Things I May Never Hear or See Again Outside of Malaysia

· The glorious pilgrimage to Batu Caves for the Hindus to celebrate the Deepavali holiday; it's quite a site to see so many people walking to their holy place

Every Malay man in the country wearing their traditional garb (black hat, single color silk-ish long sleeve shirt-pants set, and sarong skirt) heading to their local mosque every Friday to pry from lunch time until about 3 pm. This takes precedent over work or other responsibilities.

One quarter mile strip of road featuring a mosque, a Buddhist temple, a Kongsi temple (Chinese who pray to their ancestors), a church, and a cathedral; each was between 100 and 220 years old. Very old Hindu temple was not far away either.

A very diverse population (three different ethnicities each forming at least 20-25% of the population) that does not mix virtually at all. I have personally met only one person who was mixed between two of the races the entire time I've been here.

The Soft Contact Lens Question

o Person 1: “I didn’t know you wore glasses”

o Me: “Well that’s because most of the time I just wear my contacts”

o Person 1: “Contacts? You mean the soft kind?”

§ I’ve been asked this question at least 5 times in Malaysia, are people still rocking the hard kind somewhere in 2011? I have no idea, but it doesn’t stop people from asking.

· The ‘Where Are You Really From’ Question

o Person 1: “Where are you from?”

o Me: “America”

o Person 1: “Where? South Africa?”

o Me: “No, America. The USA”

o Person 1: “No, can’t be. I meant where are you really from? Like your family?”

o Me: **shakes head**

· Parallel parking into an illegal double (or even triple parked spot). I was borderline astounded the first time I witnessed this in person.

· A car making a right hand U-turn from the left lane around my car which was in the right hand lane. It’s ridiculous any way you slice it.

A wedding reception full of people in full formal wear eating curry-covered rice and meat with their bare hands; much different ideas of what is proper/formal for such an occasion I’d say. I give them credit though, it takes skill to execute without getting your clothes dirty, I feel I would make a mess.

· Official work documents - authored by people seen as authorities of their profession – written in terribly broken and grammatically incorrect English. I know, I’m a native English speaker. Also, I know I’m American and this is a British colony but “I no satisfy with current working” is not a proper sentence. One person went to far as to try to get me to change my wording in our progress report to more Malaysia friendly slightly broken English. SMH

· Fast food restaurants covered in trays. Is it that hard to throw your food away; it’s already on a tray and the trash can (with swinging door designed for quick tray disposal) is located right beside the exit?

Also, fast food (McDonald's, KFC, etc) treated as a delicacy. When a McDonald's combo costs almost 3 times as much as the local food from Malay restaurants, why are Malays excited to go to McDonald's? It defeats the point.

· A toddler standing up in the car with her head out the sunroof as the car drives down the street. What if there’s a sudden stop? She could be beheaded; after all, Malaysians drive crazy. Although I’ve only seen the sunroof incident once, children standing up in cars in general are very prevalent here. Standing up to eat too.

· Corn and beans commonly used in dessert dishes. Why is the ice cream or cake dish covered in syrup, jello, red beans and corn kernels? Just doesn’t yell “Eat your heart out” to me.

· Half-boiled eggs (just cooked enough to not be different from raw eggs, just uncooked enough to still be disgusting) dowsed in soy sauce. It turned my stomach everytime I saw someone eating that foolishness.

· The insignificant “Lah” at the end of every sentence. It is used just as “Yo” might be used in slang for emphasis at the end of a sentence in parts of the US.

· Women in head scarves, meant to conceal the hair which would attract extra male attention, wearing skin-tight jeans on leggings. It’s more important to cover that hair that the lady curves?? Seems to defeat the point to me. LOL

A man walking with this two wives, both approximately the same height and weight, who are both in the full burqka (covering everything except the eyes). How do you tell them apart?

