Manhattan - My First Day

New York – world’s busiest, costliest, entertaining city. When my organization decided to send me here for an assignment, it was like my family’s dream came true. I have been to UK before but No, they wanted me to visit US once in my lifetime.

I flew for an US in mid of March through British Airways. I was having halt in ‘my’ London for 4 hrs, I wanted to go out for few minutes but my passport will not let me do that. I said by to London with heavy hearted thinking that in future I will surely come again and then flew for US. My plane landed in Newark International Airport which is just 5-6 miles away from main New York. I was hoping that winter must have gone but I was wrong, City was experiencing extended winter period. I enjoyed that weather anyway. If you are coming from land where you feel like heater is kept running on streets then this will you enjoy. I also witnessed snowfall that is also in Month of March which rarely happens.

Best part of my assignment is that my office location was in Times Square, the heart of the world also known as ‘The Crossroads of the World’. I was staying in Jersey City and I had to take bus, Gate 51 number which takes you to Port Authority Bus Terminal of New York. This is the main bus terminal of New York City; you will get the buses for all nearby cities from here. This is 3 floor bus terminal and it has more than 300 bus gates.

If you take exit of 8^th Avenue from terminal, you will see New York Times building one of the tallest in New York, When I tried to capture the entire building in one glance looking upward I felt like dizzy, This is the first time I was taking look at such tall building.

From Bus terminal to my office is 0.5 mile short walk for which I have to cross one avenue (8^th Avenue to 7^th Avenue) and they 3 streets. I took 42^nd street to cross the avenue first. This stretch has New York few attractions like Madam Tussads, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Regal Cinema, IMAX Theater, and Broadway musical play Theaters.

Once you are in 7^th avenue and 42^nd street you are in Times Square, where Broadway and 7^th Avenue intersects, one of the world’s busiest pedestrian Intersection. This is claimed as the most visited place by tourist in the world. Times Square is also major center of world’s entertainment industry. 

Times Square is place where New York celebrates its New Year eve and the whole world watches it through television. Its big hub for shopping, dining. It also has office of NASDAQ. You will feel like some fair is going on, tour operators will ask you and try to give information about New York tours. You will see people dressed up in Statue of Liberty, Mickey Mouse, Mario, and Spiderman and may more characters get up and inviting you to take photographs but obviously you have to pay them for that.

I entered in office thinking I am here only and there are lots of things to explore

Ocean City, MaryLand

Baltimore to Ocean City is almost 3 hrs long drive. We started from Baltimore around 8 PM and reached to Ocean City at 11 PM. It was evening twilight when we left the Baltimore; we came across very good sceneries.

When we reach to Ocean City, Our Hotel was at Salisbury which is 15-20 miles away from ocean city. We decided to take boardwalk and dinner in Ocean City and then head to hotel. It was 11 PM and board walk was fully crowded. We took walk for 10-15 minutes and checked out few restaurants for dinner but almost all restaurants have closed their kitchen. Then finally we ate fast food like pizza and burgers.

While taking board walk we saw one nice huge sand sculpture. This was the first time I saw such big sand sculpture which I used to see in newspaper photographs. Moon was also just rose, the reflection of moon light on sea water was very nice. Sea water was also seems to be very quite as I could not hear any wave sounds.

After spending some time on beach we went to our hotel which was Days Inn, Salisbury, MD. Room was clean and spacious. In the morning, it took all guys to gather around 10:30 AM, we again headed back to Ocean City. We had our Lunch at The Shark restaurant. Food was delicious and I saw one interesting thing here is that Menu of the food gets changed every day.

After our lunch we headed back to beach. It was partly cloudy weather, not bad. Lots of people where taking sun bath, sea batch in great Atlantic Ocean. Some of them were enjoying water sports like parasailing, Jet Ski, and motorboat ride. We spend some time on beach, capturing some photographs.  We also look for normal boat ride but they were all closed. We came to know that last ride was at 12:30 PM and we missed that. No one was interested for other water sports due to time constraint so we decided to head back to home.

We conclude our trip with one good group picture with our car and then we headed toward our home.

 

Mayuresh Manjre.

 

 

Baltimore

After our visit to Hershey’s chocolate world on 2^nd day of our long weekend we planned for Baltimore.

Baltimore is the largest city of Maryland State of US. Its harbor and inner harbor is main attraction for tourist. We reached to Baltimore around 1 PM and then we headed to National aquarium but the earliest slot we manage to get the tickets is of 5:00 PM. All earlier slots were full.

