St Patrick's Cathedral
Abhi in Central park
Friday, March 21, 2008
NYC Day 2
Jan 5th 2007
Again up at 11am, damn it .
Today's itinerary was the Guggenheim Museum and Central Park, Guggenheim was also part of the city pass attractions.
The weather was nice and sunny(so much for winter in NY and my snowy dreams),hence we decided to visit the park. The best part abut visiting NY was that we got free maps of the subway and the bus lines, which helps us to not take the trouble of printing out directions of how to get to a place. Of course we couldn't afford to rent a car then but then again ,we dint need to. The public transportation is excellent, the city is so well connected that I would recommend public transportation as the best way of getting around Manhattan.
Central park is serene, I forgot for a moment that Im in the middle of a bustling city. Its calm and peaceful. Its the one thing that I love about this country in general, the abundance of parks in cities, whether is San Francisco or New York, or even my house in San Jose( there is Japanese tea garden 15 minutes away from where I live, which is San Jose downtown) Its good to know that you don't have to go far to escape from all the craziness of a city. Coming back to central park, claiming that its huge would be an understatement.. its 2.6 X 0.5 mile rectangular area in Manhattan, so we decided to traverse the 0.5 mile distance. Guggenheim museum is on the border of Central Park East, hence we walked from the west side to east through the park. There are many attractions worth visiting in park and I would suggest at best taking half a day out to visiting central park (unlike us who spend half the day under the blankets).
Guggenheim, well interesting structure,...worth visiting for architecture buffs and people who like strange buildings ( i come in the latter category, i just like anything strange). There was an exhibition on Spanish painters, now me and Abhi have art appreciation sensibilities of an orangutan (at least when it comes to 19th century Spanish painters), but actually we enjoyed it and also learnt quite a bit. By the end of 2 hours we had formed our intelligent opinions and found our favorites (it helped that we took the audio guide along, which prevented us from staring at the paintings with a dumb look). My favorite was Zurbaran and call me an unworldly simpleton, but i just dint get Picasso's paintings. The museum has 4 levels,so roughly takes about 3 hours to view the place.
On our way home we came across St Patrick's Cathedral, magnificent place in midtown manhattan and easy to spot. It was ironic that I had remarked on our way out of the museum that I wanted to see the cathedral and we unknowingly walk right in front of it. One the places i will fondly remember, especially lighting a candle as an offering. Definitely worth a visit even for an atheist, trust me im one too.
will post pics in the next post,as this one turned out to be too long
Again up at 11am, damn it .
Today's itinerary was the Guggenheim Museum and Central Park, Guggenheim was also part of the city pass attractions.
The weather was nice and sunny(so much for winter in NY and my snowy dreams),hence we decided to visit the park. The best part abut visiting NY was that we got free maps of the subway and the bus lines, which helps us to not take the trouble of printing out directions of how to get to a place. Of course we couldn't afford to rent a car then but then again ,we dint need to. The public transportation is excellent, the city is so well connected that I would recommend public transportation as the best way of getting around Manhattan.
Central park is serene, I forgot for a moment that Im in the middle of a bustling city. Its calm and peaceful. Its the one thing that I love about this country in general, the abundance of parks in cities, whether is San Francisco or New York, or even my house in San Jose( there is Japanese tea garden 15 minutes away from where I live, which is San Jose downtown) Its good to know that you don't have to go far to escape from all the craziness of a city. Coming back to central park, claiming that its huge would be an understatement.. its 2.6 X 0.5 mile rectangular area in Manhattan, so we decided to traverse the 0.5 mile distance. Guggenheim museum is on the border of Central Park East, hence we walked from the west side to east through the park. There are many attractions worth visiting in park and I would suggest at best taking half a day out to visiting central park (unlike us who spend half the day under the blankets).
Guggenheim, well interesting structure,...worth visiting for architecture buffs and people who like strange buildings ( i come in the latter category, i just like anything strange). There was an exhibition on Spanish painters, now me and Abhi have art appreciation sensibilities of an orangutan (at least when it comes to 19th century Spanish painters), but actually we enjoyed it and also learnt quite a bit. By the end of 2 hours we had formed our intelligent opinions and found our favorites (it helped that we took the audio guide along, which prevented us from staring at the paintings with a dumb look). My favorite was Zurbaran and call me an unworldly simpleton, but i just dint get Picasso's paintings. The museum has 4 levels,so roughly takes about 3 hours to view the place.
On our way home we came across St Patrick's Cathedral, magnificent place in midtown manhattan and easy to spot. It was ironic that I had remarked on our way out of the museum that I wanted to see the cathedral and we unknowingly walk right in front of it. One the places i will fondly remember, especially lighting a candle as an offering. Definitely worth a visit even for an atheist, trust me im one too.
will post pics in the next post,as this one turned out to be too long
Thursday, March 20, 2008
NYC day 1
Got up at 12pm(technically it would have been 9 am in San Jose so Im up early)..so I had already lost half of my day in bed,had to salvage the rest of the day.
We had planned our trip in accordance with the city pass with which we got see 6 major attractions for about $65.
It was very convenient as we never had to wait in a queue at any place we visited which saved a lot of time. So 1st on our list was the Wax Museum.