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Bliss, South Korean Style

I’ll admit it, I underestimated South Korea. Not to say that I had low expectations by any means, but it blew me away. The reason I went there was to witness the IAAF Track and Field World Championships live, a possibly once in a lifetime experience. I figured that Daegu, South Korea is a lot closer to Malaysia than the US, so why not make the most of it while I’m in Southeast Asia? So along with my friend Dakari Watson, who I used to jump against in college, we planned it out and made it happen. He works in Terengganu, a small province on the East Coast of Malaysia. I already had a friend from college living right outside of Seoul working as a teacher. I had spoken to her about staying there a few days while I was there to site see Seoul as well as attending the events in Daegu. I decided to go online and seek out some more contacts in the area too via Facebook and Couch Surfer; this ended up being one of my best moves. Unexpectedly, right before I was due to head there, my contact there disappeared mysteriously. No responses, not even any traffic on Facebook. So I had to be concerned about her, but more pertinently, I no longer had anywhere to stay in the Seoul area. Therefore, after a stroll around Seoul seeing historical sites, I was hecticly trying to formulate a plan whenever I gcould sneak some wifi in. However, the hospitality of my contacts (mostly Americans teaching English in Korea) and the overall generosity of the Korean people in general helped me to solve this and many other problems. A friend of a friend of a friend extended his hospitality for the night, shout out to Pernell for that. On the way there – and many other places – I had to ask the help of locals on the street. Their eagerness to help foreigners was amazing; it was above and beyond the Southern hospitality I’ve grown accustomed to. There were occasions were you would ask a Korean which direction something was and instead of simply telling you they would walk you there, handle the cab for you, or even give you a ride there themselves. We met ladies at one point who took us out to eat at a pretty good restaurant.

After a night in Cheongju, I made it to Daegu and got settled in time to meet more teachers and be in the stadium for the premier event of the world’s track attention- the 100 final. Although I was disappointed that I never didn’t get to see the 3 fastest men in the world compete in the final the way I wanted; each for different circumstances (Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell got injured the last month or so before the Championships, and Usain Bolt false started in the final resulting in disqualification). Nonetheless, being in the stadium to see the best in the world compete at all the different events was magical. To make it even more special, I know or have met some of the athletes and get to see them do what they do best at the highest level of competition. After the first two nights in Daegu, we had a few days before we had tickets to attend the meet again. The original plan was to spend these days in Seoul and came back once we had tickets again; however, as mentioned, I no longer had accommodations, so I needed a plan. One of my contacts through Facebook was hospitable enough to offer me her living room for this time; shout out to Jessica “JWo” Womack.

Other than the overall lack of food in the fridge (she did have pancakes however), she was the best host imaginable. We met at the train station trying to head to the town where she lived, Gimcheon, about a 45 minute train ride from Daegu. Well, we just barely missed the 12:42am train, the next train wasn’t until 4:05am. Consequently, I got another one-of-a-kind Korea experience instead, the jim jil bang. Basically if you need a place to crash for a night, or even a few hours, you pay about $7-8 US which gets you a towel, a night outfit, a hard pillow, a blanket, and a mat. You enter the facility and it has a common area with couches and TVs, showers, lockers, and sleeping areas where you can put your mat on the floor and go to sleep for however long you desire. It would have been cool if not for all the male nudity, Koreans are comfortable enough that in such a place they usually spend the whole time there naked rather than just before and after showering like I would be used to. Call me homophobic, but I’m just not comfortable with someone coming and sitting beside me on a small couch trying to hold a conversation if he has no clothes on. Therefore, I’m not in a rush to have the experience again. Well, we finally made it to Gimcheon, where I would be spending the next few days until my reservations at the hotel start back. So in the meantime, I would be travelling back and forth to Daegu if I needed to go back. It’s very easy to get anywhere in the city and even from town to town with their transportation system. I went back for a day of competition, to meet with a very pleasant contact named Anika that I spent some time with, and even ended up on a double date one night; apparently double dating is big in South Korea. One night, Anika and I went to a traditional Korean steakhouse, which was amazing. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. She also helped familiarize me with downtown Daegu. However, one night I got back to Gimcheon very late and found out the hard way that JWo is quite a heavy sleeper. LOL.

