This is a long pending post, which completes a description of my US trip.
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And now i sit at the A9 terminal at the San Francisco Airport awaiting the boarding call for my flight out of US.
I have barely slept for 4 hrs in the last 2 days; My sleeping hours in the last week have been non-uniform ( sleeping any time between 10pm to 2am ). and now have crossed over from the East coast to the West coast and will go further east towards Asia. So my timezones, biological clocks are all messed up.
I am crossing my fingers in hope that all of this works in my favor and i don’t suffer any jetlag etc.
I was able to spend around 2 months in the US; since my employer sent me here for work. Thats a decent timeframe to get a good insight into this nation. Since childhood, i have had a steady and healthy dose of the US lifestyle (colloquial words,
language, geography, history etc) through all the US sitcoms and movies, i have wasted my time watching.(which i continue wasting my time on 
)
What did i expect when i was about to land ?
Well, one of the best things about whenever i travel is i never keep any expectations. This comes naturally to me and it luckily works since it doesn’t build any prejudice. Also,as said its the journey that matters not the destination. 
So i never had any expections, just the excitement of getting here.
How do i feel about the US now?
Well, i have got a much better look at the country now and has strengthened my feeling about it being a great place to stay.
I don’t want to get into the debate of whether US is better to live in than India which eventually boils down to whether US is better than India. We can’t compare these 2 countries which very different demographics and economic status(emerging economy vs developed economy). Enough said.
What i can say though, is that living in a country/culture/community which is drastically different than the one in we have spent all our years in since birth should be good/interesting experience and even adventurous. It will help to get
a better perspective in life. I never thought from this point of view. An American ex-colleague told me this idea and wants
come to work in India for a few years just for this experience.
The money angle never attracted me, as it does for me and probably will never in the future. Just the experience is probably what attracts me.
I have written about some of my experiences here
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I continue to write from the Hong Kong airport. i am sitting pretty after a nice shower (150 HKD) and some good taiwanese food. Shower at the airport ? Why you ask?
The last interaction my body had with water was on friday and today is tuesday.So lets continue; the thing i want to write about now is the New York trip.
My (sister-in-law) sil lives in Jersey city (just a river away from NYC). One can practically see part of the Manhattan skyline. I reached the night before Black Friday. We got up at 330am and went shopping. My sil (and friends) got some really good deals on shoes, clothes and electronics. We saw people who had a many handfuls of bags just sleeping in various positions in the mall. They had “shopped till they dropped”. Unfortunately, my sil literally dropped i.e fell sick( flu symptoms). Saturday went in taking care of her, which meant she slept and i watched TV. I was there in-case of an emergency. Yeah right.
The next day though, i was kicked out of the house literally.So now i was to roam around NYC with minimal knowledge of their underground metro system. Minimal knowledge means, i just knew that a metro system exists.
Here are the places i visited ( more pics, less talk):
Brookyln Bridge and Times Square
Both are a must for any tourist in NYC. Brookyln Bridge is the first suspension bridge in the world and unless you have been living under a rock you wouldn’t need a intro about Times Square. Brookyln bridge attracts a lot of crowd from around the world. So you get to see a lot of attractions besides the bridge . Times Square has enough electrically-lighted billboards to light a 100 villages in India.
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Brookyln
Brookyln is forms one of the main parts of NYC. Others are Queens, Manhattan etc. The view of the Brookyln brdige with Manhattan skyline in the background is one of the most recognized shots of NYC and undoubtedly the most beautiful .
Top of the World
Gives a real top view of all the buildings in NYC.. Chryler, Metlife, etc
Central Park
Uptown Manhattan. Real Uptown. High classy folk live around the Central Park made popular by sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld and a real park. The only one in Manhattan
Downtown Manhattan
Another most popular landmark in NYC. Wall Street, the BULL etc are few of the places to see.
Well, as Macaulay Culkin has showed it is so easy to get to lost in NYC. and i have a history of getting lost even while going to from home to my workplace, but the NYC Metro System is so well laided out and organized .. all i could do was try to get lost!!
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