Blogger has changed the way you post blogs, formatting is a lot more difficult and was incredibly difficult to include the pictures for the last blog. What used to take 30 seconds now takes 30 minutes, so until I can figure out what is going on, you will see fewer blogs.
Also, I won't be able post blogs beacuse Hamidah is making me come to class with her and take notes for her! Just kidding - although I did attend a couple of her lectures on the weekend!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Meet the Filmmaker
The Apple Store in SoHo (and probably elsewhere around the US) has a feature that they call "Meet the Filmmaker" where they invite directors to come in and sit with a moderator who asks some questions and shows some clips for about half an hour and then another half hour of Q&A from the audience. Last week, they had a double header - David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) who directed The Social Network (aka The Facebook Movie :)) - and he brought along Jesse Eisenberg who played Mark Zuckerberg - followed by Oliver Stone (directed/produced/written a whole lot of other movies) who directed & produced Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
The meet the filmmaker series are pretty interesting, because unlike the talk shows where the directors go to plug their movies - eg. Late Night talk shows - where they get maybe 5 to 10 minutes and the questions and answers are PG-13; at the Apple event it's pretty open and the directors and actors are pretty frank with their answers. Oliver Stone named people he felt that should have gone to jail for all the financial mess and when David Fincher was up, they showed a clip from the movie where a curse word was edited out and when the lights came back on David commented "I can't believe they edited that for the Apple store, f**k!".
The meet the filmmaker series are pretty interesting, because unlike the talk shows where the directors go to plug their movies - eg. Late Night talk shows - where they get maybe 5 to 10 minutes and the questions and answers are PG-13; at the Apple event it's pretty open and the directors and actors are pretty frank with their answers. Oliver Stone named people he felt that should have gone to jail for all the financial mess and when David Fincher was up, they showed a clip from the movie where a curse word was edited out and when the lights came back on David commented "I can't believe they edited that for the Apple store, f**k!".
I don't think these ones are posted yet, but Apple records all of the sessions and posts them online as a podcast, so all of you Apple users you can check them out on iTunes.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Views of Manhattan & Lady Liberty
A few pictures of Manhattan taken from the East and Hudson Rivers....
Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground, Manhattan Bridge behind
From the East River
From the East River
From the Hudson River
The construction site you see is where the north tower of the WTC stood. The south tower was in front of the black building that is just to the right of centre. The black building that you see is 55 stories tall, each of the Twin Towers were 110 stories.
Empire State Building
(in this picture it is over 3kms away)
From the Hudson River
From the Hudson
Ellis Island
This is where poorer immigrants were brought (the rich were taken directly to Battery Park in Manhattan) when they first came to America. Known by two other names - The Island of Hope and The Island of Tears. Hope - for those who looked for a better life in America; Tears - for those who didn't survive the journey (The Queen Elizabeth would take 21 days to cross the Atlantic) and tears for those who were not granted entry.
The Statue of Liberty
For those who are interested in the history, click here
Back to school
Hello Everyone. It's been a couple of days since our last post, so a little recap. Hamidah and I attended a lecture (yes, I'm actually learning something too and it's not really full time school - only 1 lecture - but its a start! :)) on Monday night, hosted by the Internation Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies at the Japan Society - a side event to the UN General Assembly meetings happening now. The talk was on Polio eradication and its part within the Millenium Development Goals. The keynote speaker was Dr. Margaret Chan, the Secretary General of the World Health Organization and the panel and guests included the Secretary General of the Red Cross / Crescents, Minister of Health from Afghanistan, President of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (both Afghani reps were women by the way!), Director of Programmes from UNICEF, Executive Director and CEO of Nigeria's National Primary Health Care Development Agency and three high level individuals from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (who was a former US Ambassador), Rotary International, and the Global Alliance Vaccines and Immunizations. Yeah it was pretty crazy! And for those of you keeping score at home, we have eradicated polio in about 99% of the world's population, but the last 1% is going to be hard. We are talking about some of the most remote (or hostile) places in India, Central Asia (hostile refering to Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan) and Africa. It will be a hard and expensive road to complete, but would be one of the best gifts to leave to the children of the world, by eradicating the virus from the world!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Are you kidding me?
