(Clarion Hotel, Ontario, Canada, on a hill next to the Falls)

I am writing this quickly because we have to leave the hotel with the tour group tomorrow at 8am. This armchair is wonderfully comfy. So is the hotel room. It has a heater that actually works, polite staff with uncomplicated accents, and an indoor pool next to to the lobby. The air is clear and crisp, the roads quiet and orderly. Though on the flip-side, it definitely lacks a certain... flavour. It is a welcome difference, nevertheless.
More cosmopolitanism in our tour group! We now identify a French couple, an Australian lady travelling alone and an elderly couple who introduce themselves as "partners". The man is Scottish, the lady Irish. I almost ask if they met online but decide against it. We are the only Asians. Our gangsta-dressing driver who is bald and leather-clad asked if we had seen the pu-pu or something and it took us some time to realise he wasn't being rude but meant pu bu (waterfall). He got into trouble at customs and was forced to drag out practically all his belongings for inspection due to an untrustworthy appearance. "I think she likes me," he says with a wink, in reference to the no-nonsense, female customs officer.

A sneak preview






The real deal!







We've seen the Niagara Falls from both sides now, traipsing about Buffalo, NY on bridges and ridges on the American end, then crossing over to Ontario for the Canadian view. We are staying in a township practically created for tourists visiting the Niagara. There are shops, chintzy fun-houses and amusement parks, and a casino. I find them all in poor taste. We were dropped off at the hotel at 8pm, starving, and walked down the street to find "grub" (as my grandfather would say) in the growing darkness. But is beautifully peaceful and cool. We spy a lame and ancient *NSYNC-and-Britney promotional Planet Hollywood billboard, and end up eating huge steak-and-shrimp dinners at our favourite affordable Denny's where the waitress seems exceptionally polite and efficient. Mum leaves big tip. By this time, there are multi-coloured lights illuminating the Falls, making them flicker from gold to mauve to blue to rainbow. The water pounds down with such incredible force a mist rises, and yet the surface below is calm, with just traces of foam.

Blue flowers are pretty. I am not taking photos. That's the problem with bus views - you can't, unless you want blurry pictures. There are several Wendy's outlets in America. Did you hear about the guy whose finger was reportedly found in a bowl of Wendy's chilli, so people thought him dead and killed by a crazy axe murderer or something, but he turned up alive? PETER PETTIGREW is written all over this!

We have passed a number of small/important towns - Jamestown, once an Indian settlement where lakes are still named after chieftains, where Mark Twain met Rudyard Kipling and talked writing; Geneva, beautiful Charlestonish village with brightly painted, colonial-style houses, where the women's suffrage movement began and female doctors existed, even back in the eighteenth century, and slaves from the Underground Railroad hid; the Finger Lakes.







We had lunch at 2.30 at Burger King, post a lot of rumbling tummies and angry murmurings. The ladies from New Mexico are discussing Jane Fonda and how good she looks at her age (I just checked IMDB, she is an effing 68). Looking at a map to trace our route, I realise that a large portion of grounds around this area are highlighted as Amish Counties! Is that not amazing? I want to go see them, only they might kidnap us and take away my iPod, camera and other frivolous devices.

(On the coach,
somewhere in Pennsylvania)

It is! Let's see how good my bumpy-writing has gotten!

My mum is napping with her sunglasses on, head lolling about while the bus rolls on. The couple behind us is from Cuba but at present live in Miami, Florida. They speak mostly in Spanish and are sharing chips. Two ladies up front hail from New Mexico. We are passing low clouds and stripey hills.

We were dragged up at 6am this morning, drinking store-made tea, then quickly decided what we needed to pack for this two-day tour and walked to 37th Street on 8th Ave to wait for the coach. It was drizzling lightly and we were all standing around with our luggage, but the driver just leaned against a fire hydrant, smoking and scowling, not letting us up, till a lady from the tourist agency arrived to take attendance. It occurred to me that it was the right thing to do 'cos there could be a fugitive attempting to hitchhike among us, but still. We left when our guide arrived. She is an elderly, sprightly lady with silver-blonde hair; her name is Margarita and she resides in the Bronx. She gives elaborate explanation about being on a train that broke down, hence her lateness. We pass through Hell's Kitchen - Alicia Keys' turf - on the way out of Manhattan.




