New York City

I was in New York City on New Year's eve. Yes, I went to Times Square. Yes, I was there when they dropped the ball.

I had known about the greatness of this city, through movies (remember Gotham city from Batman?), news, elsewhere but I had to see it to really believe it. Called the city that never sleeps, New York, aka the big apple, truly is a magnificent place. The mix of people, culture, business, infrastructure I saw there is like nothing I had seen before.

After ~2 months, one thing I can foremost recall is the metro system. It's spellbinding. Not just about the punctuality and infrastructure but the planning, the day to day operations, the details, the ticket booth, everything.

I even went to Wall Street, the financial capital of US, and by extension also for the world (almost). I went there on a holiday. It seemed like any other street but I could imagine the scurry of stock brokers that must be the order of that street on working days.

I went to Madame Tussaud's near Times Square. It houses waxed life-size statues of celebrities. It became extremely difficult inside the hall, within a few minutes, to tell if a person was for real or a statue. The pictures above do not do justice (damn my cheap camera). I gawked a real person and almost touched him only stopping to think for a second before the person moved coz guess what it was not a statue!

Apart from the usual suspects like the statue of liberty, the Empire State building, I also visited the Museum of Sex, which housed this funny board.



I was amused to find a case study on necrophilia in animals.

All in all it was a trip I'll remember for years and whenever greatness is attributed to a place I'll automatically think about the New York City.