The Forward Looking Spring Break - New York City part 3

In previous post, I mentioned that I visited Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridge, during day and night. They are beautiful on both times. During the night, I think it was pretty romantic view with the city lights and during the day it was beautiful and worth to take a stroll through Brooklyn bridge :)

The following days, I kinda took it slow, I explored other places that reminds me of Gossip Girl movie, which is Grand Central Station, this where "Serena" spotted after she came back from the boarding house. I'm sorry but I was into teenage movies back then hahahha so yeah this is the reason I visited Grand Central.
Aaaaanddd Grand Central station in fact is exquisite the architecture remains me of Europe :)

Grand Central Station

Me in Gossip Girl set :D

To get to Grand Central is very easy,  just took Metro and get off at Grand Central. On the basement of Grand Central, there is food court so you can have lunch there, as I already brought food from home I had lunch in the park, I'm a park lover :)) Having lunch, doing people watching in the park kinda my thing.

In front of NYC Public Library

Inside NY Public Library

NY Public Library

Next stop is NY Public Library, which is located just a few blocks from Grand Central Station. I read in Trip Advisor that this Library has wonderful European architecture, and yeaaap that was true. The interior reminds me of Harry Potter movie, looks like the dinning room at Hogwarts.
Anyway, I didn't visit the liberty statue as it's pretty expensive to book the tour and I was in very tight budget, but I managed to cross the statue while on a ferry to Staten Island, FYI ferry is free so yeah took it and saw the statue from the ferry :) #budgetravelersmodeon

Ferry ride to staten island and pass liberty statue

inside the ferry

view from the ferry

What I like the like most is exploring NYC neighborhood such as little Italy, chinatown, University st, Soho (which means south of Houston st) and Brooklyn of course!! So that's how I spent five days in NYC, besides visiting Gossip Girl set, spent some time exploring the neighborhood, hanging out at coffee shop, parks and bars :)) It's your choice whether to spend your days to explore museum etc or just hanging out and taking it slow like what I did.

around Little Italy

Cool bar exterior near SoHo

China Town

Time Square

Time Square

If I have another chance to visit NYC, I would love to..and I think I could live there, yeah big city girl whatsoever ;)

Forward Looking Spring Break -New York Part 2

In my previous post I mentioned that I didn’t really have to-do- list in New York, I just wanna enjoy my traveling alone time which turned really great time J

I didn’t wanna visit too many places in a day and ended up very tired, remember that I’m a jompo traveler now, yeah I’m getting old! You know New York is big, has five boroughs - The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island, I think I just gonna explore three of them.

First night in New York I spent hanging out around Dumbo, Brooklyn. It was right under Manhattan Bridge, there are a lot of bars, restaurants and coffee shops, yeah this was really my scene. It was rainy that night , we went for a drink in a bar before going to Cabaret Show. My friend and I were planning to watch Cabaret show as we got free tickets for the Cabaret. The Cabaret show was pretty entertaining, some nipple tassle spinning involved but yeah hella fun show!!

Cabaret Show, Brooklyn New York

 Cabaret Show, Brooklyn New York

When we finished watching the Cabaret it was like 2am, we took the subway and I amazed that there were a lot of people at that time in the Subway, maybe it was true that NY never sleeps and I love this fact :D

The next day I visited Brooklyn Bridge, it was very very windy. I walked from subway station toward Broklyn Bridge. I could see the bridge from far. It could have been more beautiful at night I imagined. Brooklyn at mid day is still pretty though but I would love to come back just to see the view of the bridge at night. Right next to Broklyn bridge, we could see Manhantan bridge, the river, the skyscrapers, just like the view in the movies, beautiful!!

Brooklyn Bridge

Me and the view from Brooklyn Bridge

View of Manhattan Bridge

Brooklyn bridge and Manhattan bridge at night

Admiring NYC at night

As I walked crossing the Brooklyn bridge, I noticed that there are a lot of padlocks with people’s name hanged onto the bridge. I haven’t found any padlock with my name written on it but I found my best friend name “Ruth”. I took a picture and sent it to my friend . I wish  she were here with me that day. 

A padlock with my best friend's name on it "Ruth"

Strolling and enjoying the view of Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge, I continued walking to Dumbo, Brooklyn and found Starbucks to order my usual green tea latte. It was raining outside and I felt so great, this is perfect. Raining and you are inside a coffee place sipping your hot green tea latte, in Brooklyn New York, it’s perfect for me J this simple thing that made my trip memorable, I would always remember the feeling that day.

