Globe Trotter - New York

My mom is in the US these days. And I am taking this opportunity to show her around a few places nearby. A few days back, I took her to a 2 day trip to New York City.

New York City probably contains the highest number of tourist hotspots within the confines of a single city. Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park, Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center, United Nations, Brooklyn Bridge, China Town, World Trade Center, Wall Street, NYSE, The Charging Bull.. the list is endless. I wanted to cover as many of them as possible. While planning for the trip, I considered two options to achieve this goal –

1. Take a guided tour that would take us to all major tourist spots in the city, or

2. Plan to visit all major tourist spots by ourselves, using the New York Subway.

As I had worked in New York earlier, and was familiar with the New York subway (which by the way, is probably one of the most dense and complicated in the world), I decided to opt for the second option. The fact that this option gave me the added thrill of doing a classic tourist road trip; trying to find my way around a city with multiple maps and train schedules in hand, made the decision a no brainer.

But I also needed to make sure that I don’t goof up anywhere, since the last thing I wanted was to get stranded in the middle of NYC, with my mom around. Hence I chalked up this detailed plan for the trip with the help of Google Maps and train schedules from mta.info. After doing this, I realized that my plan could serve as a template for anyone planning a 2 day trip to NYC in the same way as me. I am posting my plan here. Hope it helps a future tourist in the Big Apple, who wants to visit the same landmarks as me. They can pick the elements from this plan that are relevant to their trip, and customize the rest.

Note that the plan includes to and fro travel from Boston to New York (4 hours by bus). The starting location in New York was Chinatown. Anyone travelling from other cities or starting locations needs to make the necessary updates. I have not included the times next to many of the entries, as the time taken at a point of interest may vary greatly. But if one does not plan to spent an extraordinarily long time at one place, one should be able to cover all the locations included in a day's plan.

Detailed schedules for all subway trains mentioned below are given here.

Day 1 -

Time	City	Activity
6:38 AM	Boston	Leave for South Station by Commuter Rail
7:19 AM	Boston	Reach South Station
8:00 AM	Boston	Take GoToBus to New York
1:00 PM	New York	Get off at Chinatown, New York
	New York	Walk to Grand Street Metro Station (5 Min)
	New York	Take Subway - B - Direction: 145th St Station OR D - Direction: 205th St - Norwood Station
	New York	Get off at 34th St - Herald Sq Station (7 min)
	New York	Walk to Empire State Building (3 min)
	New York	Walk back to 34th St - Herald Sq Station (3 min)
	New York	Take Subway - N - Direction: Astoria-Ditmars Blvd Station OR R Direction: 71st Ave - Forest Hills Station OR W Direction: Astoria-Ditmars Blvd Station
	New York	Get off at Times Sq - 42nd St Station
	New York	Walk to Times Square
	New York	Walk back to Times Sq - 42nd St Station
	New York	Take Subway - 1 - Direction: 242nd St - Van Cortlandt Park Station
	New York	Get off at 59th St - Columbus Circle Station
	New York	Walk to Central Park
	New York	Walk to 59th St - Columbus Circle Station
	New York	Take Subway - 1 to South Ferry Station
	New York	Get off at Times Sq - 42nd St Station
	New York	Take Subway - S to Grand Central - 42nd St Station
	New York	Get off at Grand Central - 42nd St Station
	New York	Walk to United Nations
	New York	Walk back to Grand Central - 42nd St Station
	New York	Take Subway - 4 - Direction: Utica Ave - Crown Heights Station
	New York	Get off at Fulton St Station
	New York	Walk to World Trade Center
	New York	Take Path to Hoboken
	Jersey City	Get off at Pavonia/Newport
	Jersey City	Walk to Hotel

Day 2 -

Time	City	Activity
6:45 AM	Jersey City	Walk to Pavonia/Newport
7:07 AM 7:17 AM 7.27 AM	Jersey City	Take Path WTC Station to Hoboken - Direction: To WTC (7 min)
7:14 AM 7:24 AM 7.34 AM	New York	Get off at WTC
	New York	Walk to New York Stock Exchange
8:00 AM	New York	Walk to Battery Park
8:30 AM	New York	Take Ferry to Liberty Island
9:00 AM	New York	Get off at Liberty Island
10:15 AM	New York	Take Ferry to Ellis Island
10:30 AM	New York	Get off at Ellis Island
12:05 AM	New York	Take Ferry back to Battery Park
12:45 PM	New York	Walk to Charging Bull
1:00 PM	New York	Walk to Bowling Green Station
1:02 PM	New York	Take Subway - 5 - to Dyre Ave - Eastchester Station
1:07 PM	New York	Get off at Brooklyn Bridge - City Hall Station
1:30 PM	New York	Walk to Brooklyn Bridge
2:00 PM	New York	Walk back to Brooklyn Bridge - City Hall Station
2:02 PM	New York	Take Subway - 6 - to Pelham Bay Park Station
2:05 PM	New York	Get off at Canal Street
3:00 PM	New York	Walk to 55 Christie Street and take GoToBus
	Boston	Reach South Station
	Boston	Take Commuter Rail back home

Contest to find a symbol for the Indian Rupee - Our entry

News about the Indian rupee getting a new symbol is all over the place these days. The results of the contest held by the Govt. of India for finding a symbol for the Indian Rupee (INR) have been announced recently. The contest invited ideas from across the country, and had the following selection criteria –

1. The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country.

2. The symbol should be applicable to standard keyboard. The symbol has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation.

