And so there I was in Niagara Falls. Alone.
I had made use of the WiFi on the bus, in the later part of the journey from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, to track the bus's route using google maps, so as to know where I was relative to the Wanderfalls Hostel. Turned out it was quite a wise move because it was quite a long walk to the hostel.
Behind me there was a Chinese girl walking, also having alighted from the Greyhound Bus. On the bus I had suspected her to be Malaysian at the very least.
There aren't many hostels in Niagara Falls, and she had a general direction of which direction of where she was walking because she asked around. It was quite obvious that she was going towards the same hostel as I was. Simply because Wanderfalls is really in quite a strange part of town. Perhaps I'd talk to her later after I freshened up.
However, she had also figured out that I was going to Wanderfalls. Plus I had a map. So she said hi.
It turns out that Yu Fang (that's her name obviously) was from Singapore too, also from NUS, and also travelling alone before her Exchange started. Her travel plans were way more extensive than mine, mind you, but then, she had a lot more time to travel before term started for her. She was also from VJ, but strangely not much common ground could be derived from that simply because she was 2 years my junior. Plus VJ wasn't a fantastic time for me.
So we walked to Wanderfalls together, and waited outside to be let in by the owner, who apparently was still sleeping. I mean, it was barely 8am in the morning.
And so I wasn't alone. Again.
We were finally let in around 8.15am, and we checked in. As expected, we wouldn't be seeing our room till later, because there were still people sleeping in our beds. But we left our bags in the lobby, freshened up a bit, and then left for a little breakfast place that the owner had recommended to us.
The Why Coffeeshop was a page out of the movies. A small town diner that you would only expect to see on TV. Where the waitress walks around and serves coffee and says 'honey'. The food itself was quite good, and for quite cheap too. Cheaper than Singapore Macs breakfast, mind you.
It was nice to chill there, actually, but we really didn't come to Niagara Falls to sit at a coffeeshop. Plus Yufang only had one day in Niagara Falls - she'd leave tomorrow afternoon. Furthermore, there was a long queue outside of people waiting to be seated. You don't see THAT in the movies...
The walk from the hostel (located in a relatively residential area) to the falls proper was about 15 min walk, even without heavy luggage. By the way, apparently, in western context, that's defined as 'near'.
On the way there, we passed by the Aquarium. It's not particularly something that we wanted to see (underwater world sentosa?) but it's one of the 5 main attractions of the American half of Niagara Falls that is covered in the Discovery Pass. I think more on the Discovery Pass later.
Yufang's friends were apparently still in Buffalo - they thought it was nearby Niagara Falls. Well, it is. Just, again, refer to above when I explained the context of 'near' in the Western World. It was a 45min bus ride.
Anyway, so that meant we had time to kill before they came over, so we bought the discovery pass at the Aquarium itself, and walked around inside.
We even managed to find time to watch the Sealion Show. And finally now I can tell the difference between sealions and seals. They look quite similar to be honest. Except for the fact that sealions swim way faster and look more like assault submarine while seals swim slower and look like slower battleships. It's something to do with their limbs differing. Not too sure. Shan't bore you with details, can check wiki if you really want to know.
By the end of the show, Yufang's friends had arrived in from Buffalo, so we went to see them. They were all the way on the other side of (the tourist portion of) Niagara Falls, at the Cave of the Winds. So we crossed and spent another 15min walking across to Goat Island.
Even in walking that distance, we didn't see Niagara Falls. I mean, the famous falls that you'd alway see in pictures and movies. All we saw were rapids along the upper niagara river, before it reached the falls.
When I walked that route a couple more times later on, I realised that we missed out on seeing the falls simply because we were more captivated looking at the rapids upstream, rather than looking downstream, where you'd actually be able to see mist rising as the falls crashed down Horseshoe Falls (the famous one)
Anyway, back to today.
We gave our discovery passes to the ticket person at the Cave of the Winds, and she gave us in return a complimentary poncho and sandals. Definitely an omen; we are going to get wet. It was a hot summer's afternoon so to be honest, I think people go to Niagara Falls celebrating the fact that they're going to get wet. As did I.
We had to wait for Yu Fang's friends, Nicole and Chua, to buy the tickets because they didn't - and weren't intending to get - the discovery passes. They were, after all, only staying half a day here before flying off to Las Vegas.
And finally we were travelling downwards in the elevator going down to the base of the falls. I'm not sure exactly what distance we descended, but I know that when we stepped out of the elevator, suddenly the temperature was very cold. Cool, rather. An effect of this tunnel being dug out of rock, which protected it from the sun. Plus the running river that it leads out to helps cool it down further, I think.