We touch New Jersey again, then Hoboken, where Frank Sinatra once lived and sang, then a rest-stop where we buy postcards and mum tries to carry six cup noodles at once. It is nice listening to Elton John and Counting Crows sing about the places right before our eyes - NYC, Long Island, Chesapeake Bay. I see a store signboard that reads "Fountains of Wayne" (yes, after the band), and find elaboration online:
Fountains of Wayne:The band name was taken from the name of a lawn-ornament store in Wayne, New Jersey, not far from Montclair, New Jersey, the hometown of the band's bassist and cofounder Adam Schlesinger. (From Wikipedia)
What makes this even sweeter is a road-sign not too far from here proclaiming, "The Land of Make-Believe - next 2o miles."

There's a music special on CNN - U2, then Dave Matthews Band. The latter was formed in Charlottesville, where Ning is going. [Hooray!]

Didn't do much this morning - we visited the Magnolia Bakery (made famous by Sex and the City) and had to take a cab there as pretty much all bus drivers take Sunday off and there wasn't one in sight.





There's nowhere to sit in the little corner bakery, which has extremely fluffy slices, puddings and cupcakes. I got a choc pudding tart, Ning a very creamy peanut butter pie and Mum a brownie. We take our goodies to a nearby park on Bleecker Street to eat. We're in the Greenwich/Soho area. It's quiet and upscale without being imposing. A coach arrives, and passengers stream off into Magnolia, then out, all of them consuming blue muffins. I think they are on a Sex and the City tour. Seriously. Why? They're all women.







PEANUT BUTTER PIE!


The blue muffin brigade

After eating this very sweet breakfast, we wander on, and a scrappy, fluffy dog tries to climb up mum's leg. We see another guy couple. Or is it the same one? Mission today is to find Max's Kansas City - as seen in Almost Famous - but it appears to be Unplottable - 237 Park Avenue on one side of the road, 200 on the other, and 213 has vanished into thin air! After several rounds and asking directions from people who more often than not turn out to be tourists as well, it still can't be found. We admit defeat and head for lunch. The weather is unusually warm. Folks won't stop pointing at my John&Paul&Ringo&George shirt; it is wonderful how Beatlelove is everywhere. Three shaggy-haired guys in berms and T-shirts, one with long, strangely patterned brown socks, borrow our subway map.

Lunch we had at a muchly empty Thai restaurant with typical curry and fried rice fare, ending with fun dessert of chopped-up goreng pisang with honey and sesame seeds and topped with mango ice-cream. We return to Grand Central Station and take the train back to our hotel, outside of which the roads are lined with people hawking imitation-brand watches. Our room is half-made. Mum complains.

Before we leave, the (substitute) cleaning lady enters, and my mum tells her about the increasing number of bedcovers piled in our closet after use without removal. She starts bitchin' about the woman who fixes our room normally. No, she's actually really mad. "She don't do nothin'!" she growls in her New Yawka drawl. "She should retire. I git down on mah hands and knees and scrub them walls, and now it looks like I didn't do nothin'. I gittin' pissed off with her. If she can't do it, then don't do it! I'm gunna call my superior." And she does, with the phone in our room. She's right. We scarper anyway.

Macy's is nearby, so we head there to look for a shirt for daddy - mum wants to buy him something unusual, not his 394th white polo tee. But the ones she thrusts at us for inspection grow increasingly garish; we mutiny when multi-coloured stripes blind our vision. Ning tries on a ridiculous pair of heels [I don't see how they were ridiculous, do you?].

I find clones of the Fossil bag I got in L.A., with 25% off. Annoyed. But we're not really in shopping mood, so we go for dinner at the basement level, a place called Macy's Cellar Grill and Bar. Service is excellent, other than fact that if you want an extra fork, for example, you have to tell two waiters, cos at least one of them will forget. We had grilled shrimp and fries, then cookies and ice-cream for dessert, smack-up American but we haven't had many of these meals, so it was enjoyed by all. Figures from the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade floats are displayed in glass cases around the restaurant.

