So what is your favorite tourist attraction? Is it in the United States or is it International? Do you prefer historical sites? Cultural interest sites? Natural phenomena sites? Landmarks? Or outer space? Do you prefer entertainment? Recreation? Archeological? Scenic? We all have our own preferences and can appreciate all of which our lands have to offer world-wide.

Some of the most wondrous tourist attractions with increasing amounts of visitation are in the United States. What do you think of when mentioning the heart of Sin City? The Las Vegas Strip, Nevada. What about historical significant cultural attraction? The Faneuil Hall Marketplace; Boston, Massachusetts comes to mind. What about a global tourist attraction? Of course, the Times Square; New York City, New York. On New Year’s Eve, this is a special attraction for many world-wide.

Times Square, New York

Tourist attractions vary according to the topic at hand. Consider Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage and the Pirate’s Lair; Pirates of the Caribbean. Who would not enjoy Disneyland Park; Anaheim, California? And, how wonderful is the Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area; San Francisco, California? The orange bridge is famous! Disney World’s Magic Kingdom; Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom are all worth visiting at least once.

Disney-World

There are many attractions that draw visitors world-wide. For instance, The National Mall and Memorial Parks. Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Memorials. The Korean and Vietnam War Veterans Memorials. The Smithsonian Institution has 19 very popular museums. Niagara Falls, New York. The Falls, which straddle the U.S.-Canadian border; the water fall alone makes it a worth-while trip. If you like to hike, there is hiking trails available and viewing by boat. On the Canadian side, there is the Whirlpool Aero Car, an antique cable car.

Niagara Falls, New York

There are visitor attractions with protected trails. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park; Tennessee and North Carolina. This natural wonder attracts drivers, hikers, and bird watchers. The Grand Canyon, Arizona, is a famous geological attraction. The famous gorge was etched in geologic time by the Colorado River. The horseshoe-shaped glass Skywalk is a site by itself that allows viewing for visitors.

Colorado River

A landmark possessing a campus and a military training facility in Chicago, Illinois is another exciting place to visit. On the shore of Lake Michigan, there are Best Accommodation, the Chicago Children’s Museum, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and nighttime fireworks shows for viewing excitement.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater

lake-michigan, Chicago

Other tourist attractions to consider. Other tourist attractions to consider include: 1) Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Arizona and Nevada. U.S.’s largest man-made lake and reservoir. This is a hot spot for boaters, fishermen and naturalists. Lake Mead is a major source of water for the southwestern U.S. and according to researchers, if consumption patterns and climate change continue at their current pace, the lake may be dry by after 2020. 2) SeaWorld Florida in Orlando, Florida. This watery theme park has Shamu Stadium and the Whale and Dolphin Theatre. 3) Universal Studios Orlando and Islands of Adventure at Universal in Orlando, Florida is spectacular for those thrill-seeking tourists. Universal Studio’s has Shrek 4-D and Revenge of the Mummy. 4) For entertainment in Texas, the San Antonio River Walk. There is a mariachi festival and the Fiesta de las Luminarias. The walkway radiates light, warmth, and excitement with candle-lit bags. 5) Anyone in the mood for lighthouses, cranberry bogs, dunes and forests? Try Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts. There are bicycle trails, hiking, and sandy beaches. 6) Would you like to slip into a wet suit and cavort with polar bears? Try SeaWorld at San Diego, California. They have the Wild Arctic Interaction Program.

San Diego, California

There are always other tourist attractions to consider. For example, the American Museus of Natural History in New York. Here you will find a immense record of world history, from dinosaur fossils to the human genome. Do you have children? They will love this world famous museum. How about the Atlantic City Boardwalk in New Jersey? There is also The Garden Pier; the Atlantic City Historical Museum and the Atlantic City Art Center. Would you like to see millions of lights around the holidays? Try the Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a world-wide event! If you would like to meet others from different countries, the Temple Square is a perfect place. There are several historical attractions including Native American archaeological sites and colonial villages in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The river is spectacular. The Appalachian-ridge park is on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Universal Studios in Hollywood, California is a well-known tourist attraction. Star gazers love this site! Thrill seekers love this site! The Metropolitan Museum in New York, New York has to be another fantastic tourist attraction. American, European, Egyptian, Greek and Roman Galleries; marvelous world art collections.

