July 11
My family and I signed up for a guided tour that began on July 11. We made our way to JFK International airport at 7 a.m. and from there we hopped onto a bus that took us to New Jersey. (Just as a side note, the bus seats were waaaaayyy more comfy than economy class airplanes.)
Sometimes it’s nice to be the passenger in a moving vehicle. I was able to see the disparity in wealth in New York as we passed through cities on the freeway. Many neighborhoods were polluted with trash and countless walls were covered in graffiti.
While TV shows like “Gossip Girl” are filmed mainly in Manhattan, it seems like there are more areas that resemble neighborhoods shown in the film “Honey.”
New Jersey wasn’t much of a presentable city, either (at least based on what I saw from the freeway). There was a lot of trash on the way to the hotel, and like in New York, there was also a lot of graffiti.
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We stayed at a Hilton where we rested for the days ahead.
View from the hotel
I spent some time in the lobby in the early evening where I was approached by a Chinese couple that asked for help in connecting to the Internet. They barely spoke English, but I figured that’s what they wanted because they kept pointing at the Internet dialogue box on their laptop screen.
I was happy to help, but the computer was also in Chinese :/ So I kind of guessed around and eventually figured out how to get onto the network. They thanked me twice 🙂
It felt nice to help them even in spite of the language barrier.