New York

Downtown

After travelling around 1200 miles (2000kms) we reached the costliest and time pass hotel of our journey. We booked this hotel, as it was near to Times Square as well as China Town. Hotel rent was 150$ for 2 Queen Beds. As soon as we powered on the TV, C grade movies started, which confirmed our hotel choice.

White House @ Madam Tussads

As we had to just rest for a while and head on towards Square, we didn’t mind any of these things. We were hell tired so everyone slept for some time, refreshed and then started looking for bus stop. We took bus 4.85$/person from South Hackensack to port authority and near to that we have times square. It’s better to take bus to avoid parking in downtown. Note that Times Square is @ 7th and 42^nd, but the cops closed the streets up to 57^th street when we reached and they kept on closing streets one by one to control people. We tried for some time to get as near as possible, but our crew was more worried about returning and wanted to see pub/dance bar. Hence we left before 2016 hits and tried for a dance bar. Unfortunately bar had strict policies for shoes and we didn’t had proper ones, so we were not allowed. In all this mess, it strikes 12 and we were not even able to see fireworks. Well then we tried for club and they were also closed. Still we call it as Happy New Year. It's all about being happy whatever the situation is. This bullshit is called as maturity.

View from Empire State

Next day we had a pre booked New York tour by Tours4fun.com. So we traveled by Uber cab after using first time referral discount from hotel to China Town. Tour girl (Vikki) took some amount from us to cover entry fee of the attractions. Our first attraction was Empire State Building, a 102-story skyscrapper and world's tallest building for at least 40 years. It;s name is derived from New York's nick name The Empire State. It gives a good view of Manhattan downtown from top. To know more and view a good video visit http://www.esbnyc.com/.

Deep Thinking

Our next stop was Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum-a Military and Maritime History Museum with a collection of Museum Ships. If you would like to see planes like F16, you should visit this place. Museum houses legendary aircraft carrier Intrepid, the space shuttle Enterprise, the world’s fastest jets and a guided missile submarine. USS Intrepid served tours of duty in World War II and the Vietnam War. Enterprise, the world’s first space shuttle that paved the way for America’s successful Space Shuttle Program. Also on display are 28 authentically restored aircraft, including the Lockheed A-12 Blackbird, the world’s fastest military jet and spy plane, and the British Airways Concorde, the fastest commercial aircraft to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean. Rounding out the Museum are the submarine Growler, the only American diesel-powered strategic missile submarine open to the public.

Wall Street

We took lot of time in Intrepid so Vikki was quite angry and decided to just drop us @ Madam Tussad's Wax Museum. Else we were supposed to spend sometime at Times Square and then to Madam. Anyways, they are close, so it's fine. Madam Tussad's wax museum was started from London and now has branches in major cities throughout the world. It is called as "wax museum" but not everywhere we have wax sculptures. Most of the sculptures in New York were plastic but their setup was bit realistic. Environment, background, colors, dresses, music combined made us feel like they are real and sometimes if a real person is statue for sometime, we may feel that its a sculpture. Strange feeling. we took lots of pictures with celebrities and moved on to last but not the least the famous Times Square. Last night, we were not able to witness what Times Square is, but today we saw all the big screens and madness of it. It's truly a light city. Then we walked towards port authority to catch a bus to New Jersey. I was hoping to get a good veggies instead of having something time pass. So I waited till our hotel and found nearby subway.

White House

We got a warm welcome @ Subway by a Spanish girl Merlyn. She greeted us with famous quote "Kya haal hai ?". I also replied with same enthusiasm "badiya, aap kaise hai". Since most of the shops, restaurants and hotels of New Jersey are owned/run by Indians, we get such greetings. A nice welcome increases taste and make us feel homely. Within 5 minutes of time span, we got mixed with the owner and Merlyn, hence took the photo.

New York Stock Exchange

Next we moved towards Baltimore, where we had our 2nd hotel booked.

Famous F16 @ Intrepid

Warm Welcome Restaurant

New Year Recipe

Today I am going to tell you how to prepare a New Year. Step by step procedure is as follows.

1.       Select a famous place. I chose world famous The Times Square.

2.       Make a trip plan. We made a trip to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.

3.       Put 4-5 people in a SUV. I chose few guys from office.

4.       Add snacks as per taste. Got lots of snacks to have it on the way.

5.       RIDE. We started directly from office.

It’s been long since I have traveled anywhere. There were multi reasons for that. I guess, I was laying low. Anyways travelling spree has returned, I am back. Ready to roll and rock the planet. I like travelling by road/rail as it gives us enough time to get away from the screened life plus it’s cheap. It would take 3-400 $ for flight to New York from Minnesota, hence we chose driving. My friend, have no doubts about driving in US. Yes, it is easy, but still takes guts to drive continuous for 20-24 hours.
Let’s get to point 1.

Of course Times Square

1.       Times Square

I heard a lot about the Times Square, but never got a chance to visit Light City New York. We had a long weekend and it was New Year’s Eve so I thought what could be better than to celebrate it on the world’s most exotic place. People from all over the world were there to witness 2016.

Crowd was so huge that cops were closing streets one by one. We stayed there for some time and then came back. Courtesy of my friends, that we didn’t saw the boll drop.

