A trip coming to an end.

(14/07/2019)
Greetings people, Daniel here. This is a post about the final location we have visited which is Singapore, then we are going to head home to Perth, Western Australia. Without further a do, I will talk about our time in Singapore.

[10-11/07/2019]
At our hotel in New York, we wasted no time when we got up, no breakfast just got dressed and headed straight to the airport. When we got to the airport, we had to stop for a bit until being interrupted by what appeared to be the airports fire alarm. When inside the restrooms it was so loud I had to cover my ears.

You do not need to watch the video, but listen to the audio about that alarm.

When we gathered at a table to discuss where to go and what gate we are taking, the alarm suddenly stopped sounding which was pleasing. I had to wear my noise cancelling headphones to keep the noise from making my ears hurt. When we went through the check in area, and got to the gate area we needed we sat down at the seating area which is at the wrong gate right next to the gate we were supposed to be. Once on board and in the air, I watched several movies, including the new Dumbo movie, First Man, Aqua Man and half of How to Train your Dragon 2. There were some nice meals I had on the plane, like chicken and rice, even a small cheese pizza.  Once we landed at Changi Airport, we collected our luggage and thought of taking a train to get to our hotel, but we were too tired because of the jet lag and had to take a taxi instead. We had to take a taxi twice because the first stop took us to the wrong hotel because of the name of the hotel we were going to being misread. When we got to our hotel “Orchid hotel” we rested a little and headed down the train station look for something to have for dinner, it took a while until I found a pizza shop and my Mum found another one, one level below. We ate our pizzas at an eating area, and got back to the hotel to sleep for the night.

[12/07/2019]

The next morning, we went down from floor 11 where our room is at, to floor 3 where there is a café where I had some pancakes and a bacon sandwich for breakfast. After cleaning our teeth, getting dressed and packed our day bags we went off for a walk through China town.

(12/07/2019) This is a view of some of the buildings of China town.

It was a beautiful and peaceful place, my Dad bought some trousers at a clothes shop, there was a building that had some displays of characters from the movie Tin Tin which was next door to a clothes shop which is smaller to the other, which was run by two Indian people who were very friendly. They were chatting to my parents as one of them was asking politely to my Dad for him to buy some more clothes from him, and the other person was doing the same to my Mum. Both my parents did not want anything else to buy as we were just looking around. When we walked back to the hotel to regroup and I had a swim at the pool for half an hour. Later in the evening we walked to Mariana Bay which had three buildings and what looked like a huge boat placed on top of all of them,

Mariana bay building.

next to that place was where we had dinner in the basement level at the food hall. And the last thing we looked at was a light show at the tall towers that looked like huge trees,

and we caught the trains to get us back to our hotel to sleep for the night.

[13/07/2019]

Next morning I had bacon two bacon sandwiches and some waffles. Once back in the room, we had some time to ourselves, I was working on the New York blog post.

(15/07/2019)
I have been working on the New York post for a while until I stopped. Next we went on a train heading to the garden park, it was not long after we entered the park when I spotted a Monitor Lizard hiding in small plants and it wanted to cross the path to the other side,

That's a Monitor Lizard just before it crawled into the bush.

which it did, and we continued our way through the park. As we walked around, there was so much to see, during the walk, there were many birds whistling and I also saw some birds that look very much like chickens. There were many plants that I am amazed by, including those trees that have roots growing down from their branches, and others had clusters of mini bananas.

This is one of the mini banana clusters I have seen at the park.

There were large Lillie pads that had small spines under neath for defense,

These are the Lillie pads with the spines under neath.

and for an extra, small squirrels climbing on trees. My Mum thought those Squirrels were so cute, it was around 2 or 3 PM I went back with my parents to the hotel, I continued my New York post while my parents rest.  At 4:30 I had a rest for half an hour, and back to the post. Next we went back to Marina bay, first to the tree like towers,

This shot viewed some of the tree like towers, and Mariana Bay building.

after a couple of minutes sitting next to one of the towers, we went back to the food hall to have something to eat, but we were unable to as all the tables were taken. I was getting so tired and hungry that we had to go back to the hotel and Mum bought me two quarter pieces of a pizza to try to keep me going, I ate one piece and went to sleep as I was so tired, I could not stay awake for any longer for the night.

