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My 3 days in Texas were great! I met a local who showed me the ins and outs of the area and all the rubbernecks on the highway! lol. 

If you are ever in the Dallas/Richardson-area, make sure to check out Ra Sushi.  It is one of the greater sushi restaurants in the area.  I should start up a sushi-review blog, because every city I go to, I tend to eat at the best sushi places.

Steakhouses are great, with a ridiculous amount of food.

Hooters-like places are extremely popular among middle-aged businessmen. 

I got a sweet cowboy/indiana-jones-ish hat too.  See the epic pics.  If you want, I can print you wallet-sized.

Back to the midwest tomorrow, I am ready to be home for a weekend.

:)

I didn't find anything interesting to do in Atlanta because I was only here 2 days.  Maybe next time Georgia, maybe next time...

Today is my last day in NY and I have to say that it was pretty interesting and fun being here for a week. I don't plan on doing anything too exciting other than checking out the NYSE and taking random pictures.

Next week, I will be traveling to Atlanta, GA for Weds-Fri.  Hopefully I can find something interesting to do there and enjoy myself.  If anything, I'd love to experience Waffle House with some 'scattered all the way' hash browns and sweet tea!  That in itself makes me reminiscent of skipping the 2nd half of economics class down in FL and chilling at Waffle House!

Not too much went on today (Sunday).  I just hung around the hotel relaxing and took a subway trip to Wall St. to make sure I can get to the client's site on time tomorrow. 

Here are a few observations I have made in my 2 days in Manhattan:
-Unlike Japan, the locals do not make use of bicycles.  There seems to be enough room on the sidewalk for bicyclers (about the same level of congestion as Osaka), but New Yorkers don't ride bikes for the most part. One could argue that NY has many subways to aid in transportation, but so does Japan.  My conclusion is that bikes will be stolen here, so they are not used.
-For me, New York is less exciting than Osaka.  Manhattan and Osaka feel equally congested, but no-one fears me in New York.  I also know what every shop/store is in NY, where as Osaka presents a mystery every time I walk in to a new place.
-In Osaka, when people are walking towards each other, they generally walk to the left-side.  In Manhattan, you'd think that we would walk on the right-side.  I just see chaos every time two crowds are on a collision-course.  A couple times I felt like a running-back walking across the street, juke-ing and spinning a few times to avoid the tackle (walking in to someone).

The pizza is good though, but not stellar.  I would compare the pizza here (I've eaten at 3 different places) to the quality of Ginos Pizza in Downtown Orlando (Orange Ave.).

I just got to my hotel in Manhattan, which is nice.  But I had some issues finding an Avis rent-a-car drop off and my GPS died while I was in the heart of the city/traffic jam.  So I ask the nice Avis employee, "Hey man, I know you're closed, but where can I drop this car off?". He replies, "Blah blah blibbity blah, 43rd street".  So I drive around and look for 43rd street, but don't see any Avis anywhere.  I pull over, hit the hazard lights, and use my iPhone maps program to lookup the address.  When I go to turn off the hazard lights, the button will not come out.  I push it harder, still nothing.  I push it again, 'clink' goes the sound of the button falling behind the dashboard.  Now my POS Chevy Cobalt rent-a-car has the hazards going off non-stop, and I can't find the drop off location.  So I call up my dad, he looks up the address, and I find it after 30 minutes of taxi-infested-craziness. 

I'm not high-strung about the ordeal though, because I saw a yoshinoya on my cab-ride to the hotel.  If you read gregginjapan.shutterfly.com ....you know of what I speak of...

2/23/2009 3:57:07 AM - 002058446906
Its GREAT to hear you are doing so well and seeing so much! So I have to ask, did you see any homeless men playing chess in the parks? I have ALWAYS wanted to play a homeless guy in chess in NY! WOOT!

Ryan Rauch :)

2/21/2009 2:22:02 AM - 002034629521
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