New Jersey

Trip Start Aug 16, 2004
Trip End Aug 13, 2005

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Flag of United States  , New Jersey
Thursday, August 11, 2005

We flew from L.A. to New York on Friday 5th August and then caught the bus to New Jersey to stay with my uncle Kunal and his family for the remaining days of our trip. Public transport from JFK Airport is a nightmare, and it took us absolutely ages to get into New York city to catch the bus to New Jersey.

We thought that the week we spent with my uncle would be nice and relaxing, but it turned out to be very hectic, but in a good way. We didn't arrive at his house until late on Friday night so we went pretty much straight to bed.

On Saturday, after a relaxing morning, we all went to the outdoor swimming pool for a few hours. My cousins, Rudra and Shreya (who are 10 and 8 respectively) have just learnt to swim, so they are busy trying to master breathing techniques. However, they are more interested in having races against each other, and swimming under water. We all had races, and I was the fastest, but unfortunately Kunal beat me in the underwater distance race. Still, you can't be best at everything :-)

On Sunday, I went with my aunt Jayeeta to a Hindu temple where she and others took turns to sing. It was very interesting and after some food we went to Eddison. This is an area with a lot of Indian shops where we bought some clothes and things. In the evening we watched a DVD and drank some wine.

On Monday, we stayed at home until Jayeeta came back from work and then we went to Six Flags New Jersey for a few hours. For those of you that don't know, Six Flags is a chain of theme parks across America. The one in New Jersey is 15 minutes from my uncle's house so very handy to get to. The weather wasn't looking great and we did get caught in a downpour, but luckily it was just a quick shower. We went on lots of rides and we took Rudra and Shreya on a wooden rollercoaster called Rolling Thunder, which Shreya was a bit scared to go on. Rudra was also brave because we took him on a roller coaster called Medusa, which is a floorless coaster. Luckily for us, both kids enjoyed themselves once they got over the initial fear factor! We also played some games and won a yellow tiger for Shreya and a white one for me, to go with my monkey from Cedar Point. Would be interesting going through customs anyway! On the way back from the park we stopped at the outlet mall and ended up buying some Nike trainers.

On Tuesday Graham and I went to New York (see separate entry) to do some sightseeing. On Wednesday we had a bit of adventure with the kids as we all went to the mall in the evening and my uncle was going to meet us there after he finished work. Unfortunately on the way his car broke down, so Jayeeta had to go and meet him, and we were supposed to get a taxi with the kids back to the house.

Well, we couldn't see any taxis or buses so the kids decided we would walk, which was fine by us. After getting a bit disorientated to start with, we finally found the correct road and set off. They don't really have pavements to walk on so we were walking on the grassy bank. We eventually made it back home, and we had a key so we thought we'd go in and have something to eat. Not so fast...

Jayeeta had given Graham the front door key, but for some reason the storm door in front of the front door was also locked so we couldn't get in. So we went next door to phone my uncle and aunt and then sat outside the porch waiting.

After all this everyone was still hungry so we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. The food was really good but I have forgotten the name of the restaurant!

Thursday we packed up and we were given a lift to a train station, to catch the train to Newark airport where we had seats reserved on the Airporter bus, that shuttles passengers between JFK and Newark airports. So our journey home began...or so we thought!
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