That is where the Singapore post ends, next will be the flight home and the aftermath of the flight. Until then, bye for now.

The end of the trip is near

(12/07/2019)
Greetings people, Daniel here. Today, I am in Singapore, where I will be staying for a few days, then returning home in Australia, but from today, the time of my holiday is nearly at it's end. So without further a do, I will talk about what I have been up to in New York.

[6/07/2019]
In the morning, we got up early, we had a quick breakfast and got ready as quick as we can. And after leaving the hotel, we went up the observation deck for a while,

(6/07/2019) views of Philadelphia from the observation deck top level.

 After coming down, we collected our luggage and headed for the train station. Once inside, we were waiting for our train for a while so we were standing in a Queue for a while, but when the train arrived and passengers from that train were leaving, the Queue was split in two and we stepped to the other side of the stairs and our Queue entered first. As we boarded our train, it was not long until our train got moving and continued its way to New York. The one we caught back in Washington was going straight from there all the way to New York with many stops a long the way. When we got to New York we arrived at the under ground in Penn Station. We then took a taxi to the hotel, relaxed in our room for a while and then had a walk through Central park,

Good views of the city buildings (Top and bottom), turtles in a lake (Middle).

we had some nice views through the trees at some of the buildings, and when we exited the park about half way on the left hand side, we walked past the New York Natural History Museum which we visited the next day. But when we got to the road that our hotel is also on, my Dad made a mistake that got us walking in the opposite direction to the hotel, which I have noticed straight away and tried to tell my parents, my Dad noticed his mistake and headed back to the hotel where we had dinner and slept for the night.

[7/07/2019]
The next day we had some breakfast in the room likethe other times in Washington DC and Philadelphia. We got dressed and headed off for a walk to the Aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, a long the way, we walked past Time Square.

(7/07/2019) Views of some of the buildings at Time Square during the day.

 It is sometimes difficult to keep focused on where you are going and not look at any of the Marvel characters. I got caught up by a Mini mouse character at one point, as they want photos taken of them for money. Good thing I called out to Dad to help me out and get away without being rude to any of them. Ten minutes later, we reached the East edge of New York, and walked a little to the South until we saw the USS Intrepid.

Photo of the USS Intrepid.

When we walked our way towards the museum entrance which is on the Left side of the Intrepid, I saw the tail end of an A-12 (SR-71 prototype) over the Bow of the carrier. Once we were in, we had a tour inside a cold war Submarine the USS Growler, it was so cramped in there, in the control rooms, engine room and the firing room.

View inside one of the control rooms of the USS Growler showing how cramped the Cold War Sub is on the inside.

View outside the USS Growler.

Once we got out, we walked over to the Intrepid, and started on the deck. We saw many planes there, including the A-12, F-14 Tomcat, A-6 Intruder, F-16, even the harrier, plus two Russian cold war fighters and the F-4 Phantom.

A-12 (Prototype of SR-71 Black Bird Spy plane)

F-14 Tomcat

A-6 Intruder

F-16

Harrier jump jet.

F-4 Phantom.

Then we went into the shed where a space shuttle prototype is housed on the Stern (Back) of the ship, Space Shuttle Enterprise.

Space Shuttle Enterprise (Space Shuttle Prototype).

There were lots of things to look at, even a Russian Soyus on display in the shed as well.

Recovered Russian Soyuz Capsule on display.

Before we went down to the lower decks, we explored the island part of the ship, looking at many things, even the bridge and the Captains quarters. When we investigated one level below the deck, there were more plane, including a light bomber, even a plane with folded wings, plus some simulators and a Mercury Capsule on display. The next level below had nothing much as interesting as those above. After leaving the Intrepid, we had a short look at a Concord on display,

Concord on display next to the  USS Intrepid.

and left for the hotel for a rest. We then at night had a look at Time square, where there's lots of people dressed up for showing off and raising money.

Shots of Time Square at night time (Top & bottom).

At the end we went back to the hotel for the night.