I was returning from a late night out in downtown Daegu and luckily I had written her address (in Korean) down because I definitely had trouble finding it in the darkness of night. After getting help locating the exact building, I realized the entrance code for the building door was more than meets the eye. I had also written down the 4-digit code, but found that you had to press a button before and a button after; I wasn’t savvy to which buttons in which order. The same gentlemen that helped me locate the building showed me that it went *key button,* then the code, then *doorbell button.* So I make it to the door and knock, I receive no answer. At this point, it’s past 5am and my friend will be leaving her apartment around 7am. I’ve conceded that if I don’t get an answer I will dose off on the steps beside her door in a seated position and she will see me and let me in when she comes out. However, to my surprise, the same gentleman who helped me before reappears to see if I’m still in the hall. I have her phone number, but my Malaysian cell phone doesn’t work in South Korea, so he lets me use his. After 3 attempts, no answer; like I said, she sleeps hard. The man disappears again and once again I prepare to dose off on the stairs. But then the man reappears with a security guard. Now all of a sudden, I’m on the brink of getting thrown out of the building if I can’t wake her up and get inside. So she finally answers the phone and lets me in. Fun times. Lol.

As the rest of the heavy hitting part of the Championships approached, I got back in track mode. One day I was lucky enough to get a friend of mine who was competing to help sneak me into the Athlete’s Village; it was mind blowing. The facilities were brand new and they had their own dining halls, practice tracks, shops, even live tradition Korean performing arts pretty much all day long. The people I knew there said it was even nicer than the Athlete’s Village from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I got to spend time with plenty of people I knew there: my college track coach Nat Page, Nigerian hurdler AJ Adamosu, and Jamaican hurdlers Richard Phillips and Vonette Dixon. I also saw many of the faces from TV whom I had previously never seen in person. I snuck a free meal there and had a comedy session over popsicles with my old coach and other practice mates; I had them every day at practice in college, but I sorely miss them in Malaysia.

Once we made it back to the track, the excitement kept on rolling. I saw a world record in person, even though it was disappointing to see the USA runner front flip out of the race in that same event. I saw Usain Bolt run the 3^rd fastest time in 200 meter history. I got to see two Atlanta natives and track legends that I know personally – Angelo Taylor and Dwight Phillips – win gold medals. I saw a 21-year old Atlanta native, Christian Taylor, that we used to compete against in college become the 5^th longest triple jumper in track and field history and take the World Championship over incumbent champion eccentric Briton Phillips Idowu. To make matters more impressive, his 20 year old college teammate Will Claye, won the bronze medal in the same event beating some really stiff competition from places such as Cuba, the Bahamas, Portugal, and Sweden. That was an amazing event as a whole. An American hurdler, Jason Richardson – who was close to quitting track recently – competed against the three fastest men ever in his event and left with a gold medal. In the women’s hurdles, the most sweet and innocent looking woman in the race, Aussie Sally Pearson, went wild and blew away the competition for one of the fastest times ever. There were stories of redemption for athletes coming back from suspensions (Justin Gatlin and Lashwan Merrit) and celebration for athletes making it over the hump for their first gold medals (Carmelita jeter and Lashinda Demus). There were several more events I’m not usually that into that captivate your attention when you are there in person seeing the best in the world perform; there were several Championship and National Records broken too. We found some other Americans to bask in the glory with as other nations (especially Jamaica) were visibly displeased anytime America won a gold medal. It was a magical event and I hope I can get back to one again one day.

After the bulk of the athletes were finished competing, it was party time for them. A friend of mine Angelo Taylor, gold medallist who went to Tech before I arrived there, hooked me up at a club in downtown Daegu where most of the track people were having a good time. It was also fairly relieving to see these World Class athletes who had been so focused and stressed the past 2 weeks get to relax and have fun. Some of them are pretty wild too. After the very last night of competition, we had to hop on a bus back to Incheon Airport to fly back to Malaysia. By that time both me and Dakari didn’t want to go back. The trip has shown us how much of polar opposites two countries in the same region of the world can be. Between the pleasantness of the people (both Korean and foreigners there), the food, the convenience of transportation, the propensity to enjoying having fun, or the culture, Korea was amazing. No offense to Malaysia, but it doesn’t even compare quite frankly. So then we had to take the flight back to reality. Hopefully I will see you again South Korea. My friend is already making plans to teach there when he’s done in Malaysia; it helps that on top of the aforementioned benefits, it pays a lot more too. See pictures below:

A Weekend in Bangkok

I've been doing a lot of traveling in the past few weeks and it's kept me from keeping my blog up. But all stories will be told, one by one. So we'll start with this, the story of a weekend in Bangkok:

In Asia, a lot of companies circumvent a lot of visa renewal paperwork by having employees leave the country for at least one night so the social pass can start while the professional visa is processing. As my initial work visa expired on August 19^th, I had to leave the country that day. The easy option was to take a cheap bus ride to Singapore; however, I’ve been there before. Therefore, I wanted to see something different, hence a trip to Thailand. So once we convinced the big boss man to pay for part of the plane ticket, we decided to take a weekend trip to Bangkok. We arrive and head to a known ‘back packer’ area called Khaosan Road. I like such areas because there is good but cheap accommodations, locals anxious to present local food to foreigners (such as pad thai and cow pai), and street vendors selling various kinds of hand made goods. There are street vendors everywhere, but they displayed a new product that I’ve never seen hustled on the street before – tailor made suits. Instead of displaying all products on their cart, they were trying to usher you into their shop full of fabrics so they could start taking your measurements. It’s a unique experience, much different from the fake clothes and illegal DVDs you can get anywhere.

The tuk tuk – a motorized cart named for the sound the older engines used to make when it ran - is a unique trait of Bangkok. You can name several different locations you would like to see and it will provide you transportation for the entire period to all the locations you outlined. Pricing depends on whether you’ve gotten intel from locals about what is reasonable and what is not. We quickly found that Bangkok is full of con men and they will take you for as much money as you agree to pay them. Also, some of them are working for suit makers or jewellery stores and plot all along to take you there and convince you to spend money there. Most likely, the stores are paying them some kind of commission. It’s so elaborate in some places that locals in public places are participating to send people to these stores. We ended up in a suit shop this way, but we didn’t buy anything. Despite that, I saw several Buddhist temples, and landmarks this way. After coming out of one temple, the tuk tuk had ditched us, probably for the prospect of a higher pay day. But he had not received any money yet, so it was not such a big deal. The next day, using cabs instead, I saw more monuments to Kings and Generals, a precious art exhibit, the National Elephant Museum (Thailand markets itself as the Kingdom of Elephants), a historically significant mansion and more.

As for nightlife, it was a very refreshing weekend of interesting experiences. We met Americans and Germans there who convinced me to try locusts while out on the town; actually tastes like popcorn really. We experienced the Thai live cover band experience also. Even further, I met up with a friend from middle school who I hadn’t seen in about 10 years for drinks. Random sidenote: It’s magical that through the gift of Facebook, people whose paths have gone so different places can reconnect seamlessly. I won’t go into detail, but after catching up, we experienced some of the legendary Bangkok night entertainment. Although it was entertaining, it was disappointing in some ways. It’s still an experience I’d recommend though. I’d like to go again at some point when I have more time. The only downside was, due to being congested when I got on the plane, the pressure as the elevation changes in the plane caused the phloem to clog up my ear. I mean, my ears always pop on a plane but usually chewing gum or swallowing hard would relieve the pressure; this time was different for some reason, the ears were agonizingly painful. The ears were blocked like this much of the time there and started up again during the trip back unfortunately. But I got it largely taken care of before my next trip. See various pictures below:

A Run in with the Local "Gangsters"

Funny story. To start I'll give you some background information about the way things are here in Malaysia. There are no guns, there is little crime (relative to the US) and the only people that an American like me would perceive as being actually dangerous would be certain groups of Nigerians who carry machetes and have short tempers. However, natives often tell me about these groups of Indians who beat people up and steal things. They often travel in packs on their little motor bikes and are feared here. An older Chinese man in my company had his truck stolen by a group like this who roughed him up some and drove off with it. So I'm coming back from a long drive (about an hour away to a college town near the airport) and I stop at a gas station real quick. The person I'm riding with doesn't want anything, so she stays in the car. The car was left running, a person in it, the radio playing, in a spot that I will have to back out of. So I come out of the gas station and get in the car, start to back up. I had backed up less than one foot and I make contact with something. Apparently some Indian dude parked his motorbike right behind the bed of my pick-up truck on one side. The bike is shorter than the bed of my truck, so I might not have done a thorough inspection before I started moving, but the bike was still parked in a very bad spot. So I get out, the guy picks up his bike. To my eye, there is not a scratch on it. The parts that hit the ground were find, the part I made contact with, not a scratch. However, the Indian pint-sized Indian guy is going ballistic. He's trying to say something is out of alignment, although whatever he is pointing at is neither at the points that touched the ground or that touched the car. So he's blowing hot air as far as I'm concerned. Plus he's in an almost empty parking lot, why would he decide to park behind a car that is running and obviously going to move very soon? I look back, his friend has moved his bike behind the truck now to block me in. Furthermore, he makes one phone call and within 3-4 minutes there are about 8 undersized (5'4" to about 5'7" none more than about 160 lbs) surrounding me yelling. As with the police and other institutions in Malaysia, my assumption is that they're looking for a quick payday; they think they're going to intimidate me into giving them some large amount of money and they'll leave me alone. They picked the wrong target. I'm huge for Malaysia, I'm too smart to conform to this buffoonery, and I honestly don't have money to spare until I get paid again anyway. So the first few are kind of squaring me off like they want to start fighting; luckily I changed my mindset and put just a little bit of crazy in my eye and that did the trick calming them down. Then they went the police route. I guess they think I'm an African and I'm illegal or something, so they thought the prospect of the police would blow my wallet open. My response "Call 'em." The guy is claiming his brother, uncle and everyone else are policemen; but the reality is, there is not a scratch on your bike, period. What more needs to be said? So after I called their bluff, they finally got the picture that I wasn't gonna play ball with them. So they left still threatening "This isn't over, the police will contact you." This happened weeks ago, I haven't heard a word from the police or my company (owners of the truck). It's almost laughable to me that their methods are so successful. Interesting times...

The Petty People Running Me Out of Malaysia

Every time I tell anyone where I am and what I'm doing, their immediate response is always "Man, that's amazing. U must love it. U might stay over there forever, huh?" And I realize how blessed I am to have this opportunity. Unfortunately, I can not shake the fact that some of the other involved parties in my project are somewhat ruining the experience for me. I’ve told quite a few people about the client I work for insisting that we don’t get along because “I refuse to conform to the demands of petty people.” I’m sad to report that its getting worse, I’m losing patience and respect for anyone associated with our client as it seems that their company’s culture is turning normal people in grown up cry babies and tattle tails. Because they’re in the position of simply asking and having nothing expected of them. It’s the classic case of “Give an inch, and they will take a mile.” It started with minor things; requesting for test to be redone when there is no evidence that there was anything wrong with the previous tests, complaining about us using recycled paper, etc. Because it’s all our money, time, and effort that makes these things happen, they do no mind asking for anything under the sun. Oh, but wait, it gets worse…

Then it escalated to pointless additions to paperwork. Processes which were previously 1 or 2 steps made into 4 or 5 steps to get to the exact same end. Bickering about the difference between 30 carpenters documented and the 27 they say they saw even though they don’t bother walking to more difficult parts of the site, etc. Our test cube situation is a telling example. Here in Malaysia, each time concrete is poured cube-shaped samples are poured to be tested for strength at 7 and 28 days. Usually cubes being too weak is the issue, they were complaining that many of our cubes were too strong. I’m from the US, if you’re supposed to give me grade 35 strength and you give me grade 50, I won’t complain about getting $50 instead of $35. To make matters worse, the client’s site representatives, who were the ones asking for all this foolishness, wanted to eliminate all evidence that they actually requested it. Now they want to have an opinion (well, actually the right to approve or disapprove) all kinds of paperwork which doesn't concern them in any manner. A few times their resident engineer (a power position on site) would make a decision, but when we try to make the decision official in documentation, he would scurry to keep us from revealing the fact that he requested it; he wanted us to act like we just randomly decided to do it. Some people, into diplomacy, are willing to just comply regardless; not me.

Then our consultant engineer was holding up the project by questioning the work of EVERY other engineer despite his expertise being different from theirs. The process is backwards here to begin with. Despite having this man - a C&S engineer with specialty of building and structures – being paid by the project already, he does not design solutions for on-going C&S issues. Despite producing much of our structural designs, he refuses to help us with issues, even on aspects he designed. His response when we ask for his help is “my service would be expensive, you can’t afford my services.” He, or should I say ‘they’, we’re forced to hire an outside engineer to design the solution and we have to propose it to them for their approval. As if that isn’t enough, he (a building specialist) is never satisfied and has questioned the expertise of our scaffolding specialists, our soil specialists, or bored piling specialists, and everyone else. In the name of diplomacy, we have to honor their concerns and try to get more explanation or technical discussion, which takes time; time, in life as well as construction, is the one thing that you can NEVER get back once it is gone. He’s even tried to implement his own “re-writes” to another engineer’s designs. Through all this, he tries to play “good guy” whenever he is confronted; with the whole, “well, someone has to ensure that the things are being done correctly.” Well, if we could eliminate the middle man and have you design C&S solutions and talk to any other engineers if you have concerns, we wouldn’t have these issues.

Now, it’s the childish tattle telling (often false) that is getting on my nerves now. Conventional wisdom would say that in a professional environment, if you have a problem with something someone is doing, you should try to deal with them. Only if that doesn't work should you go to ur immediate supervisor and so on, right? Wrong here. Our site surveyor went on leave for 3 days to handle some family issues, which was communicated to our client’s site staff. Well, despite already having the situation explained to her, our Senior Clerk of Works (the most power hungry and petty of them all) writes a letter to the bosses of all parties complaining that there is no surveyor on site. The client and consultant bosses, also being increasingly disrespectful and petty, make a huge issue out of this during our site meetings. This in addition to the other issues that didn’t concern the clients which they have made huge issues about (temporary building structures, calibrations on machinery, etc), they even went so far as to try to forbid our staff from taking leave on meeting days. How is their decision in any capacity?

It's unfortunate for any decision to be taken out of your hands by other people; and I wouldn't say that is completely the case. But I will say, working 6 days a week at a site which people who I don't really respect because of their petty and childish antics is wearing on me. It could be cultural difference, it could just be them. Either way, it's a situation I may need to remove myself from before I truly tell someone about themselves and paint myself as the tall, angry Black man that everyone in Malaysia fears so much, and who I've tried to avoid being so that I don't come off as intimidating. I'm the youngest one on site, I just expect everyone to act like adults. The blame game and tattle telling with no direct communication isn't productive.

