The First New York Trip in My Life

Friends: Jason Lai, Yun-Yin Huang, (Joan Lu,) Kevin Wu
Transportation: Syosset Taxi, Long Island RailRoad, New York Subway

11/9/2013

9am Got up and had a brief breakfast.

9:30am Made a call (free via intra net) for taxi

9:50am Took on the Syosset taxi. It's an old man driver barely listening to my voice. He is very thoughtful to drop me by the ticket booth.

10:15am Boarded the Long Island RailRoad train to Penn (Pennsylvanian) station. On the way to Penn station, we passed the Jamaica close to JFK airport.

11:15am Arrived in New York city!

11:20am Got into an AT&T and realised that 1) I cannot have a pre-paid card fitting for both iPhone4 and iPhone5c; 2) All I need to have a tel-contract is my bank account with more than $150 (?). SSN can be skipped.

11:35am Went into a subway tunnel and found it's for 1-2-3 lines instead of N-R-Q lines that Joan told me to take

11:45am After hanging around and struggling, I decided not to waste my 2.5 bucks and take the 1 line to Cristopher Street station, the closest one to Washington Square.

11:55am Arrived at Cristopher Street station

Noon Arrived at the Washington Square Arch. (http://goo.gl/maps/p1po8)

12:30pm Went into a restaurant of Thai Food.

    Talked a lot with Jason and Yun-Yin, from food, life, geography, weather, salary, visa, research, shopping, to raising a child.

2:10pm Finished lunch and, with Yun-Yin's reminding, found that I cannot meet Joan since I don't have a functional phone. After calling Joan with Yun-Yin's phone but no response, we were heading to the UNIQLO.

2:30pm Arrived at UNIQLO. Separated from Jason's. I bought a pair of gloves, $12.9.

3:40pm Walked and arrived at King Pong in Soho (http://goo.gl/maps/O1VKr), the gym NYU table-tennis team practices.

    I first played with Jonathan, than with Raj and 又炫. Except for the fact that what I played sucks, Jonathan and 又炫 have been in TW. 又炫 grew up in TW and moved to US for his Senior high school now. It's so exciting and satisfying to play table-tennis! I gotta to modify my way to play the ball, needing to hit heavier, as well as the precision of timing.

6:30pm Finished playing and decided to walk to the destination Kevin requested. (I just surveyed and realised that the distance between King Pong in Soho and the destination spot Kevin requested is 3.05km!)

    During the rush, I think I have passed the scene of 911 attacks (http://goo.gl/maps/PDpIu; http://goo.gl/maps/sBI0V), the Wall street (http://goo.gl/maps/YKgzW, quite small and dark!), and the charging bull (華爾街銅牛; http://goo.gl/maps/Hxs9a; http://chargingbull.com; what a pity that I am in a hurry and did NOT touch the bull! QQ).

7:45pm Arrived the destination and be shouted by Kevin! What a touching moment. T_T

    After meeting Kevin, he leaded me to his office (i think this might be http://goo.gl/maps/9Vwm2) the National Museum of the American Indian (http://goo.gl/maps/zieKC), the New York Stock Exchange (http://goo.gl/maps/w7u7F), the Time Square (http://goo.gl/maps/aTqE7), the New York Public Library (http://goo.gl/maps/vtkDc), the 5th Avenue (http://goo.gl/maps/HHnca) etc.

9:00pm Having dinner in a Korean Restaurant. Delicious~!

10:15pm Took on the subway back to Kevin's home in Brooklyn. Although it's far far away from the office, the lovely rent fee and nice roommate are satisfying.

11:20pm Home!

    We drank the wine given by EVA airline, thank to sister-in-law Annie, and gossiped until 1am, maybe later.

After sound sleep...

9am Kevin got me up. We took the subway to the Atlantic Avenue & Barclays Center station and said goodbye to each other.

Wonderful and warm trip in cold late-fall!