A Man. A Plan. A Trip. New York.

Last Friday we all decided we wanted to go to New York.  

Monday 0:59 AM we bought 5 bus tickets and booked a hotel for New York. 

Monday 8:45 AM our bus departed for New York.  

Yep. We were gonna drive, but Hiroko's mom required that we take public transportation @___@. Anyways, yeah, woke up around 5:30 Monday morning, took shower, dad drove me to pick up Robin (his mom also required he be picked up by adult), went to Yisheng's house, Quan's dad drove us to the bus station. Sketchy B-more. Slept on ride up.  

Arrived in NYC, walked around Chinatown...went to Times Square and did more walking around...Went to Rockefeller center and tried walking around but got stuck in mob...went to check in at hotel which was located a block outside Chinatown. After we left Chinatown, we were like...are we in the ghettoes? On the corner of a building I saw the name "Sohotel," and was like "crap. I can't believe we got a hotel in the ghettoes." (this picture is across the street from our hotel).

Once we got to the front door, it was better, the interior was well decorated, not Chinese-owned. Anyways, check-in was like this: We had 5 ppl, but we registered for 4, so Yisheng and I checked in while the 3 of them waited outside. First off, she saw my ID, and prolly saw that I had just turned 18...and I was checking in with a girl. Next thing I know, Hiroko walks in and also comes up. So I just turned 18, and am checking in with 2 girls. We get the room, and manage to get all 5 of us into the room, even though at one point a maid came in and I had to hide in the bathroom.  

For dinner we were going to eat at Quickly, which I had only heard of a while back as an awesome bubble tea chain. Also, they had shabu shabu. Unfortunately, there was a wait, so we kept going. We found another shabu shabu/hotpot place, so thats where we ate! Food was okay, didn't really like the sauces, nor the broth, which was just mala mix + water (the plain broth hiroko, yisheng, and robin got was basically boiling water). Anyways, I hadn't had hotpot since summer so I was okay with it. We were supposed to go ice skating afterwards, but were too tired, so we went to buy some cards and azn drinks (I got a lemon tea?) and went back to the hotel. 

Hahah stomach wasn't feeling so well, and didn't want to go to the bathroom in our room with no lock...so went downstairs to the lobby to find one. But there wasn't one. So I went outside, trying to find a restaurant or something, but couldn't find one. The street was literally deserted. All the chinese stores closed shop, there were no restaurants bc it was still outside Chinatown. So I found a hotel about 2 blocks away from my hotel, went in, told the Chinese man at the counter "my hotel's kinda far away....can I use your bathroom?" and he let me use the employee bathroom. Hahaha. The toilet couldn't flush. Left the bathroom, said "thanks" and ran back. What I just said was prolly incredibly disgusting but OH WELL. xD  

Playing cards didn't work out so well. No one was in the mood. So we played Meow. As in, turn off lights, touch other people, when you get touched you meow. Yeah. thats what we did. Then we just did nothing. I was doing karaoke from Hiroko's iPod, and yisheng and quan were reading the chiense magazines they bought earlier. robin and hiroko were uh...i dont even know? Then we slept. Umm so...i wasn't sure of the reasoning, but we slept guy girl guy girl guy. @____@. My mom flipped out when she found out later ("DID YOU GUYS HAVE SEX??") Tried telling ghost stories, tried playing contact, but all failed.  

I woke up first next morning (although apparently Hiroko was imsomniac all night long), and took a shower. Then we spent a while taking photos, including ghost photos with Robin's DSLR, and finally cleaned up and checked out. Ate a chinese breakfast! was uber happy about that! 豆腐脑~ yummy yummy 美味すぎた~ Also had a 油条 but it was disgusting. fried to a crisp, each bite was oil gushing into my mouth. But yeah, was very pleased with my tofu. so pleased i ate some of hiroko's sweet tofu. (mine was savory).  

After breakfast we went ice skating! Was fun, I hadn't ice skated since sophomore year I believe. But yeah, the five of us were holding hands, and going really fast, and I fell on my butt. It hurt...it was definitely going to bruise...and I didn't want to get up...and when I got up, Yisheng and I stayed along the wall while everyone else continued skating. And then I noticed that everything in my vision was turning really bright... I thought was that there was too much light from the sun being reflected from the ice. Thought I was just getting sleepy or something, tried shaking it off but it wouldn't go away. Then my hearing started to go as everything started sounding distant. Told Yisheng that i felt like i was about to faint, and she was like "yeah..your lips are white..." so i started skating along the wall towards the rink entrance, but luckily yisheng called these 2 rink guards to take me off the ice. Anyways, the woman was being pretty bitchy, like "Now that you're in here you need to go to the hospital." I was thinking "well....i'm leaving NYC in a few hours, there is no way im going to the hospital." So I asked her, "Can i just sit here for a few minutes? It's not as bright in here and I think I'm getting better." "Well, I'm on my break time, so no you can't stay here unless you're going to the hospital." Yeah, so Yisheng and I left the room and went to go get somethign to drink. Anyways, after some sugar (the orangeade had 70 some grams of sugar @___@) my vision went back to normal, and I didn't fell lightheaded anymore...almost thought I was diabetic....but then realized sugar helps normal people too xD. Anyways, went back to skating. [Edit: Later the woman and also one of the rink guards asked me if i was feeling better. aw they actually care D:] 

