What we do around the house...
Since you can't get anywhere without a car here, and since the hostfamily are all working now, we are mostly staying home. So what are we doing around the house? Well nothing much. But I did get to see my boyfriend gaining one more point in becoming an adult - he learned how do mown the lawn! You know, he has mostly been living in apartment or dorms where you don't have to care about the grass outside.
Looking cool! (And proud he finally succeded with manuvering the lawnmower. There was some jerky moments in the beginning, hehe.)
We also spray painted two bookshelf that was given to us. The original colour was grey/silver-ish.
Tadaaa!!
And last but not least, we are keeping the host family's dog company. She's called Molly and is a very nice dog, except for this morning when she somehow escaped the house and went running around and barking until the neighboor brought her back to our house. Dogs...
The land of (unhealthy) snacks!
Well there is no secret that Americans like to eat, and that they don't seem to be too concerned whether it's healthy snacks or not. I too love to eat and try different kinds of snacks, so I have gathered some pictures of interesting snacks.
First of all, almond snickers! I've only seen peanut snickers before, this almond kind might only be sold in the States. Anyway, it's good!
Next one, Custard Ice cream! As you can see in the picture, crushed and flavored ice drink (called Italian ice) and a frozen sweetened mix of milk and egg yolks in the buttom and top.
There is some interesting flavors for the ice. Swedish fish is jelly candies in the shape of fish owned by Malaco, a Swedish candy company. I chosed mango flavor though.
And the result! Top part- chocolate custard, mid part- mango flavored Italian ice, and bottom part is vanilla custard.
The third snack is the wierdest. Well, you all know Americans love bacon. They really LOVE it. So much they dip the bacon in chocolate and eat it as a snack!!!! I don't recommend this snack....didn't taste that great.
Funnel cake! What it is? Just take a look at the pictures below
The making of the funnel cake
Dough being fried...
Can't say it's healty!
Tada! Finished of with some powder sugar on top. It was pretty good.
And lastly, another kind of ice cream - frozen yogurt. We went to this store called Frozen Lama and it soon became my favorite. The reason is simple, you can try each frozen yogurt flavor for free!!!! There are small cups out and no attendant is staring at you, so it's just to go ahead and try as much as you want!! Hehe! I tried most of the flavors and then filled a cup with my favorites. Strawberry flavor, expresso and chocolate mix flavor and mango flavor. After filling the cup with the yogurt, there is a lot of topping to choose from. Candy, nuts, chocolate, fruits etc. The cubes on top of mine in the picture below is Mochi, Japanese rice cake.
Tubing!
"Annika, have you ever been tubing?"
"...What does tubing mean?"
"Oh it's a... big thing you sit on in the water, and then you go down along the creek"
"Like kayaking?"
"Uuuuh... kind of but without a paddle"
"Then how do you control it???"
Our conversation was something like this when they told me for the first time about "tubing". I just couldn't figure out what it was. But it didn't stop me from going along and try it. Tubing is what they call it when you sit on a big tube or swim ring and then just float on a river or creek. As you saw on the last blog post, there is a creek nearby Issac's college. From where I took a pictures last time, it goes away from the school and then makes a u-shape and comes back to the other side of the campus. So we borrowed tubes from the host family and went to his school.
"...What does tubing mean?"
"Oh it's a... big thing you sit on in the water, and then you go down along the creek"
"Like kayaking?"
"Uuuuh... kind of but without a paddle"
"Then how do you control it???"
Our conversation was something like this when they told me for the first time about "tubing". I just couldn't figure out what it was. But it didn't stop me from going along and try it. Tubing is what they call it when you sit on a big tube or swim ring and then just float on a river or creek. As you saw on the last blog post, there is a creek nearby Issac's college. From where I took a pictures last time, it goes away from the school and then makes a u-shape and comes back to the other side of the campus. So we borrowed tubes from the host family and went to his school.
The water was cool and I can see why they do this on a hot summer day. It was quite relaxing for most of the times too, just floating around. But you had to watch out so that the streams doesn't take you to the edges or so that you don't hit any rocks with your butt.
They call this bridge "Swinging bridge". Apparently it swings a bit when you walk on it.
Fancy houses nearby the creek.
It got a little bit too cold for me so I managed to make myself sit more on top the tube instead of letting my buttom be in the water. It also saved me from hitting stones. Issac hit one though with his....heheh...