Salt lake City

Are you a sun bather? Try Waikiki Beach in Oahu, Hawaii. You will be able to see the volcanic cone, Diamond Head. If you have children and they love feeding animals like flamingos, lemurs, and sloths, try Busch Garden Africa in Tampa Bay, Florida. Along with exciting animals, there are also lots of rides and shows. Jambo Junction and Rock a Doo Wop are favorites of many.

No matter what your favorite tourist attraction, there is plenty of sites to choose from. Whether in the United States or International Tour, there are historical, cultural, natural phenomena sites, and landmarks of all sorts. Whether you like to be entertained, take part in recreational activities, enjoy archeological or scenic sites; there is something for everyone to enjoy world-wide.

Source by: Tourist Attraction

Apparently the MTA is really following through with this capitol idea. [click picture to read previous post]

It is incredibly rare it is to see Time Square completely empty, honestly, I kind of looks different to me right here. When the place is so crowded, you can’t fully appreciated how incredible the buildings are and how small you feel when youre in the middle of the street. This was the first time I felt the “canyon effect” from being here. This must be how tourists feel when they visit.  NOTE: These pictures were take at 3:37am.

By the way, that McDonald’s is open, but there are halal carts on 44th and 11th, 9th, 8th, 7th and two on 6th and they’lre all out til the wee hours of the morning on Friday and Saturday nights. My dude Mustafa knows the best way to soak up the alcohol from the club is with a lamb/falafel gyro, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, easy on the white sauce o.d. on the hot sauce. (I truly woke up after that sandwich)

I truly appreciate the fact that I was born and live in an urban environment. A lot of people aren’t accustomed to getting drunk on the train before a venue, sneaking blunts in the cross streets during midday, 24-hour train service, unlimited rides on the train, being able to sleep while you commute, crowds, 24 hour food, etc…. These kind of things are really invaluable. If I lived down south or so, I would have to run to the club at 10, because it’ll be closed by 2 and hope that the 7/11 has still has chicken fajitas and slim jims at 3am, as I drive there drunk to get there….

I call the area around Port Authority, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams. Actually the boulevard literally starts at 30th and 8th ends around 52th, but around the bus terminal is especially seedy and gross. It looks like the shuttle from the Island of Dr. Moreau just let out passengers. I swear, people from all of over America board Greyhound buses with champagne wishes and caviar dreams and get off at 42nd street and all of their hopes dissipate. Some people don’t even leave the area. Runaways, dopefiends and prostitutes, oh my.  It’s sad in an I’m-glad-I-was-born-here kind of way, because this city WILL eat you up and not spit you out.

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I decided to make a trip to NYC straight from Chicago. I just wanted to get away for a little. I stayed with my buds Adel and Rajib at there place in the financial district. It was crazy, its a block away from Wall St. Monday morning was crazy outside. Its so lively. Well here is a summary of my trip.

]]> http://blog.hochit.com/2009/11/18/%e5%90%91%e5%b7%a6%e8%b5%b0%e5%90%91%e5%8f%b3%e8%b5%b0/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:13:00 +0000 hochit http://blog.hochit.com/2009/11/18/%e5%90%91%e5%b7%a6%e8%b5%b0%e5%90%91%e5%8f%b3%e8%b5%b0/

