The most difficult thing!!!

Which among these is the most difficult thing to do?

1) Go to the sun and explore it

2) Count the stars in the sky

3) Get a rickshaw to Kalyan railway station

You are spot on. The most difficult thing in this world is to get a public transport vehicle to reach Kalyan railway station in the morning. Regardless of where you live at Kalyan, you will most probably face this problem every morning but if you live near RTO then God save you.

Every morning you can find a bunch of people standing near the RTO anxiously to get a ride to reach Kalyan railway station to catch their respective trains to work. It’s a laborious ordeal. Just when you see an empty rickshaw, people swarm it like a bunch of angry bees and jostle with each other to get one of those coveted seats. Getting the fourth seat (besides the driver) is the most prized. Once a rickshaw leaves; its desperation for the remaining people who are left waiting. You would have to be lucky to get a KDMT (Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Transport) bus at the correct time. KDMT has arranged buses but their frequency is like Haley’s comet.

Living in such areas is becoming frustrating but the prices are not cooling off. People are still paying upwards of Rs. 2500 per sq. ft. to get a home near RTO, Kalyan that too without basic facilities like transport and proper road connections.

So what are the solutions for this problem?

1) Get your own personal vehicle. This is one of the sensible solutions but if you have a family of 4 going to work at different times, how feasible is this solution? Do we need to get 2 wheelers for all in the family? What will one do with the parking of these two wheelers?

2) Make KDMT aware of this issue. They probably are aware of this issue and they have started bus services but unfortunately these services are irregular and don’t serve the purpose many a times.

3) Plead with the rickshaw drives to have more rickshaws around during the morning hour. How reliable is this approach and why would the rickshaw drivers heed to this? They are in demand and will make the most of it.

So ultimately taxpaying citizens are left in the lurch hoping for the best in the days to come.

I think its the same situation elsewhere in the country. Otherwise why would the proposed rickshaw and taxi boycott on August 12th evoke such a great response. Read more at http://www.meterjam.com

Hopefully such boycotts will force the rickshaw and taxi drivers to act sensibly!!!

NDTV - Broadcast Training Programme or Money Minting Machine?

My sister loves journalism and she wants to make a career in journalism someday. One day she came across an advertisement from NDTV about their NDTV Broadcast Training Programme (http://www.ndtvmi.com/). She promptly registered for the same and paid Rs. 1000 as registration fee.

After some days she received an email from NDTV as follows:

Thank you for applying for admission to the NDTV Broadcast Training Programme.

You have been shortlisted to appear for the admission interview, and will be expected to be present at 207 Okhla Industrial Estate, Phase III, New Delhi 110020 at 2:00 pm on the 24^th March 2010.

You will be expected to take an Audio Video Test and appear for an interview. The Audio Video Test is meant to test your screen presence. You will be given a minute to present a prepared piece on a topic of your choice. You may choose to speak either in English or Hindi or both.

The interview is meant to test your aptitude for broadcast journalism. Questions will be asked on current affairs and your personal interests.

Please drop us a mail confirming your attendance. If you have any questions call +91 9711761218 during office hours

This was exciting for her and she was all set for the interview on the 24^th. But she didn’t know the surprises that NDTV would throw at her in the days to come.

She tried contacting NDTV on the phone number mentioned in their email but the phone would always be busy. She tried and tried but to no avail. Then I wrote NDTV an email about this.

My sister has been following up with NDTV regarding the Broadcast Training Programme. She has been asked to appear for an interview at Delhi on the 24th. She is from Mumbai and has some questions before traveling to Delhi. She has been trying to reach NDTV through phone and email but there is no response.

I got a reply from Sumit Singhal (Associate VP at NDTV) as follows:

Dear John,

Someone from the NDTV Media Institute will make a call to her by 22nd March, Monday, for all the answers to her queries.

She never received a call from NDTV and she was getting upset since the interview dates were nearing and she had no answers to her queries yet. She was to travel to Delhi all alone so she had to make sure that she knew the place of the interview, the place to stay etc and we thought NDTV would give us some guidelines but we were wrong.