After skating we spent quite a while wandering around trying to find a restaurant. Eventually, like an hour later, we found Momo Sushi ("hey hiroko, it's momo! like your dog! let's eat there!" "my dead dog.") and had dinner. I ordered 鰻丼...yummeh yummeh.

After that, around 5, we rushed back to Chinatown to catch the bus. Robin and I really wanted some last minute bubble tea, so we went to run off around the bus stop area to find it. After about 20 minutes of searching we found it, it was 5:50 by this time and our bus leaves at 6. Anyways, rushed back, found out bus was late...

Cancun cont'd

So yeah, Sunday we got timeshare tickets. Monday we went to Chichen Itza with Guo Lili's family. On the bus, I sat with their daughter, Mimi, who's like 26. On the ride there, our moms would not stop talking. The tour guide was talking to us about the Mayans, and the only other sounds I hear are our parents talking. On the bus, there was this massive asian guy, who was seriously like 6'6 or taller, wearing a cut up tshirt. Hahaha and at Chichen Itza he kept following Mimi, ie getting close to her etc xD. So yeah, Mayans were pretty interesting people. Apparently the date the earth ends isn't really the earth ending, but a rebirth involving water. NASA says this may be a day involving planetary alignments that will do something to the tides...in my head i was like "oh no another great flood." Also, apparently Mayan's traced the exact date their civilization started, which was like 3000 years ago, while I believe Christians (if following the Bible exactly) can calculate Adam's birth to about 3500 years ago...depending on your source. Coincidence? On the way back we had "lunch" at 4:30 in this buffet place...and there was seriously nothing that looked good. I took some interseting photos there, but they would've been better with a DSLR.

Tuesday we went to Tulum and Xel-ha. This time we went with everyone, and went to Xel-ha first. Eric and Jeremy wanted to do swimming with dolphins, so again Mimi's and my family went to go do our own stuff. So we went snorkeling. Twas fun, except there weren't many fish except for at the beginning. After that we had lunch, which was really really good compared to the previous day's. In the afternoon, we went to Tulum, and took some nice pictures (DSLR PLZ). On the way back to Cancun, again the parents would not shut up. This time, they were giving us time to sleep, and turned the lights off, and all I hear are the parents talking and the little kids shouting to each other @_____@. For dinner we ate at the sushi place. Was okay I guess. I caught a cold that night tho. Afterwards we played cards! 找朋友!

Wednesday wasn't really anything. My parents and I went to La Isla mall and walked around until noon. Then we had lunch at Sunset Grill back at our hotel, WHERE I STUBBED MY TOE ITS EFFING PURPLE NOW MY NAILS GONNA FALL OFF DDDDD:. I was totally pissed. My dad stubbed his too, but it just hurt, no injury. akjhdfadshflkasdjlhf. I'm writing this Wednesday 12/31, and it's still purple. Doesn't hurt now though, just feels weird when touched. After lunch we just hung out on the beach, took some photos, and then went to dinner. Dinner was at Sunset Grill again. It took so long to get food, because this was Christmas Eve. Afterwards, we played cards again.

Thursday morning = packing and eating breakfast and LAST MINUTE PHOTOS XD. During breakfast, I was already brain dead and was falling asleep. On the car ride to the airport I was drifting in and out. At the airport I was asleep while the adults played cards. We got to Atlanta, and customs took so long. First we chose teh slowed line at passport control. Then the lady directed us to the LONGEST line for the x-ray machine, etc. And so we missed our flight by like a minute. They were closing the door when we got there, so they didn't let us on. So we wanted until 7:05 PM. I had Qdoba for Xmas dinner then xD. Got home around 11 PM.

A Bruised Groin

So I'm in Cancun right now.

Got here Thursday night, basically spent the whole day being angry and emo, mom got pissed eventually. When we were coming out of the airport, a woman at a desk near the exit introduced herself as a tourist assistant, and started telling us about stuff. And I thought my mom was being pretty rude about "We're sleepy...we're not interested" when the woman was just trying to help us. Later I realized she was a timeshare person....didn't realize what timeshares were until just recently hahaha. By night it was better after we checked into our oceanview suite xD. Basically its a 1-1/2 floor suite with a full glass wall on one side that views the beach, + balcony. Yeah, it was only for one night though, because we had to move into a normal room the next morning.

