Road Trip through Upstate New York

New York City is such a giant vacuum-sucking black hole of attention-seeking (for Canadian equivalent, see Toronto) that all other parts of New York state are often referred to as Upstate New York, even if it's not actually that far up the state (for an example, see my hometown in Ulster County).

We took the long way down to downstate New York, stopping off at various spots upstate. On the first night, we pulled into Syracuse to stop for the night. This was the first time we've come here for a non-shopping purpose. My dad had found a deal on a really nice hotel room in a quiet and uneventful part of town. I was dying for a beer but the only thing around here are three strip clubs, a Chucky Cheese's, and the highway. Like the last time I stayed in Syracuse, there is no other place to go.  The tuck shop does not sell beer but it does have Korean kimchi ramen noodles. I slept early.

In the morning, we hit the road and moved on. We stopped for lunch near Albany, which was unremarkable as usual.

Finally, we arrived in Highland, Ulster County, the town where we used to live, twenty years ago.

Broke into the old apartment
This is where we used to live
Broken glass, broke and hungry
Broken hearts and broken bones
This is where we used to live

Why did you paint the walls?
Why did you clean the floor?
Why did you plaster over the hole I punched in the door?
This is where we used to live
-Barenaked Ladies, "The Old Apartment"

Gloria's grade 1 class at Highland Elementary School. I'm sitting next to Michael Massetti, my first boyfriend.

September, 1991: On the other side of the country, Nirvana released the pivotal album Nevermind, with lyrics that caught the spirit of the age, like: "Here we are now, entertain us / I feel stupid and contagious / Here we are now, entertain us." Meanwhile, elementary schoolgirl Gloria wrote in her journal:

"today is the first day at school. I'm learning that it's ok if we make mistakes. I like my teacher! I want to be an artest."

Dear little Gloria, it's not okay to make mistakes - that's when you get sued. By the way, you grow up and decide that artists are hippies and you'd rather be a lawyer. But what do you know? On November 4, 1992, you wrote: "Today we have a new president. Name: Bill Clinton. How I feel: bad. What he's gona do: rase taxes." Oh, little Republican Gloria.

Highland, Ulster Country, New York, is a tiny dot on the American landscape. Its current population is 5000, who knows what it was twenty years ago. It often serves as a commuter town for people working in the big exciting city of Poughkeepsie across the Hudson River. For me, it was sweet carefree childhood years of playing with rocks by myself outside of my isolated home, hating Democrats, walking to the grocery store, borrowing Baby-Sitters Club books from the old public library, and dreaming that one day we would have neighbours.

Re-visiting my old childhood stomping grounds now, I barely recognized our old home. The old neighbourhood had finally been developed, like crazy. We finally had neighbours! Lots of them! Also, our old house had been renovated and extended.

Consider the difference:

sometime in the 90s

also sometime in the 90s: my old backyard.

May, 2012

my backyard: someone else's swingset!

What the what.

We took a drive through "downtown" Highland, which is kind of like saying "downtown" Carp. My old elementary school was still there, as my favourite library housed in an old house. We saw Madeleine's Dance School, where I'd had my very, very, very short ballet career. I'd missed the beautiful hills of Highland, having lived in flat Ottawa since. I couldn't help but think about how different my life would have been if we had stayed here instead of moving to Ottawa. I might have been one of those teenagers loitering in front of the gambling hall. Living in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, I might have felt even more like a Bruce Springsteen song (Canadian teens growing in Canadian suburbs relate to the Arcade Fire instead). I might have turned out to be Republican.

small town highland

my old school!

my favourite library

the old chinese restaurant we used to go to was still there.

this playground was NOT there when I was a kid. Back then, we had more hardcore playgrounds made out of woodplanks that kids got their limbs and heads stuck in. Now it's all about safe plastic play structures. Today's kids are wimps.

Broke into the old apartment
Tore the phone out of the wall
Only memories, fading memories
Blending into dull tableaux
I want them back
-Barenaked Ladies

Afterwards, we still had one more stop to make: Woodbury Commons. Because our family can't go a whole trip without shopping.

Woodbury Commons is a bizarre land of capitalist dreams designed to look like a quaint small American town, but instead of Ye Olde Hardware Shoppes and diners, the stores are Gucci, Burberry, and an "Armani General Store", whatever that is. All this consumerist culture felt weird coming from Africa.

The Coach store was full of Korean ajumas as usual. I felt lost. I already have a Coach wallet, clutch, purse, handbag, and scarf, so would else could I possibly need? Coach should start making Coach brand guitar cases and gig bags. Because realistically, how many Coach purses does a girl need? So I bought an Armani exchange handbag, on which I immediately spilled Yoohoo. Remember Yoohoo drinks? Of course you don't. You didn't grow up in 'Merica. Ah, the memories.

