USA Grad Trip 2013: New Jersey & Pennsylvania

Hi World! So it's like 12.30am now and I can't believe the week passed so fast! Well, as an unemployed person I really have a hard time keeping track of what day it is, because I have nothing to look forward to. Sigh. 

So anyway, my days are pretty standard. I'll wake up at around 10.30 am and laze around till 11ish, then eat lunch while watching my shows (currently it's True Blood, Pretty Little Liars and Keeping Up with the Kardashians), and for the rest of the day I'll sit at my computer typing away working on my cover letters and scouring job portals. In the evenings I'll meet up with friends or Joel for dinner. One by one my friends are getting their jobs and signing their contracts and I feel so left behind. Sobs. Maybe it's because I'm picky, or that I really don't know what I want to do. Oh well! Fingers crossed that I will get some calls soon.

Just gonna do a super short post on New Jersey cos New York City deserves a post of it's own! Hopefully it will be up in the next day or two.

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Day 15 - 17: New Jersey

I decided to lump the 3 days of New Jersey together cos I realised I didn't take much pictures. ): 

So basically, we were very fortunate to stay over at Joel's mum's friend - Aunty Lily's place for three nights. And the best thing is that Aunty Lily's family owns a Chinese restaurant so we had seriously good food everyday. Was so grateful for her and her family's generosity. 

On the first day, Aunty Lily's eldest daughter Lin (same age as me) treated us to a sushi buffet! Food was pretty good but I guess nothing can beat Koh Grill's Shiok Maki or The Sushi Bar's Salmon Maki Roll. (:

Afterwards we headed over to a mall to do some shopping, at which I bought stuff at Forever 21 again. But mostly, we were saving up for the next day!

The next day was a Saturday, and it was also the second day of the Memorial Day sale! We rented a car and drove about an hour and a half to Woodbury Commons Premium Outlet. The deals were so good (discounts on top of discounts), so who could have resisted! Spent a bomb there. Hehe. :p

Our car was parked next to a hole in the ground in the shape of a heart. Insta-worthy?

Scenic route on our drive back.

The next day we woke up bright and early and drove about 3 hours to Pennsylvania, for white water rafting! Okay, so we did not plan this beforehand. At the Florida airport before flying to New Jersey, Joel had the urge to go rafting and so we decided last minute to go for the river rafting closest to Aunty Lily's home (which was in the neighboring state).

Here's me wrapped up like a dumpling. We had to wear wetsuits because it was still cold and the water temperature was about 10 degree celsius. I had other pictures of us posing in our wet suits but we seriously look damn fat, and plus I went bare-faced. (Those pictures will not see the light of day.)

So overall I had fun, but I will not recommend this particular company - Whitewater Challengers, to anyone, based on how I wished my experience should be. The staff and instructors were great and really friendly, they had an organised system to facilitate the guests and crowd control. The rapids (Class 2 and 3) were suitable for beginners like us and the scenery down River Lehigh was AMAZING. However, I felt that the photography service needs serious improvement. You know how for such activities they will have a professional photographer on standby at various spots to take pictures? I was on the lookout for the photog and when I saw a man holding a DSLR standing on one of the river banks I quickly raised up my paddle. However, they only took one picture of each boat. ONE. I've seen my friends post up many nice and professional pictures on Facebook taken of them water rafting. And I am utterly disappointed at how the only one visual reminder of our experience was summed up into one horribly taken picture. We were unable to bring our phones to take pictures cos the guides warned us of the high probability of losing/spoiling them especially when the boat capsizes. Then again we chose not to as we thought we could easily purchase the pictures.

I guess if we had planned this activity in advance, we could have had ample research and chosen a better company! But I will definitely want to conquer a higher class of rapids in the future. My recommendation to anyone who is about to go for such an activity is just to bring/buy a disposable underwater camera.

Shall end of this post with a picture of us with Aunty Lily and her two children (eldest daughter Lin not pictured) in NYC'S Chinatown. 

Thanks for reading this incoherent post! My mind has partially fallen asleep. Goodnight! xx