New Jersey Trip - Day 2

To continue with my New Jersey trip... On return from Liberty walk, we visited the India of Edison. Oak Tree Rd. This is a 4-5 mile streach of road that has only Indian stuff. Indian stores, Indian hotels etc. You have Indian fasion stores, the Indian paan shop, Indian hotels and ofcource only Indian people living near by that place. You will see a sort of compitition between the Punjabi store person and a Gujrati store person... who builds the bigger store might be the compition. Me and my uncle stopped by an Indian store and Its name was guess what??? 'Sabji Mandi'. This store had everything and much more than you might find in any Indian store back in India. from fruits, veggies, aatta, basmati rice, sona masouri rice, to dals to even our very own Indian broom. Idli stands, Mango cutting knives for making pickels, puja items etc...
You might even find the Hajmola stull or the Vicco toothpaste. I dint go and search for it though.
Probably all the Indians around Edison and neighboring cities in New Jersey might be shopping from that street. I truly felt that I was in India, well almost!!!!
The next day, we had plans to go to Philadelphia to pick up my uncles daughter who studies there. We started early reached the University of Pensilvaynia by 11 might be. The UPenn campus is not like a campus but almost like a small downtown area of Cincinnati. It's huge. We then went around for a quick tour of the University... The most striking thing about the University being its architecture. Beautiful I tell you...
The Amphitheatre of the University known for hosting many news shows etc...

It has one very huge Piano too...
Along the way we say some very old and beautiful buildings which were either the Administrative buildings or hostels for the people studying...

After watching Slumdog Millionaire movie now everybody knows who is on the 100 $ bill right. Well I got a chance to share some knowledge with him... He looked very impressed with the progress in IT you see...

Benjamin Franklin... He sits right in front of the Administrative building tooo.

We then headed towards the Philadelphia downtown and some historic places of US. The Liberty Bell is I believe of great singinificance for the people of US w.r.t. liberisation and right opposite that is the Constotution centre...

This is the view of the New Town Hall and the view of Philladelphia downtown...

The Liberty Bell...

The old Town Hall.

The National Constitution Centre

After a good time in Philli we head back to Edison and visited the Edison memorial. This is known to be the first Research and Development centre in the world. It is the place where Thomas Edison started his work of Inventing things and had made a sort of Reseach centre for himself... They still have preserved some of his original inventions of the 400 inventions patented.

One of the very first voice recording instruments invented by Edison.

He also invented many mediums of storing recorded sound like the cylinders... Here on display some of this instruments or music players of his time....

Thomas Edison also made his own set of Batteries, Electric fuses etc...

Thomas Edison as we all know is famous for his Invension of the bulb... Here are some of his early bulbs and his notes...

Below is the very bulb that Thomas Edison created after 192 attempts to make it work. He used a bamboo string as filament inside the bulb. When people mocked him for his 192 failures... he remarked saying that He has found 192 ways to make a bulb not work...


The left one is the replica of his street lamps of 1879 giving brightness to his snap of that time. I just liked the way the lamp had its reflection on Thomas Edison's Photo. It reflected his contribution...

This tower or lamp tower is built as the memorial for Thomas Edison. It has a 15 foot high lamp at the top which lights bright at night.

After visiting the Thomas Edison memorial, we visited the Roosavelt park and a shopping mall. We had a good time there. At the shopping mall we visited a book store. I saw something really great there. This book store had at many different places along the windows chairs put up, where people sit and read any book of thier choice. Be it either books related to their academics or some book from the store. People who did not find a chair were happy enough to sit on the floor of the store and read books. A very good thing to see. They find it very apt place to sit calmly and read.

I had a very tiring and enjoyable time that day and slept early. The next day woke up a bit late and left for Cincinnati.

On the whole I had a great trip. I saw so many places and the most important thing is I had a good time at my uncles home...

New Jersey Trip - Day 1

Last weekend I had taken a day off and had visited a relative in New Jersey. Well this trip was long time due. Almost from the day I landed in the US, my uncle invited me to visit his place, but well want of time and work always delayed the visit.
Well work was almost done and then i could manage one day leave as well. So I decided to head for New Jersey.
I living in a small City of Cincinnati and Mason for the last 3 months had not yet got the real taste of the US city i guess. Well to welcome me to New Jersey I had a look outside the place as we approached New Jersey, all that I could see was only bright lights. It was like an ocean of lights. I landed in the Newark ariport and my uncle then picked me up to his place.
It was getting late, we just had a little chat and head right to the bed.
Next day we head first to my Uncles office and had some work done before we headed out to see out the place. Post lunch was to take a look at the Liberty statue and the new York skyline.
On route I saw one of the widest highways i have ever seen in my life. Then a lot of amazing stuff awaited me.
Liberty Walk
Liberty walk is a 2-3 mile walk way with the New York Skyline on one side and the Closest view of the Liberty Statue on the other side.

You will see the Verrazano bridge at the mouth of the Hudson River and the atlantic ocean. It is a huge bridge with a 2 storey way for traffic flow.

Verrazona Bridge

As I told you I had a great view of the New York Skyline on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other...
Different views of Statue of Liberty...
Then there is a better view...

Close up view of the Verrazona Bridge and the Statue of Liberty...

Well this is just the start... I had some amazing views of things I never thought I would actually be seeing in my life ever... I had seen these things probably on TV or movies but not with my own eyes...

I had been to the Liberty walk which is on the New Jersey side, so If I do not show you the Jersey city in itself then it will not be good justice... and Amongst all these huge buildings if I do not see the Empire state building which once was the tallest building in the world then it will not do justice to my visit...

The tall building at the very back of the skyline is the empire state building and in the next one... New York city skyline on one side, Jersey city skyline on the other and me and my uncle there taking a snap with a auto timer that took this snap. Luckily my camera did not go into the Hudson river after the click.

I had also heard something of the Brooklyn Bridge???? let me seee....

Some nice brid life at the river tooo...

Now after reaching the very end of Liberty walk... we walked back towards the New york skyline. Dusk approaching and we had to while away some more time, so....

On the way to the New York city skyline side, there is a very old railway station which seems to the around 200 years old. This was built for people who entered the USA by way of sea to commute to the different cities of the country... It is a very old building but still hasnt lost its charm...

This old structure is made of metal and concrete and still stands tall... wow!!!

Well you people must have got bored by now...I havnt got bored typing this blog yet...

I love the next part. I never tought in my dreams that I would get to see this when i visited New Jersey...

Some where amidst all that would have been the Twin towers. Well I and my uncle had spent a lot of time and had to head back home. I could not wait for it to get dark and click a few snaps of the New York Skyline in total darkness. So I created that moment using my camera... It might not look too good but partially represents that...

The last one for that Picture Perfect moment and to remember that I had been there...

The next day i had been to Philli and had another great trip. Will write about that in a bit...

Chao