Bhel puri on the street? Anything is possible in NYC. Take a street, close it down, add in a bunch of people, tents and vendors and you have yourself a street festival!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Jazz in the Park
Sandwiched in between my looking for stuff to see / do, Hamidah and I enjoyed a jazz concert in Bryant Park, with the backdrop of the main branch of the New York Public Library, put on through the Lincoln Center. They had 2 groups perform - a jazz quartet and then a gospel group. Check out the pictures and videos below...
this one is for all the Africans... (in Swahili)
What to do when you have nothing else to do....
This will be a common title throughout the year (so get used to it), cause well, for now, I really have nothing else to do. So have to go find stuff....so what did I find?
Yesterday I got to stand outside and watch the arrival of some of the models and guests to the Calvin Klein Spring 2011 Fashion Show and today was the taping of a scene for Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit....just another day! :)
As you may be able to tell from the pictures, it's not easy to get close enough to take any good shots, but I tried the best that my little Sony camera would allow. At the show, it was papparazzi and all the fashion photographers taking up the space and Law & Order - that was just security!
Yesterday I got to stand outside and watch the arrival of some of the models and guests to the Calvin Klein Spring 2011 Fashion Show and today was the taping of a scene for Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit....just another day! :)
As you may be able to tell from the pictures, it's not easy to get close enough to take any good shots, but I tried the best that my little Sony camera would allow. At the show, it was papparazzi and all the fashion photographers taking up the space and Law & Order - that was just security!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Advance Screening
We managed to score some tickets to an advance screening (it actually wasn't that hard) of 2 new NBC shows starting next week - The Event and The Undercovers. Interesting shows...The Undercovers is a take on the Brad Pitt / Angelina Jolie movie - Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Event - well I can't really say. You will have to watch next Monday, but looks like one of those shows you might want to watch regularily to figure it out.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Fashion Night Out
New York is the fashion capital of the world - atleast for this week it is. This week is fashion week where for 9 days all the major fashion houses and people you have never heard of, show off all their upcoming designs. While NYC is flooded with models and celebs, most people never get to see them as most events are closed to the public....except for Fashion Night Out. FNO is an event that was started by a head honcho at Vogue a few years ago. It has now developped into this large event where over 1000 stores in NYC stayed open late which all kinds of action. Most of the stores had DJs and drinks, some even had celebs show up. For us, our draw was Iron Chef Morimoto at Bloomingdale's. He was doing a number or demonstrations (no samples :( ) and even posed for a couple of photographs.
His knife skills are incredible. What you see in the video is Chef Morimoto working on a radish. When he is done you will see what he ended up with.
It's a net to cover his shashimi!!
A couple more pictures of the night....
His knife skills are incredible. What you see in the video is Chef Morimoto working on a radish. When he is done you will see what he ended up with.
It's a net to cover his shashimi!!
A couple more pictures of the night....
On Our Own
So everyone has left now, we are on our own....until all you readers start coming to visit. So you better!
Hamidah has started classes now, her schedule is pretty stacked - pretty much all of her classes are on Tuesday and Wednesday (except 1 class that is one weekend a month), so to me it's like a 5 day weekend. To her it's 5 days of reading to get ready for the classes! In any event, now that she is getting into her routine, it's time that I start finding things to do myself. We just got our Internet and Cable (that's why the blog hasnt started until now) yesterday, so if anyone has any movie recommendations, I'm open for suggestions. Until then, time to hit the pavement.
The nice thing about New York is that it really is the heart of all things happening. Want to launch an event, product, really anything this is the place to do it. (The hard part is finding out about the events, so if anyone hears about any, I'd be happy for the tip). Last week I found out about 2 in the sports world, so that's where I had to be.
The first turned out to be a little bit of a bust. Corey Pavin was making his captain's picks for the Ryder Cup at the NYSE. Hearing rumors that all the members of the team would be present, I made my way down to see what I could. However, turns out not only did the team not come (only Corey and 3 of his assistant captains - Paul Goydos, Tom Lehman and Davis Love III) but his press conference was also within the fortress of the NYSE, so couldnt see or hear anything outside :(. After the conference though, the assistants did come outside to a PGA display that was out front - Paul Goydos and Tom Lehman stuck around but Davis Love III got out of there super fast (was able to snap a pic of the back of his head though!).
