NYC Welcome Corner

I love bookstores with their themed tables, display corners, and books with handwritten “recommended by staff” notes. I also enjoy well-curated tourist info booths, B&Bs, and coffee shops with guest books. When I started to organize things around the apt today, I thought it would be fun to construct my own welcome corner for visitors and friends. Detailed descriptions after the jump.



Top Row (left to right):
The Arrival by Shaun Tan – I bought this at the local comic shop (a book I randomly pulled from the shelf). All images, no text, yet speaks volumes about the immigrant story.
“But I wouldn’t want to live there!” Travel Quote book – from my trip to Powell’s in Portland [blog entry here]
Governor’s Island Art Fair 2012 Catalogue [organizer link] – from my trip to Governor’s Island with J. this summer where we rode a tandem bike, chilled out by the beer garden, and looked through several art exhibits.
NYC Official Visitor Map 2012 [link] – from a visitor booth downtown. One can never have too many maps.
Brochure for “Books that shaped America” -  from the Library of Congress Exhibit in DC. More books for daily enrichment! To find books, check out the bookstore list I started a while ago.
MTA Subway Map – Previously, I had this taped to the wall so that visitors (and locals too) can check out where they are going. When I’m in the subway, I usually use Embark NYC app so I don’t have lean over someone to read the map. Nothing beats the full-size map though.
Several strips of paper for making lucky stars. This is an ongoing project.
Bottom Row:
Creative Whack Pack – on loan from a coworker. Great ideas.
pedometers – I don’t use them but maybe for those active visitors looking to test out their walking abilities?
Cup shaped like a beer barrow - filled with coins and lucky stars, this cup is from a flea market in NJ.
Purple ink pen – because blue/black is not interesting enough.
Art postcard from a Chelsea exhibit for Mi Ju: Gaia at Freight+Volume. Considering a postcard collection so visitors can grab them and mail them to friends.
Juggling balls – my very own set, purchased after a summer of juggling [blog entry here] with Bryant Park Jugglers.
Menu for one of my favorite restaurants Joe’s Shanghai [blog entry here]
German Phrases book – picked up several years ago when I considered learning a new language. The book came with a CD with selected phrases (not the entire book). Probably enough to survive a short trip but not enough to impress my colleagues in FFT . Looking into a language course next year.
Pink post-it notes – I want to stick post-its of my own notes all over the different objects (similar to “recommended by staff” notes at bookstores). Maybe over the MTA map, the note should say “Help! I’m Lost!”. For the menu, note should say “Crave juicy soup dumplings”. Over pedometers, “How many steps in a city block?”
Blank notebook – gift from fyrna, I want to turn this into a guestbook for visitors. Maybe start with a few of my favorite eats/sights within 4 blocks (gotta love yelp’s distance options for NYC). Then let the visitors fill the rest of the pages. I still need to work on second day of my Seattle trip [day one here], where I saw a great guestbook in a café.
Note: Soon after I took the photo, I had done more organization and now the corner also acquired a mini-personal fan, more postcards, a yo-yo, and several photos from San Diego [blog entry here]. The blank space behind all the objects will likely have photos tacked on there in the future.
App of the Day
30/30 App helped me get organized this evening. Breaking down tasks (and chores) into smaller bites and adding in breaks really do work their magic! Here’s my sample (with only one pause and I repeated one of the tasks since the 30 minutes I set up wasn’t enough). Yes, I love their icon section. No, I don’t have a system for setting colors to tasks yet (should look into it).

How do you construct your tasks if you use 30/30?