Saturday, August 2, 2014

Are We Really Here?

A Whole New World~
Our first day at New York was surreal. I didn't feel like I was in NY, I thought of it as another version of San Francisco. This morning on our agenda, we went to NYU also known as New York University. The campus camouflaged very well with the city life. The tour was quite informational, well the sitting down part. There was a part one and a part two of the tour, and the part one was more informational than part two. During the first part of the tour, we were able to learn about studying abroad, financial aid, and the student to teacher ratio. I was mainly interested in the abroad part of the tour. There are two other places in which NYU has opened their campuses at, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi. I really liked how many schools students can study abroad to, and that made me become attracted to NYU. Another part of the tour that I enjoyed was how NYU has great security. If there was a situation in which a student does not feel safe, a van will be able to pick the student up and drop him/her off at their dorms. Part two of the tour was exploring around campus, but I was unable to distinguish between the city and the university. The exploring part of the tour was at least 30-45 minutes. It was nice to know that we ended quickly, and we ended at a nice park. Our tour guide was able to see a celebrity, but didn't have the time to process her name. I didn't know her name as well.


Afterwards, the next thing on our agenda was to go to the Farmer's Market.  The Farmer's Market at Union Square was bigger than the one at home. YeonSoo and I enjoyed the Farmer's Market, trying to find samples here and there. There was a large variety of produce and meats, and I liked it. After the market, we all ate at a pizza place. It was pretty delicious, and I wished I would have ate more. I wished Joe's Pizzas had more of a variety, because it was too good. 
Beautiful Girls with Beautiful Scenery
The 9-11 Memorial was next, and it was touching. We had a tour guide show us through the museum. I really liked to see each artifact from the plane crash, and what was impacting was the exhibition inside. After our tour ended, the ten of us went to see the exhibition. It was a less than ten minutes, and going inside was powerful. I can't believe how moving many of the 9-11 stories are, and I felt empathetic towards the victims. Their stories were just too crazy, and if I were in their shoes, I wouldn't know how to react.

LADY LIBERTY~!
Going on a cruise was exciting. We all got to see Lady Liberty in her beautiful self. To be honest, I probably took more pictures of her than anything else on Hudson Bay. On the voyage, I spent a majority of my time outside where the wind blows and the fresh air smelled liked home. I was wearing a shirt and shorts, and even though I got goosebumps, I was unable to leave the deck. I felt like one with the outside weather. The view was BEAUTIFUL, and after the cruise I was a bit sad. Why? Well, I was looking forward to going to only one store, Nintendo World. It closed at 9 PM, and I wonder why. That was one of the things that I was looking forward to, but our cruise ended around 8:50 PM. And then we had to walk to Times Square, a good fifteen minutes away. It was obvious that I was not going to make it, but it was so close, yet so far away. 

Coming to Times Square, it felt like morning. Maria and I walked around together, disappointed that our stores that we wanted to go to closed really early. I didn't know what to do at this point because I was going to go to Nintendo World to buy all my souvenirs and my gifts. I was sad, but I was trying not to let that get to me. Maria and I basically ventured off, and we finally found a Hershey's. That was the store we went to, and bought candy. We got a deal for four bags of any Hershey's brand for $15. I enjoyed this part of my day, since I was going to be able to relieve my stress with chocolate. I feel as if the trip to NY was disappointing because I expected more. I believe the city life to be amazing, and expected my time here to go to the places I wanted to go to. I do understand the situation, but I'm still a bit sad. I wished we got an extra day to go shopping, especially for our families and friends. I'm taking this as a lesson... to not expect so much in life. Jenny did say that we can always go to next time, and I'm looking forward to when I go to NY. Happy days~!

1 comment:

  1. I'm so sorry that you didn't enjoy NYC all that much. I mean we spent a gazillion dollars to send you to NYC so you could experience the full shopping experience. I mean, who wouldn't pay that much to go to Nintendo World?

    Oh wait! Now I remember--this wasn't a shopping trip at all. This was supposed to be a time where you go to NYC to learn more about Columbia and NYU AND---AND---if you had some spare time you could take in some of the cultural sights like the 9/11 Memorial and the boat cruise. And THEN, if you had a few minutes to spare, maybe you could visit a store or two.

    The more I think about it the more I seem to recall that we pout up all of this money for something other than shopping. Yep--I'm sure of it.

    I thank you, though, for writing at least a couple of words about the university site visits. I was especially enthralled when you wrote about their admission polices, their course work, the summer abroad programs, the financial aid, the student to teacher ratios, the unique programs these schools offer and even their rich history. That was great to read about. It told me that you got so much out of those visits. :-)

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