The second event was the launch of NHL 11 by EA Sports at the Reebok Store. For the launch they brough in Patrick Kane and Johnathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks (for the sports trivia buffs this is the first time teammates have been on consecutive covers of the game - NHL 10 and 11). They were going to compete in a skills competition on the street outside, but was way too crowded and I was hungry :) so I didn't stick around to watch that part, but got a chance to see them up close while they were inside doing some interviews before they went out to play.
Hamidah has started classes now, her schedule is pretty stacked - pretty much all of her classes are on Tuesday and Wednesday (except 1 class that is one weekend a month), so to me it's like a 5 day weekend. To her it's 5 days of reading to get ready for the classes! In any event, now that she is getting into her routine, it's time that I start finding things to do myself. We just got our Internet and Cable (that's why the blog hasnt started until now) yesterday, so if anyone has any movie recommendations, I'm open for suggestions. Until then, time to hit the pavement.
The nice thing about New York is that it really is the heart of all things happening. Want to launch an event, product, really anything this is the place to do it. (The hard part is finding out about the events, so if anyone hears about any, I'd be happy for the tip). Last week I found out about 2 in the sports world, so that's where I had to be.
The first turned out to be a little bit of a bust. Corey Pavin was making his captain's picks for the Ryder Cup at the NYSE. Hearing rumors that all the members of the team would be present, I made my way down to see what I could. However, turns out not only did the team not come (only Corey and 3 of his assistant captains - Paul Goydos, Tom Lehman and Davis Love III) but his press conference was also within the fortress of the NYSE, so couldnt see or hear anything outside :(. After the conference though, the assistants did come outside to a PGA display that was out front - Paul Goydos and Tom Lehman stuck around but Davis Love III got out of there super fast (was able to snap a pic of the back of his head though!).
The second event was the launch of NHL 11 by EA Sports at the Reebok Store. For the launch they brough in Patrick Kane and Johnathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks (for the sports trivia buffs this is the first time teammates have been on consecutive covers of the game - NHL 10 and 11). They were going to compete in a skills competition on the street outside, but was way too crowded and I was hungry :) so I didn't stick around to watch that part, but got a chance to see them up close while they were inside doing some interviews before they went out to play.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Now the fun part
Following all the hardwork, we had to make sure that our parents had some fun too, so the next 5 days were supposed to be fun. We hope they enjoyed it, we know that we did.
Anyone who has been to New York knows that you can't do or see everything in only a few days, so my challenge was trying to show off as much of the city as possible without passing out in the heat - we got lucky, an amazing heatwave of 90 degrees plus (32 degrees plus for all you Canadians :)) everyday...in the shade! We did our best, got them out to Central Park, FAO Schwartz to play on the piano from Big, Times Square (multiple times day and night and they even got on one of the big screens outside of Forever 21), Wall Street, the Charging Bull at Bowling Green (rubbing it really was good luck for my dad), Little India, UWS, Washington Heights, Canal St and a play, In the Heights - which is actually based in our neighbourhood.
A few pictures and a video....
Anyone who has been to New York knows that you can't do or see everything in only a few days, so my challenge was trying to show off as much of the city as possible without passing out in the heat - we got lucky, an amazing heatwave of 90 degrees plus (32 degrees plus for all you Canadians :)) everyday...in the shade! We did our best, got them out to Central Park, FAO Schwartz to play on the piano from Big, Times Square (multiple times day and night and they even got on one of the big screens outside of Forever 21), Wall Street, the Charging Bull at Bowling Green (rubbing it really was good luck for my dad), Little India, UWS, Washington Heights, Canal St and a play, In the Heights - which is actually based in our neighbourhood.
A few pictures and a video....
and finally a video from Kurban's birthday celebration at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co...
First 2 weeks
Welcome to our first 2 weeks. I will try to be more frequent in posting, but a lot has happened since we got here, so this will be the first posting in a series of posts for the first 2 weeks.