Woke up early the next morning, (1) to be emo, (2) to see the sunrise. Eventually my mom started talking to me again, so everything was good xD. Umm, didn't do anything really on Friday I think.

Oh yeah, everything's free. So like if you're at the pool, you call the waitress over and tell her to get you a strawberry daiquiri, sangrias, and [most] other drinks you could want xD. And there's always something on the menu with tequila in it. I had a coffee au tequila yesterday. First the waiter does shows off his fire pouring skills, pours the tequila into the cups, adds the coffee, adds the cream, and then drizzles flaming tequila along an orange peel spiral into onto the coffee.

So yeah, Friday morning woke up early, then breakfast, ummm then my parents went to go see a timeshare thing with their friends, so I had to watch over these 3 kids. Supposedly I could "go to the beach" and "check up on the kids every once in a while." Eventually it turned out I had to stay with the kids the whole time...

Friday afternoon I went with my mom to downtown Cancun, which is where the locals live. Yeah, it looked just like a random small city in China. Not really worth seeing I guess... The items they were trying to sell to tourists were also crazy expensive. We tried getting 2 sunglasses, that I insisted on 100 pesos for both [~$10], which were originally 480 pesos (yes...they tried selling me sunglasses for about $24 each....). My mom doesn't like bargaining, so she took the both of them for 200 pesos. They were not worth 200 pesos. We tried getting back and luckily I am an hispanohablante, because no one there on the streets spoke English. So yeah 6 years of Spanish culminates in me saying "hai" to a latino lady in the middle of asking for directions. And asking things like "el estacion de la autobus es aqui?" (1) I avoided saying "Is this?" because I wasn't too sure how to use "este/esto" anymore, (2) my words are all the wrong gender, (3) I'm pretty sure it should be parada instead of estacion. Haha my mom was not impressed. @___@. But yeah, we eventually found our way back. On a side note, it's pretty funny seeing Chinese people interacting with mexicanos when both of them speak with accents. Also sometimes embarassing.

On Saturday I didn't really wake up for breakfast, and so I woke up around ten to go bike around the island with my parents and their friends. I was pretty apprehensive at first: during the summer in China, I remember trying to ride the bike in my grandparents' yard while my grandfather sat on the steps watching me. Basically I couldn't ride it at all because I couldn't find my balance and so made myself look like a fool. It was especially bad, because seven years ago my grandfather was taking me to town, so he told me to get on the back of his bike, but I couldn't get on [sorry I didn't have any experience jumping onto the little rack on the back of the bike], and he was like "真叫笨" [So stupid]. Yeah, I could imagine him thinking "真叫笨" as I kept losing my balance on the bike. Anyways back to Saturday. My dad said it should be okay, people never forget how to ride a bike. But he forgot to consider that he had probably thirty years experience riding a bike. While I only rode a bike for three years or so back when I was in first or second grade. But yeah, the bike tour guide had to stop for me many times, eventually I got the hang of it again though. Hurray. It turns out I remember how to ride a bike. 真不叫笨啦~. But now my butt hurts so much. I'm sure I bruised it or something riding on the an-ergonomic seat.

After the bike ride we had lunch at this grill place. Was pretty good, I had grilled octopus! Takoyaki except not. After that we went on a jungle tour, except it was actually two people in a motorboat driving across the lagoon to the snorkeling area. Yes there were some mangroves, but that was it. No animals. No trees. And it was hot and the sun was blinding me. But yeah, snorkeling was fun, saw some fish...some coral...except they had lines preventing you from going too close to the coral. So most of the time was spent bonding with some fish. Haha I totally expected a shark to just appear from behind the coral or something.

Dinner was at this place called Maria's, the second time we went there. It's free (part of the hotel), but you need to make reservations because its one of those look-at-our-extremely-small-but-well-decorated-portions restaurants. But since it was free, we basically got all we wanted xD. Yeah, it was Saturday night when I got the flaming coffee.

Today, I had to wake up at 7 because I had to go to a timeshare thing with my parents to get discounted tickets for the places we wanted to go. It was supposed to be 90 minutes, but eventually took almost 3 hours. After that we went shopping in a flea market located on the actual Cancun strip, so it was much better than downtown's. For some reason my parents refused the free breakfast the timeshare offered, so my first meal was around 1 o'clock. Yep, then I tried sleeping, but my parents and their friends really wanted to go to this other beach, so they dragged me there (my mom got pissed at me again, because I was being "antisocial" when all I wanted to do was sleep D:). But yeah, that beach was pretty fun. Got back around 5, took a shower, and so here I am. Going to dinner (at Maria's for the third time) around 6:30.