After some more follows we got the following message from NDTV:

Concern person will call her by Monday to re-schedule the interview. People have rescheduled interviews as per the availability of tickets and that option is open to all requests. Do not worry we try to answer to all her queries and reschedule her on a convenient date.

This answer was soothing but again the end result was very disappointing. After 3 days she got a call from ‘someone’ at NDTV. Following is my email to NDTV regarding the call my sister received.

Yesterday my sister did receive a call from 'someone' at NDTV. Before even she could utter a word, she was told that NDTV cannot guide her because the location information is confidential (what???)and she was also told that the applicants from throughout the country needs to find the NDTV locations on their own using Google maps(??? Are you kidding me) and arrive for the interview.

Sorry to say this but I feel this is ridiculous. How is a candidate suppose to come to New Delhi from Mumbai without knowing which station to get down (N Delhi or H Nizamuddin), which hotel to stay, where to go for the interview? She was also told that she won’t be able to contact NDTV on the phone numbers that you had advertised on your website because those phone numbers are confidential!!! What is the 'confidentiality' all about? I thought she was appearing for a broadcast training course at NDTV and not for a secret government service. You have your contact information listed on your website but unfortunately no one is reachable. She was also told that the interview date cannot be rescheduled but you had mentioned that the interview could be rescheduled. So why this confusion and why such a disappointing response?

As a brother of an ambitious sister it pains to know that she is very far from fulfilling her dream with NDTV only because of such small issues. Why don’t you have a dedicated HR department that can take care of the applicants’ queries and guide them? As you know it is not easy for outstation candidates to arrive for the interviews without necessary preparations and research.

I hope you understand my point here. Please forward this query/suggestion to your concerned department as well and let me know of your thoughts on this one.

Our concern was forwarded to Mr. Hassan with the following message:

Dear John

I am forwarding this to Mr. Mohd Hassan. He can be reached on 011-66176274 between 10:00 am-5:30 pm during weekdays.

We tried reaching Mr. Hassan for a week but the above number was always busy. I was getting upset and then I sent NDTV and email again saying:

Are the selections done? My sister tried calling Mr Hassan only to find the phone lines busy all the time. So what happens now? Are there more interview slots available?

Mr Hassan was quick to respond with the following message:

We had rescheduled her interview. Further there are no more interview slots available.

I was furious as well as shocked to read this. I shot back saying:

When did you reschedule her interview? As far as I know she never received any calls for rescheduling. In fact she couldn't reach you because your phone line was always busy.

I expected a better support system for candidates at NDTV but looks like I was wrong.

Mr Hassan and NDTV decided to keep quiet but I would send them a reminder every day. Finally after almost 2 weeks, Mr Hassan had this arrogant reply for me:

The matter has no further updates. The last update was on Mar 30, 2010, which stands.

Hence the matter stands closed.

He had the audacity to declare this matter as closed but I was not going down without a fight and now I wanted my money back. So I replied:

Thanks for the quick and arrogant reply Hassan. I guess you must go over the entire email chain again. It was promised that my sister’s interview would be rescheduled but it never happened. She wasn't even given any answers to all the queries she had and now you say that the matter is closed. I fail to understand this.

Well if you really think that the matter is closed, then please refund the registration fees. Think about it, she did all the registration formalities (including paying the fees on time) and she couldn't even appear for the interview. So what's the whole point paying you the registration fee? Does it make any sense?

So I request you to please refund our amount at the earliest.

It’s been two weeks since I started following up the refund matter but now NDTV doesn’t even care to reply to my query. They charged Rs. 1000 per candidate for registration and if 100 people applied, they made a handsome Rs. 100,000 without many efforts and they never cared about the candidates and their concerns. So is this really a broadcast training course or a money minting machine? Anyways I will continue to follow up this matter until I get a satisfactory response.

Meanwhile I am taking efforts to highlight this issue to as many people as possible including the top management at NDTV. I hope someone is taking note of this!!!

Customer is King... Really??

“Customer is king”… Sounds so powerful right? We hear this all around us. But do we really experience the ‘majesty’ of being a customer? More importantly do the companies that serve us make us feel like we are the kings? At the end of the day what kind of customer service do we receive from the companies we choose to do business with?