The first challenge we had was the move. Packing the house into 2 parts - 1 part going to NYC and 1 part storage - was crazy to say the least, but with a lot of help from family and friends - mom, dad, Rahim, Alim, Aly, Naz, Nicolas, Aleem and Ali, over a period of a couple of days we got everything out of our house and into 3 truck loads - 2 to mom and dad's basement and garage and 1 truck that was going to make the 10 hour trek to NYC. We got almost everything we wanted to take (and probably some extra) crammed into 17 ft and headed out to NYC on a Friday night. Note to anyone who plans a move like this - I can't tell you when is the best time to cross the border, but if you don't care about sitting around for hours, then the night is the best time! It was crazy, first a 45 minute line up just to get to the border and then have to wait 2.5 hours just to see someone. Atleast all our paper work was in order, so 30 minutes later we were outside and ready to go.
From here (3am in the morning by now, we left the house at 10pm) we split up - Hamidah and my mom were flying from Buffalo and my dad and I were driving, with the plan of meeting up in NYC at 2pm. Following a short 2 hour stop over in Syracuse (crashed at the hotel room my-in-laws were staying in), we made to NYC on time (an hour early in fact), but unfortunately the ladies didn't. Following a flight delay they landed late, so then decided to wait for Hamidah's parents to land and they would come to the apartment together.
I didn't even get to share the story about the apartment hunt, but I will spare the details, except to say that we hadn't even seen the apartment that we were getting, but trusted the building and our agent's word that they apartment was in good condition. Turned out to be alright - needed a massive cleaning - which I have to thank the family for, if it wasn't for all their hardwork the move would have been ridiculously difficult (more on their efforts later). Anyway, the movers showed up at around 2 and although it took longer than anticipated, we got the truck emptied by 5 and from there off to the races.
Except for coming into the apartment for about 2 minutes, the first time I saw the place was when I got the keys at about 1:45pm and it was empty (this is important for later). As soon as the truck was empty, I took off so I could return the truck before it got too late. now, if you have been to New York you know what it is like to drive there. Now imagine that when you don't know exactly where you are going. Now imagine that driving a 17ft truck. YEAH!!! that was fun!!! Not really. :) Anyway after going south 45 blocks only to be told there was no room at that location and that I have to go to another lot which is 120 blocks north and stop over to pick up a GPS (because no way I was doing another long trek without it) and my father-in-law, I finally made it back to the apartment around 8pm. As I said earlier at 2pm the place was empty...6 hours later, more than half the furniture was done! It was amazing. By 11pm that evening over 90% of the apartment was setup - the only major thing left was our desk!
The main purpose of this post was really to give out a huge thanks to both Hamidah's and my parents because without all of their hardwork leading upto and including the move I don't know how we could have done it. Thanks to both moms and dads, we look forward to doing this again next July!!!
The first challenge we had was the move. Packing the house into 2 parts - 1 part going to NYC and 1 part storage - was crazy to say the least, but with a lot of help from family and friends - mom, dad, Rahim, Alim, Aly, Naz, Nicolas, Aleem and Ali, over a period of a couple of days we got everything out of our house and into 3 truck loads - 2 to mom and dad's basement and garage and 1 truck that was going to make the 10 hour trek to NYC. We got almost everything we wanted to take (and probably some extra) crammed into 17 ft and headed out to NYC on a Friday night. Note to anyone who plans a move like this - I can't tell you when is the best time to cross the border, but if you don't care about sitting around for hours, then the night is the best time! It was crazy, first a 45 minute line up just to get to the border and then have to wait 2.5 hours just to see someone. Atleast all our paper work was in order, so 30 minutes later we were outside and ready to go.
From here (3am in the morning by now, we left the house at 10pm) we split up - Hamidah and my mom were flying from Buffalo and my dad and I were driving, with the plan of meeting up in NYC at 2pm. Following a short 2 hour stop over in Syracuse (crashed at the hotel room my-in-laws were staying in), we made to NYC on time (an hour early in fact), but unfortunately the ladies didn't. Following a flight delay they landed late, so then decided to wait for Hamidah's parents to land and they would come to the apartment together.
