AmreekanDesi

This post is about Gurgaon, a little town in Haryana just outside Delhi. Till a month back, i had never been to that part of town.  These days, i spend quite a lot of time there.

First time to Gurgaon, and i was pleasantly surprised. I felt like i had suddenly come to a new land. It’s a veritable jungle mein mangal. There is some amazing architecture on display in the swanky office buildings coming up all over Gurgaon.

As you cross the Toll plaza, here’s what the view looks like.

Is it a building? Is it a ship? Its the ship building!!

The ship beckons you into Cyber City – and suddenly you are in a different land.

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Walking through the mall the other day, i was pleasantly horrified to see this:

WTH is a Dollar store doing in Delhi? First the prices everywhere seem to be directly converted from dollars, and now this?

Somebody please tell someone that people in India earn in Rupees, not Dollars.

Eighty years later, life comes full circle.

Two pictures, same struggle.

1929

Hungry Americans waiting in line for food during the great depression.

(Image courtesy: reformation.org)

2009

Desperate job seekers waiting in line just to get into a bursting-at-the-seams job fair in New york city. Picture taken on 24 Feb 2009 in midtown Manhattan by me.

Also see:

Byaadu for some, not too bad for others
How happy am i with my job

In Central Florida lies this little town called Orlando. Orlando’s claim to fame – Amusement Parks.

Walt Disney started the trend a few decades back with Disney World, and since then this city has become an entertainment hub with Disney, Universal studios, and myriad other amusement parks and other attractions.

Disney world is spread over some 27000 acres of land, roughly the size of San Fransisco. It comprises of four theme parks, two water parks, and, hold your breath, twenty three hotels. It is the largest single site employer in the US providing employment to some 65000 people.

Here’s an account of our recent trip to Disney World. Part 1 covers the most famous amusement park, known as Magic Kingdom. Part 2 coming up next will cover Epcot, Disney’s space themed park.

There’s us driving through the parking gates. The parking is huge, so be sure to remember where you parked your car or you could spend the night trying to find your lost car!

After you park the car, you get a tram to take you to the entry terminals. There you take either a ferry or a monorail to reach the actual park.

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then number 99  is going to be my longest post yet.

Me and the missus decided to beat the retreat to that tropical heaven called Miami. Our anniversary week was spent in Florida in a bid to escape the New York chill. As luck would have it, New York got warm during that week, and Florida kinda cold. Life is so full of little mercies.

Here’s an account of our Miami trip, starting with an aerial shot of Miami from the airplane. Note the waters in hues of blue and green, the skyscrapers of downtown Miami, and the little islands southwards.

Spoiler alert: Miami is awesome. You may turn the color of the water after viewing these pictures.

The clear blue waters of the Atlantic ocean. The water was so clear you could see your feet underwater. Never saw that on our own Juhu Beach!

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2008 was an eventful year.

America went into an economic depression. Indian firms started feeling the heat, and layoffs are a routine affair now. Mumbai saw the worst terror attacks India has ever seen. America got a new and very dynamic leader in Barrack Obama. India sent a mission to the moon. India managed a nuclear deal with the US despite the left’s best efforts to disrupt the deal. Manmohan Singh managed to last his entire term in office.

In sports, China celebrated its coming-of-age party in the shape of the most lavish Olympics ever. India managed to win not one, but three individual medals. Vishwanathan Anand became the undisputed world chess champion. Recently the Indian cricket team walloped England.

Hopefully 2009 will be a little less eventful. Hopefully the economic situation will improve. Hopefully India’ will keep going on the road to progress. Hopefully the elections will give us a stable, strong government that will work on improving the infrastructure and keep up the GDP growth. Hopefully the terrorists will get jobs that lead to retirement and give up their guns for keyboards and mice.

Happy New Year everybody! Hopefully the new year will bring cheer and good health to our lives.

Here’s some pictures taken from all over New york city to brighten up otherwise dull times.

Holiday decorations at Macy’s

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The onset of fall season brings out a phenomenon i believe doesn’t happen in India, we being a semi tropical country.

The colors of fall.