Yoga style
The water got a bit too shallow at some places so I had to get up and walk.
And at other places the stream was strong and the speed went up. Here I'm working hard not to let the stream take me to the creekside where there are rocks.
It's hard and it takes a lot of concentration sometimes, so you won't fall into the water. At least for a beginner like me. Wow, I didn't know I could make a face like this!!! Haha...
Made it! Without falling!
This is a popular tree to climb up on and jump off from. It also has a rope which people use to swing themselves into the water. We didn't try it though because the people there were a bit loud and unfriendly I thought. And just as we were passing by under the tree a man jumped off and landed a meter away from me, making us soaked! Luckily we had put the camera in the plastic bag when we got closer.
The dog had its own tube. Altough didn't seemed like he wanted to stay there.
Another rapid! Up with the butt and keep the balance!
Tubing was fun, it took about one and a half hour until we reached the place were we got off at. I didn't not like that place, it was the "secret passage" for Messiah students and what you had to do was climbing from the tube up on this tree, and then carefully walk on the three to the ground.
The tree was wet and I was a bit scared I would slip and fall. The water was quite shallow there but the bottom was awfully muddy and I didn't want to turn into a swamp monster by falling into the mud.
And I didn't fall! Yay!
Do people go tubing in Sweden? I've seen people sitting in tubes that's behind a motorboat, or sitting in several people in a big inflatable boat going down a quite steep stream. Have any of you done something similar? Tell me about it!
Messiah College
Some pictures of Messiah College, the school where my boyfriend studied and lived at for four years and now graduated from. It's out in the countryside but the surrounding nature offer much to do such as kayaking, hill climbing, hicking etc.
The main building
Exercise hall
One of the cafeterias
Dorms
Farmland for biology students
In the back there is solar panel for engineering students
This is for frisbeegolf. You stand in the middle and throw frisbees towards this cage thing, and as you hit it the chains will rattle, letting you know you really did hit it.
One of the professors' house. If you are an outstanding student, you can live there for one semester (and obviously it's nicer than the dorms). Guess who got the chance to live there for awhile?
Study place in the library
School chapel
Posing
Architect drawing of the school from 1945
Interesting art.... looks like it's gonna collapse!
The creek
The building for art and music majors
Some of the art students exam work. Wow, they're good!! The one who painted the first painting is a friend of Issac, and she has only been painting for two years! Must be a god given talent, I always liked drawing but I'm nowhere as good as her or any of these students as a matter of fact.
So what were we doing at the school? Studying of course! Issac is preparing for the CPA test, the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination. His job requires him to pass the test within two years if he wants to work there. And I'm preparing for the GRE, the standardize test students must take to apply for master studies in the States. It includes many convulted, yet eloquent words that only the most erudite individuals would use. And math....aaaah it's tough...
Cheer us on and wish us luck!
A peaceful protest against technology
In Lancester, not far from where we live now, there is an Amish town where Amish people live. Because of their religious belief, they live their whole life without electricity and other modern tecnologies. Their life style is instead more similar to the 19th century, and they try to be as independent as possible from the "non-Amish" world. As you can see on the pictures below, they ride horse buggies on the street instead of a car, farm their lands with horse driven plough, wear simple and old fashioned clothes and cook everything from scratch. It's an interesting life style, yet amazing how they can live so simple in this modern world.
First we went to the tourist center in the Amish area. The woman on the picture below is not Amish though
Americans like to visit Amish town to get handicrafts...
...and they like to buy their food made from scratch. This store had a lot of interesting flavored pickels and jam. I liked the dill flavored pickles, but the one in the picture below was the WORST. Gosh, it was terrible.
You were free to try everything, and so we did!
Funny, they are selling Swedish ginger bread?? I guess it goes well with their jam?
I don't know how Amish lip balm is.... but the flavoring is sure interesting...!!!
A kiss anyone?
We also took a tour on their horse buggy and got a closer look at how they live.
Some of the horses. The second horse from the right was upset, probably because it was so warm, because he
kept lifting his water bucket up and down.
This was our driver. He was so funny! He didn't say much but his way of giving a tour was simply reading the signs along the road, even though not all signs had to do with Amish people, or pointing out fairly obvious stuff like:
"Lollipop store"
"Amish restaurant"
"Amish school"
"Cows in the barn"
"Pumpkin field"
This is the Amish school.
