Albany (3/28 - 3/31): Cold and SUNY

After Seattle it was off to Albany, New York.  Why Albany?  Well, my friend Jisue was over there attending the State University of New York (a.k.a. SUNY) as part of a Graduate School exchange program so I thought I would pop over and check out the scene.

Well, it turns out there is no "scene" in Albany.  So, you can save yourself the trouble of heading over there yourself.  Especially if you plan to fly Southwest.  3 planes (Seattle -> Chicago -> Baltimore -> Albany) to get there and an entire day (Leave around 10 a.m. -> arrive around 10 p.m.) of travelling.  It was a pretty long journey.

When I got there on the night of the 28th Jisue greeted me at the airport.  Unfortunately we weren't able to rent a car until the next day so I caught a cab to my motel and crashed for the night.  Turns out my motel is just a short distance from the residence apartments where Jisue lives.

Jisue's living room at her residence apartment

The next day we went back to pick up our nice Saturn SUV rental vehicle and then spent some time driving around a bit. The first thing we did was go to Burger King, an old favorite of ours.  It turns out there is one just a few blocks from her place, but she never knew it.  Kind of ironic since she would be heading back to Korea just a few weeks later.

Jisue standing in front of some snow, which is in front of the rental car

Jisue enjoys Burger King

We also did a bit of shopping and a couple errands.  I won't bore you with all the details of my time in Albany, but I will just give you some of the highlights.

Movies!

I finally got to go check out some of the movies I had been wanting to see in the U.S.  We watched "300", "Blades of Glory" and .... shoot.  I can't remember the other one.  It was a month ago, and apparently it wasn't super memorable. (Keep in mind I was pretty darn jet lagged too, so I think that affects memory.)

I have to say it was nice going to an American multiplex again.  Even stranger was going to one with so many Americans.  They're a different movie audience than folks in China. 

One of the highlights of the mall that the movie theater was in, is that there was a massage place run by a bunch of Chinese folks.  Well, one Chinese lady, really, who apprently brought over a bunch of people from Liaoning to work for her.  They seemed pretty nice though.  As we walked by, the guy who worked there tried to talk to Jisue in Chinese so I said in Mandarin "Oh, she doesn't speak Chinese. She's from Korea" to him.  I think it gave him a shock.

The other highlight of being in a mall was eating at a place like Johnny Rockets and getting some nice ice cream treats at Haagen Daaz.  Yes .. we have those sorts of places in Asia .. but you know .. there's just something nice about going to a typical American mall and partaking of typical American junk food.  It's gratifying in a way.

Jisue gets a massage

Jisue reading at Johnny Rockets

Downtown Albany

I also got to see downtown Albany for a bit.  I had to drop off Jisue for a class she had downtown and then explored around.  We also went to go eat Thai food at a restaurant.  Jisue LOVES Thai food and it was the first chance since coming to the U.S. that she's had to eat it.  (For some reason, there aren't many Thai restaurants in Seoul.)  I'm really going to have to show her some good ones here in Hong Kong if she ever visits.

We also spent some time walking around a park.  It was pretty big, but I have to say that it was a big drab looking.  It's probably because I had just missed major snow on the ground by only a couple weeks.  There were still some snow drifts here and there, but for the most part things had cleared up.

Jisue enjoys pushing little kids around

Jisue enjoys her Thai Ice Team

Some nice yellow curry!

Rock Climbing

Jisue had also really wanted to go Rock Climbing.  (The trend here is ... she got to do all those things that you can only do if you have a car handy.)  So we went to a local place and she got to climb up and down rock faces.  I was her "billet" person (sp?) so I got a decent workout too.  But my legs weren't quite up to a climb ... and I didn't think she really had the strength to billet me anyway.

While we were there some kid ended up taking a 20 foot fall and breaking his ankle.  It was kinda gruesome since I was standing just a few feet away from him.  It was a pretty loud thump on the ground.  I guess his friend wasn't paying attention when he wanted to repell down the wall.  Good thing they weren't horsing around in shop class or someone might have lost an eye.

The rock climbing facility

Jisue taking a picture of the rock climbing place

Not super flattering, but proof that she made it all the way up!

Upstate New York

We also took a drive up the highway for several hours.  It was on the day I was leaving, so we didn't have enough time to really go somewhere interesting like Niagra Falls or Connecticut, but it was nice to just check out the countryside.  Some of it was really beautiful.

The neatest thing is that we found a Korean / Japanese restaurant literally in the middle of a part of the world you would never, ever think there would be one.  Not only that, but the people who worked there were actually Korean and Japanese.  The sushi chef was Japanese and the cooking chef was Korean.  And it was run by a lady who was from Korea but spent 10 years in Japan.  She would speak to Jisue in Korean and me in Japanese.  It was pretty trippy.

Korean / Japanese restaurant sign

Jisue taking a picture of the restaurant

I also managed to get a litle work done while I was in Albany, but for the most part this was a fairly relaxing part of my trip.  On Saturday the 31st I headed out to Los Angeles. 

But, of course, that is for another blog ....

BTW .. this is PART 3 of my U.S. blogs.  Once I post up a new one I re-date the older ones to their correct dates so they show up in order on my blog.  So, it might confuse some people who forget that they just read about my previous two parts in the Bay Area and Seattle, but hopefully the confusion is dispelled and we are all on the same page.

And finally, here is a little video I made of us hanging out in a park ...