I can’t believe I have lived through another decade, it’s amazing how much I have learned and experienced within this span of ten years. I am grateful to God The Almighty for all those times I had and for the things to come. I celebrated the countdown to New Year at Times Square which I must say, it’s a unique experience of its own and one that I do not want to go through again, despite the fun I had.

                Surprisingly I was slightly disappointed with the celebration because there weren’t enough live performances to cater for the crowd that was battling through 9 hours of standing still; they at most had 6 live performances. I was irked because I expected better.

                Acoustics were abysmal, we couldn’t hear Daughtry’s vocals until he performed another round, and the sound system wasn’t loud enough to cater the millions of people packed there. They instead dished out a playlist of songs which can be done at any clubhouse or even in my own apartment, what made it worse was that, THEY REPEATED THE SONGS at least twice. The stage was not facing the majority of the crowd, I think they were focusing on the VIPs, which I find very inconsiderate. Performance-wise, it was a dismay for me.
                                                                        The line going into the human pen

                                                                             See how packed it is?

So here are the things you should know before celebrating New Year at Times Square:

Being in Rochester, there aren’t that many options for a direct journey to anywhere beyond New York. My stay here which is coming to about 4 months now allowed me to try two modes of travelling, by bus (specifically Chinatown buses) and by train.

                Suffice to say using Amtrak was more comfortable than using the bus and despite the review I read on the internet, I find no fault in their service except for that one time when they were late by about 40 minutes.  The price varies from cheap to bloody expensive and the cheap ones come with a catch; the schedule will never fit you or if it does, it’ll just cause so much trouble for you and the person picking you up. If you’re not expecting anyone to fetch you, I highly suggest using Amtrak for the long distance trip.

                Chinatown bus is not a very good option for long distance travelling, my last experience with it was not something I would like to go through again. For a two to three hour journey the Chinatown bus would be a very cheap and viable means to travel to anywhere and I will reiterate that it is not meant for long distance travelling. The office where you get your ticket and wait for your bus, and I’ve been to three of them, is not pleasant to the eye, very disorganized, almost akin to Pudu station, at most it may be worse than Pudu Station. Most of the passengers that took the same bus with me from Roc –> NY and from NY -> Roc were very unpleasant and loud, taking the red eye trip is not very comfortable when you have those kind of people around.

                Also it seems that it’s cheaper to buy the bus tickets when you get to the office than when you buy them online which is a difference of 5$-8$. The buses never arrive or depart on time because, what the operators would do is that, they will not depart until the bus has ALL of its seats filled, which I and a few other passengers felt negatively affected by it.

So here’s a quick comparison between Amtrak and Chinatown bus

Hitherto (Can’t believe I finally get the chance to use this word), I recommend Amtrak if you have to travel more than 4-5 hours and Chinatown bus if the trip is about 2-3 hours.