3. The symbol should be original work of the participant and must not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party.

Here is the winning entry.

Some people have voiced their dislike for this design. I personally find the design quite good. It is interesting to note that all 5 designs that made it to the finals were very similar; each using the Devnagiri letter (ra), with a bar being placed at various places around it.

Nikhil and I participated in this contest and sent a couple of ideas from our side. We are sharing these along with the rationale that we had proposed. We would love to know how you rate our designs, as against the design that finally won.

Design 1 –

Capital I in Verdana font, with a horizontal bar bisecting it.

Rationale for design 1–

1. Capital “I” represents India and INR. It also represents the vertical Ashoka pillar.

2. The additional bar in middle creates 3 horizontal bars in total, representing 3 strips in our flag (and hence representing all that the Indian national flag stands for)

3. This is a most simplistic design that can be drawn by anyone by hand easily

4. The simplicity of design represents the principles of “single living, high thinking” propagated by our founding fathers like Mahatma Gandhi.

Design 2 -

Capital I in Times New Roman font, followed by R in Mangal font.

Rationale for design 2 –

1. Capital “I” represents India

2. R in Mangal font represents “Rupee” in Devanagari. It also represents Indian culture

3. The combined symbol created English R that stands for rupee

Globe Trotter - Niagara

4th July (US Independence Day) is probably the 3rd biggest holiday weekend in the US after Christmas and Thanks Giving. The fact that it falls bang in the middle of summer (and summer vacations for kids) is the biggest incentive for most people to venture out of their homes and take a holiday.

This 4th of July, I decided to visit Niagara Falls. As a general rule of holidaying, I always try to avoid crowed places and crowded times of the year as much as possible. I feel it takes the fun and relaxation out of the holiday to a great extent. But I decided to make an exception this time, as I was looking forward to the special Independence Day fireworks on show.

Niagara Falls in the US is in a way like Taj Mahal of India, in that it is probably more popular among foreigners than natives of the country. Just like on any visit to the Taj, one is bound to find as many non-Indians (read whites) as Indians themselves; any visit to Niagara Falls will in all probability result in one finding as many non-Americans (read “desi”s) as Americans themselves. It was interesting to hear that a majority of Americans in my office had never seen Niagara, whereas each and every “desi” I knew had been there multiple times. I guess most natives prefer beaches during summer; whereas a sun-tan is not what most brown people would greatly appreciate :-)

Niagara’s accessibility from the population hubs of the east coast (Boston, New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C.) as well as the central / mid west region (Chicago, St. Louis etc.) is an added incentive for a “desi” day out. Hence I was not surprised to find that a vast majority of tourists encountered on the trip to be from our country. Summer is the time when most Indians working in US get their parents to visit them. Hence vast numbers of the elderly were also spotted in the mix.

They say, if you stand long enough at Times Square in New York City, you can meet someone from every country in the world. From all the stories I had heard from my friends who had gone to Niagara on 4th of July weekend, I had come up with a similar theory myself. If a “desi” visits Niagara Falls on the 4th of July weekend, he is bound to meet another “desi” he knew. I was looking forward to testing this theory of mine in this trip. And as it turned out, it passed the practical test with flying colors. I happened to meet not one, but 3 acquaintances; an old school mate, a B-school junior turned office colleague, and a client representative. And I am sure there were a few other people around that I knew, whom I did not notice in the crowd.

The over abundance of “desi”s has also started to have its effects on the staff working in the Niagara Falls. Some of them have picked up Hindi words like “neeche” (down) and “upar” (up) for guiding the tourists along. I won’t be surprised if I hear a word or two in Tegulu next time, given that the biggest chunk of Indians in US are from Andhra, and by some margin as well.

Globe Trotter - Orlando

Florida had been on my travel map for quite some time now. It was one of the last major tourist hotspots I had not covered in the US. So, when I was asked to travel to Orlando for a series of business meetings, I grabbed the chance with both hands.

The meetings were scheduled from Wednesday to Friday. I decided to stay over the weekend as well to satisfy my tourism bug. Out of the plethora of tourist options available, I picked the Kennedy Space Center and Sea World as my destinations.

