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Franklin Street






City Hall, Niagara Square



Observation Deck, City Hall - Niagara Falls


Observation Deck, City Hall - I study here!



Observation Deck, City Hall - I live here!


Observation Deck, City Hall - I shop here!


Observation Deck, City Hall - I dream here!






Niagara Square





Court Street





Lafayette Square



Washington Street

(Erie Community College City Campus)



Waterfront, Buffalo















Sunset, Waterfront, Buffalo















Goodbye, summer in Buffalo. Hope the coming winter is just as incredible. :)

I had (what (e:Vincent) called) an authentic "American" experience at the Erie County fair. (e:Vincent) and (e:Metalpeter) let me tag along and generally behave like an out-of-control Japanese tourist.

My tourism at the fair started in the earnest with this ticket that (e:vincent) got for us. We later learned from (e:theecarey) that fair fare was $5 after 5:00 PM for students with an ID.


(e:Metalpeter) and (e:Vincent) plotted and schemed our 12 hours at the fair.


Yeah, no kidding. We spent 12 uber-fun hours at the fair. (e:Vincent) was exotically attired in this Lawrence-of-Arabia headgear for most of those 12 hours.


He has a huge smile on his face there because he had just spotted these:

Apparently, these are a fair super-speciality. Every kind of meat was wafer-ed, pickled in brine and dried to a crisp.

(e:metalpeter) and I spent a few pleasant minutes wondering about who owns these kind of fancy tubs...

...maybe the same people who owned the hybrid Escalade we saw in the parking lot. ;-)

We then saw these heavily ornamented grandfather clocks. They were priced upwards of $3k each. Maybe you could buy one to keep count of how much time you spent in the fancy tub above?


The salesman opened the door to one of these clocks and casually handed me one of these pendulums. I almost dropped it. They look deceptively hollow but they are SO heavy! Apparently, their weight keeps the clock precise and running on time.


There was a stall exclusively selling these Russian Matryoshka dolls. It was weird to see so many of them - smug, wildly coloured and sitting in rows all around me.


Among them was this funny depiction of St.Basil's Cathedral. Heh


Outside, we passed the "North Pole" and these disturbing looking mascots. I don't know how parents felt comfortable sending their kids in the vicinity of these shady characters.

Also, isn't it enough that Buffalo has around eight months of snow? Do we really need fake "North Poles" in the one weekend of summer we have?

We then went through a huge hall of fresh-produce wet-dreams! After months of swiping and stealing from google images for my grocery pictures, these pictures are really mine. :)







I never knew brussels sprouts look like this when they are harvested!








On the way toward the Bengal Tiger exhibit, this funny little clown car came whirling down the road.


This bloke was so comfortable with the tigers, he just rolled around with them. He coaxed one of the tigers to walk backwards on its hind legs later in the show. It was quite startling to see; they called it a "tribute to MJ".


The announcer kept saying that any donations would go toward rehabilitating the tigers in their natural habitat in the wetlands of Bengal. I had trouble believing it. I wonder how many wild wetlands are left in Bengal anyway - my guess is not that many.


While the tigers got the undivided attention of the crowd, nearby, this sealion was bored out of its mind and decided to take a nap.


In (e:metalpeter) style, I thought this tattoo was interesting and took a shot while I was trying unsuccessfully to stand on my tiptoes and see the tigers through the crowds that thronged their arena.


We then walked through a creative arts exhibit. Local photographers had put up their entries. I was surprised that these two photographs didn't win top prizes!


(This cute baby strangely reminds me of my advisor. She must have been one pretty girl. :D )


I loved this photograph as well. There is something about that little boy's expression that is utterly charming. I didn't agree with the judges' choices at all. They were conservative, corny and completely devoid of depth.

Among the creative arts exhibits, was this cool tranformerish sculpture. Apparently, they gave all the participants a bucket of salvaged odds and ends that the organizers had found in various garbage dumps across the city. The participants had to use at least 90% or more of that bucket to make their work of art. While I stood there admiring this "Garbformer", an old man and his wife tried and recognized each and every part that went into making the sculpture. It was such a cool thing to hear.


Halfway through our 12 hour romp at the fair, (e:Vincent)'s ulterior movies were made clear...


Apparently, there is a special technique to devouring these edible crustacean curiosities. It was posted on the wall of the stall selling them.