Its a pretty famous New York attraction and anyone who visits in New York will definitely have loads of pictures of them posing with each and every wax statue on display( irrespective of the fact that you dont even know whose statue it is). Something about wax molded and shaped like a human being, brings out the craziest wackiest and not to mention lamest poses out of people. The wax museum has grown ups behave like kids in Disney land. This reaction is mind boggling, I mean we are talking about wax here, immobile, inanimate, static WAX!! and people are squealing "OMG look jennifer lopez, ooo brad pitt...and beyonce" (believe me that statue of beyonce looked nothing like her). But even though im being all sarcastic, its a fun place. There is an American Idol stage,where you can sing karaoke with a wax statue of Simon Cowell dissing your performance after you are done( I thought that was a nice touch). And in the end even i manage to let a scream out when i saw the statue of Ayrton Senna ( C'mon it was Ayrton Senna, the legend who i will never be able to see in person,you bet i screamed when i saw his statue). It takes about 3 hours to view all the displays (taking into account the time it requires to click pictures with most of them) so plan accordingly
Next we went to Times Square...and then I went blind
I mean blinded by the lights,.. the whole place feels like one gigantic trance club, with red and blue neon lights flashing around. But then the effect wears off quickly, at least it did for me. We walked around a bit and came across the Church of Scientology.
Now this is my pick for a place to go. People who criticize scientology should definitely pay a visit here, then you can criticize even more firmly about the insanity that is Scientology. This place is a striking proof of religion being born out of man's whimsical fantasies.The place looks less like a church and more like a HQ of a corporation , with videos and posters all over the wall about how to become a thetan and continue to through the various levels. I admire the imagination of Ron Hubbard, if he had made it into a book instead of a religion, it would have been a classic.
So the people from scientology gave us a warm welcome(must have thought they found fresh guinea pigs) ,they gave us a questionnaire of about 100+ questions which supposedly gauge our mental state. ( I was pronounced as chronically depressed, they failed to take into account that solving 100 questions after a whole day of traveling numbs a person's mind,..I had stopped reading the questions after no. 20 and ticked off the remaining answers randomly), I was asked to attend their future seminars( which are not free, don't u think paying for seminars will make me more glum) to help me get out of my so called blues. I politely listened to the guy's prognosis about me, in fact he was quite articulate and had got me believing him. It was only when you come out of the place and think through the whole process,that you realize how close you were to getting trapped. If i wasn't strong enough & sure about my own state of mind, or had been going through a rough patch, who knows I might be a thetan by now.
Church of Scientology - Enter at your own Risk. But i will still recommend it , its a different experience.
We had planned our trip in accordance with the city pass with which we got see 6 major attractions for about $65.
It was very convenient as we never had to wait in a queue at any place we visited which saved a lot of time. So 1st on our list was the Wax Museum.
Its a pretty famous New York attraction and anyone who visits in New York will definitely have loads of pictures of them posing with each and every wax statue on display( irrespective of the fact that you dont even know whose statue it is). Something about wax molded and shaped like a human being, brings out the craziest wackiest and not to mention lamest poses out of people. The wax museum has grown ups behave like kids in Disney land. This reaction is mind boggling, I mean we are talking about wax here, immobile, inanimate, static WAX!! and people are squealing "OMG look jennifer lopez, ooo brad pitt...and beyonce" (believe me that statue of beyonce looked nothing like her). But even though im being all sarcastic, its a fun place. There is an American Idol stage,where you can sing karaoke with a wax statue of Simon Cowell dissing your performance after you are done( I thought that was a nice touch). And in the end even i manage to let a scream out when i saw the statue of Ayrton Senna ( C'mon it was Ayrton Senna, the legend who i will never be able to see in person,you bet i screamed when i saw his statue). It takes about 3 hours to view all the displays (taking into account the time it requires to click pictures with most of them) so plan accordingly
Next we went to Times Square...and then I went blind
I mean blinded by the lights,.. the whole place feels like one gigantic trance club, with red and blue neon lights flashing around. But then the effect wears off quickly, at least it did for me. We walked around a bit and came across the Church of Scientology.
Now this is my pick for a place to go. People who criticize scientology should definitely pay a visit here, then you can criticize even more firmly about the insanity that is Scientology. This place is a striking proof of religion being born out of man's whimsical fantasies.The place looks less like a church and more like a HQ of a corporation , with videos and posters all over the wall about how to become a thetan and continue to through the various levels. I admire the imagination of Ron Hubbard, if he had made it into a book instead of a religion, it would have been a classic.
So the people from scientology gave us a warm welcome(must have thought they found fresh guinea pigs) ,they gave us a questionnaire of about 100+ questions which supposedly gauge our mental state. ( I was pronounced as chronically depressed, they failed to take into account that solving 100 questions after a whole day of traveling numbs a person's mind,..I had stopped reading the questions after no. 20 and ticked off the remaining answers randomly), I was asked to attend their future seminars( which are not free, don't u think paying for seminars will make me more glum) to help me get out of my so called blues. I politely listened to the guy's prognosis about me, in fact he was quite articulate and had got me believing him. It was only when you come out of the place and think through the whole process,that you realize how close you were to getting trapped. If i wasn't strong enough & sure about my own state of mind, or had been going through a rough patch, who knows I might be a thetan by now.
Church of Scientology - Enter at your own Risk. But i will still recommend it , its a different experience.
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