fuchsia fragments

First night in LA omitted here....

So in NY, we decided to stay at an apartment via airbnb. It was a pretty spacious apartment for NYC - what they called a triplex. So one bed upstairs, one downstairs and living area and kitchen in the middle. Nice, but old. And with age comes wear and tear...

And it was just our bad luck that...
- the switch to the lamp broke
- the light in the kitchen died
- the power in the bathroom went out (wtf!?!?)
- the wifi kept disconnecting
- the tv was fuzzy

Boo!!! Anyways, it was a week and we managed to live with it. it wasn't that bad really!!

Then we moved on to one night in Virginia (somewhere, I am not sure as this was part of tour). Surprisingly spacious. Two rooms, each person had their own double bed. Shower was rather weak and lukewarm though. But working TV and wifi. Hooray!! And for one night, I wouldn't really bother to complain.

Then it was Holiday Inn @ Washington Capitol. Two nights and we decided to save some $$$ by getting a quad room (2 doubles). It's very hard to sleep with snoring parent!!! Anyway, TV wasn't working so well. Went completely fuzzy and that was super annoying considering how cold it was outside and being in a hole with nothing to do at night time.

Also lack of space/ desk space/ lounge just got to us eventually... lolol.

And then, we made it to the West Coast finally and managed to get upgraded to 2 king rooms as got deal on expedia and it was way cheaper than directly through hotel. Knew there was something up because when i called was quoted for King Room only but on expedia, i could book Queens. YAY!

However, wifi is a massive fail here. It look half a night for the apple accessories to connect and keeps disconnecting and needing to reconnect with only some success. Annoying.

But the most fail thing here is the toilet. Blocked. Gross. Won't flush! And this is super duper bad when you are travelling with someone who is just recovering from UTI..... someone is looking at it (after telling them 3 times) as we speak. FINALLY.

However, i have to say that the room is pretty nice. Working TV with channels all laid out for you. Super comfy and large bed and enough hangers and nice desk space and extra lounge/ chair for second person.

Hotel hair dryers are always fail though.

And very nice bathroom amenities :)

Was going to go to Napa Valley today but to rent a car for an additional day is SO expensive. So think we will turn into mega and much needed shopping day!!!

I don't have the right to judge but I will anyway.

We joined a 2 day tour group from NYC to DC and there are a few mainlanders on the tour. Wendie snapped and told them off about getting to lines.

And that 4 year old girl who sits in the seat in front of us needs a good backhand or two. You cannot whinge the whole bus ride and expect one to remain calm and polite!

Freezing temps today and some snow on the road. Exciting but also annoying wind chill.

So we went to Philadelphia... America's second capital where we saw pretty much the liberty bell and the building the US built to protect the liberty bell... it's a bell??

There was a reason why i picked ancient history over modern!

Then we headed on to DC where we saw the memorials - Lincoln, Jefferson, Vietnam and Korea.

and Madame Tussauds!! That was fun.

We also deduced that the Americans like to build memorials - large and copied off the European countries - of pretty much anyone famous.

Had $15 chinese buffet for dinner. Surprisingly okay. Lots of seafood so we filled ourselves up with mussels and pipis and crab!

Then hotel time. Me tired!

East coast is coming to an end... ;)

You may have heard that the plan was to go t Macy's. We pretty much got completely sidetracked along the way. . .

Zara, Steve Madden, UniQlo and... H&M!

H&M was meant to be a walk in and walk out experience... that evidently didn't happen.

Spent some time browsing and I think the thing that took most our time was that Wendie and I were separated so it took a long time to find each other again. By that time which she was pretty pissed off at trying to pay upstairs and being told rather rudely by the sales assistant that her 3 basics weren't part of the Buy 2 , Get 1 Free Promotion.

The customer is always right, especially when they work in retail themself. So we double checked the signs and yes, we were RIGHT.

So i said to her I'll pay for them downstairs with my top and skirt and we lined up again.

Lol, nicest two guys at the register.

Guy 1 to Guy 2: "Dude, it's like Christmas busy in here today!"

I asked if I could pay for our items in two separate transactions. He said not a problem which was awesome. Then I doubled checked to ask if the Buy 2 Get 1 Free applied to all clothing. And he was like yep, i am sure they do!

Wendie to the Guy: "I didn't get that upstairs, she was really rude and said I couldn't get 2 ladies and 1 mens items".

Guy was like: "I don't even know what's going on but that sign's pretty clear. We put it up this morning and I'm just doing my job here"

*Guy hands us a $5 discount voucher for spending over $40*

Wendie again: "I didn't get that upstairs either!"

Guy goes to us: "Oh here, take 2, you know what, take 4 vouchers!"

LOOOOL.

Then when it came to paying, i gave him all my silver and i was like

"Sorry, but I'm not good at American currency."

and other Guy is like

"Oh, in that case, that bill (which was 100) you handed us was $1, you owe us *looks at register* another $46"

HAHA nice try!!

But they turned a mediocre/sht experience to a good one. Kudos to them! They keep the customers happy.

New York is... SO fast paced! People don't wait for the lights and you keep hearing car horns...

Anyways, been here for almost 5 days now and I can say that it is cold, expensive and pretty much what Alicia Keyes said - a 'concrete jungle'!

At least i get to watch all my favourite shows when they air!

We've been to see most of the attractions.

Chinatown on the actual CNY Sunday was amazing. The atmosphere and the hype just does not compare to anywhere else, and this includes Hong Kong. Totally totally trumps the London and Sydney Chinatown. We also tried their yum cha at the Golden Unicorn. We stuffed ourselves and it was less than $50. Say what??

We went up the Empire State Building and yes, it was gusty and the wind chill was pretty hectic. But the views were pretty amazing and meeting Josh Duhamel was even better!! Too bad didn't get a photo :(

Hoboken, New Jersey is cold. Pretty much went there to buy a plastic cup souvenir (Wendie) and visit Carlo's Cake Shop (Me!). Got there and there was no line which was fantastic. The shop itself was pretty small but pretty cool that one of the sisters were there. Yay got my photo and my cannoli, lobster tail and crumb cake. I rate the lobster tail, then cannoli and crumb cake was okay but could be better.

Central Park. Amazing in white. Want to go back tomorrow probably.

Grand Central Station. Awesome... and almost bought an iPhone5 there!

Brooklyn Bridge... well, it's a bridge?

We were going to go the Macy's today........ but we got sidetracked by the shops on the street surrounding it. So we will attempt to go... tomorrow. lol!!! And no, we have barely started shopping....

And also need to go to Times Square at night time!

Sometimes, life works in a funny way.

My original itinerary was LA to New York before coming home. Apparently, it was a bad idea because we would lose the advantage of time zones this way.

So i changed it.

And low and behold, mother nature intervenes and Snowstorm Nemo decides to play.

So we couldn't get on a connecting flight to New York unfortunately. And here we are stuck in Los Angeles! Seems pretty bad but we seem to always make the most of things.

And I sure did...

We went to the local Westfields nearby and make a huge huge mental list of what we wanted to buy.

And got my ASUS 31A which i have aptly named "Nemo"!

In love with an ultrabook...

We always bought a new TomTom since we will be needing one for the road trip and it would end up cheaper than renting. Pretty cool!

Let's hope we'll be off again tomorrow!

Stay tuned!!!