[8/07/2019]
After having breakfast and getting dressed, we went off for a morning bus tour.
(13/07/2019) Where we started for the bus tour is not far from Time Square. We started off as we looked around through the city. While the audio is not playing at some areas, we also listened to some nice songs like for example, Welcome to New York, Eye of the Tiger and It's my Life. There were some amazing views I saw during the tour, plus some good views of the Empire State Building and Penn Station,

(8/07/2019) (Top & bottom) views of the Empire State building.

near the end of the tour, I also had a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty which was too far away,

You could just barely see the Statue between both satellite dish and tree, in the center of the image.

but I got to see both the night during the night tour, plus the next day during a ferry cruise around it. After the bus tour,we had a break in the hotel for a little while and then moved on to seeing the New York Natural History Museum next to Central Park but on the other side of the road. Once inside, we saw some amazing displays, including two skeletons of T-rex,

One of the two T-rex skeletons on display.

plus a model of a fleshed out adult size T-rex, plus some models of a baby T-rex and other Tyrannosaur species.

Baby T-rex (What it possibly look like).

Young T-rex.

We also saw displays of animals of the present and animals from the past including other dinosaur skeletons. We left the museum at the time when it was about to close, we again rested in the hotel before set off for the night bus tour. Some parts of the tour we have already seen in the tour we had earlier in the day, but we went through China town,

Photo in China town.

Here's a video keeping the Statue of liberty in view.

we also went over the Manhattan bridge to the side which appeared to be the city of Brooklyn and we went back over another bridge but on both bridges, I saw the Statue of Liberty again, but clearly light.
When we got to the end of the tour, we walked past Time Square and back to the hotel to sleep for the night.

[9/07/2019]
The next day we left for the Ferry cruise around the Statue of Liberty, we walked towards the West edge of New York where the Ferry dock is located, a long the way, we looked at the 9.11 memorials where the Twin towers of the World Trade center use to be.

(9/07/2019) 9.11 memorial site of what appeared to be the North tower.

When we got in line, i got fright when another ferry that comes and goes almost every five minutes, it toots loudly and the first time I heard it, I was caught unprepared for that. When we saw our ferry, we were waiting for a while for the crew to tie up the ferry to the dock, and unload the passengers to make way for us and new passengers. After all that, it was not long until our ferry got underway, while waiting to go, I saw the Empire State building in the distance between some buildings.

In the center is the Empire State Building from a far.

It took about fifteen minutes for the Ferry to get from the dock to the Statue itself, our tour guide told every passenger with a microphone some history about the Statue of Liberty, even with the torch on the right hand, as our guide told us about the original version and the newer version that is currently placed on the statue.

Statue of Liberty.

The cruise also got us looking at two other cities both New Jersey and Brooklyn,

City of New Jersey

City of Brooklyn.

as we circled around New York, we got to the East side of the city and looking at Brooklyn for the first time, and circled back to the dock. After the cruise, we headed back to the hotel where we rested for a little and headed to the other bus tour that took us around Central Park. It didn't take long with the tour, and where we stopped is close to the hotel. We had slices of pizza for dinner and then retired for the final night in New York.

That is it for New York, the next post will be the last city we are currently in, Singapore. After that I will be heading home. Until then, bye for now.

Finished: (14/07/2019)
Edited: (14/07/2019)

A busy time in Philadelphia

Greetings people, Daniel here. Today I am in New York, but somehow, the hotel we are in has no internet and we are having problems with connecting our own Wi-Fi to our devices. But without further a do, I will talk about our time in Philadelphia.

[3/07/2019] In the morning of the day we took the train from Washington DC to Philadelphia. We had breakfast in our room and packed everything up for our next stop. As we had a few hours until we need to catch our train, we decided to leave our bags in the hotel and go for a walk. We walked around a large area of the city. I also keep on hearing planes flying over. When we got back to the hotel, we collected our luggage, did what we needed to do before we left and headed for the train station. When we took a taxi to the Union station, I was listening to the radio the driver was listening to the audio from the Apollo 11 landing on the moon back in 1969. When we arrived at the station, and got our tickets, we had to wait for the train for a while. When we got on the express that was heading from Washington DC to New York, we had many stops before we stopped in Philadelphia.

We found out that the hotel was on Market street not far from the station, we had about a ten minute walk from the station to the hotel. When we got into our room, we rested for a little bit, then went out for a walk through the city. We walked East towards the city town hall, continued our way on down to the Liberty hall and saw that there were many people gathered at the park next to the hall. We stopped by in the Bourse building where we had a linner (Lunch and Dinner), and then we continued on towards the East river. At the top of bus bridge, we saw that Philadelphia has a decommissioned battle ship next to the harbor called the USS New Jersey.

