New York New York

I found a city that has my same soul... New York. At least that's what my 2 days in the city revealed to me. Maybe it was because my hurried walking pace did not look too unnatural there. Or maybe it could have been the cacophony of darting taxis, clanking subways, barking dogs and dozens of spoken languages. All I know is that the motion and feel of the Big Apple seemed to strike the right chord with me. Besides, there is nothing like the mixed smell of NY pizza, hot dog charts and coffee to bring a tear to a man's... stomach.

Well, thanks GE for the week of training and my chance to spend 2 days as a tourist. So here I go...


The city has incredible panoramic views and dozens of well-known attractions. I pretty much hit most of the major sites (I have blisters on my feet... literally) and I'll refrain from posting pictures of these sites since it is most likely redundant with your own mental image.

On of the coolest things I did was spend $20 to take an elevator ride to the 67-69th floors of 30 Rockefeller Plaza (that's the NBC building, owned by GE, and yes, no employee discounts) . The top of the building offered great 360 degree views of the city. There is something about the Empire State Building that looks great in black and white:


View north into Central Park:



Speaking of central park, my meager hostel-like hotel was on the upper west side of Manhattan (71st st) and was a couple blocks from Central Park. Here's the view down a typical upper west side Manhattan street.


Of course I had to take a picture of the M&M world store in Times Square. 3 floors of milk chocolate splendour


Wall street was more impressive to me than I anticipated. NY still has a little flag-waving patriotic feeling from the post-911 era as shown on the NYSE building. Notice the Chinese flag honoring the Olympic hosts.


Although I went to Ground Zero, I didn't take any pictures out of reverence, however, the scars from the 911 attacks are still clearly visible and the scene is still very moving. On Saturday morning I took a ferry around the harbor and took a picture where the World Trade Center buildings once stood. The gap you see between the buildings in the picture below is Ground Zero. Moreover, the picture does not give justice to how massive this void really is. The buildings between the gap in the background are quite a distance from those in the foreground and the site is still being worked on to this day to remove debris and correct damage to surrounding buildings.


Let freedom and liberty continue