My senior project is off to an unexpected but positive start. Since my project involves a lot of traveling around the city, a rainy schedule was not exactly to my advantage. On top of that my baseball schedule just so happened to be my busiest in the first official week of my senior project. Although these circumstances were not ideal for the launch of my project, they gave me an opportunity to get ahead for the following weeks. I was able to do more research in terms of the marketing aspect of my project which included reading This Is Marketing by Seth Godin and other related articles to tourism marketing. I was able to plan out my future trips to the empire state building (which I did this week), Coney island, Flushing China town, and the high line. Thankfully this week the weather was perfect and my baseball schedule was much less time-consuming.
My first trip as I mentioned previously was to the Empire State Building, one of New York City’s biggest attractions, a globally known iconic part of the city. The iconic building gets nearly four million visitors each year according to its website. I chose to find the local spots around this tourist attraction first because I knew that a lot of tourists usually visit this spot. When planning this project out I had no idea how long it would take to try and find interesting local spots for tourists to visit. I was able to find one great food cart that will be in the first part of my writing about The Empire State Building. The food cart is called Halal Guys, which is a popular halal food spot for local people to get lunch in midtown. Halal Guys serves platters, and sandwiches, which are customizable to the customer’s liking. They serve salad accompanied by delicious chicken and lamb. What really makes this food all come together is their “white sauce” which really enhances the flavor. My tourist guide includes directions from the popular spots to my local recommendations. Not only did I choose to include Halal Guys because their food was rumored to be great but also because of their location. To get from the Empire State Building to Halal Guys, you would walk right up fifth or sixth ave through 34th and 42nd street which is the heart of Manhattan. Not only would this be a great place to go for the food but also to see what the city is like for an incoming tourist.
What I can take from this week and the previous one is that planning is important and also leaving more time for each destination that I go to is extremely important. Also since I am now more or less on my own schedule to get the work done, I need to stay motivated throughout the weeks to be productive and accomplish what I set out to do at the beginning of my project. I have found that doing the daily journals by hand has been a great way to start each day because I enjoy writing out my thoughts rather than typing.