My First Week in the Big Apple

This past week has been composed of many different new experiences for me considering this is my first time staying in the east coast for an extended period of a summer. Since I had not taken the time to start a blog until a week into my New York experience, I will try to fill in what I have been up to for the past week as best I can. I will probably call on the help of some pictures I took to paint my explanations since they are each worth a thousand words (cliche, I know).

Saturday 5/31: I arrived at JFK airport after a 5.5 hour flight realizing that I would be taking a pause from my life in the West, where I was born and raised, for the summer. Bringing 2 full luggages, a guitar, and a laptop in my backpack, I set off into the city. I stay in the living room portion of my apartment located on Wall Street.



Sunday 6/1: It didn't occur to me the prime location of this building until I encountered a crowd of tourists snapping pictures at what turns out to be the New York Stock Exchange right around the corner from my apartment. Today, Chris took me around different parts of Manhattan, first making a stop at this shop in SoHo which sold the best fries known only to locals. We then explored Chinatown and its assortment of butcher shops, hair salons, trinket shops, and my favorite - bakeries which sold dan ta (egg custard). As we approached Little Italy, we saw that all the streets were blocked off for what I learned was the feast of St. Anthony. The booths on the street there were filled with sweets of all sorts while one table's colorful display caught my eye:

It is actually an assortment of objects made with magnets attached to their backs. There were many booths beside it which displayed various sweets like this:



As our stomachs caught up with our eyes, we quickly chose a restaurant to spend our lunch time. Chris concocted his own plate of some sort of butter-sauce pasta over filled shells, whereas I went with a safer anchovy and tomato sauce over spaghetti:



It was afterwards that we decided to check out a bakery / butchery / restaurant among other stores in Chinatown. What caught my eye was this sign which displayed all sizes and shapes of my favorite dessert, egg custard (aka dan-ta in chinese):



I did not know such types of dan-ta existed and look forward to devouring a good number of these heavenly items of dessert soon.

As the day continued, Chris and I continued our tour of the city as we explored a bit of the NYU campus. I wasn't too impressed with the overall campus, though some buildings exhibited crafty architecture. The inside of the NYU library, for example, looked pretty cool:

I couldn't help but to think of Laura at the sight of this building. I imagine she would have found this place just as cozy as Moffitt Library. Following this, we encountered a "Haas" of the East Coast also known as the Stern School of Management:


Perhaps I will be considering attending this school later in my life.

After the NYU excursion, we visited Chris's friend from work who lives in this apartment community called Stuyvesant Town. This is not your typical city apartment complex - it contains a water fountain surrounded by the rare New York City presence of natural grass and trees. I suppose this fact merits a picture of my visit there:



Monday 6/2: Today was the first day of work, aka orientation. We were notified that there were 545 interns present and that this summer would be no vacation but rather a high-speed learning experience for everyone of us. The day was composed of our filling out paperwork and learning about company policies about every possible controversial workplace topic. This was topped off with our posing for mug shots and being fingerprinted so that we were comprehensively documented in their employee database. On my way out, I took some snaps of the Manhattan skyline and the corporate building in Jersey City:































At night, I met up with some Berkeley interns (Ravi, Michelle, Jimmy, Jerry, Keaton, and Tony) and Kiran at the Taste of Times Square food festival. At this festival, which happens once a year, different restaurants and eateries in Times Square showcase their best items of food to the public. I had the opportunity to try what was called "buffalo alligator". Most people were confused as to whether this referred to buffalo meat or alligator meat. In fact, it is alligator meat cooked in the same style as buffalo wings.


The crowd at the festival


Buffalo alligator


Bread pudding: I confused this with french toast - wouldn't you?

Complementary to the unique types of food on the streets were the different types of street music. Some guy was generating some high-pitched noise which Kiran referred to as sounding like a "cat dying". It wasn't until we traced the sound that we realized a guy was playing music on the back edge of a saw with a violin bow. It wasn't just any music - he was playing the tune of the Star Spangled Banner!!! Awed? I think that's an understatement.

Wtf mate?

This night definitely marked an exciting start to the week.



Tuesday 6/3: Orientation day 2. I got a VIP view of the Manhattan skyline through Chris who works on the 39th floor of the building.



At the orientation, we got to learn more about my division of the company since all the departmental chairs came to speak about each subdivision.



This is what it looks like to have 545 interns sitting at orientation. This room isn't exactly made to hold this many people at once.

At night, I attended the Guggenheim Museum and the Hewitt Cooper Museum with Kiran and Michelle for what is known as the Museum Mile Festival in which every museum along a mile stretch next to Central Park gives admission free of charge. I felt that the exhibits at the Guggenheim were a bit overrated; however, their main attraction I must acknowledge is pretty amazing:


They should hang this in the middle of Doe Library.

Here are photos of some of the other exhibits:



After this, we headed to midtown in search of dinner. Along the way, we decided to take a detour through Rockefeller Center.




This is what an alien abduction of Rockefeller Center might look like.



This is what you call being at the wrong place at the wrong time.




5-second exposure


5-second exposure


This is the product of the color swapping feature on my camera. I chose to swap black with grey and so you can tell that both Michelle and Kiran's hair seem to be invisible. What is even more entertaining is the fact that Kiran became pantless. That's hot, no?

6/4-6/10 will be continued in the following post. Stay tuned.