As I will spend around 5 days in New York, I would love to catch up with friends, one of them is Larry and we met in Indonesia, 3 years ago, my cousins was his co-workers.  I met Larry in Starbucks and then we had dinner around Brooklyn as I told him that I wanted to explore Brooklyn.  After dinner, Larry took me to other neighborhood that has a of of bars in Mid-Manhattan  and we had few drinks in one of the bar.  I kinda like his neighborhood as well, it was so lively. By the time we left Manhattan it was already midnight, thanks God NY subway is 24 hours so we didn’t have to go home by taxi just jumped into the train. J  the thing that I like about NY is the subway! Actually my friend said that taxi here isn’t as expensive as in other city, well that was true though I compared it with taxi fare in San Francisco, taxi here is definitely cheaper. 

Ahh I haven’t explained why this is called forward-looking spring break. Actually this isn’t just a vacation for me, I planned to have campus tour as I have a plan to continue my master in the US so I’d love to have a look at few campus in NY and find out whether I could live in NY or not. The next day, Yessy took me to her campus The New School. It was pretty impressive and I assumed this kinda high-end campus, private schools here are so expensive L We went to NYU and Columbia University that day and I was so in love with Columbia. I heard it’s very expensive to study here but anyway I put Columbia in my wish list for master degree. Traveling through United States, I found 2 dream campuses, University of Washington and Columbia University, too bad it’s too expensive to study there :( 

NYU Business School

Columbia University Main Library

Columbia University

Columbia University

I will share the next days' story in Part 3,  taking Ferry to cross Liberty statue, Grand Central Station, Time Square, NY Public Library and lot moreJ

All I can say is that getting lost alone in NY is definitely worth it, it’s so easy to get around the city!

Forward-Looking Spring Break - New York City part 1

One wish list before 30, visiting New York and I made it :)

Since the first day I landed in New York, I simply loved it!
Why I love New York? It's just love, it's hard to describe, it's just an amazing feeling that I felt when exploring the city..alone..it feels different but in a very good way!

Chilly Spring in New York :)

 a park lover :)

Central Park just like in the movies :)

I just love the street, the building, the not-so-clean subway, the rush hour, the people, the neighborhood, the bars, the parks, ahhhh their parks are amazing! the universities, hang out places...ahh so many things made me falling love with this city...

Park near New York University

Bryant Park

Before travelling to New York City I heard some people mentioned that they didn't like NYC, it's typical a big city, it's dirty, it's just ok..well that's what I've heard but then it didn't stop me to visit NY. Having the opportunity to stay in the US for a year, I put NY as the city that I must visit, of course we have to visit the city, it's New York that we were talking about!!!

Well, some of you may not agree with that statement but I was raised in a big city in Indonesia, despite all those bad traffic jam, crazy people on the street, working people who always in a rush, I always found something interesting in this kind of world :)
I love doing people-watching that is why I like to visit big city, there are always things to see :)
Call me big city girl whatsoever... yes I am!

I contacted my friend in New York and asked the possibility to stay with her for couple of days and she said "Yes". Accommodation problem in NY is solved yay! I searched the tickets to NY and found a good deal which only costed me less than $300 for the return tickets. For me it's not that cheap but for americans that would say wow that's damn cheap, so yeah I took it!

This is actually my first-time traveling alone in the US, it's so exciting for me as I enjoy being solo traveler instead of traveling with groups. I left San Francisco around 10pm and got 6 hours of flight to New Jersey airport  which was only an hour and half away from New York. This is how cheap tickets work, get you to the nearest airport and at unexpected hour hahahah yeah I got to NJ at 4 am :D
Continued sleeping like homeless traveler in NJ airport but it was fun hahahhaha I enjoyed every minutes of it!!!

From New Jersey airport, the cheapest way to reach New York is taking the bus from the airport to Path train station then Path train will take you to one of biggest New York metro station which is penn station 34th st. As far I remember this NJ to NY trip costed me around $5 (bus and path train)

I thought that spring in New York will be warmer but I was wrong, It was very windy and it rains a lot that day, so warm Spring break wasn't for me. But cold and wind didn't stop me to enjoy this city :)

I stayed in Queen and it was pretty easy to get around the city using subway, I bought one week pass that costed me about $30 and it definitely saved my money as I travelled within the city a lot everyday. New York subway can be pretty confusing as it has a lot of lines, number such as 1,2,3,4,5 and alphabets such as M,N,E,F hahahhaha you better download NY subway maps mobile apps, it helped me a lot!