Syracuse

For the last long weekend of the summer (your summer, anyway - my summer is actually just beginning, but more on that later), the family took off for our annual shopping trip to Syracuse, New York. This time, we brought along our boyfriends Kevin and Rob, who were brave enough to spend the whole weekend locked in a car with our quirky family, which has a tendency to randomly break into Korean while demanding more Starbursts.


aw, look how thrilled rob looks to be stuck with me?

Wikipedia says, "Syracuse is the largest U.S. city with the name Syracuse." Thank you, Wikipedia. As much as such a name promises metropolitan liveliness, there are actually parts of Syracuse that are not quite so party hard, and that was where my father picked our hotel. on the first night we arrived in Syracuse, we young ones wanted to go for a drink and enjoy some cheap American beer. Sadly, the only thing around our hotel (located in the airport district) were other hotels, which for some reason had no bars, despite what you might expect from Douglas Coupland novels about the sort of people who hang around airports. there appeared to be a happenin' wedding happenin' at the Ruby Tuesdays Restaurant full of the sort of people who go to weddings at Ruby Tuesdays, and we thought about wedding crashing at the last minute, but they must have foreseen our plans and the wedding party shut down as we approached. we were forced to seek consolation at the convenience store in the Marriott Courtyard, which was selling Canadian beer at mini-bar prices. we took our pricey homeland brew back to our hotel room and watched a reality TV show about prison inmates. alas. my kingdom for a drink.

No matter. we all knew the important purpose of our trip, and that was shopping at the Waterloo Premium Outlets. The next morning was hot and humid, weather i would be tempted to call "too sunny", but we set off for the shops, determined to acquire new booty at labour day weekend prices.


rob, shopping seriously


my sister and i buy matching shoes! obviously she copied me ;)

a couple hundred dollars later, we had sweated right through our clothes from our shopping efforts, so we went back to the hotel to change right into the new outfits we had bought (handy!). then we went out for dinner in downtown Syracuse. my friends had suggested various places. i had my eye set on Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, mainly because it had the words "dinosaur" and "barbecue", but also because i saw moms feeding their babies what looked like bottles of beer - turned out it was just root beer. but in the end we decided to check out a pasta place called Pastabilities, located in the heart of the historic Armoury Square. This was a lovely unpretentious restaurant with a very creative pasta menu. the men ordered the special Oktoberfest brew of Sam Adams beer, and I got myself what was essentially a meeting of mexico and italy: a lasgna made of black beans, jalapeno peppers, corn, sour cream...


mexican lasagna (my name for it)


I'll see you next time, dinosaur barbecue (best name for a place ever)

we took a stroll around downtown. Despite it being a Saturday evening, Syracuse was curiously deserted - presumably all the cool kids were out at the Fair. at Clinton Square, we only saw a handful of small children running past the "No Swimming" sign to cool off and wade in the big fountain on the hot muggy day. we were a little disappointed that downtown was not very lively yet, although we did get some entertainment when the children started throwing rocks at cars in traffic, prompting a bunch of cop cars to show up in a kindergarten version of a "COPS" show takedown. Syracuse cops have to keep busy, even if there's no one around.


Clinton Square, sans young vandals


the clinton square, look grand, if not busy


this memorial park was not looking so good after the earthquake several days earlier

still in search for some Syracuse action, we tried out the Carousel Center, which, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, turned out to be a lot busier. What is there to do at the Carousel Center, you may ask? Well, there's obviously the carousel.




waiting in line to go on the carousel


rob politely asks, "what am i doing on a carousel?"


I'm saying, "I might be wrong, but I think we are at least ten years older than everyone else on this carousel."



despite the fact that there are all sorts of magical things at the Carousel Centre, like a carousel, it seemed to have a pretty strict anti-youth policy. after 4PM, minors are not allowed to hang out at the mall unless accompanied by an adult. but if you don't want kids to hang around, why would you keep a magical merry-go-round in your mall?



the Carousel Centre was clearly was all the action was; that's where we learned that the city was on fire. sometimes literally. students hanging out at the mall were casually discussing how the Life Sciences building was burning down right now, according to the latest text messsage, and what a bummer that's gonna be when class starts in a few days.

there was also a security truck on fire outside.


burn, baby, burn: i smell burning bacon?

there was also an arcade at the mall, which seems like another terrible tactic for keeping troublemaking teens from loitering at the mall. my sister and her boyfriend immediately re-enacted a Scott Pilgrim scene, blowing everyone's minds at Dance Dance Revolution


and then they blew off the heads of a bunch of zombies.


dad and i try our hand (and feet) at Dance Dance Revolution. we're asian. it's in our blood.


mom races my sister. "Stop!" she yells. "I'm going too fast!"

and then the next day we went to the Great New York State Fair, which was basically confirmation that it's a zoo everywhere in Syracuse except downtown.


