Journey.ca

Aqua Continental Hotel is just steps from the beach, just like most hotels here in Waikiki.

It has complimentary WiFi throughout hotel. Sometimes, WiFi broke in my room and I had to ask them to reconfigure the network. When the Internet broke at night, nobody could help me. But the WiFi in the lobby may still be working. So you can almost always get WiFi connection from somewhere in the hotel.

The safe-deposit box in the room is free to use. But if you lose the key, you’ll have to pay $100 to open it.

The room is clean. The TV has dozens of channels including Travel Channel, CNN, ABC and local news channels. Hair blower, iron and ironing board are all there in the room.

My room has pretty good view. If it wasn’t blocked by those high-rise buildings, I could get a better sea view from my room.

This is the bus stop where I wait for the bus No. 24 to the airport. The bus fare is $1.75.

Standing in front of an abandoned building, the bus shelter is also a homeless person’s “home”.

All bus drivers I saw in Buffalo were black. Most passengers on the bus were black too. The only few white passengers looked like homeless people. One guy even had his pants half down. I was the only Asian I saw in Buffalo during these days.

I thought maybe Buffalo is a black-dominated city. At the airport, most airport workers were black too. However, almost all passengers were white. I did see a few Asian faces. But I saw even less black passengers.

When I say black in this post, I mean African Black. I don’t remember seeing any South Asian people in Buffalo. While in Toronto airport, most workers there seem to be South Asian.

I bought my bus ticket from Coach Canada. The round-trip adult fare is $46.75 (open ticket, no tax, 15% refund fee).

Greyhound and Coach Canada almost always share the same bus terminal in every city. In Toronto, the bus terminal is Toronto Coach Terminal at 610 Bay Street.

Coach Canada’s website is http://www.coachcanada.com

Greyhound’s website is http://www.greyhound.ca/

I took subway to Dundas Station, then walked along the undergound PATH west to Toronto Coach Terminal. PATH is downtown Toronto’s underground walkway linking 27 kilometres of shopping, services and entertainment. Follow PATH and you’ll reach your downtown destination easily in weatherproof comfort.

PATH map and more info: http://www.toronto.ca/path/

St. Catharines bus terminal serves local buses and Greyhound buses.

Most passengers on my bus got off at this station.

Niagara Falls(ON) Bus Terminal. You can also find VIA rail station in this picture.

All restaurants I saw in Niagara Falls are Chinese-operated. They all have a Chinese name.

Peace Bridge links Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York

The bus waited for at least 10 minutes before parking at the Customs & Border Protection building. We then were asked to get off the bus along with all our belongings.

The immigration officer didn’t give me much trouble. But the customs officers were not so nice. They let anyone else pass without checking luggage but me. They checked everything in my bags and asked me countless questions.

One officer even went to the immigration office to get the immigration officer who let me pass previously. Then they both checked all my belongings once again. They just couldn’t believe one can travel so light to Hawaii. The immigration officer soon confirmed that his decision was right and went back to his office.

But one customs officer wouldn’t give up. “How much money do you have?” “$500″ “$500 for 8 days?” “I also have my credit card with me.” “You are gonna need it.” He searched my bags again and said, “You have as much here as in your wallet$^%^$@”

All he could find were vacation stuff, so he finally had to give up, “Okaaaaaaaaaaaay. You can go.”