Having experienced the quality of customer services in US and back in India, I can say for sure that Indian companies need to learn a lesson or two from their US counterparts. Let me give you some examples of this. Ironically I received all three services within a span of fifteen days and hence I can clearly differentiate between the qualities of the service offered.

Example one:

I and my friend were on our regular coffee break. Since our office has different vending machines that vend coffee, we decided to try a new one this time. Oblivious of the fact that the good ol’ penny is no longer accepted by the machine, I put in 40 cents in the machine which included five 1 cent coins. The pennies were rejected upfront and the machine held my 35 cents. Since the minimum charge for a coffee is 40 cents, I decided to take my money back. Well to my disbelief the machine gave me back 30 cents. The machine attendant was standing nearby and I said to him that the machine devoured my 5 cents. I wasn’t concerned too much about those 5 cents but wanted to let him know that there was some problem with the machine. To my amazement the machine attendant opened the machine, twisted some knobs inside and said to me “Take whatever you want from the machine, it’s free”. I was pleasantly surprised at his gesture of accepting the problem and compensating me. I thanked him and made sure that I told about his customer service to everyone in my team. I sure felt like a ‘King’ in this case.

Example two:

I happen to be a customer of India’s 2^nd largest bank. Yes I am talking about ICICI bank. Frankly enough I am not too happy with the customer service that they have offered me through the years but unfortunately I continue to bank with them. I had a little ‘war of words’ with them recently when they decided to charge the online money transfer (NEFT) facility. When I questioned them about this move, they responded back saying that the fee has been levied based on RBI guidelines (it’s their usual rhetoric). I was not too convinced with this answer and asked for a concrete proof (like a webpage link to this new guideline or the copy of the guideline itself). Mails flew back and forth and the ICICI customer representative persisted that the move was done according to the RBI guidelines but never shared any credible proof. I escalated the matter and continued to probe for a proof. After 15 days of dillydallying, I finally received a copy of the RBI circular from ICICI bank which mentions about the fees to be levied for online money transfer facility. What could have been done differently in this case? ICICI bank could have shared this proof with all of its customers to begin with and there hardly would have been any questions. Now since they decided to take their own sweet time and ‘frustrate’ me, I doubted the authenticity of their decision to charge NEFT transactions and now would think twice before recommending ICICI bank to anyone. Is this a good customer service? Absolutely not. Did I feel like a ‘King’? Are you kidding?

Example three:

Few days ago I received a free coupon from the Blackberry online application store so I decided to do some purchase online. During the check out process I didn’t find the ‘free coupon’ option and used my credit card instead. The charges were billed to my credit card. Since I wanted to use the coupon for this purchase and not my credit card, I wrote to the customer support citing this problem. The customer service person was quick to respond and after looking into the problem, he decided to send me another (higher value) free coupon since they didn’t want to lose me as their customer. On the other hand, the customer service person could have easily refuted my claim and would have chosen not to respond or would have delayed the response. But instead, he went ahead and made the customer feel like a ‘King’.

There have been a number of occasions where I have received wonderful customer service. One such instance has been recorded my earlier blog http://abloggernamedjohn.blogspot.com/2009/08/swine-flu-scare.html

I hope the quality of customer service improves in India in the days to come.

Did you have similar experiences with customer service? Send in your comments.

The Swine Flu scare

‘Swine Flu’ is the most dreaded word these days. It’s all over the news and the reports paint a grim picture. No wonder so many people are panicked and most of them are clueless about the disease. These days any flu is feared to be swine flu and misinformation compounds the problem.

I had a similar scare last week. I had been to the St. Louis Zoo over the weekend. It was a hot day and we were out walking almost the entire afternoon. Expectedly we were fatigued at the end of the day. A warm water bath and a good night of sleep helped alleviate the aches and pains the next day. It was a usual day at office but things started to get bad as evening approached. I started feeling uneasy and felt like my body temperature going up. I went home from work and relaxed but things didn’t seem to improve.

My body temperature went up steadily through the night and I couldn't sleep a bit. By the morning I was sleepy and had a temperature around 100°F. I was worried. Different type of thoughts started occupying my mind. I had been to the zoo and now I have a fever. Can this be swine flu? I decided to go to the doctor’s office. I did some research over the Internet and here is what I found for swine flu:

The typical symptoms are:

• a sudden fever (a high body temperature of 38°C/100.4°F or above), and
• a sudden cough.

