During one of the days on my trip to the East Coast, I went together with my friends to American Dream, the second largest shopping mall in the United States.
Because of my abnormal sleep schedule, I wasn’t able to wake up in time to carpool together with them from Burlington County to Bergen County, so I drove over on my own after I was ready to start my day. My GPS directed me to the Pearl Lot, so I parked there and started making my way to where my friends were, taking some photographs along the way.
They were playing Angry Birds Mini Golf, so I joined them and helped them capture footage of their gameplay for a video.
After finishing all 18 holes, we headed back out into the mall.
Our next activity was the Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park. It had an eerie vibe to it, which was probably attributed to the fact that there were not very many people there and a lot of the rides were out of service. My friends also apparently had some issues with management because their filming permit for American Dream allegedly does not extend to the theme park due to it being a separate and independent entity from the mall.
After a fairly underwhelming theme park experience, we headed back out into the mall once again to walk to our next destination.
Apparently American Dream has the one and only physical Mr. Beast Burger location, and my friends wanted to make a video of them trying every item on the menu.
I ordered a Nashville hot chicken tender sandwich for myself. The lettuce was shriveled, the pickles lacked juice, and the bun resembled a bun you’d find on the clearance shelf at your local grocery store because it is about to expire at the end of the day. With that being said, the chicken itself was unexpectedly passable. I probably would’ve actually enjoyed this meal if it was just served as standalone chicken tenders instead.
There was one final thing my friends wanted to see before the end of the day, so we headed back out into the mall.
My friends are video game YouTubers, so they wanted to see the Minecraft installation and take a picture in front of this tall, angry-looking shrub.
After a long day of filming and exploration, we parted ways and I headed back to the Pearl Lot on the opposite side of the mall to return to my rental vehicle, again, taking more photographs of interesting things along the way.
American Dream was strange. Maybe it was because we were there during the daytime on a weekday, and maybe it’s because I’m just used to stores back at home on the Las Vegas Strip always being pretty busy all the time, but American Dream felt way too empty compared to its size.
I’m currently in the New Jersey suburbs east of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania traveling together with some friends. I’ve been to both Pennsylvania and New Jersey before, but Delaware, which is fairly nearby, was one of the handful of states that I still had not visited. Because of my proximity to being able to check off another state from my goal of eventually visiting all 50, I decided to split from my group for a day to drive down south and be a tourist in Wilmington.
While in Wilmington, I decided to visit the Nemours Estate, composed of a mansion, garage, and garden.
Being a resident of Las Vegas and having spent a majority of the past few months in either Pacific or Mountain Standard/Daylight Time, heading all the way over to New Jersey was a bit of a time zone jump. To make things worse, the day I decided to visit Delaware was my first full day in Eastern Daylight Time, so I hadn’t had an opportunity to adjust. On top of that, I have already been falling asleep pretty late while in Pacific Time, so my late-riser status was amplified even more. Needless to say, I had a fairly late start on my Delaware day.
After a one-hour drive from Burlington County in the New Jersey suburbs, I arrived at Nemours Estate at approximately 2:00 PM EDT. It was later than I had hoped, but I figured that was still enough time—I would have two and a half hours to explore the mansion and garage before they closed at 4:30 PM EDT, then an extra half hour to walk around the garden before it closed at 5:00 PM EDT.
Nemours Estate is wildly overstaffed. The mansion allegedly had 77 rooms, and I am fairly certain that at least 1 in 3 rooms had a staff member inside. This is great if you have a genuine interest in the backstory and lore of the mansion, but if you just got there at 2:00 PM and want to see everything before the premises close, you tend to be less excited to have an impromptu ten-minute guided tour in every third room. Either way, these staff members seemed genuinely passionate about sharing their knowledge of the history of the mansion with me and reciting a circularly-repeating version of the information that was already printed on the informational placards, so I decided to be nice and entertained their conversation.
The mansion has three floors (let alone the off-site garage), and by the time that I had finally finished working my way through the ground floor and talking with everyone, it was past 3:30 PM. I still had the upper floor, basement, and garage to get through, so for the remaining two floors, I aggressively went out of my way to avoid eye contact with any staff members so that I could see everything and take all the photographs I wanted without getting stunlocked in discussion. It got so bad that I was planning on just pretending that I didn’t know how to speak English, but I decided against it because I felt like I would just be easily exposed by the fact that I was standing in front of and reading all the plaques.
Strangely, starting from about 4:00 PM, the staff members started thanking me for visiting, as if they were implying that it was time for me to leave. I disregarded their confusing actions because I knew that I still had until 4:30 PM as per the hours posted on their website and at the ticketing office, so I resumed my tour, and at 4:15 PM, I left the mansion and started walking towards the garage.
The instant I stepped into the garage, an old man briskly walked towards me saying that he is closing soon. I replied “ok,” checked my watch to confirm that it was not past 4:30 PM, then started looking at the vintage cars. When he realized that I was not leaving, he started anxiously following me around, saying that he is closing the garage and repeatedly announcing that I had to exit the building. When I clarified with him that the garage closes at 4:30 PM, he proudly bellowed “that’s right!” I checked the time again, but for the sake of not causing this old man to have a ruptured aneurysm, I chose to peacefully leave at 4:24 PM.
I was taking a refreshingly brisk walk around the garden, but at 4:48 PM, a security guard began approaching me. He said that it was time for me to wrap up and start heading back to the gate. When I mentioned that I still had the northwestern corner of the garden to get through and let him know that I was going to take a look at that first before leaving, he said that he had to respectfully stop me from doing that because he had been tasked with clearing out the grounds. I started walking towards the exit and was off-property by 4:52 PM.