My American Vacation, Part 1: A Touristy Week in NY

It feels strange as an American to use the words "American Vacation" but I feel it's accurate when you actually have been living and working elsewhere and rather than just coming home and chilling, you're actually actively on a schedule seeing things and people. East Coast Tour may have been more accurate, but it's written now, so I'll just live with it. **Kanye shrug**After a quick 5 hour flight to Shanghai, a layover there, and 15.5 hours in the air bonding with a teenage Chinese chick who speaks only a few words of English, I landed at JFK Airport in New York City. This was my first opportunity to spend time in NYC old enough to truly do anything. I went there with some preconceived notions that I actually found to be outdated fairly quickly. I think in terms of stereotypes, NYC is still widely characterized by the city as it was in the 80's. Most New Yorkers I ran across were fairly friendly and personable, the streets aren't lined with homeless people and prostitutes at Times Square anymore, the subway cars aren't covered in artistic graffiti anymore (a bummer because I was looking forward to taking pictures of the artwork), you don't feel eminent danger walking the streets in the middle of the night (although I'd still recommend you know where you are going), etc. I give Rudy Guiliani a lot of credit for cleaning up the city quite a bit. Now, some rumors did end up being true: the prices for parking, housing and such are crazy expensive (see parking 'special' prices picture below). I saw an authentic NYPD beating of an unarmed and innocent homeless man, who had already been tased. 10 cops were beating him when I arrived (pictured below); his crime: dancing on the sidewalk. I wish I could say I was surprised they lived up to their reputation. But I enjoyed my trip so much because for the first time, I got a glimpse of why ppl call NYC the 'greatest city on Earth.' As a graduate from a college of Architecture, I look at cities differently than most ppl already, and NYC is a treat from that perspective. You see building in so many different styles, textures, and from different time periods sharing walls on the same block. See the picture below of the Home Depot which is in an almost victorian styled white building, you would never see that in other parts of the country, and probably the world. You see small things culturally that you usually wouldn't run into, every corner has several types of food including a Halal food stand amongst the more traditional American quick cuisine; I must have had at least 5 gyros from street vendors while I was there, see the picture below of the multi-colored bike which I randomly saw walking from the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Buildings are like living legends of Architecture and were remarkably ahead of their time when built. The Guggenheim Museum itself and its art collection were fairly amazing, I would guess I stood out as the only young African American male and the only one wearing urban wear in such a prestigious museum. Any quirky interest or even fetish you have, there is a sub community (and possibly even a museum) there for it if you look hard enough. Any kind of music, hobby, food, clothes, art, you name it and you can find it there somewhere. The Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Times Square fulfilled my quota for quirky and odd things (see shrunken head and wooden Mercedes pics below). Even the house next door to where I was staying had a fake decapitated head hanging by its eye lids hanging in the doorway (pictured below) and it's nowhere near Halloween. LOL. I got to meet Morgan Freeman (pictured below), so what if he was made of wax. LOL. The 24hour a day subway was very convenient, pretty much anywhere in Manhattan and much of Brooklyn, you're never more than about 4-5 blocks from a station. I had interesting discussions with various people, especially a gentleman I who was helping coordinate the renovation of the house I where I was staying in Brooklyn (shout out to Ms. Rita Brackeen for having me, apologies again for misplacing that set of keys) about different conspiracy theories and feelings towards the government; When I went to the 9/11 construction site and temporary museum, the side was lined with conspiracy theorists trying to 'educate' the tourists about how the attack was an elaborate hoax by the CIA. Whether or not I agree, I wonder just how strong of convictions a group of people have to make shirts, signs, and flyers to give out to people at the site of America's greatest tragedy site; it's a big step beyond talking about your suspicions in your living room. It's a spirit I can truly respect. On the walk back from the train station to where I was staying, I encountered a very public (although it should have been kept private) conversation between a cute girl with low self-esteem and her boyfriend (or whatever he'd called himself). It was entertaining if nothing else; it was like watching TV. LOL. Overall, I'm still not sure if I could live there due to the expensive living and all those ppl, but New York impressed me. And although I was underwhelmed by the women, I'll make sure I go back. Didn't get to see the Statue of Liberty, I guess I'll have to catch that girly next time. More vacation stories coming soon...