Other symptoms may include:

• headache,
• tiredness,
• chills,
• aching muscles,
• limb or joint pain,
• diarrhea or stomach upset,
• sore throat,
• runny nose,
• sneezing, or
• loss of appetite.

I had the above checklist in front of me and started analyzing it. I had a sudden fever but no cough. I had tiredness but no headache or chills. I had aching muscles but no sore throat or sneezing. Now I was royally confused and was getting more worried. Finally I decided to let the medical professionals decide what my flu meant.

A visit to the doctor’s office revealed that I didn’t have swine flu and this came as a much needed relief to me. The doctor prescribed some fever reducing medicines (Tylenol OTC) and that worked great for me. By the next morning my fever was gone and I was feeling much better. I was happy that I didn’t delay seeking medical advice and that my flu was gone soon.

Here are some of the precautions that you can take to combat swine flu:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.
• Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
• If you are sick with flu-like illness, it is recommended that you stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone except to get medical care or for other necessities. (Your fever should be gone without the use of a fever-reducing medicine.) Keep away from others as much as possible to keep from making others sick.

As always, when in doubt don’t hesitate to take medical help as early as possible.

How are you keeping off swine flu? Participate in this weeks poll on the left side of this page.

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Just an update regarding my last blog http://abloggernamedjohn.blogspot.com/2009/08/you-are-in-wrong-lane-stupid-lady.html. I got another comment from Justin S. as follows:

Hello!

Below is my email address. If you could please send me your membership number. Thank you!

Justin S.

I wrote to Justin and a AAA customer service person responded seeking apology for the discomfort I had to face. I was also sent a copy of 2009 AAA North American Atlas by AAA. I am also promised of a better service next time. Hopefully this incident helps AAA improve upon their quality of road service. By the way I am impressed by their customer service off-road ;)

You are in the wrong lane, stupid

The lady yelled at me. “I know and I am sorry”, I replied. That was the best I could come up with in that situation with my mind blank and thoughts haywire. While I sat there on the road on a wrong lane with cars blaring their horns and flashing their headlights; I thought there was no way out. It was 10’ o clock at night and the scant lights didn’t help me much in my situation.

Let’s go back 12 hours. It was a bright and beautiful day for a Chicago visit. We reached bright and early and avoided the big queue for ticket at the John G Shedd aquarium near Lake Michigan. My parents were excited to see a variety of fishes at the aquarium and the show at the Amphitheatre was amazing. It was fun to watch the dolphins and beluga whales obeying their instructors with pin point accuracy. They did put up a splendid show. The variety of exhibits at the aquarium opened our eyes to some of the smallest, largest and beautiful creatures of this world. The aquarium visit was worth the time spent. We then went to the Adler Planetarium. The ‘Night Sky Live’ was one of the most informative shows that I visited in years. I could learn more about star patterns and also learnt about determining directions by just gazing at a star studded sky. I would still need a GPS though for my driving directions. ;)

After a sumptuous dinner at Indian Garden and some magnificent views of Chicago city at night from the 96^th floor of John Hancock observatory, we started for our hotel which was 15 miles away. As we drove towards the hotel through the hustle bustle of the never sleeping interstate, we were discussing the day and getting ready for a comfortable night. We were in for a rude shock when we finally reached the hotel.

The front desk receptionist at the Holiday Inn, Elmhurst sank our heart when she said that their hotel was overbooked and our reservation couldn’t be honored. The reason for overbooking was because some guests extended their stay and there was no room available for us. Before I could break my silence, she told me that an alternate arrangement was made for us in the nearby Country Inn at Bensenville. This place was 3 miles further from Holiday Inn. She apologized for this inconvenience and promised us a complete refund of our booking charges. That was the only silver lining in this whole situation.

Understandably I and my parents were upset. It was 10 in the night and it was a new place. What happens if Country Inn couldn’t accommodate us? Where do we go? How do we spend our night? Should we drive 125 miles back home? We were inundated by all these questions with no answers in sight. I fed the address of the new hotel into my GPS and started our journey.

It was a quiet place and the lights were low. “Turn left” said my GPS. As a vigilant driver, I looked around for any vehicle and didn’t find any. So I turned left and suddenly realized that there was a small divider in between the road. “Oh god, what is this?” I thought to myself. My mind started thinking of alternatives to cross the road and what do I see. A bunch of lights coming from the opposite direction. Yes those were cars speeding towards a hapless me who was sitting there in the wrong lane. I thought it was over for me and my parents. Their first trip US trip would be their last, thanks to me. I stopped my car on the road awaiting my fate. My mind was blank not knowing what my next step would be. Amidst all this, a car had already stopped in front of me honking fervently and flashing its lights. The driver thought that I was not in my senses and pulled besides me and yelled “You are in the wrong lane stupid”.

Suddenly I realized that if I took a chance, I could cross the divider. Anyways it was the only option that I had. So with a prayer in my heart and courage in my mind, I stepped up the gas and went over the divider to cross onto the correct lane. God is so wonderful and with His help this attempt was successful. I couldn't even believe what had happened since everything seemed like a dream to me. I thanked God for keeping us alive and proceeded towards our hotel. My mind was filled with gratitude towards my Lord. This incident kept haunting me through the night but it was a relief that everything just went fine.

The trip was wonderful and truly a memorable one which taught me a lesson. There is always a way out from life’s most difficult situations if God is with you. You just have to believe in his power. It’s not over until He thinks it’s over!!!

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Just an update regarding my last blog http://abloggernamedjohn.blogspot.com/2009/07/60-miles-for-set-of-tires.html. I got a comment from Justin S. as follows:

I am from AAA National Member Relations. I apologize for negative experience you had. We strive to provide premium roadside assistance service, but obviously your experience was not representative of that goal. If you would allow me the opportunity to lodge a formal complaint with the AAA Club, I would very much appreciate the chance to restore your faith and trust in AAA. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Justin

Thanks Justin but till date I haven’t heard back from you. So if you are reading this then I do want to lodge a formal complaint with the AAA club.

60 miles for a set of tires?

Not really. This wasn’t the plan when I along with my parents started for our trip to Springfield last weekend. We started at 8 a.m. and were cruising our way to New Salem to visit Lincoln’s village which is a historic site. While driving I did feel some noise and a little imbalance here and there but I thought it must be the strong winds. As we reached mile marker 116 on I-55S, we heard the noise grow big and there I realized that my right rear tire had gone kaput. Oh gosh! I slowly pulled over to the shoulder and took out my cell phone to call AAA. My dad suggested that we change the tire ourselves but I being a AAA ‘Plus’ customer decided to give them a chance. So I called them and the customer service lady took down my details and promised me service in the next half hour. I looked at my watch and it was 9 a.m.

While we waited on the shoulder with our hazard lights on, we saw number of trucks whizzing by shaking our car with their might. We were thankful to God that it was a pleasant day. We continued to chat among ourselves and dad would suggest in between that we should go ahead and change the tire ourselves but I would not relent. Finally half an hour was over and we were getting impatient. I called up AAA again and the operator apologized to me for the delay and promised me service at the earliest. This brought into my mind my horrible experience with AAA a few years ago.

I was on my way back from church on a sweltering July afternoon. The time was around 12:30 p.m. and I95S was jam packed. I and my 2000 Honda Civic were traveling on a snail’s pace when I realized that the heat indicator on the dashboard suddenly started going up. I was a bit worried but continued to operate the car. After a little while the driving became uncomfortable and I exited out of the interstate and stopped my car under a bridge. I tried restarting the car but it wouldn’t and the gear had jammed up too. I realized that the car had overheated and decided to cool off a bit. Meanwhile I called AAA who promised me that they would send me a tow truck at the earliest. I waited, waited and waited but the tow truck never arrived. I called them up multiple times but nothing worked. Finally after two hours I stared my car again and found that it had cooled off pretty much. I drove it back home and took it to the mechanic the next day. Even though I didn’t receive any service from AAA that day, I did receive a letter of apology from them for not being able to service me.

Will I be stood up by AAA this time again? I thought. It was an hour now. I called up AAA again and conveyed my displeasure about their service. The operator said that the towing truck operator was backed up due to lots of calls and he would be with us soon. My dad again gave me his sage advice but… While all this happened we were visited by state troopers more than one time asking us if we needed any help. Finally the tow truck arrived and it was as if we found an oasis in the middle of the desert. The mechanic quickly replaced our flat tire with the spare we had with us. He suggested us not to drive far on the spare tire and told us about a nearby Walmart where we could get new tires.

We reached Walmart with the aid of some modern technology (read GPS) and waited for 2 hours to get the rear tires replaced and rotated. We got a free tire upgrade since they didn’t have the tires that were promised to us. This was something to cheer about in the day so far. Finally we started our trip (which we were to start 5 hours earlier) and toured Lincoln’s house and the Presidential Library at Springfield. We had to cancel our trip to New Salem and Lincoln’s tomb because of this unexpected turn of events.

This taught me a very good lesson. We may have a long list of plans for our life but ultimately it’s all up to the Lord how He wants these to be executed. We may face some curve balls in the journey called life but in the end it’s our faith in our God and determination that sees us through and everything turns out just right.

60 miles for a set of tires… yeah that we did and some more. So what’s next… 120 miles for a walk in the park? Who knows…? Stay tuned…

East Coast Tour

My parents are visiting me in the US this year and I wanted to show them some important tourist places here. So I was exploring my options. Even though I didn’t have much time off from office, I wanted to cover as many places as possible. I wanted the travel to be stress free and easy on pocket. With all these criteria in mind I started my search and came across www.GotoBus.com. I saw many vacations packages in there which looked exciting. I wanted to visit my uncle in Philadelphia during this east coast visit and hence opted for a 5 day east coast tour that started from Philadelphia. After having my airline tickets (from Chicago to Philadelphia) booked with Southwest Airlines, I booked the 5 day east coast tour with GotoBus.com. Here is the package that I opted for:

http://www.gotobus.com/cs/c128/vacationpackages/philadelphia/usaeastcoast5_daytourpackage_fromphiladelphia_.html

We reached Philadelphia on the 3^rd of July and started my 5 day trip on the 6^th of July. Here is the day wise breakup of the 5 day tour.

Day 1

The tour company had asked us to reach at the parking lot of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia by 9:45 a.m. We reached there on time but didn’t find the bus. I contacted the tour guide and he said that they would be reaching the parking lot shortly. We waited there for a while before the bus finally arrived. Afterwards I realized that the bus that we were supposed to take was coming from New York and it already had a bunch of people who had started their tour from Boston, New York etc and we were just joining them. So it was day 1 for us but for some it was already day 3. We were supposed to see the Independence Hall and Liberty Bell in Philadelphia but missed that since we could catch the bus after these attractions were already covered. I was a bit disappointed. Finally we started our tour at 10:00 am and the first place we visited was the US Mint in Philadelphia. It was a half an hour tour of the facility. We saw various coins and documents related to their history. It was informational but not that exciting. We saw some old buildings in Philadelphia city and started our journey towards Washington DC. At around 12 pm we stopped for lunch at a Chinese buffet. The food at Kings Buffet (Newark, DE) was ok. Since my parents are not used to Chinese food they didn’t like it much. Then we continued our onward journey to DC.

We reached DC at around 2:30 pm and started our sight-seeing right away. We started with a photo session at the Capitol. Then we saw the ‘Indian’ museum. We then proceeded towards the ‘White House’. After a photo session there, we moved on to see the Jefferson memorial and then the Lincoln memorial. We also saw the Vietnam and the Korean memorials. We had loads of photo sessions in between. On our way back to Maryland, we stopped at Tyson Buffet and restaurant for our dinner. It was again a Chinese buffet but with more variety than what we had for lunch. The pricing was $15 per person as against $10 at Kings Buffet. After dinner we checked into the nearby Hilton hotel in Maryland. The hotel was good and it had free WiFi too. Overall it was an exciting and tiring day so we crashed into bed once we checked in.

