Day Trip to Niagara Falls on July 16th, 2016

For the four weeks of summer workshop here at Cornell University, the organizers arranged a day-trip to Niagara Falls on the first Saturday, hoping that we get to know each other. For them, booking the bus to/from Niagara Falls was all their job.

The images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.

Then since the workshop consists of all but one Chinese students, the majority of whom come from Shanghai JiaoTong University (SJTU), the two teachers from SJTU that came along with the students volunteered to be everyone’s moms tour guides, sending emails about the itineraries, collecting money and so on.
While they are not professional tour guides, they managed to do a very good job. They picked the best two attractions of Niagara Falls given our rather short stay at Niagara Falls, and brought everyone back safe and sound. However, I was just not very sure about the way they govern the students. Diving students into multiple groups, with group leaders serving the sole purpose of head counting sounds like an easy solution of keep track of everyone, and it did. But with dozens of head counts during the day, I didn’t think we were that far from the hand-in-hand, walk-in-line #KindergartenFieldTrip.
Originally, we were told to gather at 8:15 where the bus would leave at 8:30. To me, this is just a subtle way of saying"gather at 8:30 but don’t be any later than that", or"SJTU students gather at 8:15, anyone else before max{8:30, when SJTU decides to leave}". So when I comfortably took the elevator down at 8:26, for a moment I really didn’t know how to react or what to say when some SJTU students were coming back saying their teachers"mandated"they change on their"class uniform T-shirt". I recalled"class uniforms"in Tsinghua were really disposable objects, that when something really big and really important took place (and the students’ requests based on whatever reasons they made up for a leave were rejected to show solemnity of such events), they gave us new uniforms to wear, partly because they could afford the new cloths for the importance of such events, partly because such events were so infrequent that nobody can find their old uniforms buried somewhere in their closets, if not trash bins. You know I could write a GRE essay about School Uniforms: Freedom VS Conformity. But since I’m on the land of the free, in short I stand for #Freedom.

So that’s enough for the beginning of a post lauding the wonders of nature.

In typical Chinese punctuality, the bus departed at exactly 8:38 in the morning.

The first part of the bus ride was New York state route 89 winding around Lake Cayuga, with lovely scenes of farmland, ranches, forests and of course, Lake Cayuga.

Then it was I90, no forests, no valleys, with farmlands almost all along the way.

I slightly adjusted white balance for shots on Grand Island Bridges, both here and later in the return trip. I seemed the bus windows would add a certain tune to the color, from which I tried to recover.

We encountered some traffic jam on the last mile of our bus ride. I guessed that’s due to roadwork in Niagara Falls, New York which slowed traffic down.

Having gotten off the bus, we were herded by two SJTU teachers into this visitor center (or mall shall I call it). It’s a wise decision, as it had a floor full of fast-food restaurants. I must say catering for a busful of people wasn’t easy.

Such a lunch of burgers, fries and soda cost me 16.11 USD including tax and tips. It’s very American, in its style of"meat with no veges"(which I really didn’t like), in its pricing based strictly on demand rather than cost.

After lunch, we headed for the Cave of the Winds, where sandals are free and mandatory, which could be later worn at Maid of the Mist cruises (great piece of advice from SJTU teachers).

Then it’s Cave of the Winds. Since this is some sort of (government-run) state park with education in front of profits, we managed to get 9USD education group ticket, which was quite a discount from normal adult prices.
Since Cave of the Winds transported its visitors down to the canyons with only two elevators, it was quite a long wait.
By the way, as a major attraction, Niagara Falls is not short of Pokémon shops. However, it seemed my carrier T-Mobile was overwhelming cautious about not allowing its users to connect to Canadian networks by accident, during the long wait at Cave of the Winds (and later at Maid of the Mist), I didn’t get any mobile signal. So I was basically standing there among the Pokémon shops, unable to do anything.
However, there’s a gull preservation site nearby (Thank Pokémon Go for that information). So thanks to T-Mobile for its mobile coverage (or the absence of it), I got some great shots of sea gulls flying by.

After quite a long wait, we got down to the canyon. There’s free yellow raincoats available at the elevator exits.

At Cave of the Winds, there’s actually no cave (there used to be, obliterated in a massive 1954 rockfall though). What it has to offer was those reddish passageways leading very close to the water.

That’s the end of Cave of the Winds experience. There’s an island nearby (Luna Island) that stands in the Niagara River overlooking the passages of Cave of the Winds. Since I travelled in a group and the teachers wanted us to be easily summonable, I didn’t went there. From the following photos, it seemed that Luna Island is somewhere nearly as close to the waters as Cave of the Winds, with the convenience of not getting drenched, and it’s free (I guess).

After multiple head counts and having made sure everyone’s present, the teachers led us to Maid of the Mist cruises.

Then it’s Maid of the Mist cruises. Since this is in essence a private company, group tickets weren’t that much cheaper. The experience of being overwhelmed by water is still worth the money, I shall say.
It was a more boring long wait, without internet (and thus Pokémons), even the gulls didn’t bother to fly this high.

Then it’s the boat ride of Maid of the Mist.
I found that the photos from my cell phone looked a lot better when I photoshopped them a little bit, especially the waters.

That’s the end of Maid of the Mist cruises.
At around 20 minutes, the cruise was actually quite short. But the experience of getting close to the waterfalls and pounded by falling waters was phenomenal.
By the way, I was pretty sure that with water all in the air, my camera won’t survive this ride. So when the boat was really close to the waterfalls, (and also in Cave of the Winds when I was really close to the waters), I took photos with my cell phone. Even so, there’s water all over my cell phone. So I was quite relieved that my cell phone survived the day, as I heard rumors that some of the cell phones were so splashed during the tour that they won’t boot again.

We left Ithaca at half past eight, arrived at Niagara Falls just before 12. Our original plan was to get on the return trip at 6 in the afternoon. However, with all the queues and the relative low efficiency of group traveling, we had the bus driver waiting until half past 6 before returning to Ithaca.

So it’s near sunset, and the setting sun was casting beautiful sparkles on the Niagara River.

Halfway later, it was really sunset, and the sun was casting a spectacular golden shade on top of everything, trees in particular.

Then we turned onto New York State Route 89, when the sun had set behind the hills, leaving fiery clouds in the sky, as I ended the day with some wonderful shots.

END