Week 12 (11th November - 17th November)

Hi everyone, welcome back. This is Week 12 and we woke up to a beautiful sunrise in the United States. In Northern America, they celebrate Veteran's Day. In Canada and some of the Commonwealth countries, it is known as Remembrance Day. It is a Public Holiday and happens to fall on the first day of this week. Our first stop for the day will be New York City where we would see many famous attractions such as the new One World Trade Center, Wall Street, Statue of Liberty.

On the tour bus heading towards New York City

Our first location is One World Trade Center. This is a new skyscraper built after 9/11.

While we admire the skyscraper, we also reflected on the lives lost during 9/11.

This is the site of one of the former twin towers

We also came across a tree which survived the aftermath of 9/11.

Next we went to Wall Street where the New York Stock Exchange is located and also visited the Charging Bull nearby. Contrary to popular belief the Charging Bull is not located on Wall Street but on Broadway.

Scenery as we walk towards our cruise

We also passed by another landmark, the Brooklyn Bridge before our cruise. On the cruise, we managed to catch a view of the New York City Skyline as well as the Statue of Liberty. We didn't disembark on the island to visit the Statue of Liberty as it was not part of the cruise ride.

Street Art

While on the bus we also passed by the United Nations Headquarters.

Next we went to the Rockefeller Center (Top of the Rock) which is an observation deck with magnificent views of New York City. Here we see a Bird's eye view of Central Park.

After admiring the scenery, we were given some time to do free & easy tour. As mentioned earlier in the blog, Monday is Veteran's Day and there was a parade celebrating it.

We passed by a beautiful church and decided to head in to take a look. This church is the St. Patrick's cathedral.

Next we continued touring the city and passed by the Trump Tower!

We finally reached Central Park after a long walk where we saw some wildlife. Thereafter we grabbed a quick hotdog bun before heading back to the tour bus to proceed to the next attraction.

Our next attraction was the the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. It is an American military and maritime history museum in New York City with a collection of museum ships.

After a long day visiting many attractions, we headed for dinner. We did not join the tour for their buffet dinner. Instead, we had our own dinner. This cozy restaurant is run by a local family. I had chicken with spinach.

The next day we headed for Washington D.C. the capital of the United States. However before that we did a quick stop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Below we see a picture of the Liberty Bell.

We also stopped by a shop to grab our lunch. I got cheese steak.

After a long bus ride, we finally arrived at Washington D.C. We visited the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, where there are replicas of many famous people, including all 45 presidents of the United States!

Next we visited the White House and were given some time for free and easy. We headed to Capitol Hill next.

I also went to visit several museums nearby which showcased many exhibits such as history of the earth, animals, jewels and viruses.

Next, we visited the Lincoln Memorial. From here we were able to get a good view of the Washington Monument. The Vietnam and Korean War memorials were also nearby and we also paid a visit there.

On the last day of the tour, we visited one last attraction before heading back. It was Penn's cave. It was interesting as we took a boat ride through the cave. It was a lot colder inside the cave. We spent most of the last day on the bus back to Canada.

While we were in the US, a cold snap actually hit our place in Canada, and it was even snowing a little when we were in Washington D.C! The temperature in Markham while we were away dropped to a low of -20 Degrees Celsius. Below is the snowy sights while travelling back to Canada. There is also a picture of our backyard as well as our workplace. There was so much snow that I could even build a snowman, albeit not the best looking one.

On one of my lunch, I decided to get the Korean Pork Bone soup from First Markham Place. It was actually surprisingly good and even more so in the freezing winter.

On Sunday, we went with our friends from IBM, Yar and Lars to ski. We were very fortunate that the snow came earlier and it is to my understanding that the ski resort opened about a month earlier than usual. There was even a huge discount because it was the opening weekend.

We had lots of fun skiing and we ended the day by having Indian vegetarian food.

Stay tuned for next week's post as we prepare to head back to Singapore.