(3/07/2019) Photo of the USS New Jersey Battle Ship (Center of photo) in the distance.

 This is the Irish Memorial we looked at for a bit after seeing the USS New Jersey.

So we continued our walk, until we returned to the hotel, and retired for the night.

[4/07/2019] The next day after arriving in Philadelphia was Independence day, like back at our last day in Washington DC, we had breakfast in the room, got dressed and went out for a walk, the exact way as the day before. When we reached the Liberty hall, the place was prepared for the Independence day parade,

(4/07/2019)

Three photos from the top are showing the Liberty hall with a band and members for the Independence day parade.

Photo of a section of the parade being prepared.

Photos of the Independence parade going past the Liberty hall.

and we watched from the beginning to the time where I believe where it is nearing the end,
 as we could not stay long as it was midday at the time. After having a break in the hotel, we then headed to the Academy of Natural Science of Drexel University Museum, to find the dinosaur skeleton that I wanted to see which is the Giganotosaurus skeleton, but when we looked through the museum, it was not there any more. What we found of the specimen was only the skull.

T-rex Skeleton on display.

The Giganotosaurus Skull is the largest skull in the photo.

I was disappointed about the skeleton not being there any more, but I moved on.

We reached Logan Square where we walked through a huge crowd preparing for the independence day fireworks, there was a huge market that we walked past, until we walking beside the art museum. We stopped for a moment and then started to head back. I felt like having some french fries that were being sold at the street stalls, so dad bought me some, they were delicious. unfortunately it began to rain heavily but I took the chance and ate as we walked back to the hotel. As we were walking back, I realized the time in Australia is twelve hours in front of USA and it was my 19th birthday in Australian time. We then walked again, stopping by for dinner at a pizza shop, my parents and I had half and half Jumbo size pizza like we did back in our last day in Orlando, and this time, my half was a Hawaiian pizza. I ate most of it, but when we reached Logan Square again, we walked towards the art museum where the fireworks were going to go off, and watched a singer Megan Trainer singing some songs, until we saw the fireworks go off at quarter to ten. After seeing the fireworks, we returned to the hotel and slept for the night.

[5/07/2019] The next day was my Nineteenth birthday in American time, again we had breakfast in the room and took off to the tourist department for a walking and bus tour around the city, unfortunately after waiting for about half an hour, it got cancelled, so we went to the USS New Jersey instead.
(9/07/2019)
 We went to the river where the USS New Jersey is on display, we took a ferry to take us on the side of the river where the battle ship is on display.

(5/07/2019) Viewing the Battle ship from the ferry.

After putting our backpacks in lockers as instructed by the staff, we went on board the battle ship itself.

Tomahawk cruise missile on display.

Up close shot of the center of the ship itself.

One of the veterans who worked on board the ship told us to follow the red or blue lines where the tour takes us, but before we started, we had a look inside number 2 turret.

Photo of the New Jerseys number 2 turret.

 Through most of the tour, we followed the red line, we went down the hull for the first time at the bow (Front) of the ship, we looked through some interesting areas while down  there. Even some history about the ship itself when it was built after the attack on Pearl Harbor back in World War 2, we also learned the captains who spent their times commanding the ship. Many other areas we have seen in the tour like the Captains quarters, the bridge, radio room, even the firing room.

View of the bow of the ship from the bridge.

The battle ship since WW2 has been upgraded to hold rocket launchers for rockets like the tomahawk cruise missile.

Opened Tomahawk Missile launcher with Gatling machine gun defense turret on the left.

 We also saw the machining room where men who worked on the ship manufactured and repaired equipment and weaponry for the ship.

Machining room of the USS New Jersey.

Since we left the ship, we waited for our ferry for half an hour, after that and the ride, we went to the place where we had chicken for dinner, and I had the same thing again as I was very hungry. We then went back to the hotel where I had a chocolate cup cake as my mini birthday cake and where we slept for the last time in Philadelphia.

This is where the Philadelphia post ends, the next one will be about New York, which is our final place to visit in the United States of America which I am currently in right now. Until then, bye for now.

Started: (6/07/2019)
Finished: (12/07/2019)
Edited: (12/07/2019)