expiration date 

for those of you who are worried (mom, dad), i’m ok. i just got home, and it’s 2:30pm, from getting stuck somewhere in Midtown Manhattan… due to the sickening terrorist-attack to the World Trade Center Towers (RIP) — and Pentagon. please pray for the victims. there are many of them.

around 20 minutes to 9, i saw the ‘first plane’ incident on the TV. i waited, didn’t go to work. around 9:20, after the second plane hits, i stupidly decided to go to work. i guess, since the TV peeps said that the subways are working, no interruption. at that time, the scale of the incident in my head is equivalent to a building on fire. not a full-scale terrorist attack.

then the train stopped on 49th street and didn’t move. so i got out, trying to go to the 1-9 train. i stood there for 5 minutes until they announced that due to the full terorrism alert, all trains are shut down, all bridges and tunnels are closed. the loud speaker keeps saying, “terrorism alert! terrorism alert!”, which was sooo bizarre to me. the loudspeaker also announced that the city is under quarantine. no one in the Manhattan is allowed to go out and the other way around. i got out of the station and saw people crying, i think they’re frustrated not knowing whether their friends/family who works in WTC are safe or not.

then i heard from some guy, who were also walking out of the train station, that the Pentagon was attacked too. now the scale of the incident is much bigger than i previously thought. i started thinking that we might be in a war…

it felt weird being by myself, stranded in the middle of Manhattan with sea of strangers, didn’t know where to go. cellphone didn’t work, there was huge line for payphones, none of the public transportation were working. i tried to think if this event is gonna go on, what is their next possible target in NYC. where should i head to? i didn’t know where to go. since all the ways to go back to Queens are closed, i decided to walk downtown, trying to reach the office, which is in the Tribeca.

once i get to Times Square, there were hundreds of people there, watching the news on three big TVs there. my knees went weak… i saw that both of the Twin Buildings have collapse (!!), and before collapsing, some of those ‘debris’ that fell out of the buildings are actually people… and that the planes that hits the buildings are hi-jacked, crashed along with the innocent passengers. it made me cried. i remember holding on to a “one way” sign pole, thinking “this is not real”, while trying to stand up as my legs turned spaghetti-ish.

so, i guessed going downtown isn’t a good idea. i started talking to this woman, named Rorie, who turned out that she also worked downtown and lives in Queens. so we both started our adventure to go back to Queens.

it was like a deja vu. i’ve seen this so many times in the movies. i feel like in a Godzilla movie, or Deep Impact… where the landmarks are being destroyed. but this time it’s real. although it feels unreal…

we decided to just walk to the 59th Street Bridge, hoping that somehow, they would allow people to walk accross. we stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat, and met some girls who earlier this morning was working in the WTC. they said that when the first plane hit the first building, they weren’t evacuated. but they decided to go downstairs to see what happen with the other building… then the second plane hit their office building.

i finally could go into the web service on my phone, and logged on to AIM. it’s been frustrating with the phone, since no one could even check their messages. so, i finally could communicated with ari (who’s at home) and gweld, in the office.

i haven’t seen that many people on the street. i think all buildings are evacuated by then, and all subways are shutdown. so instead of spreaded on buildings and underground, all the New Yorkers are on the street. almost every 30 seconds, there are ambulance running from downtown to uptown.

we tried to stop on every TVs available on the street to see what’s going on. right before we got to 59th Street, Rorie and i decided to go to the bathroom before walking along the bridge. so we stopped by a NYSC, who graciously allowed us to use their restroom. and they had 2 payphones! so i called ari, and he told me that the E, A and F train *just* started running. whew….

so, instead of walking on the bridge, we went to the nearest station and caught the train. it was hot and crowded. there were even fights between two guys in that crowded train.

i didn’t take that many photos, since the card was full already. take a look at gweld’s photos and cia’s site for pictures of downtown chaos.

i’m hoping this won’t spark war…. Manhattan skyline has changed forever.

later: for those of you who leave messages on my cellphone, i still can’t get it — and it’s 8:30PM already. i’ve given up. and happy birthday, scogin.