New York transit

I told you about the surprising incident at Tom's restaurant. Here's another one about New York - but this is a good one.
Soon as we landed in New York, we took a subway from the airport to Jamaica. We purchased one metro card for $ 20 -which was the lowest denomination we could purchase at the vending machine as we did not have bills handy.
We did not realize then that you could swipe a card only once in half an hour. We kept swiping it again and again but the gate would just not let me out. Finally, a couple of security guards came to our help and managed to fool the machine and let us out. That was nice of them :)
But - our card with $15 balance wouldn't work any more. We thought we had lost the money and continued our trip but just before coming back, we found out that they might refund us with another card if we sent ours to New York transit. We did that for the heck of it - a couple of weeks back and 2 days back we got a cheque and a letter from them :)
I guess they sent us a cheque because we live in Minnesota and a metro card would be of no use to us. Isn't that cool!



Even though this is how things are supposed to be, I am still surprised because I still remember the times when me and my sister used to travel by PTC buses from school and the conductor would never give us back 5 paise change.

beauties

We had been to the Farmer's market on Lyndale this week to do our weekly veggie purchase and I just couldn't resist but pick up these beauties...they are so gorgeous- my camera wouldn't do justice clicking them. They all are saying something to each other...some of them have such an attitude- they wouldnt even pose for my pictures...
but I love them all :) Look at them!



Oh my! they are blushing now




My cotton candies

I think that's enough promoting their vanity!

getting back in shape

I used to have winter as my biggest excuse for such a low fitness level, but now the sun is shining in all its glory and I cannot escape anymore. So for the past ten days I have been clocking one hour of "brisk" walk everyday. I did some googling about how many calories I would burn and what is the best way to go about this exercise business when I remembered about the 10,000 steps a day program that one of my friends had spoken about as a doctor-suggested cure for his back-aches. I found a lot of good material about this program on the net.
to give you some statistics:
The physical activity of adults can be classified into

Under 5000 steps/day ---- "sedentary lifestyle index"
5,000-7,499 steps/day (daily activity excluding sports/exercise)--- "low active."
7,500-9,999 (likely includes some exercise or walking and/or a job that requires more walking) ----"somewhat active."
10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as "active"
More than 12,500 steps/day ---highly active

And so I ordered myself a pedometer and today was the first day I used it.
I so love all the statistics!!
so far: 9683 steps ( I am hoping to touch 10500 by EOD)
8901 aerobic steps for a 76 minute walk :)
479 calories (boy!! )
and 5.5 miles
So that is today's achievement. Hopefully I don't fall out of love with my pedometer and I keep this up and get back in shape in a month's time. Let's see.