I didn't even get to share the story about the apartment hunt, but I will spare the details, except to say that we hadn't even seen the apartment that we were getting, but trusted the building and our agent's word that they apartment was in good condition. Turned out to be alright - needed a massive cleaning - which I have to thank the family for, if it wasn't for all their hardwork the move would have been ridiculously difficult (more on their efforts later). Anyway, the movers showed up at around 2 and although it took longer than anticipated, we got the truck emptied by 5 and from there off to the races.
Except for coming into the apartment for about 2 minutes, the first time I saw the place was when I got the keys at about 1:45pm and it was empty (this is important for later). As soon as the truck was empty, I took off so I could return the truck before it got too late. now, if you have been to New York you know what it is like to drive there. Now imagine that when you don't know exactly where you are going. Now imagine that driving a 17ft truck. YEAH!!! that was fun!!! Not really. :) Anyway after going south 45 blocks only to be told there was no room at that location and that I have to go to another lot which is 120 blocks north and stop over to pick up a GPS (because no way I was doing another long trek without it) and my father-in-law, I finally made it back to the apartment around 8pm. As I said earlier at 2pm the place was empty...6 hours later, more than half the furniture was done! It was amazing. By 11pm that evening over 90% of the apartment was setup - the only major thing left was our desk!
The main purpose of this post was really to give out a huge thanks to both Hamidah's and my parents because without all of their hardwork leading upto and including the move I don't know how we could have done it. Thanks to both moms and dads, we look forward to doing this again next July!!!
Blog Description
Usually this would be on the main page and not the first blog, but I want to use the Grand Central Station background and well, you won't be able to read it if I do, so this is the next best option.
The blog and it's title (short version is printed due to space restrictions) was born following a suggestion from my cousin Shezleen (gotta give credit, where credit is due). The full title would be "What to do in New York City for a year, when you have nothing else to do". And that's basically what this blog will try to capture. Let me back up a bit and explain how we even got here.
My wife, Hamidah, will be completing her Master's in Public Health at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health over the coming year (when she is done everything she wants to do, she will have more letters after her name than in it, but that's another blog for another day :)). Because she can't live without me (I can say this because I am typing this and she is not :)), I am forced to move to New York City for most of the next year...oh woe me :) hahaha. Seriously though, as she completes her course work over the next year, I will be spending most of my time with her here, interspersed with visits back to Oakville to go back to work - I suppose I do need to earn some income to enjoy the city! I digress, back to the point. While she completes her course work, I will be basically be retired for most part of the year, hanging out, seeing the sights, being a tourist but trying to be a local. It's actually not all fun and games, besides the regular visits back home, there will be some online course work involved too, but here's to hoping that there won't be a lot of homework!
So, following the decision to pack our bags and move to NYC for the year, here I am and through this blog will attempt to share with you some of the things that I find to help me pass my time. I'll try to keep it entertaining so I hope you will enjoy, I know I will.
The blog and it's title (short version is printed due to space restrictions) was born following a suggestion from my cousin Shezleen (gotta give credit, where credit is due). The full title would be "What to do in New York City for a year, when you have nothing else to do". And that's basically what this blog will try to capture. Let me back up a bit and explain how we even got here.
My wife, Hamidah, will be completing her Master's in Public Health at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health over the coming year (when she is done everything she wants to do, she will have more letters after her name than in it, but that's another blog for another day :)). Because she can't live without me (I can say this because I am typing this and she is not :)), I am forced to move to New York City for most of the next year...oh woe me :) hahaha. Seriously though, as she completes her course work over the next year, I will be spending most of my time with her here, interspersed with visits back to Oakville to go back to work - I suppose I do need to earn some income to enjoy the city! I digress, back to the point. While she completes her course work, I will be basically be retired for most part of the year, hanging out, seeing the sights, being a tourist but trying to be a local. It's actually not all fun and games, besides the regular visits back home, there will be some online course work involved too, but here's to hoping that there won't be a lot of homework!
So, following the decision to pack our bags and move to NYC for the year, here I am and through this blog will attempt to share with you some of the things that I find to help me pass my time. I'll try to keep it entertaining so I hope you will enjoy, I know I will.
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