From the exit of that tunnel, the sound of the waterfall in the distance was quite obvious. In fact, there were decent views of Horseshoe Falls. We wouldn't know it as yet, but we would get much better views later. Anyway, for now we contented ourselves with picturesque shots of the Horseshoe Falls.
But the main attraction of the Cave of the Winds was not the Horseshoe Falls; after all, the Cave of the Winds is located some distance from those falls. On the other hand, the Cave of the Winds does go right under the Bridal Veil Falls, which is just about next to the American Falls.
So, we got the opportunity to walk on the boardwalk underneath the Bridal Veil Falls.
Ironically the Bridal Veil Falls is the smallest of the three waterfalls of Niagara Falls. Soon, I would realise that that's the main reason why it's actually possible to have a tourist attraction at its base.
Even under this relative midget of a waterfall, dryness stood no chance at the Hurricane Deck.
And so I got drenched. For the first time.
*
As I mentioned, Nicole and Chua had to leave relatively early, and we still had to see the other main attraction of Niagara Falls, the Maid of the Mist boat ride. This ride departs from both the American side and the Canadian side of the falls, but I think (not sure about this) that the American side is cheaper. By the way, Niagara Falls is shared between the US and Canada. And the Niagara river forms the border around this point. A very good sort of border because I don't think it's even possible to swim across this river.
Anyway so we couldn't stay too long in the Cave of the Winds. No matter how fun it was to get oneself drenched in the waters of the Niagara Falls. Some of the white kids (and some adults too, in fact) actually removed their poncho so as to allow themselves to actually be drenched by the water. We had cameras so we couldn't afford that.
Up the elevator and we took the trolley (tram) across the Niagara River to the entrance of the Maid of the Mist attraction. En route down to the dock we passed through the observation deck. Which made the early picture look very ordinary at best.
The Maid of the Mist brought us as close to the Horseshoe Falls as possible - close enough for my camera to be useless due to the water droplets being splashed on board. Oh yes, I forgot to mention. They had given us ponchos again. So yep, we kinda expected to get wet. Again. For the second time.
Back to movie referencing, and the Maid of the Mist is where Bruce Almighty finally snapped because Evan had been promoted ahead of him to the news anchor.
And back to Niagara Falls.
Upon docking back on the riverside, I saw some of the people in blue ponchos walking to separate path. By the way, the ponchos given by the Maid of the Mist were blue and of good quality - they proved useful even after I left Niagara Falls - while those that were given by the Cave of the Winds were yellow and ripped while we were trying to take them off even. Nichole and Chua had to leave already to catch their flight to Vegas so Yufang left with them and I followed the path of the blue poncho-ed people.
This path took me up the side of the American Falls. The path ended halfway up, in fact, and even there, relatively far from the actual falls themselves, the power of the falls was frightening. Even more powerful than the force of the falls at the cave of the winds. So powerful, in fact, that breathing was a little difficult.
If you recall a little, you'd notice that I didn't take any pictures at the Hurricane Deck at the Cave of the Winds. Simply because my camera was new and expensive, and most importantly, not waterproof. So naturally, no photos are available for this part either. But I can say this: I got drenched. For the third time. And it was third time wetter than ever.
And this time, the poncho didn't help that much. So I just took off the hood and let the water pour down. Fun.
I didn't stay too long up there, mainly because, as I mentioned earlier, the force of the American Falls was so strong that breathing was difficult. Otherwise I probably could have stayed forever. Or at least until summer was over.
So back up the elevator, keeping the blue poncho not so much as a souvenir but more so because I didn't have a poncho for this trip, and this blue poncho was of good quality. I called Yu Fang and we met up for lunch at the visitor's center. Which was overpriced and under-appetising. Such is the price for convenience.
Actually considering that the falls are such a tourist attraction, the price wasn't THAT bad. I mean, the prices at Marina Bay Sands or Sentosa would definitely be at a higher premium as compared to mainland food in Singapore.
*
I am so tempted to cut this chapter into half, because truth be told, we're only halfway done. And if you, my dear readers, think its tiring to read this long, trust me, it's more tiring to write this long. But the integrity of this daily account must be kept.
As I have mentioned earlier, Niagara Falls is shared between the US and Canada, linked by this bridge. The view from the Canadian side, however, was supposedly much better. In fact, the lonely planet said that there was absolutely no reason why you should go to the American side, as compared to the Canadian side.
The reason why I didn't originally plan on going to the Canadian side to begin with was because I wasn't sure if I would be allowed back into the states, considering the visa entry etc. Yu Fang, on the other hand had no such fears, so that's how we ended up leaving the states, albeit for a couple of hours.