One of my students from NYC made an amazing image of a reflection of a face from an electronic billboard reflected in water. It allowed me to make the point that sometimes the best photographs are right at our feet. It’s so easy to just make images at eye-level, because that’s the way we look at the world most times. So, we simply raise the camera to where our eyes are and make the image. But sometimes, it’s important to look up or look down, or even better move up or get lower. Great images are not just made from one single perspective and it sometimes takes a “student” to remind the “teacher” of just that fact.

so we took a few min out of work to go see the SHEP do his LIVE  installation piece but since we had to meet certain deadline we missed it but still got the chance to go inside check out the store see SHEPARD and take a few pics but the pics on here are from hypebeast via GRADIENT drew the slackerrr has pics but he forgot his camera so i guess we will upload them on monday but in the mean time ENJOYYYY!!!!!!!

Around our house, this coming weekend is one of the big ones of the year. It is like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, New Years in Time Square, or the opening of deer hunting season in Pennsylvania.  It is the Florida-Georgia weekend. In this part of the world, this is more then a football game. It is a social and cultural event. As should be obvious, we are big Florida fans, but we live here “behind enemy lines” in Georgia.

There is a lot of history here. My first Florida game was in 1971. For the next 19 years, Georgia pretty much dominated the series. Vince Dooley, Buck Belue, Hershal Walker and the like “schooled” the Gators on a fairly regular basis. In 1990 the field shifted. Steve Spurrier came to Florida and since then the Gators have one 16 of the last 19 games.

In recent years, the rivalry has intensified somewhat. In 2007, a group of UGA players stormed the field to celebrate their first touchdown. UGA fans credit that incident for psyching the Bulldogs to win that game. Last year, Florida had the game won when Urban Meyer called two time-outs in the final minute of the game to prolong Georgia’s agony. Payback is hell.

I have noticed a significant change in attitude among UGA fans this year. For most of the 17 years we have lived in Georgia, the UGA fans have been delightfully obnoxious before the game. They have never lacked for overconfidence.

“This year you are going down! Down, down down!”

In all but a handful of years, those boasts and predictions turned into muttered excuses and threats of ritual sepaku as the actual game progressed. However, this year, Georgia fans are acting humble, actually sounding defeatist.

My Bulldog friend, Sean, told me last night, “For the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t think we have any chance in this game.”

That worries me. I much prefer the obnoxious, in-your-face Bulldog, who later walks away from the game with his stubby little tail between his legs.

On the other hand, I am not cocky about the game at all. There are too many games in this series when the favored team is sent home embarrassed. The Gators are ranked #1 and are unbeaten, but they aren’t hitting on all cylinders. The Poolman isn’t making any grand predictions. Crow is not one of my favorite foods.

Meanwhile, at the Poolman’s house, this has become one of our major party weekends of the year. We used to have tickets to the game, but lost our priority about ten years ago under circumstances too complicated to explain. So instead, Mrs. Poolman’s family comes to Savannah for a “house party.”  They are joined by a bunch of our friends, friends of friends, children’s friends, friends’ children, etc.

We’ll set up at least three TVs, inside and out. (Here is praying the prediction of dry weather continues to hold.)  The group is a good mixture of fans of both teams, and a ton of food and drink. Typically the Florida fans are in the family room and the Georgia fans out in the courtyard. The casual fans set up “beer pong” on the basketball court.  Mrs. Poolman is much more ecumenical than she has any need to be. She buys red and black napkins and paper plates to go along with the orange and blue.

This should be an interesting weekend. Go Gators!

“Pourquoi occuper un seul écran quand on peut occuper toute la place ?” C’est la question que ce sont posées les propriétaires des écrans LED de Times square NY. Ils ont donc décidé (sous la houlette de ClearChannel) d’offrir aux annonceurs la possibilité de prendre d’assaut la place et de profiter allègrement du 1,5 million de promeneurs quotidiens grâce à cinq emplacements de prestige: Spectacolor, Nasdaq, Reuters, News Corp. et ABC Sports.

Le nom du concept est lui-même assez évocateur: Times Square Domination. C’est du  TI-TA-NE-SQUE !

