My Travel log Kembara - From Shah Alam to New York

I have been out of blogosphere for months and I am back. Many apologies to any regular readers I may have. Keeping up with the blogosphere have become difficult for me lately and I hope I will write more posts next year 2012, which is just around the corner, insyallah. Life is too short and here come New Year 2012 and good bye 2011.

For today post, I want to share some night photos of New York city. I remember it was difficult for me to take good night photos especially when trying to figure out the right setting of the shutter speed and f no. for night mode, things that not in my lists during a trip. I still have many photos of Rome to share but it has to wait.

New York brings back memory of winter and New Year. I went to visit New York on a study trip about two weeks before Christmas day. Many of my fellow coursemates went shopping for Christmas presents during the trip. The last day of the trip, my friends and I went to Macy Store to shop, just few hours before we should be back at YMCA hotel to board a bus to take us to JFK Airport for our flight back to Glasgow that night. We had almost missed our bus when we were stuck in the train. The train stopped for more than 15 minutes before resuming back to normal to the next station, one more stop before our destination. We got off from the train, afraid it would stop again, ran for some blocks like mad people on New York streets that night, amidst the wailing police sirens to catch our bus. New York would not be New York without those sirens. For information, New York subway is one of the oldest and busiest rapid rail systems in the world. Finally, we reached the hotel just before the bus was about to leave. Whenever I watch the Amazing Race, it brings back those memories and I know how the contestants must have felt, the adrenaline rush and thrill.

I miss New York city and maybe I vist it again one day, insyallah. To everybody and all readers out there Happy New Year 2012 in Advance and may all you wishes come true.

Night view of New York city taken from Empire State Building's viewing tower

World Trade Centre Building in the background

The Empire State Building model

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Central Park, New York

Flatiron Building

Rockefellar Centre Building

The Roman forum is a rectangular forum or plaza surronded by the ruins of important buildings at the centre of the city of Rome. It was a center of political, economic and religious and social activity of the Roman Empire in the 7th Century BC. The Forum was the marketplace of Rome and also the business district and civic center and it was expanded to include temples, a senate house and law courts. As you can see in the photos below, much of the forum has been destroyed, columns and stone blocks are all that remains of some temples and buildings.

I was lucky during my visit to the Forum , it was bright and sunny all day that enabled me to take good photos unlike any other days in Rome where they were gloomy and raining most the time. Well it was winter, nothing much you can expect of the weather. But it was not as cold as Scotland or London. I spent almost a day at the Forum, walking and taking photos. A few of my coursemates waited for the sunset to take photos of the Forum and the view was spectacular. I felt creepy and eerie on the bus ride back to the hotel every night whenever passing by old and ancient buildings. For the information, bus is the cheapest and easiest way for sightseeing in the city of ancient Rome.

The Rome Metro has only two lines and has limited coverage of Rome unlike Paris or London.The 'must see' sights in Rome are The Forum, Vatican, the French Step and Collesium and you can visit them either by taking metro or local bus with short walking distance.

I just read news today that Amanda Knox, an American, a former exchange student in Italy who was convicted of the murder of her British roommate and sentenced to 26 years was acquitted today by the Italian appeals court. I have been following up with her story ever since watching it on real crime story on television in the US when I visited my friends there few years ago. I guess this is not a good news for the UK.