Author Topic: 2012 Spring, New England, USA  (Read 79708 times)

Offline chin

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Taft School
« Reply #30 on: 13 February 2012, 21:56:06 »
The front of the Taft School. Mr Taft was the brother of former US president William Taft.

In the summer, the tree in front must be very imposing.

Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #31 on: 13 February 2012, 22:09:36 »
The pictures from school visits are all posted. I will later post other pictures from this trip.

While I was traveling Massachusetts, Connecticut & New York in those few days, one of the local news was this public school was in such bad shape that the authority was planning to shut down one of the main buildings, and the parents were very concerned, etc... On the local TV, I can see that the public school building was really lack of maintenance, the toilets was not clean and need fixing, etc... In the news, that school building was to be shutdown for now, until they have the fund to repair and revert back to certain safety standard.

Yet there we were, visiting private schools that takes millions to build and maintain. Not only the buildings are safe and nice, the amenities like sport facilities rival those at many smaller universities, and small classes where one teacher take care of only a dozen or less students. For me coming from Hong Kong, the most impressive was that the teachers are career teachers who stays in one place and teach for many years, instead of school hopping looking for "better career" like many now teaching in international schools in Asia.

The increasing wealth gap is now a hot topic in the US as well as in HK. In our visit we just have another first hand experience of this wealth gap between well funded private schools vs poorly funded public schools featured in the local news. I am just glad that my kids do not have to go to the poorly funded public schools, that we have choices.
« Last Edit: 13 February 2012, 22:36:57 by chin »

Offline hangchoi

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #32 on: 13 February 2012, 22:31:37 »
These schools are very nice.......

So.....what is your choice, or your family's choice?
「吾心信其可行,則移山倒海之難,終有成功之日。吾心信其不可行,則反掌折枝之易,亦無收效之期也。」

Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #33 on: 13 February 2012, 22:35:38 »
These schools are very nice.......

So.....what is your choice, or your family's choice?

[hide]
It's more like my daughter's choice. I think for now her preference is Taft > Cushing > Choate.

In 2 months or so we will know if she would get accepted into which. Then she would decide to go or to stay in HK.

My wife & I prefer she goes to Taft.

One thing I noticed in all three school visits - that I was the most under-dressed father of a prospective student.
[/hide]

Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #34 on: 13 February 2012, 22:51:12 »
After the school visits, we stayed in New York City for 2 nights.

I have been to NYC a number of times, but always just for business meetings. This was about the first I came only as a tourist. So we did the proper tourist thing, like going to the Times Square, Central Park, see a Broadway show, etc...

Our hotel is right on top of the Time Square. This picture was taken on the first morning, and I opened my eyes to the New York skylines.

Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #35 on: 13 February 2012, 22:51:55 »
From my room looking down toward the east...

Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #36 on: 13 February 2012, 22:53:13 »
... and looking down toward the Times Square in the morning and in the evening.

Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #37 on: 13 February 2012, 22:57:04 »
The Times Square is very small (relative to its fame.) It's all surrounded by billboards. In the last picture is where you can get ticket to Broadway shows (the red structure can be seem from my hotel pictures above.)

Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #38 on: 13 February 2012, 23:02:38 »
This is my first time watching a Broadway show. My kids somehow liked the songs from the Wicked, so we booked the tickets before we went to the US.

I was very surprised that it cost so much (US$250+). Only after seeing the show did I realized that it's a very big business.


Offline chin

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Re: 2012 Spring, New England, USA
« Reply #39 on: 13 February 2012, 23:07:25 »
In Wikipedia, it's said that the Gershwin theater can sit almost 2000. When I was inside, I roughly figured that the show had more than 1000 audience. I think the cheapest ticket at list price is still more than US$100. So this Sat afternoon show should brought in more than US$150k. At 9 shows per week, the box office should be more than US$1m per week in this location alone! The total ticket sales should rival those big Hollywood movies.

Anyway, it was a good show to watch.