Day 2

​Today was the day of adventures. Getting firsthand experience of navigating through
New York’s train system was quite interesting, it wasn’t anything like the metro or Bart from
San Francisco where directions were telling you where to wait and which way the train went,
that component was innate for New Yorkers. On the way to the Central Park, I observed that
there’s provide the machine to check the subway time at the station, but it’s not working. First
destination, Central Park, one of the most famous public parks in the U.S., is comparable to the
Golden Gate Park back in San Francisco, filled with many trees and other attractions that draw
attention towards it. We strolled through the park and took many pictures for memory as well as
visiting the carousel and Chess and Checkers center. We moved on from the park and went to the
MoMA, where 5 floors of artwork were displayed, such as ones created by famous artist Vincent
Van Gogh, Picasso and many more talented artists.

Empire State Building, we waited for the sunset and took pictures of it. In the empire
State Building, you can see the all the view of New York City. Empire State building provided a
lot places for people to observe New York City. After lunch, we went to the Rockefeller and
Grand Central Station. There are many shops in Rockefeller Center and Grand Central Station.
We took Uber home and went through the Brooklyn Bridge. I observed that the sidewalk lines
are not very clear especially at night.

As we walk the streets of New York traveling from MoMA to the Rockefeller Center to
Grand Central Station and end with a sunset at the Empire State Building, I notice the pedestrian
lights in New York don’t show their actual countdown, but instead blink second by second
compared to San Francisco’s. The reason for this could be to discourage pedestrians from
attempting to cross while it blinks as it is unpredictable when it’s actually going to land on the
hand. We had many moments of wondering if we should cross or not as we didn’t know how
much time we had left. Other than that, most of the New York’s traffic, whether it be car or foot is similar to San Francisco’s in many ways which is surprising considering the fact that New
York is known for its crowdedness and fast paced environment. Even though New York is
enormous compared to San Francisco, some basic aspects of the cities are very similar.
Throughout as we were walking to the train to Central Park our transportation included
walking and taking the train. In the train station there were four train tracks. However, the two
inner train tracks were for express. And those other train tracks were for stops. In San Francisco
once subway is clog with trains, there is no way for the trains to move out or pass through the
train that was stuck. Verse as in New York if there is a train that is broken there is the express
which they can stay at to let other train pass through.
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-Chao Zhang, Diana Li, Nikki Wong