The portions of the Nemours Estate I was actually able to see were fine, but I think I would have had a much more pleasant experience if I wasn’t constantly interrupted by staff members or asked to leave early. If their closing time represents a time at which all the staff members have finished clearing and securing the premises, then they should publish their closing times as 4:15 PM for the buildings and 4:45 PM for the garden, not 4:30 PM and 5:00 PM. The security guard was calm and professional when asking me to leave, but the guy overseeing the garage definitely needs to settle down if he doesn’t want to die of a sudden stroke from yelling angrily at a customer.
Here are some photographs I took in and around the mansion, garage, and garden:
After I went for a hike around Papago Park during my trip to Phoenix, Arizona, I continued walking about a mile north that same day through the desert and along the Galvin Bikeway to check out the Desert Botanical Garden.
I intentionally timed my visit to start at twilight and continue past sunset because I saw that they have a special exhibit called LIGHT BLOOM by HYBYCOZO until the end of March, and I figured it would be best viewed when dark. That was a wise decision—this meant that I was able to check out the desert vegetation and scenery, then stay for when the geometric light installations came on and cast intricate shapes across the ground.
I paid US$32.95 for general admission, which I thought was comparatively reasonable considering the size of the botanical garden, density of plant volume, and number of unique elements.
I’ve done a lot of traveling over the past handful of years, and I’m creeping ever closer to “I’ve seen it all” territory, at least in the United States. To be clear, I’m not actually close to having seen it all, but I have reached a point where a lot of tourist hotspots feel redundant because I have most likely already visited a variant of it in a different location.
Because of this, when I travel now, I go out of my way to make sure to explore spots that are unique to that location. For example, if I’m going to an area with particularly beautiful scenery, I will make sure to go on as many hikes as possible, as opposed to going to a national history museum that doesn’t have a local twist to it.
I’ve been following this approach for my trip in Phoenix, Arizona by seeking out tourist attractions related to Native tribes, which are heavily concentrated in the Arizona and New Mexico area. I checked out the S’eḏav Va’aki Museum, formerly known as the Pueblo Grande Museum, over in eastern Phoenix by Sky Harbor International Airport. I haven’t had many opportunities to explore a museum like this, so this was a unique experience for me.
The S’eḏav Va’aki Museum had three components to it: the main exhibits, the seasonal/rotating exhibits, and an outdoor exhibit. One of the rotating exhibits during my visit was a section about the old Pueblo Grande name and how the museum collaborated with the O’odham to come up with a new name that was more fitting for the relics, artifacts, stories, and teachings contained in the museum. I particularly liked the outdoor trails, which wound around some replica structures that visually demonstrated what life was like for the Natives.
Below are some photographs I took around the Museum:
I usually get my work done during the evening and night, but sometimes, there are some unavoidable midday meetings I have to attend that overlap with when I usually go out to be a tourist. When that happens, I still try to squeeze in a quick activity afterwards, which was the case for when I went to the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix on a work day shortly before sunset.
As you can probably guess from the name, the Japanese Friendship Garden is a curated outdoor garden themed around elements traditional to Japanese culture. It’s located on the northern side of downtown Phoenix—situated north of the Portland Parkway Park, just south of Margaret T. Hance Park, and above Interstate 10.
I’ve been to a lot of amazing botanical gardens before, so I don’t know if my perception is a bit skewed at this point because of that, but I thought the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix was a bit underwhelming. It was definitely a nice garden, but it felt small, and it had some areas that appeared to not be fully maintained and manicured. I think a notable element of this Garden is the fact that it is basically an oasis in the middle of Phoenix, a city surrounded by the Sonoran Desert, and because it serves as a reprieve from the otherwise bustling downtown area.
Here are some photographs I captured:
There was a building in the eastern rear section of the Garden that was gated off. My guess is that the tea tours take place in that building, but that is a separate scheduled event, so I was only able to take a look at the exterior.
The building containing the bathrooms was also themed accordingly, both in architecture as well as the decorations adorning and surrounding it.
Near the gift shop, there was a small collection of bonsai trees.
This is the entrance to the Garden. It is gated off in the photograph because I was there right up until closing time.
After you purchase admission, the staff gives you a bright neon sticker to wear on your shirt to indicate that you are a paid visitor. I deposited mine into the trash can on my way out of the building, but apparently some people decided to use theirs to decorate the bike rack in the parking lot instead.
The Garden had some interesting rules. There is a wide open grassy field near the pond, but apparently the grass is off limits; I was sitting on the grass while I was responding to some time-sensitive messages on my phone so that I would be out of the way of the pedestrian footpath, but a staff member promptly approached me saying that I was not permitted to be on the grass. There were also some stepping stones installed alongside a concrete path that I used to get a better angle for some photographs, but I was once again approached by a staff member to be informed that I was not allowed to step on the stepping stones.
Otherwise, checking out the Garden was a nice way to go for a walk and get some fresh air. My general admission ticket was US$14.00, and I spent about an hour and a half there (though if you only want to do one loop around the path, you could potentially be able to see everything in about half an hour).
After exploring the three different buildings composing the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, I walked across the street to the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, a park dedicated to housing various monuments and memorials honoring heroes, wars, and other events of historical significance.
Here are some photographs I snapped throughout the Plaza:
