~~A day out with Hyung~~

Apart from my own brother I have another brother in Chicago whom I call him as Hyung,meaning elder brother in Korean.He is my current class mate and a good mentor of mine.He is from Chicago and I had promised him I would visit him during this summer vacation.Today morning he picked me from Sivaram's place. We took a drive around the Chicago suburbs, we drove around a Skokie,a Jewish village in Chicago where the crime rate is low compared to other parts of the city. There were few shops where the sign where written in Hebrew. Hyung was sharing some interesting experiences he had while working with the Jewish customers. Then he took me to davon street which was littered with Indian shops on either sides.

After this mini trip around the city we went to have lunch at Sweet tomato joined by his wife and kid. This is the first time I m going to a restaurant where I had lots to choose from, there were lots of vegetarian salads, soups pastas, noodles, baked potato, fruits,pastrys etc . After a long time I was little confused on what to take and what to leave.After a wonderful lunch we drove to his home. We had to register for the courses for our next semester ,since we had to take up six courses for the next semester we were discussing how busy our schedule will be, Hyung surprised me by saying he had already taken up something like that before and said about his experience which increased my respect I had on him.

After marriage Hyung and his wife decided to masters, Hyung enrolled to do his MBA and his wife enrolled for masters in arts and science. During one of the semester his wife was pregnant and expecting a baby in the middle of the semester, so his wife could not goto class, either she had to skip the semester or write the exam without attending the class. But Hyung found his class was in evening and his wife's in morning,since it was not clashing he went to his wife's class took notes for her and then in evening attended his MBA classes.In the night he used to teach her whatever he learnt in the morning class.I couldn't even imagine how crazy his schedule would have been that time.He laughed and said though his grades were affected that semester his wife passed out with wonderful grades.

I know people who have written assignments for their wife but attending classes for her is taking dedication to the next level.

~~Eating at Restaurants~~

One thing is sure ,my weight is definitely going to increase when I leave from Chicago. One good thing is I m having wonderful food all three times or sometimes four times a day. There are quite a few restaurants I tried over the last week and I m sure there is more to continue.

Barnelli's Pasta Bowl:
This is an Italian restaurant which Sivaram took me just two days after coming to Chicago.One thing about ordering Pastas is USA is the quantity we get for a single plate,I can eat that quantity for three meals.So when I ordered something named Alfredo which had more cheese than the pasta my stomach for full just after eating one thirds of it.Anyways I took the remaining back home but Suji never gave me an opportunity to have that as I had something freshly prepared to eat everyday.

PF Chang
Haran,my college bench mate took me to this Chinese restaurant last Friday.I tasted a drop of Wassabi sauce and haven't tasted anything more hotter than that.For starters we had lettuce wraps ie, stuffing some crispy gravy into the cabbage leaves.I ordered something called as Buddha's feast(meal for a calm person ;) )which had a mix of broccoli and tofu served with white rice.

Bamboo Tree:
Venkatesh another classmate of mine gave his birthday treat in this restaurant on Saturday.Funny thing was Haran and Venkatesh were in Chicago for sometime but they never knew about each others existence and finally they found they live a mile apart.Venkatesh said that the restaurants appetisers are good so we ordered baby corn fry,wanton rolls and potato fry(which was like a spicy frech fries). For main course we just ordered a single fried and shared it by three.

Pita house :
This was a middle east restaurant Sivaram took me today evening,we ordered 4 pitas and a dozen of falafil along with side dish.Pitas were like Naans being but into two it had 8 pieces.Sivaram ordered his own kabab and a small dish for Riya So it was Suji and me who had to finish the rest,as usual we packed all the pitas back home never know when we are going to eat those. It was just a day before Haran got me Baklawa a Lebanon delicacy which tasted wonderful. This restuarant also had the same sweet but not as good as yesterdays.Then I tried Kenafa which was like panner mixed in sweet jira and it tasted wonderful.

These are just few stuffs I ate at restaurants ,need a separate post for wonderful home food!

~~catching up with friends~~

I was met two of college mates and one of my school friend over this weekend, returning back home after spending a wonderful time!

~~pass time activities~~

This is how I spend few evenings

~~Adventures at Mini golf~~

Sivaram took us to mini golf today evening ,a game which is very easy to play in computer.But playing with a golf stick in hand was different experience altogether.For a person who finds hard to kick a football directly into the goalpost trying to put a small ball into a smaller hole is something too much to ask for. It took sometime to hit the ball straight and there were bumps and slopes in the course making it more difficult to hit the ball into the hole which was difficult to see.




( That ball had its last day,never know where I hit it)

When I started the first shot I hit the ball with such a force it hit the wall and came back to the same position. In sixth course inorder to avoid a bump I hit the ball hard and never saw it again, then Siva had to pay for a new ball,next I hit the ball directly into the water. It reminded me of the tom and jerry cartoon where tom tries hard to hit the ball into the hole.In the mean time Siva was playing like a professional,Suji trying to match his level,even Riya was managing to hit few stuffs into the hole while I was still hitting the flies and mosquitoes around.



(Though it went inside the water I went on to finish the game with this one)

It took 90 minutes to finish the game and when we calculated the score I got the highest :)

~~My Hair cut experience~~

Due to my busy schedule I forgot that I had to cut my hair, the last time I did that was way back when I was in India. So when KG asked me what I m going to do in Chicago the first thing came to my mind was to have a hair cut.

Newyork is a city where I can be on my own, each and every shop is just few meters from my apartment but here I have to depend on Suji or Sivaram to take me to the shop. But the problem here was these people have never ventured into a hair cut shop in the locality.Last Monday Suji said lets explore and drove me to a shop, yea it was salon and there was a customer having her hair cut with a 'chatti' like thing on her head.By the look of it I didnt want to try there and since it was little expensive we decided to try something else.

Then Sivaram took me to another shop yesterday, which more resembled as a normal salon. This was the first time I m having a hair cut from a lady and as usual she was amazed to see how thick my hair was and asked how did I manage to grow like that.She asked me how do I want her to cut my hair, I replied its in your hand and you can do whatever you want.She pointed to a picture and told she will cut like that ,I said I m fine with and she started her job. After ten minutes when it was fully done she said go and check your weight you would have lost 10 pounds :).

Edit: Pic added for fans :)

~~Building Blocks~~

Apart from watching cartoons these are other important things I do.

Chicago is famous for its architecture ,so why not I give a try!


this pyramid is more colorful!

~~Morning howler~~

When I opened my mail box today, I got a mail from one of my close friend !

Hi Sriram,,

How are u??

I thought and you did... I told you right that u will forget to mail / call all of us here and u will definelty not give us your US number.

Dont tell me , you did not have time and u were busy with ur school and stuff. If you can find time to have a blast @ ur welcome party and post the pictures in Face book,, you need to find time for these as well. Got chaaa... I am yelling @ you , u idiot :@

Neways,, indha mail ku kooda nee reply pannale naa ,,, unna terrorist nu solli US ku oru mail or call ready panniduven .. Mind u

Just thinking how to reply to this mail !

Edit:
my reply
oooooops I was really thinking that I gave my number to u :)
anyways note it down

her reply back:
I knew you will do this.. if i had not sent u this mail, u would have kept silent without bothering to keep in touch.
How do u manage to be like this yaaa..... stupid fellow....indha mail aa padikum bodhu edho comedy story padikara maari nalla colgate ad le vara maari palla eeeee nu vechu siri :@

~~Saw mouse in Manhattan~~

After coming to Chicago I have watched the episode of Mouse in Manhattan more than three times with my niece, don't know how many more times I have to watch the same. Though taken in 1945 we can still compare how people coming from other parts of the world get amazed by seeing the city as Jerry does. There are parts like empire state building,rockfeller center and grand central station still looking the same as it was in 1945.



There are people who run away like Jerry getting too much from the city.

~~Miracles do happen~~

I cant believe myself when I saw I got B+ in micro economics and B- in macro economics. Given the fact on how I wrote both the exams either one of the things below should be right

a)what ever new theories I have proposed in the answer sheet should have been path breaking concepts,the professor should have got goosebumps while reading those and would have rewarded with good marks.

b) Professor should have been kind hearted.
Anyways now I can enjoy this break with much more relief!

Edit:
Priya here are my grades proof :)) , even I got a heart attack after seeing that !!!

~~Movie I watched~~

After landing safely in Chicago I had a wonderful dinner prepared by Suji,ate 3 times what I eat normally.

Then we went for the night show Naan Mahan alla, after a long time seeing a tamil movie in theater and the first one in US. Tell about the movie the torture was less because it was just for 2 hours. The screen play was more or less like how I answered my economics exam I start with one thing ,take the answer to next level by adding some other stories until I reach a point where I dont know what I m trying to tell or what I am going to conclude, so I bury up the answer and come home happily.

~~Time for a much needed break~~

Last week was crazy and it was a wonderful feeling when I dropped my final answer sheets at the professor's mail box.Its holiday time now ,we have a short break before classes start in September only thing we should pass in all the subject. Hoping that a miracle will get me through in those two economics papers :)

My bro booked tickets to Chicago and I m flying down there tomorrow. Last month we were discussing about this plan and he booked tickets for me.


I am imagining what would have happened if i had taken this ticket to the airport.

~~Long day~~

Writing exams or you will choose this ride ?

~~Exam Jinx~~

Getting into the exam hall,receiving the question paper and find nothing came from the thing you studied. It always happens with me unless I go to the exam hall without reading anything as I do for the maths. This week is our semester exams and two exams which bothers me are micro and macro economics.

Today I got over with one of the exam, there was one 25 mark question which I didn't understand what was asked,what I needed to write and I didn't remember seeing anywhere in the book. Later came to know our professor taught in the class long time back which is not in book,still I don't remember something taught like that(class la gavinicha thane). But the good thing was most of my classmates were in the same league as me and finally our professor reduced the weightage for that to 15. Apart from that there were mathematical questions making my life easy.

Now its one down, one more to go!

~~Case of Phishing~~

I usually get mails posting links regarding usage of bank accounts and the need to verify the same, which will lead to phishing site which will ask for the account information. Normally I used to ignore those mails.

Today I got a mail like this

From: Citi
Reply-To: Citi
Subject: Reminder

This is a courtesy reminder that your Citi Card needs to be verified.
In order to continue using your card, click the link below, sign in
and and follow the provided steps:
http://online.citibanksr.com/US/?JPS/portal/Index.do

Regards,
Citibank

since I have a account in citibank I went to the website but had a slight doubt in my corner my mind,since I dont have a credit card why should I verify that.Normally in this case I used to give a junk user ID and password and check whats happening,here it accepted the corresponding password and went to next pageasking for my account information,I again entered some junk value there and pressed enter I got this message!

Complete
Your account is now verified.
Thank you for your cooperation!

We need to be alert while using internet!

~~Movies I watched~~

After a long time I stayed back home for the weekend,so I thought I would catch up with movies. I like movies which are based on cities and if you have lived in that city you can easily correlate to it. I watched two movies over the weekend one based on the city I lived and other city I am living in.

Madraspatinam:
It was wonderful to see Chennai in 1940's the landmarks like central station, clean koovam etc, I really liked the heroine of the film.

Adrift in Manhattan:
This movie was taken in Manhattan and revolves around three people who take subway number 1. A old man who is turning blind,a woman who lost her child and a shy 20 year old guy who stalks on that woman. It was set during winter and it gave me a heads up how the city will look then.

Though I wouldn't say I really liked the story of these movies ,setting in the city where I live/lived makes a difference.When I see the train passes through 125th Station it gives a I have been there feel and makes you get involved with.Good time pass all together.

~~Happy Independence Day~~

Empire state glowing in Indian Tricolor!

~~Eating at Indian Restaurants~~

Last Sunday we had a heated argument on where to have lunch,Raj didn't want to think about any other place apart from Saravana bhavan. I normally think twice before going there because it reminds me of my previous company's canteen. Since he was my guest I had to agree with him. I wonder why people insist on having lunch at Indian restaurants when there are hundreds of wonderful places around to dine in NYC. Normally when I m in home I eat Indian food and while going out I will experiment with other delicacies.

Anyways what I found when I reached Lexington Avenue was there were a handful of Indian restaurants serving the Newyorkers. So whenever any guests come to visit me I m going to take them there!

~~Student life advantages~~

Being a student has its own advantages you only have to worry about assignments and exams, for rest of the things there are always friends and relatives.When they come to meet me ,I needn't play the host card as they sponsor me for everything when roaming around.The buck doesn't stop here when they leave take care that I m placed in a comfortable position.

When Raj came over for the weekend he
--> refilled my supplies- he was jealous that I have lost few kgs or rather he put on weight ,so he stocked my refridgerator with ice creams,chocolates,pastries,cheese etc

-->recharged my metro card-can have more than 10 trips for free

--> pocket money - this will last more than a month

What a jolly life :)

~~World's Expensive cities to live in~~

I was looking at this link, which tells us the costliest place to live and surprisingly NYC has come down to 27th place sounding its little cheaper.Indian cities are fast in catching up with Delhi and Mumbai within top 100.


Its not that cost in NYC has come down but cost in other countries have gone up. After this I checked the inflation rate for USA for the past 10 years. Its well maintained under 5% for the past 10 years and whatever increase it had from 2000-08 would have been nullified by the negative inflation of 2009. So the cost of living is almost as same as the one it had 10 years ago.



I have seen many people who goes to vacation from US to India tell that the country has become expensive ,they are still thinking in the rates prevailed 4-5 years back. There is an inflation rate of over 7% on average(as on today its whooping 13.75%) that makes cost of living in the India double every ten years. If the same rate prevails Mumbai can catch up NYC by 2030!

~~A ride in Staten Island Ferry~~

Visiting statue of liberty from NYC will take more than the time taken to go up the empire state building,even after waiting for quite a long time one wouldn't get access into the monument as we have to see it from 100 meter distance.If at all we need to go inside the monument we have to book 3 months in advance.




So when Raj told me needs to visit that place I had other plans as I wasn't willing to waste my time there.New York city offers a free ferry ride between Manhattan and Staten Island once in 30 minutes.The ferry passes via the statue of liberty on its way to Staten island.So one can watch the Statue of liberty,Skyline of Manhattan,Brooklyn bridge and experience a wonderful ride in Hudson river for free of cost.It takes almost 30 minutes to reach the island and one can spend sometime in the island or return in the same boat as we did.





To say about the ferry more than 1000 people can travel in it at a time so one needn't wait for the next ferry since there is always a place.Since the boat was crowded we were reminded of the times back in Kochi were we used to take similar ferries to Fort Kochi but only difference it costed us Rs3 there and its free in NYC.

~~Pic for the day~~

I shook my camera while taking this pic ,Ended up with this!


PS: thats the east river separting Manhattan and Brooklyn

~~Night life in NYC~~

This weekend I had the opportunity to host my friend Raj in my wonderful apartment. He was my first guest visiting my place and he was alarmed in seeing the size of the room compared to living life King size in rest of the US. Then he got a heart attack when I said the rent I m paying for the room. But that is Manhattan the costliest place to live in USA.



I had told to him to keep a night free for Newyork since night life is something worth seeing (or I need to see it). So Saturday night he came around 9pm, after having delicious aloo parathas we left to explore the city, first stop was empire state building I m not sure how many times I m going to climb that building in future. He was amazed by the crowd at that place at that time and scolded for wasting the time there.After an hour when we finally reached the top he was stunned by the view and told the time waited was really worth it.

After coming down we walked up till times square it was past 1 am and the streets were buzzing with activity.Finally after way past two when we had enough of partying we decided to come back home, waiting for the train in the subway and Raj was complaining about the heat , cleanliness of the city and alarmed to see rats freely running past the subways tracks.When the train came around 2:30am he was more frustrated to see the train fully crowded and having no place to sit.We reached home past three then thought it was the right time to call home and talked for a while and left around 4.

Night life in the city is something unique to this city and its real fun when you have good company!

~~Check this out~~

From one of our professor at Columbia university ,watch till the end,you have a surprise!

~~TV Show I watched~~

After a long time I had time to watch TV, my room mate was browsing the channels and we saw coming up next "Gordan Ramsay's Great escape" a series by Ramsay on his quest to discover the delicious history behind his favourite cuisine. Any guesses its the Indian cuisine!

Having seen few of his TV shows earlier I wondered how could he maintain his temper interacting with the Indian people. But the show turned out to be real fun he travelled to places from Lucknow to interior Chattisgarh to Rajasthan were he tried out different dishes.Interacting with Indian people is another thing.One good quote he said was good cook never sees recipes but use their intutive skill to make the food great. An hour flew away as I really enjoyed the show.



After the show I talked with my room mate and the topic was about the food, since Saturday was fast approaching we called up our cook and said to prepare Aloo paratha for this weekend :)

~~Courses for the next semester~~

Today we got a mail regarding the courses we are going to take for the next semester.Below are the courses!

Microeconomics & Public Policy
Macro for Economic Policy Management
Development Economics
Accounting & Finance
Econometric Techniques for Policy Managers

apart from that I have to take an elective which I have to decide later this month!

So its gonna be six subjects full and full economics!

~~Light at the end of the tunnel~~

I literally found what light at the end of the tunnel really means - waiting for the train at a subway train which reminds me of India many times as trains never come on time ,tracks infested by rats and the whole station is crowded. And we when we see the light of the train at one end of the tunnel it gives such a relief.

~~Newyork city population:facts~~

I was just checking the population details of Newyork city,got few interesting details, the city's population 4th largest in the world (ie) larger than any of the Indian cities and almost sum of the population of Los Angeles,Chicago and Houston,the 2nd 3rd and 4th largest populated city in USA.Also the population in the city is more than that in 39 US states.Manhattan's population density is 66,940 people per square mile (25,846/km²).Mumbai's is just 22000/km.

Apart from the above details one important fact I found was the population of women in Newyork city is higher than that of the men by 375000,that means I have lots of choices!

~~Sealion show~~

Few pictures of sealion show I saw yesterday !


On to the stage acknowledging audience response!


Crawling like a reptile


Dancing to the tunes!


Final Salutation!

PS:If I get a trainer like that I would also do all these stuffs :)

~~Visit to Coney Island~~

After going to Queens for one weekend I decided to go to Brooklyn this time. At the far end of Brooklyn lies a picturesque place called as Coney Islands. This place houses the oldest Aquarium founded 1896 which has some exotic varieties of sea animals.There is an amusement park which has one of the oldest roller coasters in America built in 1927 made entirely of wood which makes lots of noise and vibrations making it a different experience.


I looked into the subway map and found that train F goes directly to that place,I took my downtown train an transferred to F.Once on board heard the driver saying that the train is rerouted to Queens,so I had to get down in the middle and transfer to a different train,seems I have mastered in using New york subway.Once I reached the destination I came out of the subway just to note that it was raining and as usual I had left the umbrella at house. Then I waited for Prabu who had to transfer 3 different trains before reaching the place.Since it was raining we decided to explore the aquarium first ,there were lots of fishes few I m seeing for the first time.There was a sea lion show which was wonderfully choreographed.Then went on to see shark,string ray,jelly fish etc.


Once we were done with the aquarium we went to amusement park and only thing we had in mind was to try the roller coaster ride.Prabu made sure we get into the first two seats to make the ride was more exciting.Oh man that felt more like a suicide mission than a ride and being in the first row or wobbly sound and vibration from the wood didn't help me to feel better.Once we were done we decide enough of venturing into anymore rides as none other can match this thrill.


Then we took a stroll in the beach I expected a lot from that place but since weather played a spoil sport had to be contented what is left.After enjoying the cool breeze we decided to leave.On the way back we took the same train and Prabu had to get down at 9th Street station, the driver announced 9th street I told Prabu down and later realised that he had to get down at 4th Av 9th Street station.Poor guy got down at middle of nowhere and it took him 2 hours to go back home!