I forgot to take a shot of the instructions, but I am fairly certain, you don't eat it like this:

::Download Flash Video::

While we are on the topic of eating, we had the most amazing gourmet pizza at the fair. It was incredibly tasty and ranks right up there with Grimaldi's in NYC.


It was made by a catering company who had come to the fair with their mobile full-scale brick oven in tow. As I watched, they made an outstandingly delicious vegetable pizza in around three minutes. A home-made pizza dough base was layered with onions, tomatoes, green bell peppers, cheddar as well as provolone cheese.


The friendly baker then tossed that pizza base into the brick oven behind him.


This pizza came out of the oven as ours was being tossed in.


They also had white pizza version that I really wanted to try but I was completely stuffed when we came back to the pizza station.


We had live entertainment by one-man-band - Virgil Cain, while we ate our pizza. He was surprisingly very good. He played the keyboard synthesizer, a guitar and an electric violin - all equally well. His songs were funny and had hilarious lyrics.

(e:Vincent) got his CD. I should have got it too. Maybe (e:Vincent) would rip his "Paycheck" song and put it online? (*nudge nudge)

These boots reminded me of the song "Con las botas puestas" by Baron Rojo. I think Angeles del infierno did a cover of that song...


Just so you know, the lilies are fake and are worth $2 each.


We also saw a horse-shoe making live demonstration. The fair had the most varied interesting exhibits ever.


I don't think I have ever seen the bone structure of a horse's leg before.



Near it was a demonstration of this creatively titled old-style home-soap-making operation. No sweat maybe, but plenty of mess.


I think my brother would have loved to visit this fair; there were restored old train bogies, coaches as well as cable cars on display.



I have always wondered how trains run during massive snow storms. This was a cool picture poster of the snow plows they used to have back in the day. I thought it looks so much like a time machine!


The poster had a mention of the nasty storm of 1977 and how they tackled it with only a few snow plows. The design of the snow plows slowly evolved as the years went by.


I think (e:metalpeter) took a photograph of the driving area in this cable car. Its totally not what you'd expect!


Outside the historical society museum, the greyhound rescue society had set up camp. I can't imagine why anyone would want to abuse or abandon these graceful dogs!


I faintly recall having played this game in the past. I thought it was the Chinese Chequers but I am not so sure now. Does anyone know what it is? These two women were so engrossed in it, they didn't even see me taking this shot. Maybe they were part of the 1960s exhibit. Heh


The theme for the historical society's museum exhibit was "Back in the rockin' 60s" or some such thing. This price list was a nice wrap-up of times back then.


This 1960's icon reminded us so much of (e:Paul)'s moustache from not so long ago. ;)


We took a break to go back to the car and caught this beautiful sunset! The sun was like a huge red glowing ball and went down so quickly. It was unreal.


I finally met the lovely (e:theecarey) after two years of virtual hellos. We did a digital cross-shoot to mark the occasion. :D


We went to look at the animal stands. I felt sorry for these poor reindeer that were sulking in the corner of their stalls after a long hot day of getting gawked at and just standing around.


(e:Vincent) kept going on about how cool "the midway" looks after dark. I wasn't sure what he was talking about till we actually walked through all these lighted rides after dark. It was like a completely different place.






Though, I can't imagine why anyone would intentionally want to take a nausea-inducing ride after eating all the fair-food. Some of them looked as it they might have fallen apart at any minute. Just the thought of riding them made me dizzy.






There were all these "Win a stuffed toy" games all around the place. The stall-keepers were trying their best to lure us in. Some of the games seemed impossible to win. Virtually everyone whom I saw playing lost.


However, in one of the stalls they had a hoop for shooting basketballs. A group of young men who looked like they spent their days playing the game got all their shots in one go. They were still at it as we walked away from the stall. They might just have won all the stuffed toys in the stall for a dollar. I guess no job is without its drawbacks and we witnessed the occupational hazard of having "professional" customers at your carnival stuffed-toy stand.



We wanted to gamble in the casino. Well, not really. Mainly, we wanted to go in on the pretence of placing bets on horses and watch some hugely popular singer (I forget who) at concert in the nearby arena.

We were not so lucky because first we worried that I look like a 14 year old (which unfortunately, I do), then we thought up creative schemes like dusting my hair with powdered sugar from the fried dough stall to make me look older. Finally, we decided to just evade the security and walk in using (e:Vincent)'s knowledge of a evasion-elevator. Unfortunately for us, we were too late and they were shutting down the top horse-betting floor of the casino.

