Niagara Fall

The mighty horseshoe Niagara Fall! We took the boat as shown in the pic down there and got ourselves all soaking wet. When we get really close, the fog and splashes were so intense that we can’t really opened our eyes. I heard that in certain seasons there’re less water and the boat will go behind the fall.

So it’s the time of Memorial Day Holiday weekend and we had our annual family trip. This time we go up to Ontario, Canada, mainly around the Niagara Fall area. My oh-so-well-thoughtout dad, instead of nonstop flight to Toronto, he made the ‘supposedly more convenient’ plan that lay out like this:

Arrival:
LA -> Chicago -> Buffalo (stay there for the night) -> drive across the border to Canada next morning.

Departure:
Drive from Canada to Buffalo -> Due to flight cancellation we had to fly all the way down to Atlanta -> LA

BIG MISTAKE! -___-;;; For those who traveled frequent in-land US flight know how unpredictable and stressful it gets…flights always get cancelled or delayed. At least flying straight to Canada you’d go through that only once and gets the better international in-flight service.

Alright after much distress we are at Buffalo, an utter rural sleepy town at New York with a bit of the ‘other half’ of Niagara Fall. It is so rural that, even the tourist area is so miserable and abandoned (should have snapped a photo). It’s filled with crappy street venders and lowbrow ‘fun center/haunted house’ type of entertainment. The highest grade hotel is Holiday Inn, that’s pretty telling. The only attraction is a pretty nice state park (which served as a pretty quiet morning walk) and a hot air balloon (and a crappy outlet mall). This pic is one of the only better limited sideview of the Bridal Veil Fall from the US side, the smaller of the 2-parts Niagara fall. As for the mighty Horseshoe Fall, you can’t see shit on US side because it’s completely blocked by fog and water splashes. They desperately tried to create more attractions for this inferior side, like all those tourist traps, IMAX, etc. and the dangerous walk-up-close soak fest at the bottom of the Bridal Veil (as seen on the stairways in this picture).

All the fun and scenic views are over at the Canada’s side. It’s way more commercial and crowded, and the environment is neatly paved and designed with flower beds — such a dramatic contrast from the dismal state of the US side. After couple walking up and down along the fall, there’s basically nothing much to see nor do for us. You can see the hot air balloon over at US side in the pic with Joan.

Are tulips official flowers for Ontario?

We stayed in the tallest hotel in that picture, facing the fall (the picture on the right is our window’s view). The hotels area there is very Las Vegas-sque…in fact our neighboring hotel is a casino. ^^;; The tall tower is Skylon Tower that we didn’t go, because our hotel room is even higher than the observation tower up there. ALL the restaurants in the area are ridiculously overpriced and the food are all BAD bland continental style.

What a joke! This supposedly ‘street-of-fun’ tourist attraction right next to the fall called Clifton Hill is a sad sad SAD Vegas-style replica of all cheese and cliche that is Hollywood Blvd. (which is like couple blocks away from my office…I travel all these distance to come upon this!!?? -__-;;;). They even have the so-called Star Walk-of-Fame on street. It’s as if this street is to re-create Hollywood to compensate Canana/East Coast people to get one, complete with the incredibly tacky stuffs like Wax-Museum, Ripley-Belief-it-or-Not, Frankinstein House…etc. It’s really beyond belief, I was in horrified awe when I walked admist this nightmare. What were they thinking when they built this faux Hollywood strip right next to the world famous natural phenonmenon? Worst, why do some people actually enjoyed it (without irony)?

Tags: Travel Report