Weekend in Hoboken, New Jersey

After the wedding Friday night in Chinatown, came over to Hoboken, new jersey to spend some time with friends and see my university, Stevens Institute of Technology. Because everyone keeps asking me when I can meet them, I quickly setup a facebook event for Saturday – I didn’t have time to call people and invite one by one. Hustling back to josh’s place after the Chinatown wedding, took the PATH train to Hoboken. It seemed pretty much the same as I had left it a few years ago, except that the waterfront was built up with a W hotel and a whole strip of bars and clubs.

Hung out at the Teak bar meeting old friends stopping in and out – it was great to see so many faces after such a long time. Richard Persaud stuck with me most of the night, and we had our traditional Johnny walker black and coke drinks! I’m such a traveler, brought my backpack to the bar, which was a rather upscale yuppie bar, and I am in there looking like a college student with my stuffed backpack holding my laptop and change of clothes. Just living life on the road, my friends all said I looked the same as I had left, even younger! Jeez, all over the place in NY and NJ I’m getting ID’d – as I look in my teens or early 20s…..unbelievable. I know, I should be thankful that I look young- I’m almost 30 years old and people think I’m 18 or something!!! Haha…. gotta live with what we got and make the best of it.

Sunday had a lot of meetings to catch up with people in Hoboken. and again Social media helped me meet and connect with more people – sunday morning grabbing coffee I checked in on foursquare and James Runkle saw I was 1 block from his apartment and asked to meet up – we grabbed coffee and walked around, talking internet, social media, sales cooperation, etc. It was really cool and amazing. And this is why I love twitter, facebook, blogging, foursquare, linkedin – its all about not only making NEW connections – but strengthening current relationships….

Anther great thing is the FOOD – I have been going to these buffet stations where you can grab anything you want, they charge you by the pound – so I’m grabbing things I haven’t had in China / Philippines like cottage cheese, macaroni and cheese, salmon (cooked a certain way here), and all kinds of random things. SO AWESOME! jeez…i’m probably gonna gain more weight here…..

So after hanging out with Lily, Richie, alan, cindy, James runkle, Mike Andrews, Nornalie, Lauren, and Silvio Laccetti – man just working deals – met some professors at Stevens Tech…..hope to work more closely with Stevens as they do an exchange program in China – maybe I can help them do something like this in the Philippines…but then again, not sure if its financially possible. Just want to make things happen and make win-win deals.

ended up buying a NEW PHONE….signing a 2 year contract for US phone service, since I can pause it when I’m not here and it just adds to the time (meaning you cannot escape using 2 full years of service, but can pause it) – I ended up picking t-mobile phone service with an android operating system (google’s new system) – on a samsung galaxy S phone – a complete copy of the iphone shape/style. I am a little nervous using a 100% touchscreen – because of prior bad experiences – but the sales rep told me this has a special material, and he threw one on the ground on front of me and it worked fine afterwards. So lets hope. The one negative thing is that it doesnt have a flash on its camera! And I am noticing battery life is only about 7 hours….I need to charge it in the same day I am using it….But I love being wired all the time, as I got the data plan with unlimited data and text messages.

Just still soaking in all the changes and feelings of being back in USA! Especially New York, I love this crazy hyperactive city. But I really need some rest, been an intense 4 days.