Anyway, I had no particular things to see, 5 days in NY pretty much I see what I see, you know kinda being spontaneous and not to touristy. The silly things but fun for me , I just wanted to see some spots in NY such as Central Park, Columbia University, Brookly  just because the teenage series I use to watch, Gossip Girl hahahah yeah you know you love me xoxo
It was a fun-alone-trip so far :) I'm so glad I made it!!!

Sunny San Diego

Next stop, San Diego! Sunny South California yaaay..

As I don't have much money to experience winter in East Coast, I decided to spend winter in warmer places such as Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California. I reached San Diego by bus from Los Angeles and it only took me 2 hours to get here. Taking bus costs me approximately $15-20, I tried Greyhound bus this time, It was pretty decent. The Greyhound bus station location in Los Angeles isn't that nice, I imagined myself in the ghetto area just like in those movies.

When we got to San Diego, we decided to buy 1 day pass for public transport, it costs $5, which includes trolley train and bus. We rode the train to get  to our hotel. Our hotel is nicely located in downtown area near Gas Lamp Quarter. I realized that I'm now a jompo traveler, I couldn't walk around without filling up my stomach hehehehe so first thing to do was finding a nice asian food for lunch, yup ended up with Thai Food for lunch :) Food was yummy! Yes we are Asian!

Lunch at Thai Resto

Chicken Satay and rice

Red Curry

When I was younger I didn't care that much about food when I was traveling, I even ate 1 time a day just to save money and survive during traveling. As I got older I just can't do that anymore, food hmmm nice food is very important during traveling, at least you spend some time in a nice restaurant, it doesn't mean expensive food, to indulge yourself. I guess I've changed, not that hardcore traveler anymore hehehhe

It was Sunday that day and the bus applied Sunday service, buses come every 30 minutes. Living in San Francisco with such a good public transport make me a little bad-tempered while waiting bus in San Diego but I tried to chill out a little bit. Roslina saw on trip advisor that Balboa Park was worth visit in San Diego. None of us was interested to visit the zoo nor sea world, then we decided to go to Balboa Park.

Balboa music hall

Museum

Spanish Village Art

Casa Del Prado

a small pond at Balboa Park

Balboa park is very relaxing place, it's very huge. There are a lot of building in old european architecture, beautiful! We walked around for a couple of hours then heading to Gas Lamp Quarter. They said that Gas Lamp Quarter is more beautiful in the evening.

There are plenty of bars and restaurants along the street. We stopped by at Starbucks as always and enjoyed some hot green tea latte :) As we lived quite near by, we walked home and we found that this city pretty safe comparing to LA, I didn't feel safe at all there.

The next day, we went to see Mission Beach, we took the trolley train then continued by bus. It took about an hour to get there. We had brunch near Mission Beach before going to the beach. The vibe remains me of Bali, Indonesia. Seeing the bike rental, surf board rental, surf school etc really reminds me of Bali.

We checked the beach, it's pretty nice and clean, we hanged out for a while, we couldn't spend much time as me and Milka had to catch up flight to Vegas in the afternoon. I wish I could spend more time, I would love to stay at Mission Beach. I will try to comeback someday. On our way to the beach, we passed San Diego Old Town, I didn't have a chance to visit them but Tari managed to go there, she said it's beautiful. I wish I had more time, two days weren't enough, lesson learned! If you guys visit San Diego, stay more than two days to be able to explore the city.

Ahhh let me just enjoy the vibe of Gas Lamp Quarter at night one more time before leaving this city and heading to Vegas :)

Happy Holiday!!

Gas Lamp Quarter at night

Gas Lamp Quarter Gate

Gas Lamp Quarter

Let's Revisit Los Angeles

Typical big city, 2-3 days will never be enough to explore Los Angeles. First time I visited Los Angeles was last October with my housemates. We stayed mostly in Santa Monica for 3 days which was outside of the city. Santa Monica has nice beaches but I'm more city girl so being remote in Santa Monica wasn't my first option. We rented a car to get around Santa Monica and LA as we heard from couple of friends that public transport wasn't that good comparing to San Francisco and LA was too big to be explored using bus or metro. Renting the car was fun but again it wasn't really my thing, I was more spontaneous girl, like to jump from one bus to another mode of transportation and just get lost in the city. As we travelled with seven girls, I decided to follow their way to travel this time, staying in Santa Monica, renting a car hmm I could do that and still had fun.

