To the Falls: day one

Helena had the excellent idea to take a bus tour to Niagara Falls this weekend. She, Linds and I bought tickets for a steal, packed our backpacks, and left on our charter bus from Chinatown on Saturday morning.

Yep, Chinatown. So it should have come as little surprise to us that our tour guide, Jacky with-a-y Chan, said everything in English and Mandarin. Linds, Helena and I took over the back seat of the bus, and we could not help giggling at Jacky's creative use of English syntax. For example:

• Do you feel exciting?
  
• Who here wants upset?
• The Dutch people plant flowers. The other people come in, and they like to make the American dollar more than they like to plant flowers. This is why New Jersey look like this. (his Garden State explanation)
• How can you get safety?
• I cannot speak Spanish. Accept it, all right.
• My bracelet, it's tiger's eye. Very nice. Rawr.
  

We loved Jacky. And he acted like he loved us, but I'm 100% sure we worried him. For instance, our first stop was a boat tour at Thousand Islands. When we walked onto the boat, an older man named Charlie asked us where we were from. Once he heard we'd come all the way from Texas, he invited us into the captain's quarters on the third level. We spent the next hour with the captain, the boat guide, and Charlie, just talking and goofing off and getting the inside tour. The tour guide repeatedly turned off the mic and said, "That's not the real story. What actually happened is this..." The boat tour was gorgeous, and it was great to be on the water. When we loaded back onto the bus, Jacky asked us where we were for the whole tour...

"who is Uncle Sam?"
in the captain's quarters!

our friend Charlie

Helena and a castle

So. Jacky made a bus rule that if we were late coming back from breaks, we had to sing to the entire bus. Of course, the three of us were late coming back from dinner (we HAD to get chocolate). We gave a rendition of I'm A Little Teapot that went over surprisingly well - applause, cheering, video cameras, the whole bit. Our bus arrived at Niagara Falls after nightfall and we were able to stop by and see the falls all lit up:

We were then delivered to our not-so-shabby hotel and found ways to entertain ourselves before sleeping...

more to come!