No TV, no video games...
Horses only!
Instead of an electric scooter, kids here use this kind of scooter.
The pumpkin field...
One can discern Amish houses from ordinary houses by looking at the windows, they don't use curtains.
And by the way they hang up their clothes outside on lines from the barn to the house instead of using a dryer.
Cows.... and a dog!
Passing by an Amish family
As Amish people are good at handicrafts and mechanics, they are sometimes hired by ordinary Americans to fix their cars and other things.
Horse buggy filled with tourists.
The trip was about a half hour long, we didn't want to go for a longer trip in this heat. (It has been closed to a 100 degrees fahrenheit or 38 degrees celsius. Wheh!) But on this short trip they stopped once to sell some home made Amish stuff. We tried the cookies, and they were alright, and then the home made root beer. Root beer is a very popular soda here in the States, and since I have never tried it before we decided to buy a cup each. Not a good idea, because this home made version of the soda was really bad! We secretely poured it out through the window of the buggy. Ehehe...
The driver ended his tour with saying something about how long they have been living here and farmed the land, and that the Indians were not happy about it in the beginning. Then something happened but I didn't hear what he said it was. He ended the the story and the tour saying "and then they lived happily ever after". Hummm, I wonder about that... Did the Indians really think of it as a happy ending?
So is there anyone of you readers who feel inspired? Well at least it gives a second thought about the modern and maybe a bit too over-technologized life style many people have today. Altough being without a laundry machine.....and vacuum cleaner..... I wonder if the Amish use toilets? I should have asked the driver.
From city to countryside
In my last blog post, I told you we were planning to go to Harrisburg last monday, but we had a change of plans and came here two days earlier than our plan. Our plan was to take a train 5.55 am from Worcester to Boston, and then bus from Boston to Philadelphia and change bus to Harrisburg, where finally Issac's host family would meet us. It was a trip that took us about twelve hours! It didn't go all smooth either, early in the morning we encountered problems already. Since the bus from Boston to Philadelphia was scheduled to leave at 8.15 in the morning, we decided to take a train from Worcester to Boston that leaves at 5.55 and arrives at 7.30 to make sure we would catch the bus. So we had to get up at 4 am, and when we got to the train station we met a young man looking pretty desperate as he said to us "Bad news guys, the station is closed." He told us that not only had the guard lost his keys to the doors of the train station, but also the first train on Saturdays doesn't leave until 9 am! That's to say, three hours later than we thought. That was really a bad news to us whom had already planned and bought bus tickets for the whole trip. The only comforting news was that at least we weren't the only ones who made the same mistake planning after the weekday schedule for the train and not the weekend. A few more people was in the same situation it seemed.
So we were left with no choice but to try to take the bus to Boston but there was two problems with that. First of all, the bus wasn't scheduled to depart until 7.10, and would arrive at Boston at 8.05, we were in a thight spot! In addition to that, the bus company is notorious for being late. The other problem was that the tickets to the bus must be printed out but there was no place to print them this early in the morning. So even though we managed to buy the tickets online with the WIFI at the station, we couldn't print it anywhere. Just as we were about to get really desperate not knowing what to do, luck all of sudden was on our side. Issac's little brother happened to have set his alarm clock at 6 am even though he doesn't work on Saturday, and right at that time we called him and explained the situation. So we emailed the tickets to him and he printed them at his school and took a taxi to the station. Thanks to him, we could get on the bus!
Before we got on the bus I tried, as kindly as I could, to explain to the driver what a tight schedule we are in and that is would be great if he could just...get to Boston in time. He answered "No way you'll make it! Even if I get there at 8.05, I have to park the bus and it's gonna be at least 8.15 until you can get off the bus. You won't make it! But I'll try my best."
Wow. So we were really doomed according to the driver. All we could do is get on the bus and hope the bus to Philadephia would be delayed. And the driver really did his best, on the road I noticed that the bus was travelling fast, passing cars after cars, and to everyone's suprise, we actually got to Boston in time and the bus finished parking and was ready to let us off at 8.05 sharp!! We even heard other passengers saying "wow this was quick" and "it has never travelled this fast before". Seems like it really helped talking to the bus driver, and we made it in time to our connecting bus.