Then we move on to the Amsterdam Theatre at Times Square for The Lion King. It is growing dark. Times Square is stunning at night, and somehow the crowds are a characteristic, surging mass I feel no annoyance about, unlike in Singapore, where people shove and sweat and scowl. Though it would be unfair to say people here don't sweat at least, but not the point - maybe weather is all there is to it. A super-efficient Asian-American guy is organizing the ticket queues. Inside, the Amsterdam Theatre is old, elaborate, lovely and for strange but good reason, the balcony seats look like iced birthday cakes from far away in those soft, fading colours. The seats are small but comfy.








Show is unbelievably wonderful, and Broadway will exceed your expectations... whatever they were. The stirring, savagely joyful African music and harmonies, the colours, the ingenious costumes, complicated stage with areas rising and sinking at all the right moments. Zazu was my favourite - the puppet's movement coordinated exactly with its controller/speaker, and was amazingly life-like. I especially liked it when the irate bird-puppet "attacked" its controller. And the scene when they sung their hearts out while swirling colourful paper-bird kites that swooped over the audience was a work of art.

We went off afterwards feeling happy and tempted to buy plush toys. Niagara Falls tomorrow, meaning we have to wake up v early again and take a bus for several hours, which sounds pretty good after walking and walking.

Sylvester Stallone looms up on the screen on Larry King Live, mouth open, then suddenly closes it as the backup narration comes on, trying to look strong-jawed and steely-eyed. It doesn't work.

It's taken some time, but I now am quite fond of New York; it never stops surprising you. The main idea is to hold on tightly to your belongings and look mean, small-eyed mean if you must. We spent most of today jetting about town, alternating between buses and subways, taking our coats on and off as the temperature shifted drastically in and out of shade, in and out of buildings.

We ate breakfast at a Penn Station bakery-diner place again and I tried a black-and-white, which is a round cake striped half vanilla and half chocolate on top. You can tell it is a specialty because there is a cartoony figure of the Statue of Liberty depicted clutching a black-and-white instead of a torch on the takeaway paper bags. There was a heavy smell of cream cheese in the air, and customers flit in and out, shouting complicated coffee and bagel orders.

Han has somehow hurt her ankles walking too much, thus the waddling on Thursday and lots of limping today.

We dropped off at the United Nations headquarters first of all and took a long walk in, having our bags checked in a tent. Of course there is security scanning. It makes me wonder what the point was at Disney, when they simply shone torches inside our bags (what did expect to see? The glitter of guns?). We hit the courtyard with the 'Globe' and 'Twisted Gun' statues along with a smattering of other Asian tourists, and then an exhibition of bitingly moving photos from all over - women wrapped in colourful skirts, playing soccer in Peru, a little boy carrying his dead brother to the cremation site in Nagasaki, an Afghan girl lifting her veil for voting identification. How does this lead up to peace? From what I remember the UN is not only the peace-promoter, but also the one who sets the ideal way for things to be - only no one agrees on what that is.





A Madras female boxer - one of the stories

I saw a plaque commemerating Dag Hammarskjold and all the people who perished in the Congo crisis, the famous Secretary-General portraits, and the actual Nobel Prize award received by the Peacekeeping sector. It's amazing, too, that I remember all this, and that makes their achievements - and underlying flaws - alive. (Watch Hotel Rwanda, because pragmatism and self-survival are the only criteria used in the end.) But these are the ideals that must exist, first of all!







Lunch we had at a little Chinese eatery with a very multi-racial spread of customers. The one guy on duty had a shaved head, black nail polish, and terrible ABC accent, a cross between Allan Wu's and Wang Lee Hom's. He seemed very familiar with a big American family that burst in - the small girls slipped behind the counter and helped him deliver us our cutlery while the dad kept grabbing dishes straight from the kitchen. A Latino worker patted the son's cheeks in a very cute, offhand manner.


Irrelevant - tree-climbing cat

We took another bus downtown to Sixth Avenue in search of J Fields Gallery, and we find the address - and a cake shop! We storm around a bit, thinking we made a mistake, before the helpful film crew set up in front of the store for unknown reasons points out the fact that the gallery does exist - on the second floor. You need to buzz them on the intercom just to enter the building and take the elevators. We find Cinnatti Gallery instead, which is a bright, sizable studio with vintage posters from entertainment, food, even propaganda sectors. I particularly like the ones warning of the dangers of syphilis. The owners don't mind us wandering around, although the odd location makes me feel like we're on a business call.




