Trip To Niagra Falls
Quote of the Trip: Toilet only for emergency or bus very smelly!
Paid like US$170 for a 3 day 2 night coach tour thing from a Chinatown tour agency, Paradise Tours. Main reason, to get out of the US and come back so as to renew my 90 Day Visa Waiver thing. This is to allow my to hang out here even longer than i already have. From speaking to my friends prior to the trip, i was told that these trips are normally 90% filled with retirees! *shudder*...bad breath, slow moving, boring, inaudible..........ok ok...that's being extreme.
Glad to say, there were heaps of young people along for the trip, though they were all either with parents of bf/gf...sheesh....tuff!
Have to say the trip kicked off rather inauspiciously, there were 6 coaches there and no one clearly telling people which coach they were meant to go on. Lots of peeps milling around...by a minor miracle, we all got onto the right buses. Phew.
One of the "attributes" listed on the brochure for this tour was that the coach had ample space between seats (very true!) and a onboard toilet. However, the latter was tempered by our tour guide who, within 5 minutes of the tour starting, said, "Toilet only for emergency or bus very smelly!" Soon after lunch, the aircon for the coach broke down. Excellent.
First place of interest? The Corning Museum of Glass. Pretty darn nice stuff. Historical and contemporary stuff. Best exhibits were the stained glass ones. The souvenier shop's stuff looked pretty good too, until you turn them over and see that they are made in China! Glass souveniers in the museum of glass, made in China! By the time we got back to the coach, the driver was covered in grease, cos he had been trying to fix the air con. It didn't work and my poor chocies suffered the consequences. My rows of kit kat decided to go into segration mode, totally disregarding the notions of racial equality. Chocolate to one side and wafer to the other!
Crossed over to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls soon enough. Words can hardly describe the beauty of the falls at night! Message me for pics is all i can say! To top it all off, it was Victoria Day or something like that and we had a really great fireworks display!
Hotel was great apart from the fact that there wasn't anyplace to go near it. Walked out and looked around a bit then gave up. We also had a 6:30 morning call and were told that breakfast could be gotten from.....7 Eleven!!! Bloody hell, siao ah?! That was followed by the most dramatic thing to happen on the trip. A cop did a cursory examination of the coach and thought that it wasn't roadworthy so it had to go to a Department of Transport garage for a check up. Which it promptly FAILED!! So now we had lots of places to go but no coach!
Fortunately, we could still walk to the Niagra Falls observation areas and the boat ride. It is pretty nice but somehow, i felt a little disappointed...i expected this gigantic thunderous thing. As it turns out, Niagra Falls is the 3rd largest waterfall in the world.
We also went to the Canadian National Tower, which is currently the tallest building in the world. Not exactly exciting...
At this point, all that was on my mind was the discomfort of the new coach. The seats were freaking close together and it was packed! The fact that the two groups were staying in different hotels for the night didn't help matters. By the time i walked into my room, it was 11pm and we had a 5am wake up call...imagine that! It was going downhill, and pretty quickly too. Fortunately, our next attraction, 1000 Island, was pretty nice. Basically a boat ride around a river with 1800 islands on it. Some pretty interesting buildings including 2 islands that were linked by what is the shortest border bridge. 10m in all! So you could effectively sneak over to the US in and back to Canada in the middle of the night!
The real kicker was to come...it turned out that the immigration people on the US side would not renew my 90 Day Visa Waiver thing! So the object of the trip was left unfulfilled! Looks like another trip, double quick time, in the next few days, this time by plane!
However, that said, the experience hasn't been all bad... saw some pretty cool stuff and got to meet nice people too. Made a good friend in this chick from California, Ellen. Cute and friendly. She plays baddie too. Too bad she's flying back west on Monday.
Anyway, that's it for now. Leave me a message on icq or wherever if u want pics of my trip. They are a littl big and besides, i don't quite know how to put them here and also, no site to host them then link them.
Paid like US$170 for a 3 day 2 night coach tour thing from a Chinatown tour agency, Paradise Tours. Main reason, to get out of the US and come back so as to renew my 90 Day Visa Waiver thing. This is to allow my to hang out here even longer than i already have. From speaking to my friends prior to the trip, i was told that these trips are normally 90% filled with retirees! *shudder*...bad breath, slow moving, boring, inaudible..........ok ok...that's being extreme.
Glad to say, there were heaps of young people along for the trip, though they were all either with parents of bf/gf...sheesh....tuff!
Have to say the trip kicked off rather inauspiciously, there were 6 coaches there and no one clearly telling people which coach they were meant to go on. Lots of peeps milling around...by a minor miracle, we all got onto the right buses. Phew.
One of the "attributes" listed on the brochure for this tour was that the coach had ample space between seats (very true!) and a onboard toilet. However, the latter was tempered by our tour guide who, within 5 minutes of the tour starting, said, "Toilet only for emergency or bus very smelly!" Soon after lunch, the aircon for the coach broke down. Excellent.
First place of interest? The Corning Museum of Glass. Pretty darn nice stuff. Historical and contemporary stuff. Best exhibits were the stained glass ones. The souvenier shop's stuff looked pretty good too, until you turn them over and see that they are made in China! Glass souveniers in the museum of glass, made in China! By the time we got back to the coach, the driver was covered in grease, cos he had been trying to fix the air con. It didn't work and my poor chocies suffered the consequences. My rows of kit kat decided to go into segration mode, totally disregarding the notions of racial equality. Chocolate to one side and wafer to the other!
Crossed over to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls soon enough. Words can hardly describe the beauty of the falls at night! Message me for pics is all i can say! To top it all off, it was Victoria Day or something like that and we had a really great fireworks display!
Hotel was great apart from the fact that there wasn't anyplace to go near it. Walked out and looked around a bit then gave up. We also had a 6:30 morning call and were told that breakfast could be gotten from.....7 Eleven!!! Bloody hell, siao ah?! That was followed by the most dramatic thing to happen on the trip. A cop did a cursory examination of the coach and thought that it wasn't roadworthy so it had to go to a Department of Transport garage for a check up. Which it promptly FAILED!! So now we had lots of places to go but no coach!
Fortunately, we could still walk to the Niagra Falls observation areas and the boat ride. It is pretty nice but somehow, i felt a little disappointed...i expected this gigantic thunderous thing. As it turns out, Niagra Falls is the 3rd largest waterfall in the world.
We also went to the Canadian National Tower, which is currently the tallest building in the world. Not exactly exciting...
At this point, all that was on my mind was the discomfort of the new coach. The seats were freaking close together and it was packed! The fact that the two groups were staying in different hotels for the night didn't help matters. By the time i walked into my room, it was 11pm and we had a 5am wake up call...imagine that! It was going downhill, and pretty quickly too. Fortunately, our next attraction, 1000 Island, was pretty nice. Basically a boat ride around a river with 1800 islands on it. Some pretty interesting buildings including 2 islands that were linked by what is the shortest border bridge. 10m in all! So you could effectively sneak over to the US in and back to Canada in the middle of the night!
The real kicker was to come...it turned out that the immigration people on the US side would not renew my 90 Day Visa Waiver thing! So the object of the trip was left unfulfilled! Looks like another trip, double quick time, in the next few days, this time by plane!
However, that said, the experience hasn't been all bad... saw some pretty cool stuff and got to meet nice people too. Made a good friend in this chick from California, Ellen. Cute and friendly. She plays baddie too. Too bad she's flying back west on Monday.
Anyway, that's it for now. Leave me a message on icq or wherever if u want pics of my trip. They are a littl big and besides, i don't quite know how to put them here and also, no site to host them then link them.
posted by cokecat at 10:56 am
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