Day 1 in NY - The NY Treasure Hunt

Literally, that's what Day 1 was all about. Apart from some very touching yet very serious embarrassment at the airport, that is!

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Before I start, I have to do one quick round of intros to the characters i've already rudely mentioned earlier without an introduction, coz they'll keep coming up in future mentions over the next 7 days :)

Superman:

Called so simply coz his Halloween costume was to be Red cape + Red chaddi outside bluee pants ala the famed Superhero. (Sadly that Halloween bit didn't quite work out for time constraints and we went as ourselves, yes, scary enough anyway).

Mogambo:

Called so cause she doesn't like to sign off with her real name on her comments to my blogs. Also is one 'orre happy most of the time in her own world" kinda individual, which then becomes conducive to the famous line from Mr India - "Mogambo, khush hua".

Mogambo and Superman are currently engaged to be married in March. Superman was introduced to me by a common friend, then his then girlfriend Mogambo bunked in my home for a week on her way to India from NY last year and suffice it to say, we hit it off :) Superman studies close to NY and Mogambo works here. Our once tenous acquaintance is now a cherished friendship, one of the best things to have happened in the last year :-)

PuppyManohar:

Mogambo's friend and ex flatmate from her post grad Univ. Called so coz he christened himself that through his own blog. Don't ask me why. I didn't ask either! Now lives in Virginia and bunks here on weekends with Superman and Mogambo. Nice boy with acutely sarcastic sense of humor. But nice boy nevertheless.

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Coming back to day 1:

The NY treasure hunt was the ideal ideal way for a newcomer to get to know NY. So Mogambo signed the foursome up for this fun thing as Unpredictable's official introduction to NY.

The idea was to start off in a bar, get a list of clues and to do's and run around the city accomplishing them, before getting to the next bar which one can only identify if they get all the previous clues right. Then do a chill stop at the bar, do a round of drinks (on the sponsors if u win the round, else pls to pay for self) and continue on the next round. Winner of 2 of 3 rounds gets .. emm .. well .. the joy of victory itself and 2 rounds of free drinks :-)

The best part obviously was the 'to do" list which involved taking pictures of the team doing everything from 'invading a stranger's privacy' to 'getting a stranger to piggyback on one of you'.
Mogambo put SO much effort into taking these pics for this blog, I just hope the post lives up to her vision of how cool it would turn out to be. Most human headshots needed to be chopped off in the process (this intends to be an anonymous blog in case u didn't realize!) but not like you're missing much anyway!

Pitstop1: Kelly's bar where the hunt starts with ALL of 2 teams, including our own :D This is where the hunt begins ... our team of 2 boyses and 2 girlses vs the other team of ermm .. .2 girlses!

Eh, look! That's me pointing to the Kelly's signboard for your viewing pleasure :D

The to do's had us doing all the following:

1. Invading a stranger's privacy: Mogambo decided no better way to do this than to pick someone's nose. IEW i know! But not to worry, she only pretended, although knowing how passionate Superman and her were about winning, she'd have done it for real if needed.

Trivia: Turns out this lady is a state senator, her husband pointed it out to us as we walked away thanking her, and we came home and googled her to find out it was true. Mogambo has officially touched ... emm . .dug .. fame!!! (cant put up pic of senator and all ya!)

2. Getting a stranger to piggyback on you, spraying graffiti on a wall and doing a road crossing thing aka the beatles ...

3. Finding AND wearing sunglasses in the 6 pm darkness, taking a pic with a skull, find a man with a tie (on a hip NY street in the evening, gah!) and holding hands and making fish faces at complete strangers.

And at each bar, Mogambo would provide a status update on the win/ lose situation of our team.

Phew!!! That's the most pics ive ever put up here.. and the most edits to the pics!!! 2nd half of day 1 was spent eating Kathi rolls at this awesome joint and gulping them down in 2 mins to make it on time to Cafe Wha with its live band ... oh and wat a live band!!! Everyone was nice and happy and singy and dancy as the music got better and better and finally came to an end at 11.30 pm.

More adventures included a rather 'happy' me and PuppyManohar singing on our way back much to the amusement of MS, my batchmate from engineering who hasn't seen me in like 4 years now and didn't quite expect to see what he saw :D (lets just say i was a VERY different person 4 years ago!)

We finally ran out of hindi songs to sing and resorted to singing slisha early type Xmas carols on the subway as co passengers looked on with amused expressions. Apparently we also called Penguin and told her we love and miss her. This I have very little recollection of, but Penguin, I hope this tells you how much we do miss you :)

And that's how my 1st brilliant evening in NY came to a rather musical happy end :D

Coming up ... Day 2 ... in the next post .. for now i need to head out and meet Ma'am Liberty and see the famous Ellis Island where Mr Will "Hitch" Smith took Ms. Eva Mendes out on their very 1st date in the movie. :-)

Adios!