The flight to New York reached a good twenty minutes early and so our hosts at New York - Prakashettan and Sheebachechi did not have to wait for us long as we wiggled our way out with three cabin bags , a stroller and a car seat.
This visit was special in that it was a hosted one. Sheebachechi is Divya's cousin and the visit had the warmth of a family get-together which made it even more special , especially so when you are far from home.
Atlantic City
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Atlantic city was our first destination. Prakashettan and myself took turns at driving and I enjoyed the drive. Atlantic city represented a fun ambience with loud music and lighted casinos. However, it was less so as compared to earlier years. As we walked the 'board walk' , we were attracted by the amusement park rides that were happening by the beach - so we took a few of them.This one was quite interesting as we rarely go for such rides.
After dinner, it was time to visit the casinos. Prakashettan and myself visited the casino while the rest of the group roamed the boardwalk and visited the beach. The casino was filled with slot machines and senior blank faced women hitting the roll button aimlessly.We visited various casinos through the night and shared our thoughts on various subjects like settling down here. I also took my chance with the slot machine and stopped a little after the loss limit that I had set myself. After trying various slot machines, for a change we tried a roulette board game which we had no clue about but we ended up winning 75$ on it and immediately left.
On the walk back to meet the rest of us, we could see sea gulls flying around in beautiful spiral patterns.
Beach
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All the walking and the summer made us sleep into late in the morning at the hotel. After breakfast, we went to the beach. The beach and the sea looked exactly like the beach in Ernakulam. Still fascinated by waves and still with not a satisfying wave snap to my credit, I could not help myself snap at the waves while Ammu and Prakashettan ventured more into the waves.
Niya played with waves more her size and closer to Divya and Sheebachechi.
We did some shopping in the outlet malls and drove back.
Monday
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Monday was a rest day as per plan. I had plans to visit two of my classmates - Jacob and David in NY. So we drove to the dentist where Jacob's wife had an appointment and drove to their home in New Jersey. New Jersey section where Jacob was staying was very much like India with boards like 'Apna Bazar' where we walked to the hotel where Jacob hosted a paratha dinner. It was nice to meet someone so close so far.
Statue of Liberty
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The next day, we visited the statue of liberty. I was amazed by the statue and kept snapping at the statue from various angles as I listened to the audio tape that detailed the history of the statue. It was eye-opening to realize that the majestic looking statue is as thick as a cent coin. That sounded like great engineering success for the detailed and sizeable statue.
The boat ride to the liberty island was an interesting one too.Snapping the statue had started from the boat and continued on the boat back from the island as well.Meanwhile, I lost the group and the cell phone was not reachable either.Luckily - Prakashettan saw me and I could regroup.
Empire State Building
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After a long and relaxing stay at the liberty park, we took the boat back to New York to watch the empire state building.That is when we first hit New York city. As we alighted the boat, two afro-american boys were conducting a street show of jumping over a set of children. That added some life and made NY very attractive.
The empire state building was an experience in itself as we could see the entire city from the top. Cell phone signal is absent here as the tower is too low down from the top of empire state.Before the camera battery died out, managed to take a few snaps.
Sushi buffet at Ichiumi
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After the empire state trip, it was dinner time and we had a sushi buffet at Ichiumi restaurant near the empire state building. It was an awesome experience with more choices than we could try. There must have been two hundred varieties or so and all the dishes had been finely made with exquisite quality and taste.
http://www.ichiumi.com/
July 4th
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The big day had arrived - the day devoted to Macy's July 4th fireworks. Prakashettan prepared grilled burgers which we carried to NY city where we would have these home made burgers as a picnic while we wait for the fireworks.Unfortunately for us, even though we had reached well in time and were right close to the police line , our view to the fireworks was blocked by a building. We had seen barges on the river clearly and were under the impression that the fireworks would start from there to our clear view where as it started a little to the left and exactly blocked by the building. We walked past the building and saw three of the four sections.Niya sat on my shoulder and was purely thrilled by what she was seeing.
It was fun all the same - the anticipation and the participation in the event mattered.After the fifteen minute firework, we walked back to the city. Due to the heavy rush , we had no space for our planned picnic as yet. We stopped at Bryant park and had our well prepared grilled burgers. The park closed at twelve and cops drove out the crowd with torch lights shouting 'the park is closed'.
That is when we realised that the train back to New City is scheduled shortly. We rushed to the station and enjoyed the train ride back home with some intermittent remaining fireworks on the route.
Rest Day
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Before our planned trip to Niagra, the 5th was the much needed rest day that I spent sleeping in the day. Niya played with the hand held sprinkler used for the lawn with Ammuchechi. This was the day to enjoy the comfort of the house - the spacious lawn , played some basket ball on the driveway, watched some tennis in the 55 inch television. With long spurts of sleep , the rest day ended pretty quickly.
Niagara
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Finally the most awaited Niagra had arrived to us after an eight hour or so drive. The majesty of the falls was overwhelming. I kept on taking snaps where as time was limited. I only worked on composition choosing automatic mode as there was no time to play around with shutter speed/ apertures.
It was the best day of the trip as everything seems to have fallen in place. Today, there was fireworks as well at the niagara and colored lighting too. While others rested at the park, I struggled at shooting Niagara as night set in. Thought I did some good work at videographing the colored lights.
Maid of the mist
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One week had passed and we were at a the next saturday. Maid of the mist was the main event at the Niagara where a boat takes you close to the canadian horse shoe falls. Clad in blue raincoats , we reached close to the waterfalls but could only briefly see the falls as the boat turned back. We drove back and reached around midnight saturday
Return
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Sunday we returned back to the slower place - Atlanta. Still tired from the trip, closing the note.