The initial opinion, before actually crossing over to the Canadian side, was that it looked much more touristy.
The Canadian Side.
The American Side.Anyway gathering from how awesome the American side was, I couldn't imagine how much better it possibly could get. And so, to find out, we crossed the rainbow bridge, finally convincing myself that even if I wasn't let back into the states, we could just act blur our way back.
Canadian Niagara Falls Town was indeed more touristy - everything was more expensive. Initially I thought that there was no big issue there, because perhaps when you convert the money back into US dollars - in the background you hear Barney Stinson reiterate that Canadian Money is useless - it would be the same price.
Of course, later I discovered that the US dollar, in this terrible state that it is in now - is actually lower in value than the Canadian Dollar. By quite a bit, in fact.
Anyway, the free stuff to do in Canada was to just take photos.
See, the reason why Canada's view is so much better is simply because the American Falls, as well as its little sister the Bridal Veil Falls, are on the American Side. Same argument as you can't see the empire state building from the top of the empire state building. So you get the whole view of all three falls.
The best part is that the view just kept getting better and better as we journeyed further and further away from the Rainbow Bridge; hence our camera shots got better and better along the way.
Then is started to rain. For the first time I was in America. It's even funnier that I actually WASN'T in America to be precise. Anyway not the normal kind of rain - it was more like walking into a mist. It was so much like mist that I originally attributed it to the falls themselves. The wind is carrying the mist from the falls towards us, I said.
That theory got shortly put down abruptly by Yu Fang, observing that the drops were coming from the forests behind the falls rather than from the falls.
We didn't really need cover from this mist-rain, but perhaps our cameras did, so we went to check out the attractions there. A lot more expensive, by the way, for similar things. The gulf in cost further exarcebated by the relative strength of the Canadian Dollar.
The only thing that they had above the US side was a 4D show. Side note, apparently USS (Universal Studios Singapore) has a 4D show; should check it out. Anyway the show was about CA$15. Approx US$13, I thought - actually it was US$17.
Anyway, I tried buying the tickets for us - but the credit card was rejected. The lady was very sweet though, she said perhaps they didn't know that I was oot of the country.
Ok this account may be littered with typos, but the above one is not a typo; she really said 'oot' instead of 'out'. YES we were definitely in Canada.
Credit card was about the only way we could pay for this since we had no Canadian Dollars on us. So Yu Fang paid for me.
The 4D show was quite good - the US side's version is just a movie. This 4D presentation included - you guessed it - a(nother) poncho! Ominous.
And so I got wet for the 4th time.
Not too bad this time, though. It was just a smattering of water, as compared to the torrents of the American Falls thundering down on you.
Canada is a good place to stone. Well, actually anywhere along Niagara Falls is a good place to stone, in good weather. Because stoning is free, it's the best thing to do on the Canadian side of the falls.
On the way back, judgement. But before that I noticed a sign demarcating the middle of the Niagara River i.e. the actual border between the two nations.
And not being able to resist the temptation I hopped back and forth across the line. So how many times did I cross the border? I don't know. At least 20.
Oh come on, it's at least more sensitive than hopping back and forth across the Berlin Wall. Done that too, by the way.
Anyway upon reentering the states, there was no problem at all. In fact, they didn't even stamp or chop anything when we came back in. Oh well.
By now the sun was setting over Canada. By the way, over here at Niagara Falls, Canada is actually to the west of USA. Sadly by the time we reach the Niagara Falls State Park, the sun had already gone down. But still, the pictures were quite nice.
Still, perhaps we should have come earlier - I promised to try to come earlier to capture the sunset over Canada the next day. But what would actually be better is sunrise over the American side, seen from the Canadian side. That would be awesome; the sun peeking over the Falls themselves.
Realistically speaking, however, I knew I wasn't going to wake up early enough to catch that so I guess I'd have to look for pictures from google. That would be simpler than waking up, crossing the border, and crossing back.
By then I, for one, was hungry. We walked back up 3rd street, where all the bars were - bars open till late here. We picked a pizza bar and shared a pizza. Quite nice, even if the bar was completely empty, and the barkeeper was sitting playing one of the arcade games in the bar.
By the time we reached home, it was already 10.30. Not too late, luckily, because we were yet to be shown to our rooms. It was a long day indeed. One more thing left for the day; I needed to fix my credit card issue. Sadly I think I blew a lot of my money on doing so - it was an overseas call to Singapore and they made me wait quite a fair bit. But admittedly it was necessary.
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