Thursday, December 24, 2009

Last week's trip to NYC

Thursday 17th of December

So we visited the glorious Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is the 6th or the 7th time I've visited there during the past two and a half years. Its just an amazing place. I love going there, each time. There are new things to see each time I go there and never get tired of looking at paintings, sculptures and various artifacts.

We spent a lot of time in the Egyptian section this visit. Over 4000 years old, its amazing how they must have created all those amazing structures. For a long time it was speculated that huge armies of slaves built the pyramids and the great temples. Archeologists and experts now say these workers who built these great structures were skilled craftsmen who voluntarily worked at these sites. Looking at the artifacts at the MET, I am not surprised if all the workers who built them are skilled and trained craftsmen.


Images by Manori Sumanasinghe (C) 2009

Then we went over to the Greek and Roman Section. Its almost retrocognetive...


Images by Manori Sumanasinghe (C) 2009

Friday 18th of December

On Friday we visited the Rockefeller center observation deck. The panoramic view of New York city is quite amazing.
Images by Manori Sumanasinghe (C) 2009

One of these days I should try and figure out how to make a panoramic pictures....

Then I showed the Times Square to my parents.

Times Square - Images by Manori Sumanasinghe (C) 2009

We walked to the Grand Central from there, my favorite building in New York. I have an entire post about Grand Central - read it here.

Saturday 19th of December

We visited the American Museum of Natural History & Hayden planetarium on Saturday. If you are a student, don't forget to get your student rate. Also the IMAX space show and the Hyden planetarium are a must see...!!

Wolves - Image by Manori Sumanasinghe (C) 2009

Dinosaur Fosils - Images by Manori Sumanasinghe (C) 2009


Wednesday, December 23, 2009

I'm back

Sorry I didn't post for a while... again!!! My final exams are finally over and my parents finally arrived in the US for the first time. So its time to sit back and blog again... :)

While I was in NYC last week with my parents I watched 2 randomly selected movies that had an alien back-theme, which now looking back is a kind of a coincidence... because we visited the AMNH and the Planetarium also. It was a good cosmic dose ;) .... The movie "Contact" had such a wonderful concept to it, it was amazing. if you haven't watched it already, I would highly recommend it to you. There was an awesome line there, here it is;-
Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?
Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.

That is such a cool line. Its something to think about.... We could potentially be surrounded by hundreds and thousands of other planets that has life on them, and they could be of all different shapes and sizes. They could have total different everything that we can't even imagine of them...

Think of all the possibilities ...!! What if there are consciousnesses out there who can inhabit machines? And what are defined as machines in these places? (Strictly speaking we are also using a very organic machine)... Ahhh !! the endless possibilities....

I was thinking about all the movies that came out this year with stories that has Aliens in them. Its so cool because it will be so natural for all the kids who are growing up now to know about existence of life forms outside of our little earth.

I used to get so excited thinking about the universe when I was a kid and at 29, I still get as excited as much and I'm glad. Since I can't afford to go to space yet and I don't think I will be an astronaut like I wanted to be when I was 15, I have to settle in for seeing the movies and stuff... better yet, an Exoprojection: an out of body experience where a person travels to outer space...!!

Happy Holidays and catch you around soon....