To be exact, WE got to the next bus station in time. The bus however, was delayed. Really delayed. And when the bus finally arrived, they took a long time preparing space in the bus for a wheel chair passenger. So not until 9 am they let the passengers on the bus, so the first bus could as well have taken it's time. It's funny though, just as we got there, five minutes before the scheduled time, a bus attentent passed by and a man behind us asked her if he would make it to buy some coffee. She answered "You can buy coffee if you want but it's not my fault if you miss the bus". Well, the bus departed almost an hour late so yes he would have time to buy one or several cups of coffee!
The rest of the trip went fine. The bus stopped for a 30 minutes lunch break on the way, and then finally arrived at Philadelhia at 5 pm (altough it was scheduled to arrive at 3.15). We had dinner at the train station in Philadelhia and then got on the last bus that would take us to Harrisburg. In Harrisburg Issac's host family met us with her car and took us to their house, and here we will be staying for some time. It's in the countryside, but there are things to go around here as long as you have a car. The host mum have vacation this week so she took us to some places around. I will update you with pictures. For now, I'll just show you pictures of the scenery here.
Last day in NYC
First thing I did on Friday morning was running into Captain Jack Sparrow at Times Square. I just had to take picture of him, and then he told me "Come here skinny girl" so oh well, I ended up paying him 1 dollar for taking a picture with him :) I look kind of awkward in the pictures though...
On this day we were planning to see the international parts of NYC and Brooklyn bridge. First on the list was Korean town, which is actually only the smaller version of the real Korean town (it was only one street). The real one is in Queens but that was a bit inconvenient to go since we only stayed for few days.
And of course we had our lunch there, Korean food is just so delicous. Here on the table we got cold noodles, bibimbap and side dishes. Side dishes are free!
Then off we go to Brookelyn bridge! Here is some street pictures on our way there
Trinity Church
Wall street.... Doesn't look special at all. I guess everything special there is what's going on inside the business buildings.
And the Charging Bull represents when the stock market goes well (bull market). Since, in fact, it was nothing more than a statue of a bull I didn't bother trying to get through that crowd to take a better picture.
Going to Flatiron District...
...to see the Flatiron building. As you can see, it's famous for being shaped as a flat iron.
In the subway waiting for the train. I was suprised the subway is so much worse than I had expected from one of the richest cities in the world. It's far worse than ours! It was so loud that every time a train arrived or just passed by I had to cover my ears!
And it doesn't look fancy at all, just like a bunch of connected metal bunkers.
But of course with the US flag. Patriosm is never lacking here.
You see, I'm just "fashionably late" when I'm late ;)
City hall where the mayor of the city works at. It wasn't much of a special building, just really big with a tiny park around it. People where hanging out in the park and sun tanning or drinking coffee.
On this building it says both "New Amsterdam" and "New York". New York was once called New Amsterdam you know.
There was a lot of street food everywhere and here comes the next issue I was suprised about NYC. It was sooo smelly!! From food or cooking food (sometimes it even was smokey and smelled burnt) and from sewage and trash.
In the picture below you can see the Freedom Tower, built in memory of 9/11
Interesting looking building...
And Brooklyn Bridge! It's one of the oldest suspension bridges in the States, completed in 1883.
Unfortunately you don't get much of a view on this bridge. This is the best shot I could get, and I was standing on a bench stretching up my arms to take this picture!
The other side was even more of a disappointment. Why did they put up that ugly wall looking thing blocking the view?
It was really hot this day and as you can see, it was sunny and almost no clouds in the sky. Since we couldn't get a better view than this, we didn't walk all the way to Brooklyn, we turned around here.
The NYC supreme court house
And so we arrived to China town!
And I only saw ONE Chinese looking building. Well the town is big so there could have been more but over all it looks just like any other less fancy part of New York, but with Chinese things being sold instead and some Chinese characters here and there.
But something big must have happened nearby, look at the lines of all police cars passing by! There were at least seven of them.
Well this looks like China. And it was crowded just like in China and had Asians and tourist everywhere.
We went to China Town Ice Cream Factory which we read is worth a visit. Many more people had heard that too, and even though it seemed quite famous and popular, the actual place it super tiny. So tiny that you have to squeez into the store, try to order and then very carefully get out before someone acidentially smash the ice cream you just bought in your face. There was no room for chairs to sit on in this tiny store.
But the ice cream was good and they had many interesting flavors. I got Lychee flavor
And Issac tried sweet potato flavor!
Nice American car!
