Day Six & Seven : 21st 22nd March 2007

Again, stayed home most of these two days in Redbank, New Jersey.

Redbank, is a small town, an hours train journey from New York and not too far from the Newark airport, giving access to many other cities in USA. We decided to make this our base and travel to various other places in order to save the expenses of living in expensive hotels, which we could not hasve afforded.

Redbank had a very large population of Latinos or Hispanics ( Spanish speaking South Americans from Mexico etc). In the state schools here, they make up ninety percent of the student population. In a few years, it is expected that the population of Hispanics would overtake the population of the non-Hispanics. On a train journey to New York, all the passengers were Hispanics. Most of them stay in Redbank and work in New York, to save on rental accommodation and other expenses. However, accommodation in Redbank has also gone up in recent times.

The weather over is very pleasant, unlike when we landed here a week ago. All the ice and snow had melted away, leading a place that looks entirely different.

The houses are quite different over here. Almost all houses are double storied, probably to maximize floor space. Most houses are quite small and are white or pale coloured and looks very pretty, in neat rows. However, there are houses that are enormous and probably owned by rich business people.

The income for the town comes mainly from people working in New York, commuting daily from here. There are no industries or farming going on here. But, there are some huge shopping centers, with all the usual American businesses such as Borders (largest I have seen), Barnes and Noble, Macey’s, and Target.

On the whole the prices of goods are quite cheap here. Clothing is considerably cheaper here and so is all types of food items. But I don’t see a lot of shoppers or shopping going on. Probably the recession is affecting the shopping habits of people. The residents here are also complaining about the high rates and taxes that they have to pay. The cost of schooling (most preferring to send their kids to the better private schools) is also high. Some are also planning to migrate to cheaper states such as Maryland, because of the lower cost of living there.