Yujian's Exchange In USA: The past 1 week

Hi all,

time to update my blog again... thanks to Paul, i have to speed up the blogging speed. Anyway, the past 1 week was kinda busy because my friend was going to visit over the weekend and I had to finish all my work before that so that I can bring her around over the weekend.

Anyway, on Saturday, i brought my friend around Philadelphia and showed her to the various places which were interesting. Seriously, it was quite limited and all i could show her was the parkway / museum district which has the famous philadelphia art museum, the commercial area, the italian market, the famous Pat's cheesesteak, and the historic district. The following are the pictures in Philadelphia.

Logan Circle

Outside of the Philadelphia Art Museum with the best possible Phiadelphia Skyline View (people were having their wedding photos taken here)

Finally, i got the chance to take a picture with the liberty bell

A war memorial in Philadelphia for the unnamed soldiers who fought for America during the American Revolution

An old US submarine at Penn's Landing

On sunday, i brought my fren for a 1 day quick tour of NYC. We took the 530am bus from Philadelphia to NYC and reached there at around 715am. After having a nice breakfast at Chinatown, we made our way to wall street. The familiar views of the NYSE dawns upon me once again and after a quick walk east, we ended up at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Nonetheless, we did not board the Staten Island Ferry that was free. Instead, we walked to battery park and took a US$15 circle line trip that brought us around the the bottom half of manhattan island... i would say that this is quite worth the money since the view of the skyline was quite outstanding.

We then began our arduous trek up north. The plan was to walk from the southern tip of Manhattan Island towards central park. Half way through, we made pit stops at NYU, Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, and various shopping spots. The trip was planned to exhaust our legs and i guess after about 6 hours of trekking, we reached Central Park, our final destination. Well, this is a good lesson indicating that the aim of a trek is not the destination but the process. The route from Battery Park to Central Park (approx 20km) was filled with the various attractions of NYC. Apart from the ones listed above, seeing the new yorkers enjoy their sunday serves as a pleasant experience for us as we immerse ourselves in the NYC city life.

After viewing the ending of the New York Marathon (yes its like standard chartered marathon), we made our way back to Chinatown for a sumptuous dinner at a restaurant called Joe's Ginger. Check out their website @ http://www.joeshanghairestaurants.com/. Their xiaolongbao is really one of the best ones i've eaten so far... you can check out the dinner pictures below too.

After a tough day of trekking in NYC, i called it a day at 11pm when i waved goodbye to my friend and headed back to Philly for a midterm exam in the morning. Here are some pictures that might excite you.

On the circle line with the NYC skyline