Seems like even being in the US doesn't help with Chingrish (Chinese-English). Virgin chicken??
Opposite side of China town was Little Italy
Basically looked the same as China town and rest of NYC but with Italian names on the restaurant and cafées.
We were going to eat at a vegitarian pizza place that also was quite famous, but like any other place it was packed with people and when it finally was our turn to write our names on the waiting list, another women just BARGED IN, ignored us and signed up her and her boyfriend´s names before us. Worst thing was, she only had to wait a short while to get a table, while we were told to wait for 45 minutes!! We did not have 45 minutes to waste. That was the rudest person I met in New York. Other people had been nice and more or less met us with courtesy. Anyway, we simply went to another pizza place nearby that also served somewhat Italian pizza.
The calzone was only filled with cheese!!!! It was not good... But the other pizza slices on the pictures above was good.
After an early dinner we were off to the bus station. We got there a little bit earlier than planned so since it was next to Times Square we walked around there for a little bit and encountered this freaky show on the street. He was HAMMERING A NAIL INTO HIS NOSE! Gross!!
It's inside his nose! No way!
Pulling it out!
So as to summerise the past three days I've shown to you, I enjoyed the trip it was fun finally seeing The Big Apple with my own eyes. However, I can't say I love New York, but I don't hate it either. (The NY water bottle was actually not more expensive than other water bottles so I bought it as my souvenir). It has some fancy and cool street, but is very crowdy, smelly and loud. Somehow reminds me a bit of China... I liked the museums and Central Park the most and would like to go here again, but not to live in this city. It would be too stressful and my ears would probably fall off if I had to take that subway everyday.
i hope you all enjoyed the pictures! Right now we don't have much planned for this week more than studying. Maybe I will upload some more pictures of food and of Worcester ;) Next Monday however, we are going to Issac's host family in Harrisburg. Harrisburg doesn't have much but it's the capital of Pennsylvania state. In August we are going to Philadelphia as Issac will move in to his apartment there. So expect more pictures later on!
Love
Independence Day
We began the day with walking through Central Park, which is a large park in the middle of Manhattan, to get to Metropolitan Museum of Art. The park as you can see, is very green and clean (the water in the picture below is a bit too green though). It was very nice, but as we were there on the 4th July, which is the American independence day, a holiday, the park was packed! So I didn't take many pictures of the park.
This museum is also run on donations, so again we paid only 5 dollars for two people. That's like nothing compared to the real value of the museum. It's two floors high but very broad with many rooms. We could not even see everything because I got tired of all the walking.
First , we walked around the Greek and Roman art section
Hercules below
If I remember it correctly, this was African arts section
It was kind of like being in a maze, going from room to room and totally lost our sense of direction without knowing where we were. Looking at the map didn't help much either. Here we came back to the Greek art section again, but to another part of it.
This man is called Ugolino, and was senteced to death with his sons. No wonder he looks frustrated!
Christian art window
Young art student at the museum
Cleopatra
We took turns taking pictures with my camera, but somehow most of the pictures he took was of me....
I'm not really a fan of modern art, but somehow Issac likes this painting. He even said he wanted paintings like this in his apartment. Hummm....
War art...or whatever to call it.
War art...or whatever to call it.
Egyptian art
Persian stone figures
There was a large exhibition of paintings from 1700-1800, which is my favorite style of art. But when we finally came here I was too tired to enjoy them as much as they deserved.
Cambodian art, that I was NOT allowed to take pictures of but the guard told me that too late ;) Kind of confusing though when you are allowed and when you are not allowed to take pictures, there were no signs....
After the museum we went walked in the Central Park again and was planning to go to a café that serves "Frozzen hot chocolate". Sounds very interesting (I don't understand how something can be frozen and hot at the same time??), but first of all, we got a little bit lost in Central Park since no roads in the park are straight. They all are curved making it hard to know which direction we are supposed to walk, so we ended up passing the street we were heading to, and came to Colombus Circle instead.
Apple store with the entrance in a glass cube
Street view
We walked for about one and a half hour until we finally reached the café. I admit, it was my idea to save money and not use the subway much but we should have taken the subway instead. It was a clear sky with sun burning hot and almost no wind between all the high buildings. When we finally got to the café, we weren't the only ones hearing rumours about. It was packed with people and one and a half hour waiting time to get a table. Such a disappointment, but that's how it is when you read about a place on google. Just to expect that everyone else reads it too. Since we were so hungry and tired, we just went for the simple choice - Mcdonalds. As I thought this restaurant that you can find in every corner of the world would not bring any new suprise just because it's in the States, I was wrong. There was actually something quite interesting there. A coca-cola machine, that has all kinds of drinks with flavours you have never seen anywhere else before! In the picture, there is Coke with cherry, fruit punch, vanilla, orange and so on!!
