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On Sunday, after returning to New York from the inaugural cruise, we went to Central Park to spend the afternoon and enjoy Japan Day!

Tents with huge lines to get free Japanese food (udon, okonomiyaki, gyozas, panda chocolate snacks, tea…), activities (calligraphy, kimonos, origami, yoyo-fishing…) and performances (karate, taiko…), all very well organized and full of mostly Japanese people in a very fun and nice event.

There were even so many cosplayers that it reminded me of Jing?bashi or Yoyogi park!!

Tanoshii!! ^_^

All things must come to an end, so today we sadly had to disembark. After a nice breakfast and a last stroll through the ship, we disembarked very fast and easily, and in a few minutes we were back home in Chelsea (after going through the most absurd and disorganized taxi system I have seen in this country).

What’s my verdict? It is an exceptionally nice ship for a mass market, even considering its gigantic size.

For a much more detailed and comprehensive review, go to Stephanie’s Travels.

In exactly a month, the next cruise: Alaska with Regent cruise line (now, that’s going to be awesome!).

Day 2 of our cruise started waking up to the sound of the waves and with a buffet breakfast at Garden Café, which we took in an outside table.

The day was fully packed of activities, and given my terrible memory, I’m sure I would have forgotten some of them by now. But thanks to the fact that the cruise line gave us access to the net (although only for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), I was able to tweet my activities, and then use the TL to remember them easier.

The morning had all kinds of fun activities waiting for me. While Stephanie had a dance class with the Rockettes, I played some basketball (first time in 18 years, since I was forced to retire from professional basketball due to knee injuries) on deck 16th, then went rock-climbing (the spotter gave me all the necessary gear and told me to go to the hardest course, but… challenge accepted and conquered!) next to the bungee zip line, and ended the afternoon in the videogame arcade playing all kinds of games (finally had a chance to try Guitar Hero!).

We had a late lunch at Shanghai’s Noodle Bar with a couple of travel executives, and visited more parts of the ship, like the spa, the private area (The Haven) and the Studio Lounge.

Then we had an early dinner with show: The Cirque Dreams and Dinner Jungle Fantasy. One of 3 Broadway show on board. What a phenomenal show! Apart from the typical Cirque du Soleil acts (rope acrobatics, etc), the fast changing act, along with the contortionist were truly amazing. And the food was fairly good, actually.

After that we went to The Second City show at Headliners Comedy Club. Tremendously funny (yes, I am “Mainstream Impaired” too ) and witty, they performed an improv session that was indeed very very funny.

While we did go into the Ice Bar (yes, a bar fully made out of ice, in the middle of the Ocean) after the comedy show, it was way too cold to remain there for too long (even with the provided parkas), so we left and went to see Burn the Floor and Slam Allen again, who did amazing versions of Howlin’ Wolf, Ray Charles, and Prince.

The crazy way to end the night was the “Awesome 80′s Dance Party”. I know some of the people on the dance floor were entertainment crew from the ship… but not all of them! And there were many people totally dressed as if it was the dreaded 80′s, including us! (oh, well, when you don’t have a reputation to take care of, it is easy to admit such sins ).

We were invited to board the Norwegian Breakaway inaugural cruise last Friday. A huge (146,600 tones and 1,062 feet for 4,000 passengers and 1,595 crew) and brand new ship.

It was a short inaugural cruise, 100 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, for VIPs (the bankers that financed the construction of the ship, Norwegian Cruise Lines executives, journalists, “star” travel agents… even Mayor Bloomberg). Many well known people aboard: artist Peter Max, who designed the hull and was signing posters, Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian (with his Ocean Blue restaurant as one of the 27 the ship has)… As we went through the very fast and easy boarding procedure at Pier 88, even President Obama flew over the ship in his helicopter!

It was very nice of Norwegian Cruise Lines to also invite 150 New York-area mothers with their kids (today is Mothers Day in the USA) who had been affected by Hurricane Sandy. 

On day 1 (Friday) we toured the ship, and had dinner with an NCL rep. and a few other people (like a former Broadway actor and producer and his partner, who will be starring in Spamalot in New Jersey’s SmilingRhino Theater next June).

After the delicious dinner (polenta, lobster, bread pudding…) at the Savor Restaurant, we had a stage side table to see the Rockettes and “Burn the floor” at the Manhattan Room.

As if that was not enough for a night, we also enjoyed the great performance by Slam Allen Band at the Fat Cats Jazz & Blues Club.

The night finally ended in the Mid-ship State Balcony room, falling to sleep on a very large and comfortable bed, to the very gentle rocking of a sailing ship.

Right after I accepted the IBM Beacon Award for Healthcare and Life Sciences given to my company (Kanteron Systems), I was video interviewed in the corridor. Here is the result:

One of the friends having dinner with us yesterday was a lawyer that used to be a Public Defender in NY. Of all the many interesting stories she had to tell, one struck me as the perfect example of all that is wrong with The System.

Once she had to defend a homeless man who was accused of stealing a candy bar from a drugstore. Since he had breached a non-trespass order from a previous similar incident, the prosecutor was asking for a 3 year prison sentence. Regardless of the fact that the accused was mentally ill AND a diabetic who could not afford medication and was trying to control sugar levels with candy intake.

At the same time there was a another trial going on: a “white-collar” criminal who had raided a pension fund, leaving thousands of people with nothing to live on after they retired. All the prosecution was asking for was a large (but not to him) fine.

All this in an age when socioeconomic inequality is sharply rising.

In Spain, where political and white-collar corruption is sadly rampant even as unemployment rises above 27%, we have had our share of those extremely unfair cases (from Roldan to Rato).

While knee-jerk reactions to unusual exceptions are not a good way to conduct politics, we owe it to ourselves to make sure The System never becomes an excuse and mechanism for injustice. Specially social injustice.

Yesterday we joined a few friends in part of the NY Shorewalkers The Great Saunter 2013 walk. While the Shorewalkers started early in the morning and walked all along the West side of Manhattan, we started much later, and to the subway to Carl Schurz Park, where we had fun watching the dogs at the dog park, visiting Major Bloomberg’s official residence (although he does not really live there, he only uses it as a nice reception place), enjoying the trees blooming and flowers, and strolling up the East side to meet them half way.

The sun was shining but a viciously cold wind started to blow and made the walk a lot more unpleasant than what it could have been.

We finally met them at around 116th street, and walked down with them all the way down to 53rd street, where we decided to take a subway, go home (not bad, after 10 cold and windy miles), get a jacket and meet them later at Sea-Horse Cowgirl (because Acqua was fully packed), in the still Sandy-devastated Financial District, for dinner.

If I go to the office, I complain that there are too many distractions: whether it is the boom-boom music form the downstairs SoHo store, my coworkers playing ping-pong, street art that requires my attention, or the temptation of a Japanese bento box or mochi with tea…

But if I stay at home, Calvin makes sure I am not as productive as I could be.

OK, I admit it, this was a very silly excuse to try a new slider plugin with Pinterest non-official API… and trying those things is not a diversion or distraction, is part of my job, I swear!

Last weekend we went to TAO to celebrate a birthday. For a large size restaurant that has been in operation as long as they have, it is amazing that the service was decent, the vibe cool, and the food good (special mention for the ruby dragon cocktail). It was fun.

Now that the good weather seems to have arrived to NY, I will be walking more (more than my two hours daily that I already walk), and will be more willing to stop and take photographs of the crazy stuff one sees on the streets every day. Here are some images before April 2013.

(Note: the fun Einstein and Freud images were taken at Chelsea Market, from an exhibition by FunnyFoodArt).