This is LA video from my Travelike episode


During my first visit to LA, we visited Santa Monica Beach, Venice Beach, Universal Studio, and Hollywood Walk of Fame, it was a short visit actually.

Venice Beach

Universal Studio Tour, Singapore doesn't have this!

Traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles has plenty of options, you can take plane that costs you approximately $80 one way, it's probably cheaper if you book the flight in advance. You can take the bus (Greyhound or Megabus), the price is varied, starting $25-$50 one way. Another convenient way to travel is using the train (Amtrak) which is more expensive than bus, not sure about the price though. I took the bus and it costed me $70 for the return ticket, the travel period is about 7 hours from SF to LA.

The second time I visited LA was in winter break. I travelled with my Indonesian housemates and one CCI friend from Panama. LA was my first stop, we stayed in a motel near Hollywood Walk Of Home, it was a very convenient location as it was near to bus stop and you could easily walk to Hollywood Walk of Fame. First thing to do was revisiting Hollywood Walk Of Fame as we didn't have much time when we were here last October.

We walked along the pavement that has many famous stars such as The Beatles, Michael Jackson etc. Then we tried to get closer to Hollywood sign by walking a couple of blocks up to the hills. Roslina and I watched Korean drama The Heirs that inspired us to see the same spot where the actors see Hollywood Sign. There is one scene where Kim Tan (Lee Min Hoo) takes Eun Sang (Park Shin Hye) to see the sign in such a close distance. After walking a couple of blocks, thanks God it was sunny day, we managed to get closer to Hollywood sign and found the spot. We were too happy to take a lot of pictures there, well in the middle of the street hahahah pretty dangerous but we couldn't stop taking pictures. These are the photos that day ;)

Girls and Hollywood Sign

Me and Hollywood Sign #KimTan Fever

The girls

Met John Lennon at Walk Of Fame

First day was about Hollywood, second day was more free-to-do-anything-day, this is what I like when traveling with less people, we could go anywhere we want, one can go revisit Hollywood, one can go to revisit Universal Studio, one can do nothing but stay at hotel room or else. Roslina, Milka and I decided to visit Getty Center, a beautiful park and museum located in the hills. Roslina found this in trip advisor and was listed as #1 place that we should visit when we are in LA.

We rode public transport, you can buy 1 day pass which costs $5, it's a money saver if you move from one place to another place. Single bus ride costs $1,5 but often you have to change the bus to get to your destination, so I suggest you to buy a day pass when you are in LA. From our hotel to Getty Center was almost an hour, but the trip was really nice. The bus passed Beverly Hills neighborhood which mostly big and nice houses stretched along the street, then we passed UCLA, a big and enormous campus which was also beautiful. It was a nice ride, this is the positive side of taking public transport haha you never expected something nice but then it just happened :D

Getty Garden

Getty Labyrinth

Some fall color at Getty Garden

In front of Getty Museum 

We spent almost half day indulging ourself in Getty center, it was really relaxing. From the entrance they provide shuttle train to bring us to the top of Getty center and it's free. We just took a stroll and relax in the Getty garden and enjoyed the scenery. If you are not in a hurry, you may spend a day in this place, explore the garden and museums or just sit down and have a nice lunch with your friends.

LA is not LA without fancy rodeo drive, a branded boutique and nice restaurants scatter every where in this area. Since this is our last day in LA, we made the next stop to Rodeo Drive and probably had dinner around there. Since I'm not a branded girl well I could't afford those thing, better use the money to travel around the world anyway, I found Rodeo Drive pretty entertaining. I didn't check out those stores, I just walked along the street and ofkoors took a lot of photos :D
So yaaah, if you have spare time you may stop by here seeing fancy stuff!

Rodeo Drive

Spadaaa BVLGARI

The thing that I don't like about LA is their downtown. I imagine downtown will be like downtown San Francisco, Seattle or Portland that is really nice to walk around there but Downtown LA is sketchy, I don't recommend people to stay around there. We went to downtown LA at 8pm to eat Chinese Food, it was really scary. It was dark, a lot of crazy people and homeless people, I was fine if they didn't bug me but some are just troubled so a big NO for me staying in Downtown LA. I think typical big cities will be like LA, there is some nice neighborhood and some are sketchy, always do research about places before going and read the reviews will be helpful.

Adios Los Angeles, next stop will be San Diego!