Vibrant hues of red, yellow, orange, green. A smorgasbord of colors. Leaves on trees start acquiring bright, beautiful colors. It is their way of saying goodbye. In a few weeks the tree would be bare. For the next few months, life would be dull, cold, and color less. It’s a season’s quota of color, shrunk wrap in a few weeks.

Unfortunately, yours truly was indisposed during the time when the colors were at their best, thanks to a gaping hole in one of the (two) feet. Got back to life in time for a quick trip to the Central Park, right here in the center of New York.

Didnt catch a lot of fall colors. By the time i got to taking these pictures mostly the yellows were left. Still good enough for some mighty impressive pictures. All of these pictures were taken using my prehistoric Samsung mobile phone.

Here we go.

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They say a picture is worth a million words.

This one was discovered in a discount household store in Newyork.

So far we had only seen Indian stores selling stuff with prices printed in rupees. A non desi store selling Tide detergent for Rs 23 was, let’s just say, exciting.

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One of the highlights of our Las Vegas vacation was a trip to the Grand Canyon. Special enough to get its own post.

The Grand Canyon is one of the great natural wonders on the planet. It was formed by the Colorado river cutting through the surrounding terrain, over the course of millions of years. Located at a short few hours drive from Las Vegas, this is a must see sight if you are traveling to that area.

One added bonus en route is the Hoover dam, one of the marvels of modern engineering. When completed in 1935, it was the largest concrete structure ever built. At its base, the dam is 200m thick. That’s two football fields of solid concrete.

Anyway, we decided to cut short the travel time. We took a helicopter trip offered by papilon helicopters. They would fly us to the canyon in about 45 minutes, land on the canyon floor(!), and get us back. We would get to see the Hoover dam as well, and all this would be done in about 4 hours. You could call it a time saver. You could also call it a wallet buster.

This was the Ecostar helicopter that flew us from Boulder city to the canyon.

First stop, Hoover dam. The dam is massive, the water is a gorgeous blue, and you can actually drive over the dam. I remember driving over the nagarjuna sagar dam near hyderabad some time back, and it was quite the impressive experience.

How’s that for a bird’s eye view?

Hoover dam resulted in creation of lake Mead, which extends 110 miles behind the dam and is the largest man made lake in the United States.

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The Rockefeller Center is one of the tallest buildings in Newyork standing tall at 872 feet. A place where you can gain a real perspective of Manhattan.

Here’s some pics taken from the Top of the Rock

Central park – The lifeline of Newyork.

Fun Facts [link]:

• Central Park is larger than two of the world’s smallest nations. It is almost twice as large as Monaco and nearly eight times as large as the Vatican City.
• Central Park constitutes its own United States census tract, number 143. According to Census 2000, the park’s population is eighteen persons, twelve male and six female, with a median age of 38.5 years, and a household size of 2.33, over 3 households.

Upper West side

East and West have this thing going about who is more elite…

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July 4th. The American Independence day. A day for barbeques, picnics, family get-togethers, and fireworks!

The Macy’s ‘spectacular‘ has been a Newyork tradition for the past 32 years. This year we decided to watch it from Roosevelt Island, which supposedly offers the best views of the show.

The show was nice. I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as i did the first time two years back, but then the first time is always more enjoyable.

Here’s a video.

(There’s more videos of the show on my youtube page, for those who are interested)

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In the middle of East river between Manhattan and Queens lies a little island called Roosevelt Island. One way to reach this island from Manhattan is a tramway, one of the few in the US.

Here’s a brief account of our trip to this nice getaway. All pictures were taken by me…feel free to compliment me on my photography skills.

South point on the island gave me something that i havent encountered often in Newyork – Silence. Its like a little oasis of desolation right in the middle of one of the noisiest cities in the world.

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Right here in Newyork’s backyard exists a quaint little neighbourhood called Jackson Heights. Sometimes also known as Little India. A visit there and you actually feel like you are in some Delhi market. Chandni Chowk anyone?

Here’s some pictures of this great Indian getaway.

Did you want to buy some Jewellery?

Some nice Indian clothes?

More Jewellery?

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