We were somewhat disappointed so we "gambled" away with vengeance at "I got it". It is a highly addictive game that resembles a 3D tic-tac-toe. (e:theecarey) won twice and (e:Vincent) won once as well - but they didn't get any prizes. They just got extra-tries (that were unsuccessful). Some people are just lucky, because there was this family that won on every single turn in an aisle over from ours!


I think (e:metalpeter) and I were spooked by this Simpson doll that completely spoiled our concentration!


By a conservative estimate, I would say that the fair had about 85% heart-attack and tooth-decay inducing food. An example was this:


I was amazed at the variety of desserts people had thought up. But this literally took the cake. (e:metalpeter) struck a pose in front of the ingenious stall that sold this out-of-this-planet treat. I think it summed up all our sentiments then.


The deep-fried cheesecake, quite contrary to the unpleasant image it projects, is heavenly. It is mildly sweet, is served piping hot with cold whipped cream and fresh sliced strawberries. The concept came to the fair all the way from Massachusetts.

Of course, eating anything after it was close to impossible. ;)

We spent a nice hour or two just laughing, catching up on life and (e:strip) and making fun of the old people who rushed to the casino in the dead of the night after we walked out of the fair. I had so much fun. Thank you (e:Vincent), (e:metalpeter) and (e:theecarey). :)

If you ever wondered what this blog might have looked like in the 1930s, 1940s and the 1950s...









Quite surprisingly, the content of the fair hasn't changed much though the politically incorrect "reptile lady" was probably eliminated.

A friend sent me this picture of the falcon baby that fell out of its nest on one of the towers at University at Buffalo, last week.



Strangely, it reminds me of a puppy who has done something mischievous!

You know what? I can't take this any more. I ran into (e:paul), (e:matthew) and (e:terry) yesterday and its time I chucked the cultural tourism away.

Oh, and I officially hate the much touted "Slumdog Millionaire". I have a good mind to push Danny Boyle into a pool of poo for ruining my mood and day yesterday. Keep your depressing tales of India to yourself, you oh-I-am-holier-and-more-artsy-than-anyone-and-all-Indians-rot-in-slums-or-are-evil angrez. If this is all you can see in India, then probably you should stay in cold britain and spin depressing tales until you freeze to death.

YES. People live in slums. YES. There are riots - some of which are senseless and religion-based. YES. There is police brutality. YES. There are gangs. But you cannot take *everything* that goes wrong in a country of a billion, filter out all the balancing good and slam it insensitively in everyone's face for two+ hours all over the planet. No wonder Indians don't like this film. UGH.

Do you know what I heard coming out of the theatre yesterday? Some buffalo denizen wondering about the Mumbai blasts and commenting that it probably put the orphans living in Mumbai slums out of their misery. Yeah sure. People in the twin towers were steeped in corporate evil. The planes put an end to their evilness by ramming into their offices. /end sarcasm

Oh and about the Indian head shake - how can you get it right, if you are a Fanny I-am-so-artsy Boil directing a brit born Indian teenager who has probably never been to India before this movie was shot? Nice bit of cultural mocking to add insult to injury. If you found it annoying (e:Paul), I found it morbidly contrived and irritating. :/

I think the Oscar judges are a bunch of masochistic little losers who can't appreciate happiness and hope and probably think negative is a synonym of powerful. To hell with your myopic little twisted world.

I have decided to do some cultural tourism, go to Roswell's Chapel tomorrow, be smeared with some ash and give up a definite addiction for some days. (I am disappointed to learn that its not really human ash - as an officemate tried to make me believe. Man, it was grotesquely entertaining when I did come close to believing what you said! ;))

Since its all about discipline, I am going to try and give up blogging on (e:strip) and non-academic non-essential internet surfing. I really thought about what I would miss the most and what I really indulge in and really... this is it.

(E:strip) is a colossal luxury for me each day, everyday! It's like my personal multiple thread soap opera and dark rich chocolate combined into one. I am obsessed with all of you and all of your lives. I read each and every journal to catch up on the soap story of your life. I may not comment on everything but believe me, I am interested. I am very interested when you tell me something more about yourselves!

So for this bit of cultural tourism, I am going to see what its like to give up my pet obsession for a whole of 40 days. Goodbye for now, and see you at Easter? (Is that right, (e:drew)?)

