{"id":15556,"date":"2024-03-18T21:17:07","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T01:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=15556"},"modified":"2024-03-19T19:24:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T23:24:28","slug":"visiting-detroit-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=15556","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Detroit, Michigan: 3\/21 (Thu) - 3\/25 (Mon)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since Nadia is away, what better opportunity to visit places I would go but not her. A quick search last week showed good airline deals for Louisiana and Detroit. I think I lost the Louisiana deal very quickly so it was only Detroit, for $85. But then jetcost.com took me to other agency that didn't seem to have much reputation, so my fingers were crossed. Detroit's also introduced by Scott's Cheap Flights (AKA Going)<\/a>, a periodic newsletter I received in my emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First it was cheapeticket.com, I calling (855-311-0044) to confirm my booking from jetcost.com. Nobody picked up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese areas<\/a> in Detroit: Troy, Madison Heights (Vietnamese), Novi (Japanese, also seems the safest<\/a>), Ann Arbor, Canton, and seemingly less popular one is Warren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some fun facts: Matt from church, who had lived in Ann Arbor, MI for a couple years, suggested me to visit the beautiful University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He also mentioned the fast way to cross the river border into Canada was something called the FAST Card<\/a>: Which is something specific to Canada & US only. Application's $50, takes 1-8 weeks to be approved conditionally, valid for 5 years (just like another Trusted Traveler Program called NEXUS), so really not for me as I'm not going to spend $50 every 5 years just for the sake of easy entry into Canada perhaps once every 2-3 years. Turns out there were 5 TTP<\/a> different prices from $50 to $122.25, all valid for 5 years. Some Credit Cards<\/a> offer to pay for your TTP but they also do come with high annual fee. For example<\/a>: Bank of America's Premium Rewards would pay for TSA PreCheck\/Global Entry, and like Travel Rewards card, it waved foreign transaction fees, but the card itself is $95 annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Detroit is now infamous for being the most dangerous city in the States, many seemed worry. But this is just like all the news you heard in NYC and California. I think most of them at church, with a few exception, were just being sissy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After booking the flight, I learned and set these as top priority from top to bottom:
Museums<\/strong>: Detroit Institute of Arts<\/a>, Henry Ford Museum
Sceneries<\/strong>: Detroit River, Belle Isle, crossing to Windsor, Canada.
Neighborhoods<\/strong>: Basically as many Asian ones as I could. The Japanese town Novi is rather far 2hrs bus, so I don't know about that, unless I take 24mins Uber. But I should at least visit University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Friday and Troy on Sunday church service, I am leaning towards selecting Chinese church, since there doesn't seem to be many reformed churches around.
Parks: Campus Martius Park (seems to be the major city park), Detroit Zoo? Sea Life Michigan Aquarium? (further than Troy from Downtown, I'll probably just pick the Zoo instead if I ever consider either)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided to ditch the idea of renting a car, seeing how high the crime rate in Detroit is these days. Yes, I can get paranoid too. Though Novi and Dearborn's crime rates are vast different. Therefore, no Grand Rapids tour this time. Even with Greyhound, it will take 4 hours one way (2 hrs with car) and the only good time to do this would be on Sunday, which I would have no way back to Detroit without a car for my Monday early morning flight. So, visiting my fellow URCNA and other Dutch Reformed buddies would have to be postponed. Am definitely still eager to go visit Calvin College and Joel Beeke's Heritage Reformed Congregation which also hosted Chinese Congregation under Rev. Simon Yin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For hotels, I decided to stay close to the airport the night I arrived (8pm) on Thursday: Howard Johnson By Wyndham Romulus Detroit Metro Airport $64.25\/night. Should be walking distance. The next hotel for two nights would be higher class, more secure in the middle of Detroit: The Gabriel Richard $294.10\/2 nights. And the last night (Sunday) I am still contemplating sleeping at the airport (I'll know when I arrive) or find another hotel near the Airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I should bring my drone, if it fits. Spirit Airline seems strict on their free personal item size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Nadia is away, what better opportunity to visit places I would go but not her. A quick search last week showed good airline deals for Louisiana and Detroit. I think I lost the Louisiana deal very quickly so it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15556"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15577,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556\/revisions\/15577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}