We were still having 3 and half hour in our hand to spend. First we decided to satisfy our stomach. We went to Chipotle (Mexican cuisine restaurant) and had our lunch. After that we just decided to take walk on harbor.

Harbor was crowded as most of the attractions are located nearby. Cruise ride, Pedal boats, Ripley’s believe it or not, Dinning, malls everything is there.

If you want to cover main attractions of Baltimore then you can take Baltimore Heritage walk which is heritage trail that links 20 historic sites and museums. This is round walk so you can start it from National aquarium and end it again there. When you are walking on this trail you will notice that ‘Heritage walk’ is printed on ground in number of languages. It also includes Hindi language which says ‘Virasat ki Padyatra’. We did not take the entire walk but covered the U.S.S Constellation Museum where you can visit historic ships, World Trade Center which is the tallest regular pentagonal building in the world. It has observation deck on 27^th floor, called as “Top of the World”, provides 360 degree view of city. These are the two attractions located in Inner Harbor then Heritage trail will lead you in the city for other sites but we skipped that.

We then visited the visitor information center of Baltimore and thought of taking rest. We could see lots of Indians wearing proper traditional dresses like Dhoti-Kurta, Ladies wearing rich sarees. We thought of some function must be there and then we saw the Rath Yatra of ISKON group in the busy street of Baltimore. Rathyatra was led by US and Indian flag. People were following those flags and enchanting ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’.

Inner Harbor also has small amphi theater where one small girl was entertaining people with her gymnastic skills. From Inner harbor, you will also see Federal Hill Park, which gives a fabulas panoramic view of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. You have to climb a bit for that but it’s worth of taking efforts.

It was almost 5 PM and it’s time to head towards aquarium. Aquarium has number of exhibits which will take your more than 2 hrs. I liked the most in aquarium is Shark Alley which were showcasing number of Shark’s species, Jellies Invasion and Dolphin Discovery. All can see the dolphins any time, for as long as they like, and enjoy interactions with the dolphin team, including dolphin training, feeding times, enrichment, and play activities.

Its good place to spend your day and I believe if we would have taken Heritage walk we might have explored about city lot. After our aquarium visit we headed towards Ocean City.

 

Hershey's Chocolate World

Hershey’s
This long week end we decided to head Cape Cod but weather flopped our plan. Weather forecast for all the weekend was rainy and Cape Cod is mostly famous for beach so we thought of no point going to Cape Cod and we planned for Hershey’s

Hershey is situated near Harrisburg in Dauphin County of Pennsylvania state of US. There are number of point of interest in Hershey like Hershey Chocolate world, Hershey Theme Park, Hershey Stadium. We decided to visit Hershey Chocolate world.

We started early morning from our house (Jersey City) and reached to Hershey Park at around 2 PM. Chocolate Park’s attraction mainly include Free Chocolate tour ride, Chocolate Tasting adventure, 4D show, Trolley Works and Factory work experience. You can choose any combo you want. I was more interested to go for 4D show. We all decided to take 4D show and Tasting adventure and of course free chocolate ride.

Chocolate 4D show:-

The 4D show is really awesome and nice. Plot of the show is Hershey’s Factory has intruder in night and three famous characters which are Kisses, Reese and Hershey of Hershey’s are trying to solve that mystery. The story is not that interesting but the effects are really great and you will enjoy it. Its must watch show.

 Free Chocolate Ride:-

This ride is also nice and anyways it’s free so why to miss it. This ride will take you through all the chocolate making process which begins in some jungle from where you get coco and it concludes with free sample of Hershey chocolate bar in your hand. Just seat in one small toy car and in 15 minutes you will be taken through all the chocolate making process. When you are in ride it also captures your picture which you can purchase at the end of ride if you want.

Chocolate tasting adventure:

This goes for a half hour. You will get 5 pieces of chocolates and small bottle of water. Here you will learn the art of chocolate tasting. You will not bite it or chew it, you will let it melt in your mouth and enjoy the real taste of chocolates. It concludes with graduation certificate which certified that you are graduated from Hershey’s chocolate university. At the end you will also get big Hershey’s chocolate bar

You also have, Make you own candy attraction and Hershey trolley works, which we skipped. For kids, small 2 minute attraction where they pack on their own some Hershey’s kisses which again can be purchased at the end.
The rest of the chocolate world contains the various shops selling souvenirs, chocolates. You also have food court, ice cream shop in here.
Its nice experience and great enjoyment.