I will certainly miss you all! Cheers! :)

With this latest haircut, I have had 18 of them in Buffalo. Some of them have been more memorable than the others.

My first one was all the way up at North Plaza. For want of a better sense of direction, and the gleeful excitement of having a "metro" train service within walking distance once again, I took it all the way up to south campus and was quite disappointed when the driver announced that it was the last stop. I don't know what I had been expecting but I do remember wondering whether it would come out in another city's downtown.

Somehow this seems so appropriate, not to mention way cooler. Downtown to downtown - symmetric underground and overground sections. Like a light rail but also like a tube. The romance was killed brutally at south campus.

So back to the main story, that trip was memorable not only for the huge metro asymmetry disappointment but also for the near hysterical haircutter. She started carelessly whacking my hair off. I don't really ask too much from my haircutters. I just want it all off and a decent non-eggy looking outcome at the end. But I got more than I paid for.

She told me the whole in-detail story about how she was going to call her wedding off because she had just found out that morning that her fiance had given her a fake golden ring with a fake diamond pasted on it. She also sniffled into my hair. I didn't mean to be insensitive but.. Geez. I never went back.

The second haircutter had moved his shop from Utica to the basement of an old people's home on Main Street. It started out okay but I was the only one below 60 in that room and one of the old ladies was bitterly complaining that her new hair colour was not purple enough.

It unsettled me. Oh, and that place smelled really funky as well.

A few haircuts at not-very-memorable-places later, I met this haircut lady!

I swear she must have been a drill sergeant in her past life! She yelled at everyone in the shop - customers and employees alike, and gave me something very close to a military buzzcut. I was too scared to say anything and slunk out!

Then I met the best haircutter ever - LaShawn! I don't think anyone ever cut my hair so well as her. My hair didn't grow out of shape for a whole month! It was as if she had sprinkled magic dust on my hair and bullied it into behaving.

Unfortunately, she went on maternity leave after I had that haircut and I haven't seen her since.

The next one was downright freaky. While cutting my hair, he casually mentioned how his dream career was to become a mortician! Nice way to boost confidence levels in a client.


The last really interesting haircutter was an indophile.

He was covered in so many tattoos, it was hard to tell what kind of clothes he was wearing! He told me that his boyfriend usually tried out unique designs on him first and that's how he ended up with so many. I found that what little I know about Hinduism was very deficient compared to his encyclopaedic knowledge!

I seem to have knack for meeting the most bizarre haircutters and going to the weirdest of haircutting settings.

I admit it. I am totally jealous of (e:pmt) weekend trips so I determinedly took one of my own this Sunday. I headed out to Forest Lawn Cemetery and decided to do this entirely by foot. Took me around 25 minutes to walk to the Cemetery from home. Not bad at all. I sorely missed Mt. Hope all these days and I think Forest Lawn is a worthy competitor. It was beautiful and I loved the fact that it was hilly and had somewhat steep-ish slopes just like Mt. Hope. Some photos from the hike...

I love that the entrance is so grand and has a small road fork of its own!


The entrance gate is actually crowned! Nice touch. :)


Is the green on this statue actually Copper patina or is it just green concrete/sculpting clay? I was in a hurry to rush all across the cemetery so didn't stop to read the inscriptions. Usually, I like to stop and read all of these random details and weave them into my own personal story versions. Hasty me. :/


There is something so soothing about walking on a bed of crackling yet soft leaves layered on grass...


Fall was out in all its glory at Forest Lawn!


The water-bodies across the cemetery are spell-binding. I could have easily believed that throwing coins in them and wishing like crazy might have made all my dreams come true! They were just that perfect! This is Jubilee spring - the first of the three.


Crystal Lake - as you can see it lives up to its name. Each leaf colour was reflected back in perfection!


A couple more view of that magical lake.



There were these morbid looking dark mushrooms all over the place.
(e:imk2), can Slawa tell whether these are edible?


The Bridge to the mythical geese kingdom. :)


The compass for lost souls.


There were sections of the cemetery that looked like you were looking through some virtual convex glasses, when in fact you weren't. Such a cool effect!


Creek Scajjy. ;-)


The ferocious guardian of the mythical kingdom of geese (otherwise known as the mirror lake).


The Geese Kingdom!