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After Brain stole all of Doc Brown’s leftover Plutonium, he used it to power his new experiment that turned Pinky into a human being.  Brain doesn’t trust Pinky enough to do things right, so he has to direct things from the helm. They walk around Times Square plotting world domination and eating Cold Stone’s ice cream. Brain threatens to blow up the Disney Store when he takes offense to a depiction of one of his cousins.

Only in New York City you would find a guy walking around with a white rat on his head. He wasn’t selling anything, it wasn’t an attraction. Dude is just strolling down 42nd Street with Ben on a leash.

“Oh wow, that’s where the New Year’s ball drops”
“Asshole you better move before I step all over you”
Yes the tall buildings are pretty and yeah that is MTV studios at 1515 Broadway, but this is a town on the move-SO MOVE! I can’t tell you how many times a pack of foreigners walking in front of me have abruptly stopped along the crosswalk, while the light’s flashing *walk*, just to take a pic of the skyline or something. I’m a New Yorker and “wait” is a four-letter word-the biggest curse word we know.  The information kiosks around Times Square need to come with walking directions: LOOK FORWARD, DON’T STOP MOVING. Its fun to speed walk through the crowd and watch all of the tourists freeze up like a deer in headlights, then mad-dash to the left  and right.  Even that doesn’t work in December though, holiday shoppers are the worst, the tourists and the natives. It takes like 20 minutes to get past Toys R Us, the ABC Studio and the ESPN Store, and now that Bloomberg’s set up these Pedestrian Mall spaces in the street, I know it’s gonna be even worst this season. I can totally see the family of four from Iowa, sitting on those metal folding chairs, freezing their asses off,sipping on Starbucks in their I LOVE NY hats, shirts, scarves, gloves and fanny packs.

… And i’m exhausted.  (I was supposed to write this yesterday–the actual one month celebration date, but I was taking a day long nap) I’ve been all over the place and there still are areas I have yet to visit/discover. I took the day off of exploring NYC to just lay in bed and rest. A lazy day can do one good, specially after walking so much.

Which isn’t to say I’m tired/over it or anything like that. I’m still in full honeymoon mode, and though I’ve been irritated by rude/clueless pedestrians here and there, the thought of breathing fire and raze people down to ashes has yet to cross my mind–which is a true miracle; I’m known for being a bit of a hothead with a violent streak.

The post office and the DMV are completely backwards here (which was suprising) but again, small price to pay and nothing to really lose your head over when you put everything else under perspective.

I love the Dekalb Ave stop, home to my best friend the Q train.

My favorite thing about the city is still the Subway system, I don’t know why but I love it; completely obsess with it and the whole inner workings of it: the lines, the tracks, the platforms and how it makes people happy or irritates them depending on how quickly or late the trains get to them or take them to their destinations.  Also of great importance is the assorted collection of characters begging for change or performing from train to train all day or at the big stations just trying to earn some money (everyone truly think themselves talented).  As much as I love the subways I wouldn’t dream of spending the entire day and night down there like these people do.  Oh and the rats, lets not forget the rats, especially late at night, moving about around the tracks completely oblivious to the coming trains. Talking about fearless.

Here in order, are the things I currently like the most:

• The Subway: trains, stations, and the screeching sound it makes as it approaches/passes a stop, something aking to the Ringwraits/nazguls from Lord Of The Rings.
• Grand Central Station: really love the inside of the building, it is quite busy and noisy but I could just sit there and write.
• 34th Street: yes the Empire State building is right there but I just like the shopping experience of it all and my fave deli is around the corner.
• The Strand: everyone in the city wants to work there, I put in an application just for the fun of it, it truly is book-heaven and the coolest place.
• Central Park: amazing in scope and scarier than scary at night which makes it even more thrilling.
• Prospect Park: I live a couple of blocks away, it is my Central Park away from Central Park–just as awesome, just as scary and though it isn’t anywhere near as big it feels like it is.
• Park Slope: my neighborhood is pretty cool, I gotta say I lucked out.
• The Public Library/Bryant Park: I love the building and the lions.
• Time Square: yes it’s always chockfull of tourist and some of them may smell, and though I’ve never been a fan of the tourist attractions or the awfully crowded (and extremely overpriced as a result) places, the reaction these people have at being in Time Square is somewhat cool to watch.
• Coney Island: there’s a sense of something long gone, something that used to be amazing there that’s now gone, but you can feel its ghost; the remnants of it still lingering in the air. It is at once sad and inviting.
• The weather: granted, the weather should be up in the list near the top but though it has been cooling down slowly but surely, I’m waiting for it to get really cold to place it at number 1.

There are still tons of places I’ve haven’t been or haven’t visit enough like Chinatown and the Lower East Side, which I have only passed by on my way somewhere else.  I’m gonna concentrate on those place for all of October.

It’s been a busy week. This is the first opportunity I’ve to post the story of our trip to New York City last weekend.

Mrs. Poolman and I were both “Big Apple Virgins.” Neither of us had visited NYC. There is a story behind this, so bear with me.

Our hostess on this trip was a good friend who I’ve known since high school. Randi has stayed in touch with us and we have visited back and forth, but never to New York.

Also along was another couple. Marcia and Greg. Marcia and Randi have been best friends since grade school and we were all part of the same group of friends in high school. Marcia and I have stayed loosely in touch since then, mostly on a Christmas card exchange basis.

Several years ago, Marcia’s husband, Greg, an artist and art teacher, was diagnosed with ALS. At this point, he is confined to a motorized wheelchair with limited use of a thumb to control it. They took a southern vacation last spring and spent several days with us. Despite some initial trepidation, we had a great time. Marcia is the same fantastic person she was 35 years ago. Greg is simply a superman. For a guy who has a terribly crippling disease, his attitude is incredible. To talk to him, you would think he had nothing more serious than a sprained ankle. They are absolutely amazing!

We flew up on Thursday and stayed until Sunday evening. Marcia and Greg drove up from Philadelphia on Friday afternoon.

Randi is absolutely the “hostess with the mostest.” She had darn near every waking minute crammed with some activity. Our HQ was her apartment two blocks south of Central Park. We were unabashed tourists and loved it.

We rode the Staten Island Ferry.

We even saw President Obama leave Manhattan after his UN visit.

We went to Grand Central Station.

We ate incredible meals.

We visited Central Park.

We went to Time Square.

We walked the Brooklyn Bridge.

We went to a Broadway play.

We watched the lights come on from the Top of the Rock.

With just an hour left before we had to leave to the airport, we even squeezed in a street fair.

And we walked, and we walked, and we walked, even in the rain. .

Great time had by all. Thank you Randi, Marcia and Greg for making it a fantastic weekend. We’ll be back!

night time @ time square

Originally uploaded by Ahmad Aleidan

Ahmad Aleidan, a close friend for many years, is quickly rising through the world of Photography and will soon be a name that you will be hearing quite often. Currently residing in Kuwait, Aleidan has spent many years traveling around the world, documenting his countless journeys. Aleidan’s style varies according to his subject matter. While his monochromatic urban and city photography have certain Film Noir influences combining old world flair with new world technology, they often remind me of such greats as Alfred Stieglitz or Andre Kertesz. Not simply a Monochromatic Photographer, he is also well-rounded and capable of capturing his subjects in color as well. This is a photography who is comfortable in most settings and photographic styles including Surrealism, Journalism, Travel Photography, Fashion, Editorial, etc. His keen sense of vision coupled with his natural gift for finding the hidden beauty in all things has surely served him well and will continue to do so.

To learn more about Ahmad Aleidan, please visit his official blog here as well as his Flickr page where you can more samples of his work.