It was unlimited refill, so I tried a little bit of every fanta and Sprite taste. My favorite was Sprite Peach, they should sell it at every store!!
After eating lunch we took subway to Staten Island where we could take a free shuttle boat passing by the Statue of Liberty.
The bridge that gets destroyed in every American action movie...
Manhattan
The statue! However, we apparently took the boat at the wrong time of the day, when the sun happened to be right behind the statue making the pictures quite dark....
We saw the boat that will shot the fireworks later this evening arriving to Manhattan, there was at least three or four of them!
The boat trip took around twenty minutes crossing the water to the opposite Island, but we had to wait both for getting on the boat to the Island, and getting back to the city. It didn't leave us much time to eat so we had to take the meal to-go and then go to the street near Hudson River where you could see the fireworks. But when we got there, it was filled with people and the police had to cut off some part of the roads leading to the road near the river. So we had to stand one street away from the river and tried to see the fireworks between the buildings.
We rushed off to the next intersection hoping we might be able to get a better view between all the buildings so we went from intersection to intersection as you can see in the pictures.
Finally arrived at a place were we got pretty good view.
And that was it for 4th of July!
New York City 3-5 July
It took five hours with bus from Worcester to New York City (NYC), changing bus once in Springfield. As we arrived in New York City (NYC), the weather forecast on google claimed it was sunny and nice. Clearly, they were wrong. It was pouring down rain!
This is the room we stayed at, it's in an apartment on Manhattan close to the Empire State Building. It was almost like an hostel (a simplier version of hotel), except for that the room was one of the bedrooms in an apartment, hence we shared kitchen and bathroom with other guests.The owner of the apartment is Korean, who only rents out rooms to other Koreans. So, when I on my way to the bathroom met the other guests for a first time they seemed quite dumbfounded, especially the older dad. Didn't expect a blond girl here! I tried to say hi to them in Korean, but that seemed only to make them be more confused. We didn't spend much time in the apartment though, our schedule was packed from morning to night every day! We tried to save some money by walking a lot and not take the subway so much. My feets hurted every night as we went to bed!
The first attraction we went to was the American Museum of Natural History, which was pretty cool. The best thing about the museum, which also applied to the next museum we went to later, was that the Museum fee is only a recommended fee. It's run on donations, so you can pay whatever you want! We donated 5 dollars for the two of us together. And as you can see on the pictures below, it was so worth it (and probably a lot more). By the way, the movie "Night at the museum" had much inspirations from this place. For those of you who have seen it, you might recognise some stuff.
The picture above is showing indians, and below is a tree trunk from a very, very, veeery LARGE tree called giant sequoias.
And in the painting below is the world tallest trees called Coast Redwood. Both of the trees can be found in northwest of the US (mostly California). Can you spot the tiny human at the ground? Imagine standing beside a tree big like this!
Mum, next time you get bitten by a mosquito and it get swollen, whereof the doctor at the care center ask you what kind of mosquito it was, this is how they look like up close!
The aquarium part of the museum, showing the ocean animals. Wales are sooo big!
Saturn planet!
Dinosaures!! T-rex!
I'm not afraid of a mere t-rex....... not a dead one at least ;)
But gosh, we are really tiny compared to them.
Skeleton of a mammoth
They had displays of all different kinds of animals. Don't worry, they were stuffed, not alive.
"Hey dum-dum! Give me some gum-gum" - is what this South Pacific Ocean figure is saying the the Night at the museum movie.
After the musem we went to a Korean-Chinese restaurant so I could try fresh Jiajiangmian for the first time. (Jiajiangmian is a Korean-Chinese dish - noodles in bean sauce. It taste so much better that it sounds like, trust me.) Earlier back in China I had only tried the instant noodle kind that I liked it a lot. So it was a must when I heard I could eat the real dish in New York!
After the dinner we walked through Times Square.
Willy Wonka section
More t-rex!
Barbie!