Day 2

Our bus left the hotel at 7:30 a.m. and we headed straight to the ‘Sweetest place on earth’. We reached there around 9:30 a.m. and we took the Hershey’s chocolate factory tour. The small trolleys took us around the entire process of chocolate making. It was fun and exciting. We tasted some ‘Hershey’s Kisses’ as we left the tour. We did some shopping at the gift shop. Our next stop was for lunch. We went to McDonalds for a quick bite. My parents enjoyed the ‘Fries’ there and it became one of their favorite foods for the next few days. After that we visited the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY. We watched the ‘Hot Glass Show’. The person gave us a live demo by preparing a vase from molten glass. The process was articulate and exciting. Again we shopped for some memorabilia in the gift shop. Next it was time for a 3 hour drive to Niagara. We watched some movies and TV series (with Chinese subtitles) in the bus during our long rides. We reached Niagara by 8 p.m. and we enjoyed the evening scenes there. The ‘American’ side of the falls was looking beautiful. We couldn’t see the entire light show due to time constraints. We took some photographs and collected some more gifts. We then checked into ‘Holiday Inn’ at Buffalo, NY and spent our night there.

Day 3

We started from the hotel at 8:15 am. As we continued our Niagara tour, we first experienced the ‘Niagara’ movie. It showed us the history and the magic of Niagara. After that we took the ‘Maid of the Mist’ boat tour. It was a thrilling experience to feel the power of nature up close. I had my disposable camera ready for some pictures aboard the ‘Maid of the Mist’. We had Indian food at the nearby food court and started our journey towards Boston at 12 p.m. It was an 8 hour drive with breaks in between. So we did a lot of road journey on day 3. By the evening we reached Boston. We saw the Boston downtown, took some pictures and checked into Sheraton Hotel for the night. One important thing I realized was that I should have had more cash on hand for this tour. Only the bus ride and lodging is included. We need to pay for the entry tickets and tour guide tips. The tour guide had our tickets ready for various attractions and he requested us to pay him in cash for the tickets and for his tips. Since I didn’t have much cash with me, I had to withdraw the same from an ATM at a rest area. Since it was not an ATM recognized by my bank, I had to pay the ATM fees plus my bank fees for the amount that I withdrew. Also at Niagara the temperatures dropped and I wasn’t prepared for that. I checked one of the ‘Target’ stores at a rest area for some warm clothes but it was out of stock. Fortunately at Niagara I was able to buy some warm clothes at the ‘Cave of the Wind’ gift shop. I have AAA membership which I used to receive discounts at various attractions. I gave my card to the tour guide who was able to get the discounts for my tickets.

Day 4

The day started very early on day 4. Our bus was out of the hotel by 6:30 a.m. We visited Harvard University at Cambridge first. Took some pictures and our tour guide gave us some information regarding the university and its history. We then made our stop at MIT for more pictures and information. We visited the 150 year old Trinity Church at Boston. We then took the Boston Harbor Cruise. The Boston skyline was amazing and the weather was beautiful. We then we made a stop at the Quincy market. We found an Indian food counter there and had our lunch. After that we started off for NY. After taking couple of breaks we reached Brooklyn. We experienced the sights and sounds of NY City and were involved in some traffic jams before we made our way to the ‘Fairfield Inn’ at NJ. We checked in at 6:00 pm in the hotel. Some of our tour members finished their tour on day 4 and were dropped off at JFK and EWR airports. Since we checked in early we had more time to take rest at the hotel. Our tour guide and the bus driver also ended their tours today and they left after checking us into the hotel.