Road Trip Plan MN to NY

2.       Trip Plan

I was planning to visit New York, Niagra and DC. But the group didn’t wanted to see frozen Niagra, instead we included Philadelphia in our list. Car, Hotels and NY tour was pre booked.

Crew Members

3.       Put 3-5 people in a SUV

Our initial plan was to take a full size SUV as we had 5 people, but in the end one guy dropped. Hence we booked an intermediate SUV. We got Nissan Rogue. NOTE: if you are going interstate travels and know that those states will have tolls, it’s better to have an eazypass with you. It’s an electronic toll system. Toll charges will be automatically applied to that device as you pass from toll booths. No need to pay via coins anywhere. It’s easy, fast and convenient. Normally, they are active while taking car but it’s better to confirm.

4.       Snacks as per taste.

Since we were travelling like 20 hours-1200 miles (2000kms) one way. We added lots of snacks with us.

Nissan Rogue Intermediate SUV

5.       RIDE

The most exciting part of the recipe. We started from office around 3:30 and visited few rental offices again to confirm that easy pass is active and if we can get a all wheel drive instead of front wheel drive as those cars are better for long journey and snow travels. Unfortunately both didn’t worked out and we had to continue our journey without them. We stopped on the way just to fill gas and coffee. Our first halt was at Chicago where we picked the fourth guy. Finally our expedition towards New York started.

Keep Reading…

Happy New Year

Dear Readers,

Happy New Year 2015.

Every year, we take a resolution. This resolution continues for days, months in exceptional cases even a year. I am here to talk about the difficulties that we face in order to complete the resolution. It requires a change in the way we think, in the way we work. It requires a change in mindset. Once you change your mindset, then everything will change, then New Year will be actually new for you. Otherwise it is gonna be the same old you and same Year  with a diff date and it’s also possible that nothing is happy in that.

Now the question is How to change the Mindset?

Let me take an easy example: Diet

Many people take New Year resolution of joining a gym, which they continue for a month or 2 and then again take U turn towards their old life. You have to remove this U turn from your life. Don’t set a very big goal that may become un-achieve-able and you have to turn back. 80% people goes to gym in order to lose weight and among them 70% returns by gaining weight. Since they stop going after some time. So set a goal that you can achieve.

Here are few simple resolutions that you might like to take.

No need to take a resolution on yearly basis, set small goals. Say, take one of the below resolution for just a month and then continue if you can.

1.     Get Physical

Physical exercises doesn’t mean only going gym. Include some physical exercise in day to day life. Use stairs, clean your house, etc.

2.     Eat smarter and Simpler

If you are a bachelor and cooking yourself, eat healthy foods like capsicum, leafy vegetables, and turmeric. If you are married, go with whatever your partner prepares, try to have less selective. In case you belong to a foody city like me, it’s difficult but necessary.

3.     Connect with People

Throw off your digital screens in one corner, go out, mingle with your neighbors. Be a social animal, not a screen maniac. I tried to put this one into practice today, it was a failed experiment, but considering my location constraints it’s understandable. I live in US, here people don’t even know who their neighbor is. Strange but true fact. We should talk to stranger and make a new friend at least weekly or monthly. Sometimes, it can turn out funny.

I think with this very important note, we should take leave for the day and make a new friend today. Post below if you really find one.

Long Journey

The journey towards base location, towards my actual work place started late night @ 12. It was as usual, totally surprising, amazing. I understand Shit happens; just what I don’t understand is why it happens always with me. All sort of crazy things started right from the beginning of my journey.

I started my journey from home, picked a friend from janki nagar mandir, and confirmed another friend that we are coming to his location. When we were about to reach his house, we called him, his phone was unreachable. All (me, my friend, Dad, Driver) called him, but he was unreachable, and problem was that we had only single no. We reached his location (actually we didn’t know his house address, so we planned to meet at some point) and waited for half hour or more, trying again and again. After Long time I was able to call him; he came to specified location and told us that he has lot of luggage, so we moved to his place. He had so many luggages, that we had to sit in a very congested manner. Now we reached Bhopal at 4:30 am and got to know that our train is just 4 hours late. It was scheduled to reach Bpl at 5:30 am, but it again got late by 2 hours and reached at 12pm. It was a really a long journey from indore to Chennai. As per our schedule, we had to reach Chennai at 6:30 am and report office at 11pm. But we reach office at 4pm.

At that time, we had no idea whats going on, what we were doing, what will be the reaction of office people. We were late right on the first day of our job and that too not by 10-15 mins but by 5 hours. But we thought lets ready to face whatever happens there. We entered into office and greeted all the friends over there; they started congratulating us, saying that we have already got projects. I didn’t understand a thing whats going on, how can we get projects right on the first day and that after being 5 hours late. Soon we faced RMG (a group who allocates projects) who told us, that we had to meet some person on 1^{st floor} in Target. We reached there and knew it’s actually a project and soon after few minutes we faced an interview. Vow Vow Vow…. Everything was so fast, I didn’t understand a thing that was going on, I was just going with the flow. Sometimes it’s better not to think anything, but just go with the flow. After interview, interviewer relieved us and asked to report next day, 1^st Jan 2013. We hoped that maybe we can get holiday next day, so that we can settle down with new location, new room, new environment, but no. We started working right from the next day. It was all hectic, tensioning, but all was for our benefit only and quite enjoyable day. The Whole trip ended on a good note with project in my hand. That is what we call as ‘All well that ends well’.