The whole Cullen vampire family in barbie dolls
Barbie and Ken is just soo out dated, nowadays it's vampire dolls kids play with :P
More lego figures
'
Together with classic Chinese sweet and sour pork and Korean kimchi.
"Nygård" is not a Swedish store even though it sounds like it. It's actually a Canadian store owned by a finnish immigrant with a Swedish last name. I thought it was Swedish at first and had to look it up, which isn't strange because Swedish stuff seems to be pretty popular nowadays. You can find Swedish flags or something labeled with Swedish quality in quite many places. I even found Swedish meatballs in the grocery store (not sold by IKEA). And did you know our store "Polarn o Pyret" is at Manhattan? Maybe our country isn't as small anymore as we tend to believe. Not to mention the success H&M, having a large store at TImes Square.
Not sure if they were doing commercial for a toy store or trying to get money by dressing up and have kids taking pictures with them.
Bringing your kids to NYC is not a good idea by the way, they have a big and fancy Toys"r"us store here with just too much fun!! You probably get ruined and your kids will go wild! Why? First of all, at the entrance, there is a ferrie well!
Willy Wonka section
Lego section with Emipre State building
More t-rex!
Superman at the front and Star Wars people at the back
Barbie!
The whole Cullen vampire family in barbie dolls
Barbie and Ken is just soo out dated, nowadays it's vampire dolls kids play with :P
More lego figures
We visited the Disney store too. I'm a big Disney fan after all.
Cool design in the store
We also went to chocolate stores, first Hersey's,
...and then M&M
Soo many different colours!!
They were even selling M&M necklaces, bracelaces, earings, t-shirts, hats, pyjamas, sport clothes and so on.
M&M as the Statue of Liberty. So what kid wouldn't be overly excited seeing all the toys and candies?
Out on the street again, some pictures of sky skrapers.
That truck that just passed by had a bunch of humans statues on the top.... I think. I'm not sure if they were real humans or just dolls.
We walked to Rockfeller center which is several of company buildings. Below them is a square with flags from all the countries of the world.
In one of the buildings here you can go up to an observatorium deck to get a great view of New York, and so we did. The red-white-blue building in the picture below is the Empire State Building.
'I downloaded an application to windows 8 that is some kind of simple photo editing program. It's not so good at making pictures more clear, but it got some fun colour settings. I played around with this pictures a little bit. How do you like it?
This is how it looks like on the observatorium deck.
It was really hard to get a good pciture here when it was so dark. (I brightened the picture a bit).
Disco at the observatorium deck??
Interesting stone monument infront of Rockfeller Center
On our way home we passed by Time Square were artist were working hard! This spray painting thing was really cool!!
And his black companion
We passed by this super fancy car, which created so much commotion on the streets, they could hardely drive anywhere.
And his black companion
They finally managed to get through the group of car entusiastic people and left with a loud WROOM, shortly followed by a limousine. I wonder what kind of rich people were driving those cars. What do you think, celebrities or sons of successfull business men?
We also encountered the famous Naked Cowboy, but who in fact was an imposter. The real one is supposed to be really muscular. This one wasn't as charming....
Another interesting thing we saw this evening was commercial for Dalian in the middle of Times Square. Dalian is the city in China I studied at for one year. The commercial felt a bit out of place, but seems like China is trying hard to increase the tourism.
I remember this place!
Oh look, you can even kiss a dolphin in Dalian. I never got the chance to do so though.
That was all for the first day. I will post more pictures of the second day tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and pictures from the third and last day later on.
Hope you like the pictures!
Food festival
The other day there was a food festival here in Worcester. Trucks lining up at one long street selling all kinds of American specialities. Kind of like the event "Smaka på Stockholm" that was arranged in Kungsträdgården about a month ago, except that these food trucks went on a bigger tour from city to city.
Most of the food were sandwhiches and hot dogs which seems to be really popular here. The sandwhiches were a bit different at every place but the main thing was cheese, meat and either toasted or fried. Other dishes were "Mac n' cheese" (macaroni and cheese), cookie sandwich ice cream (basically ice cream between two cookies), and Thai-American food.
We tried crab cake (the pic above), "pulled pork sandwhich" (meat from pork ribs with barbeque sauce in a hamburger bread) and lemonade. Oh that rib sandwhich was soo delicous! Crab cake was also good. Lemonade was like any lemonade but it was a must-try just because it seemed to be very popular.
