13 June (6:30pm - NY time) - Touchdown in Newark Airport

At 10pm - Found myself stranded at Manhattan Youth Castle not realising they closed for the summer. The guy at the door was cool, gave me a hostels handbook and directed me to Wanderers Inn East. From Eest 103rd St to 94street. Distance of something like from Taman Mayang to Kampung Chempaka! Gosh, I swear I need some getting used to those 'couple of blocks' term.

At 11pm - Checked into Wanderers Inn East, by the time I showered and all was about 45 mins later. Just dozed off after assuring mum I had landed.

14 June (11am) - Checked out of WIE cos they don't have a place for me that nite except for a USD75 private room. Found a mate in Krystal (ironically, a name reminding me of work) and we headed to West 103rd St via subway and later by bus. Its been hell long since I did all this traipsing around towns for youth hostels and I am beginning to feel that I'm reliving my student days again..... At times, I wanted to just call a cab!

At 2pm, checked in at Central park Youth hostel and found a mate in Deidra (Irish). We headed out to town and checked out quite a lot of places (NBC studios, CNN, Broadway, Trump Tower, Empire State gosh I can't remember already...)

Both of us were on budget so the idea of forking out USD 14 to go up Empire was somehow not the thing we were interested.

We ended the evening with Opera at the Great Lawn in Central park. My first experience of Opera! The Metropolitan Opera!

Headed back to hostel by 11pm - Knocked out totally!