These geese actually posed for me. :)





From one of the mounds near Delaware avenue, you can see across the road on to distant plains and I think that is Delaware Park? (Not sure, though.) It was like one of the scenic moments described in a George Eliot novel.


The colours on the leaves were gorgeous!


There was this monument with angels and gargoyles that reminded me of churches in Prague.




These crosses were set off by a riot of colours in the background.





Not to be outdone by those below, some really delicate clouds were floating in the sky.


This monument somehow reminded me of a water tank and nuclear cloud all at once!


A flashback to Mt. Hope in Rochester that has Egyptian sphinxes as well!


I thought this Roman influenced priest had such a dramatic background!


I wasn't paying much attention to the inscriptions as I always do but these two picked me up ;-) The husband has measuring tools and a hammer on his side and the wife has humming birds (?) :)


And, having that name must have been hard at school...


It was a lovely afternoon! Forest Lawn is a real treasure. :)

Okay, I don't have (e:Matthew) magic dust, but hey, I try! :D Here is the view from the Mayflower terrace.

Looking north towards Delaware Avenue:

You can see the Zion temple and the uber cool condos on Delaware.

Panning east, that's the pretty house at the north-east corner of Linwood and Summer in the foreground. I am amazed at how pretty and colourful it progressively becomes as the leaves climbing it slowly turn in the fall.

Far in the background, I think that building is ECMC. You can also see the South Campus and the white clock tower in this view but my camera is on the lowest resolution to cram in the maximum number of pictures in 16 MB, so yes, this is all you get. Bleh.

Further east is the Summer-Best junction and the paint company further down the road. You can also see the copper-topped bell tower that produces the deafeningly loud chimes that resound around Linwood.

When I first came here, I thought someone's wretched job was to sit in that tower all day, every day, in all weather and strike the chimes by the hour. It somehow consoled me in rough times in a crooked miserable way. However, (e:Paul) broke the romance and pettiness by telling me that the thing was pre-programmed. *Sigh*


Alrighty, this view here is the direction of my school and livelihood of many on this site. Though you can't see much of it behind the towering presence of Buffalo General, the tiny bit of red sticking out beyond the big building is Roswell Park Cancer Institute. :)

To the right of the programmed chiming copper tower, the central terminal building is visible. I can actually see this from my window, but I didn't realize that it was the central terminal building till I actually saw it from terrace. Yeah, I am that visually and logically challenged.

Panning south now down Linwood...

Off in the distance, you can see the hope of the future windmills! :)

Further south is Buffalo's famed downtown skyline.


Hidden behind the tree in full fall colours is (e:pmt)'s abode!

And of course, a close up of the famed Buffalo downtown skyline.

Hiding my clear view of the Buffalo Harbour are these 10 storey monstrosities on Delaware Avenue. I used to think they were the same height as the Mayflower, but no, they are a full 2 storeys higher. :/



To the west is the beautiful church on Delaware Avenue between North and Summer. Off to the distance you can also see that Water Arbour structure right in the middle of the water. I am not sure what that is but I think it might be a good spot for a lavish water wedding that Buffalo might make money out of.

People could say their vows in that structure between Canada and the US and the guests could witness the ceremony in yachts floating around that structure. I think I have been seeing far too many romantic comedy/wedding movies lately.

Further west is this grand view of Summer Street.


And THAT off to the north-west is the city of Niagara Falls.


When there are absolutely no clouds, zero haze and it is somewhat chilly, you can see the mist from the horse-shoe falls. Again, I need (e:Matthew) magic dust and a better camera to prove this but there you have it.

And no terrace shoot can be complete without sky-focus shots. These are the some of the same views in absolutely magical lighting.


I go up there so often now, its hard to not take my camera and shoot when you see such awesomeness.


I think the second best place to see the sunset (after the harbour) is the Mayflower terrace. :)










Here's sunset over distant Niagara Falls!


Sunset over the famed Buffalo downtown skyline.


Nightfall over the famed Buffalo downtown skyline.

---

PS: I have noticed that the more you keep describing something as "the famed blah blah", there is a big chance that it actually does become "the famed blah blah" at some point. Hey, I love Buffalo. If this is the least I can do to make it famed in current times, I will do it with diligence. :D

PPS: I am somewhat disappointed by the resolution of this entire shoot. I need (e:Matthew) to come up here and shoot it all to show the world exactly how awesome it really is. :)