hahah, they thought we were freaks =D

I'm tired and full, this is starting to get disjointed again, will have to continue another time. Night!

ECBC & Woodbury Commons

Disclaimer: I'm not politically correct, and I use gross generalizations.

Saturday and half of Sunday was at the Eastern Chinese Bible Conference. Funny talking to Chinese people with New York accents... especially amusing to hear a grandma say "hot dawg" (in reference to lunch) in a pure Brooklyn accent! Actually, yellow skin with black accents is entertaining at any age. Of course, they thought we were funny when we said "out". Apparently that's when our Canadian accent is most evident!

Second half of Sunday was shopping at the outlet mall, followed by pure gluttony at a Sushi restaurant.

Other highlights of our adventures:
1. American born Chinese guys are really buff. Big, tall, and BUFF!!
2. It is indeed possible to be the driver yet feel nauseous about your own driving.
3. Everyone in NY state needs an EZ Pass. Else, get OUT of the EZ Pass lane.
4. The entire NY state shows up at Woodbury Commons on the Labour Day long weekend when there is no state tax, as well as a sidewalk sale.
5. American mall security guards/traffic directors are RETARDED. I don't think they can count, or maybe they get disoriented when they turn around. There is a necessity to ALTERNATE the direction of traffic that you allow to pass, or else don't be surprized when 15 cars plus a tourist bus honk their horns at you and the state police have to come save you from potential mob-like behaviour.
6. I get more road rage in NY state, trying to get in and out of an outlet mall while not being a driver, than I do driving in TO.
7. Hollering at a state trooper to figure out why the stoopid security guard won't let us leave the mall was quite fun!

The Big Apple

My morning started at 4am, since flight was at 7am. Was pretty tired by the end of the night!!

Disjointed, in a rush to get out of here for the retreat:

Yesterday was all day in NYC... and in the middle of the huge city, walking up the path at Ground Zero toward the Deloitte offices (and the public bathroom), we run into the entire Cheng clan =) Funning running into people from home, while on vacation. Janice, Eric, Odie, and Auntie & Uncle, were doing the Ground Zero thing as well.

GKY got into an apple fettish. I'll have to get her to post the pics later. Lots and lots and LOTS of big apples.

Food was awesome... even got to go to Virgil's!! Plus saw Chicago, last minute orchestra tickets.

Stories later... but for now...

Anyone care to start guessing on the expected population increase of The Following this weekend? =D