taking the bus to the fair


all of this is the fair.


and this.


yes, that would appear to be a giant lizard...or dinosaur?

the ferris wheel was absolutely terrifying. i'm not very good at heights, especially when moving slowly. i start instinctively naming all the personal injury law firms that i know.




this ride was too terrifying to even consider going on, but my sister and her boyfriend bravely enjoyed it.

there were parts of the fair that i really enjoyed. we checked out all the livestock exhibitions. in the dairy barn, they were showing a video presentation of a cow giving birth, and all the children watching were completely fascinated. Rob also had a bonding moment with a goat.


awww so cute




showing cows.

we enjoyed watching part of the cow show. Milk, beef, and veal all come from cows. Know what else comes from cows? BUTTER SCULPTURES.


BUTTER SCULPTURES

what was really the highlight for me, however, was the food vendors at the fair. it was pure American culinary culture. homefoods that you'd think would be familiar and fried enough already, but then the vendors turned it up one more level to make it all that much more fatteningly awesome. like jack daniels pulled pork. chicken finger subs. bacon wrapped deep fried mars bars. and whatever hell-spawned concoction this thing is:


hot beef sundae, eh?

this may explain why i am considered to be a size zero in Americaland. I am constantly astonished at the food portions, and even the size of the soft drink containers. needless to say, this wasn't one of those trips where i lost weight. the two dollar Pabst beers didn't help either.


CHEAP BEER. God bless Americaland

revisiting my childhood stomping grounds: upstate new york

Saturday we went shopping at the giant famous outlet place in Waterloo, New York (not to be confused with my Canadian birthplace of the same name). I don't know how my family knows about these things; I guess Asians know how to sniff out a bargain. It was huge, and at 11AM the gigantic parking lots were full, absolutely full. Everyone came out. Even the Amish came out. I saw a couple of Amish ladies pop into the lingerie store. Bras have snaps, not zippers. Lots of shopping to be had.



In the evening we headed out to the New York State Fair which was a crazy experience - one of the biggest fairs my parents had ever been to. When we lived in New York, we used to go to the Ulster County Fair every year and I guess that's what my parents expected but the place turned out to be huge - basically everyone had driven there from everywhere in the state. there was a lot of awesomeness. sheep. sheep wearing bathing suits. llamas. cows. butter sculptures made from the milk of the cows. rainbows.









my parents wanted to go to the International Tent (or rather, Barn), and i suspected it wasn't out of multicultural curiosity, but rather because they hadn't eaten any Asian food for nearly forty-eight hours and were probably dying inside. can't say we were totally impressed by the international choices though; we had German, Italian, Mexican, and Tim Horton's (Canadian!). we did try some American beer (it was not that good).

Sunday morning we went to downtown Syracuse, solely for the purpose of getting my dad a Starbucks. we actually saw more Tim Hortons in upstate New York than Starbucks. it was weird. Downtown was really nice. much larger and happening than i expected for a city only a bit larger than St John's, Newfoundland. I put it on my list of "Places I should try visiting for a weekend to go drinking".


Dad says seriously what's with the lack of Starbucks






You can't visit Syracuse with a shopaholic family without hitting up the Carousel Center. I have fond memories of this mall, even if no one else in my family remembers shopping here. I was sixteeen. There was an Old Navy. There were 50 cent bikinis. It was instant love. These were the times before Ottawa got its first Old Navy, you see. And Ottawa still doesn't have a Forever 21, or H&M or Victoria's Secret.


i vaguely remember the carousel. but i definitely remembered the fifty cent bikinis.

My parents made attempt #2 to have asian food at the food court. They decided to go for Chinese. We went for Japanese. Turns out the food came out the same.


some days, you take what you can get

afterwards we drove up to Alexandria Bay, which is so close to Canada that you get reception from Rogers. AND THEN WE WENT ON A BOAT.






That boathouse...is not doing so well.



it was a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon, cruising through the many islands on the St. Lawrence. it would have been even better if there had been a working toilet on the boat (too much watery American beer)

we went to the castle on Boldt Island. I usually have a lot of cynicism for North American castles (ooh, Casa Loma is ALMOST A HUNDRED YEARS OLD) because historically they are nothing compared to some of the European castles i've seen. but this one was pretty cool, mainly because it was unfinished. Go find out the story sometime. it's kind of neat. People find it romantic. Me, it definitely made me feel like I should try to go and make friends with some rich people so they could invite me to their castles in the summer.




beautiful...


and unfinished

after a sweet dinner at a diner-pubby kind of place that America is great for, that we drove back up to Ottawa, where I realized that I had eaten nothing but junk food all weekend. Good old American fried junk food. McDonalds' burgers, pizza, beef stroganoff, ships, fish and chips. my body is still struggling to recover.


eating a sausage breakfast wrap from Dunkin Donuts