Walking on to 16th Street on 5th Avenue, we find Anthropologie, which has the most seductively decorated interior ever. Meaning, all females will be sucked in by its sheer beauty and madly chic designs. Men linger uneasily by the doorway and outside dressing rooms. I am very upset that I was told to put away my camera. A 3D, wooden-shoe how-to-dance step-by-step diagram hangs behind the counter, there is an orange-patterned hammock in the store window, plush couches with fat cushions for shoppers to rest their weary feet, bejewelled lamps, gag books with titles like How to Discover Your Inner French Girl and Always Wear Your Pearls! (foreword by Helena Bonham Carter), and elaborate, Indian-inspired garments. Fortunately, there was a sale (see, you people are too expensive). We buy the "neatest" notebooks (common adjective).





Greenwich Village is not too far ahead, and with it, Washington Square and New York University. we slip through a noticeably higher-end district on Bleecker Street with diners, celebrity restaurants (or so they say), and... the Peculier Pub (no spelling mistake). A private smile makes its appearance - where are the fanon characters? Although there aren't any shortage of strange characters, it must be noted. The counter lady in Esprit has pink, snake-like hair. An Osbourne-like family strides past the NYU complex.

NYU is a strongly city campus i.e. you can get into it by crossing the road; the uni store is on the street itself. More students cram in a tree-shaded area at the entrance - I note a professor collapsed over her notes - while we examine our maps. Plan: see Washington Square Park, then walk through Soho to the Canal Street subway to get back.





As soon as we hit the crowded park, we see two hot dudes leaving it. They are holding hands. Okay. [I suddenly recall reading about Greenwich Village's thriving gay community in a travel guide. Seeing it with my own eyes is an entirely different matter. We see two more of such couples in the rest of the day, one being made up of two thuggish guys, beards and big muscles and all, and couldn't look more straight. It's kinda... beautifully surreal.] And there are several strange goings-on. A Falun Gong community carries out a traditional Chinese concert and meditating exercise. At the circle, two seriously ghetto-speaking guys are doing something I can't understand, which involves pumping up a big crowd by running around lining people up, collecting $$ and using State lingo i.e. jokes you and I would just not get about Atlanta and Iowa, etc. We enjoy the spectacle and leave.







Soho is a heavily clothing district, meaning we stop to go into DKNY, Miss Sixty, etc. and newly-opened stores try for themes, like separate turquoise, orange and pink sections. A guy at DKNY has very nice blue eyes. I have noticed, though, that you can't be too careful about gawking. E.g. I was checking out a stud at the Natural History Musuem yesterday and his girlfriend cast me Looks. Not death-stares, just the possessive I'm-with-him looks. And I'm like I know, I'm not stupid, but can't one enjoy the scenery while you bask? Man. Okay, ENOUGH SIDE STORY.

We hit a swanky sushi joint. Food is great - spicy salmon roll, tuna roll, fried tofu - blue lights and well -displayed sushi chefs make for an apt setting. I quickly conclude that every guy in that place is gay, including the boss in his pink shirt and long locks, telling me in a high voice to avoid the restroom as he exits till the cleaner mops up 'cos there's soap all over the floor, and I'm like, what were you doing, taking a bath? A couple at the bar have poisonous looking green drinks [and couldn't stop draping their arms around each others' chairs, and got up and left the bar twice, leaving their drinks and coats, and returning again, IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY. Oh, how sordid...].

As we draw close to Canal Street, the 'hood gets seedier. I see a lot of DVD hawkers. Man shoves a green flier in my face, insisting I buy their diamonds "for more bling, don't be afraid of the paper now!" And that looks so bald when I put it down on paper, you gotta imagine it in a Brooklyn drawl. My mum is most unhappy and we hurry into the subway.

At Penn Station, we see a crowd at the same corner the one-man Latin dancing was grooving the last time we passed. Cool kids breakdancing and they are the REAL DEAL, like the boy who could spin on his hand, with their own radios providing the bouncy music. Onlookers cheer.

As we try to decide on the exit to the Empire State Building, which we eventually stop at for two seconds, a loiterer hanging around with cronies near the ticket counter tries to reach inside my mum's bag. Han catches him and glares - he chickens out and we quickly get out of there. Sheesh. We're not exactly supposed to see pickpockets are work, are we?