This years family trip we went to Boston, Maine, Buffalo, Toronto, Niagara Falls, and New York City. Never done so much traveling in my life. It was a vacation but we did a lot of waking up early and looking for directions. Pretty stressful, but nonetheless it was valuable and fun family time. A lot of places to talk about so I'll start in chronological order.
We came to Boston with the intention of visiting my pregnant cousin, her husband, and his side of the family. We had no idea that she would be giving birth the very day we landed there. Basically, just a lot of family time here. We had dinner a few times and checked out their house right outside the city. Landmark wise, there wasn't much. We went on a trolley tour which had a bunch of historical mumbo jumbo. We went to check out Harvard square which was actually pretty interesting. They were having their summer session there and yet the perimeter of the campus was buzzing with all sorts of people; party kids, musicians, druggies, etc. I learned that Boston was a small city with a lot of universities and sports fans packed into it. I honestly wouldn't mind living here 'cause I could get used to the subway system. And add in the fact that it's so close to NY.
After, I don't know why but we flew to Buffalo just to rent a car and drive to Canada. Maybe flights are cheaper in the U.S or something? We didn't even do anything there, just stayed the night, had breakfast, and left for Toronto. There really wasn't much there either just because it was Sunday and most things were closed. It was raining so we just ate and walked around some mall. Niagara Falls was nicer than I expected. I hear people saying it's overrated, but I guess they're taking a natural marvel for granted. We went on an interesting tour that lead us out on a boat and pretty close to the falls. They gave us ponchos but we still got pretty soaked. I'm disappointed I only heard two Canadian-accented people :/
In my opinion, New York City was easily our most interesting destination. Just the atmosphere alone was something vastly distinct from anything I've experienced thus far. As corny as it sounds, it's literally the city that never sleeps. The city is just as bright at night as it is in the day, if not brighter. The subways were filled with all sorta of people. It was scary at first but we got used to it pretty fast. First off, we did what all first-timers to NY did, visit the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. We didn't get to go inside the statue so there wasn't much to do except take pictures and walk around Liberty Island. The ESB was a tad bit more fun since we got to go up to the 84th floor and look down on the city from a bird's-eye-view. We had a bike day where we rented bikes and rode down the Hudson River and around Central Park. The river was nice but the park really surprised me. I had no idea it had like five lakes, tons of sports facilities, and six miles of road. We went at a time where they blocked off all cars from entering so the street was full of bikers and joggers. At that time, it was the only exercise I got in the past three weeks or so. We also had the chance to visit my Dad's old apartment near China Town. It was nice 'cause he got a chance to tell us about its whereabouts and how he lived when he first came over. Aside from that we also spent spare time shopping around at Time Square and Soho.
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