Day 5

The day started at 7:00 am. We were only 16 people left in the tour party for the last day. We had a new tour guide, a new driver and a new vehicle (an eighteen seater instead of a bus) for the last day. We were taken to China town in NYC where they added a couple of people to our group. The first attraction that we visited was Wall Street. We saw the NYSE and the ‘Federal Hall National Memorial’. After that we saw the ‘Bronze Charging Bull’ and took some pictures. We then visited the ‘Trinity Church’ followed by ‘Ground Zero’. We then were taken to Pier 17 for the ‘Circle Line Cruise’ aboard the ‘Zephyr’. It was a one hour cruise that showed us the ‘Brooklyn Bridge’, ‘Manhattan Bridge’, ‘Statue of Liberty’, ‘Ellis Island’ and the New York City skyline. One of the crew members on ‘Zephyr’ helped us with taking pictures and the narrator told us interesting things about New York during the cruise. Our next stop was the ‘Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum’ in the Hudson River. Intrepid was the battle ship that had participated in the World War II. It has a bright history which we learnt about in the 10 minute film; ‘Story of Intrepid’. Aboard the ‘Intrepid’ we also saw the ‘British Airways Concorde’ which is the fastest commercial jet liner in the world. We did the routine photo sessions here too. After having our lunch here, we proceeded to ‘Times Square’. Our next stop was the ‘Top of the Rock Observatory’ near the Rockefeller center. The elevator took us to the 67^th floor of the observatory in about a minute. The view from the top was amazing and we took some pictures with Empire State and Chrysler buildings in the background. We then went to the 69^th level of the observatory. Cabs looked like small toys and the panoramic view of NYC was exhilarating. We visited the Rockefeller center next. Our last stop in NYC was the United Nations building. The exhibits at the UN told us the story of things that are happening around our world. We couldn’t take a guided tour because of time constraints. Our tour guide had given us a package containing the tickets for the ‘Circle Line Cruise’, ‘Intrepid Museum’ and ‘Top of the Rock observatory’. It also had a complimentary lunch. We had to pay for the tickets and the tour guide tips in advance and the cash that I had withdrawn on day 3 came handy here. The UN was the last stop on our tour and we ended our 5 day tour at around 5:00 pm on day 5. We were dropped off at China Town NYC by our driver. The tour guide transferred us to another bus that operated between NYC and Philadelphia. We paid for the tickets from NYC to Philadelphia. The bus from NYC to Philadelphia was shabby and the restroom in the bus was stinky. We reached Philadelphia City at around 7:30 pm where my uncle received us thus ending our 5 day tour.

Conclusion

The 5 day east coast trip was informational and exciting. At the same time it had its dull moments too. Some of the learning’s and observations at this trip were:

1) It was well planned so we didn’t have to worry about the places to visit, tickets, accommodation etc. We could sit back, relax and enjoy the tour.

2) About 90% of the participants in this tour were Chinese nationals. Hence the tour guide had to explain things both in Chinese and English. Frankly his English and the way he pronounced the words were funny and entertaining. One of his famous quote was “Philadelphia is one of the ming cities in US" which means “Philadelphia is one of the main city in the US”. He had a habit of making everything as plural as possible. E.g. “The Smithsonian’s donated a lot of monies and hence we have a lot of free museums at Washington DC”. Having said that, the tour guide was friendly and helpful. We had a tour party which was punctual and as a result we reached all the attractions on time and covered almost everything mentioned in the tour brochure.

3) Carry enough cash was one thing that I learnt on the tour. You never know when the cash will come in handy.

4) My AAA card came in handy at some attractions and I could save some money as a result of that. The tour guide helped me get the discounts. I couldn’t get similar discounts at NY City since the tickets were already booked by the tour guide who claimed that the group discounts were more than the AAA discounts. Anyways it’s a good idea to check with the tour guide for such discounts.

5) There were some instances that we had to leave from a particular attraction early due to time constraints. One of the examples being the light show during night at Niagara. This is one of the compromises that come with such group tours.

6) There is a chance that some alternate attractions may be visited instead of the original one. We were originally scheduled to visit the ‘Empire State’ building and ‘Madam Tussauds’ Museum at NYC but it was changed to ‘Top of the Rock Observatory’ and ‘Intrepid Sea, Air and Space’ Museum. We came to know about this only on the day that we took the NYC tour.

7) Since majority of the tour participants are Chinese nationals, there are chances that you will be dining at Chinese restaurants many a times. We were given an option of ‘Lobster dinner’ at Boston which we didn’t take since we never had lobsters anytime. Since we had other options, we preferred McDonalds instead.

And Finally

Bus tour and accommodation for three persons: $777

Tickets to attractions and tour guide tips ($6 per day per person, $18 per day in our case): $500 (approx)

Food and memorabilia: $500 (approx)

Air tickets to Philadelphia and back: $600

Comfort on the tour and parents’ satisfaction: Priceless

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