Monday, July 23, 2012

A Weekend Trip to NYC

By Qingcheng Huang, the OISS 2012 Summer Intern

Ever since I arrived in New Haven, I have been wanting to visit New York on the weekend with a group of people. So when I heard late last week that several students from Peking University were planning a trip, I made a plan to join them.

We met in the Pierson College courtyard at 6am Saturday morning. It was very cold that morning and we walked to the station together to catch the 6:40 train to New York. There is a Dunkin Donuts coffee shop in the New Haven train station so most of us had our breakfast there.

The trip to NY was really pleasant. We all agreed that the Metro North train route was great. We saw bridges, rivers, yachts, and villas passing by our windows. Sometimes it is fun to travel in the U.S. simply because the scenery along the way is worth the price of the ticket!

We arrived at Grand Central Station around 8am. We didn’t stay long in the station because we were in a hurrty to get to Broadway to possibly buy some theater tickets. (A tip for other international students and scholars: Remember to bring some U.S. money with you to buy the subway ticket. The ticket machine didn't accept an international credit card.)

1

Grand Central Station's ceiling featured a picture of the zodiac.

2

Our group headed to Broadway by taking the subway. Times Square is a place filled with skyscrapers, people, and… advertisements! I thought the sidewalk would be wide but actually it was not. Times Square was full of Batman movie posters (I’m mourning for the victims in Denver — may they rest in peace), T.V. show posters, and also advertisements for Chinese news agencies such as Gree and Xinhua News. People dressed as cartoon characters were scattered around the street, waiting to take photos with tourists.

3

When we arrived at the theater ticket booth, we discocered that they wouldn’t start selling tickets until 10am. (We should have done our homework before our visit.) So we decided to see the Statue of Liberty first.

4

We lined up for about one hour before we got to board our ship. Although it was a long time, Battery Park does provide a lot of entertainment and beautiful scenery to make the time go by faster.

5

Much like the Yale campus, many buildings in New York are also being renovated. Also, we discovered a tourist shop next to the wharf offering bicycle trips to the Brooklyn Bridge. If you are visiting this area and you have extra time and energy, you could ride a bicycle to the bridge and then take the water taxi back.

In order to save time, we didn’t get off our boat at any of the stops. Curiously, the Statue of Liberty was smaller than the image in our minds, but it is still magnificent. People gathered on one side of the boat when we came closer to the statue, which made the boat lean in that direction.

6

We had lunch at a small Chinese restaurant near the Financial District. Then we went to the famous (or infamous?) Wall Street. We only saw one senior citizen holding a sign that said "Occupy the Wall Street".

7

Something that I find interesting about taking pictures of tourist sites (like famous statues): How many people are also taking a picture of you?

8

We went to see the renowned bronze bull. It was surrounded by a crowd of people, too, which made it difficult to take a picture with this bull. (Poor bull.)

9

Soon after we headed to the Metropolitan Museum by the subway. It was very hot in the subway! New York subway stations are usually very dark and shallow and I sometimes felt uncomfortable.

10

My group apparently got out at the wrong station because we were several blocks past Central Park when we exited the subway. It took us about an hour to walk back to the Met.

11

To be continued...