Having had a keen interest in astronomy from childhood, and followed space programs of various countries for years, a chance to visit NASA was like an offer for a kid to a candy shop. Cape Canaveral is 50 miles from Orlando. I found a tourist shuttle to take me there early in the morning. We reached Cape Canaveral at 9 AM. First stop was the Astronaut’s Hall of Fame. This place is a museum of sorts, with memorabilia from scores of space missions on display; space suits, rocket capsules, command consoles, moon rock specimens and so on. A key attraction was the 4G ride that simulates gravitational pulls of up to 4G that jet pilots experience in flight.

Next stop was the Visitor Center Complex. A full size replica of the shuttle Endeavor that had been used for training astronauts in the past was the 1st thing I checked out. Next was the Shuttle Launch Experience that simulated what astronauts go through during launches of actual shuttle missions. Though the simulation was quite realistic, I felt it lacked the “extreme thrill” that I was used to in some other thrill simulations. Perhaps it was due to the fact that a lot of children take part in the ride as well, and they don’t want it to be too tough for them to handle.

After a hot dog for lunch, the next stop was the NASA bus tour, that took me to International Space Station Center, LC 39 Observation Gantry, and the Apollo/Saturn V Center. The sheer size of the moon rocket (imagine such a huge structure brimming with high octane explosives at the time of launch), and the numerous mini labs within the International Space Center (ISS) exhibit were the key highlights of the tour. One of the key objectives of the ISS is to perform experiments in Zero gravity that might help us make new inventions and discoveries that we have not been able to on earth. On out way, we also passed the famous NASA Shuttle Assembly facility that appears in most media clips, the area from where VIPs see Shuttle launches, Shuttle launch pads and the specially designed carrier that taxies Shuttles from the assembly building to the launch pads.

Back at the visitor center, I scurried to watch one of the 2 IMAX movies on show, “Magnificent Desolation”, narrated by Tom Hanks. Though I missed the other IMAX movie, “International Space Center” due to schedule conflict, I did manage to attend an Astronaut Encounter Session with John Fabian, who spoke about how photographs of earth taken from space help in various scientific endeavors. I rounded off a great day at NASA by checking out a few model rockets and cockpits in the Rocket Garden. By 5.30 PM, I was on my way back to Orlando.

The only dampener was the fact that I did not have any friends along with me. So, taking pictures of myself was a problem :-). But I was fortunate to find a Brit lady and a Brazilian guy to tag along during the NASA tour, and we agreed to be photographers for each other.

The other must see scientific destination on my travel map is CERN, Switzerland. Hope that I would get a chance to go there some day. (A friend of mine, Hemant, has been there).

Next day was meant for Sea World. I had heard great things about it, and was specially looking forward to the experience. Since I had an evening flight to catch and hence needed to leave the park by 4 PM, I carefully noted down the timings of all attractions I wanted to catch, and charted out a critical path to cover them all. Here, being alone turned out to my advantage. I did not have to get slowed down by others in my group and miss some attractions, as had happened to me in the past. I took the Journey to Atlantis,

Manta,

Sky Tower

and Wide Arctic (helicopter simulation) rides, 

but chickened out of Kraken. 

Amongst the animal exhibits, the opportunity to see some precious aquatic and polar animals like dolphins, penguins, sea lions, whales, polar bears, sharks, walruses and manatees from close corners was a fabulous experience. But the chief attractions of a day at Sea World are undoubtedly the various shows on offer.

Blue Horizon (Dolphin show),

Allure of the Ocean at Nautilus Theater,

Clyde and Seamore Pirate Island (Sea Lion Show)

were all fantastic.

But the centerpiece was Believe – The “Shamu” Killer Whale Show, that had 6 tonne killer whales jumping upto 6 feet in the air and performing various other tricks along with their trainers.

Thus, I rounded off my extremely enjoyable visit to Orlando, checking off one more destination on my travel map.

Side note:- Days after my visit, a Killer Whale attacked and killed one of the trainers. My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.

e-Wedding

When one of my best friends told me about his wedding date a couple of months back, I was pretty distraught. There was no way I could attend his wedding, as I would be out of the country at that time. Not only was I sad about missing this momentous occasion in his life, I was also disappointed at missing a chance to catch up with all my old friends that I would have met after years, at the wedding. I could also feel the disappointment in my friend who was getting married, that one of his closest pals would not be around to see him get hitched.

Then one day, over a telephonic conversation, we hatched a plan to overcome our geographical boundaries. As with almost all life's problems these days, the web came to your rescue. We decided to use my friend's laptop and webcam, along with his wireless internet data card connection to webcast his wedding LIVE via Skype.

And thus, the web helped Me and his Grandma, who was unable to attend on account of ill health, register our e-presence at wedding from different parts of the world.

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