My day

I am year older today.. but I feel younger, wiser, healthier and happier..I hope and pray that I can make this statement every birthday.

Few people I know are worried about getting a year older, but I am not one of them. Ageing is a natural process and therefore the quicker it’s accepted the better it is.

Instead of dwelling on all the bad things that this milestone brings, I look at the positives. I am no more in the twenties. I am entering the new age bracket and I am happy about it.

This year has already been exciting for me. We(college friends & I) were planning for a holiday together for this year and we actually went to Bali, Indonesia. We were thrilled that we finally managed to do somethng about our plans and not just plan

I got to spend some real good quality time with my 2(S&A) college friends who I have known since I was 16. Here is a quick list of the things we did or some of the events that I will remember for a long time are

1) Our 12 hr wait in Malaysia airport –thanks to A for booking the flights :) and keeping S & I entertained in the airport by her sleeping skills
2) Being upgraded to Ocean suite the first day and watching the sunrise from our balcony – beautiful
3) MR Dana – our tour operator and S referring to him as ‘Cow’ every time she forgot his name
4) ‘A’ called the housekeeping one early morning to ask them for a bucket and a tub – then after S corrected her; she asked them for a bucket and a mug. 10 minutes later, the guy turns up with a laundry bad and a coffee mug – we were all in hysterics over this
5) Our all night chatting/brainwashing sessions in bed and in the coffee shop
6) S the poser :)
7) Being millionaires in Bali – effect of devalued currency
8) Scuba diving, water rafting and jet skiing
9) Trying ‘Barong’ – Balinese dance
10)Leaning about, Wayan,Made,Nyoman & Ketut
11)A’s little rice cooker and S’s tasty edibles
12)Our shavige bhaat, puliyogare and chutney pudi experiences
13)SPA & body massage – beautiful – I could do with one now
14)Paintings and the art work around Bali
15)A’s skill of falling asleep just about anywhere
16)Kaapi Luwak experience
17)Lamp shades, glasswork, garden art and furniture in Bali
18)Air Asia staff not allowing me to get on flight back to Bangalore and S & I running around the airport finding internet and printer
19)Hanoman Street shopping - drooling over all the silver jewellery
20)Last day shopping and spending all the money

As we get younger each year, we plan to do more of these trips around the world together.

What’s been happening then…

I first needed to clean the cobwebs on my blog. It’s been more than four months since I have been here.
We finally managed to go for the holiday I was referring to in my earlier post, but it was such a drama! We decided to go to Tenerife for a 3 night holiday. The idea was to just relax and do nothing else. Our flights were scheduled from Gatwick airport at about 7.00AM and due to really bad weather conditions (snow); our flights were cancelled. We were offered to fly the following day from Manchester City (5hr bus ride). To get to the bus, we had to travel from Gatwick to London City (45mins on train), get in the queue, get tickets, book a night stay at Manchester city etc. Thanks to my iphone and unlimited 3G internet connection! After all this, we managed to get to the hotel at about 11.30 PM and our flights next morning was at some 8AM.

It was the first time that I travelled somewhere from the UK and did not have to change the clocks. Tenerife and UK operate in the same time zone. I was not able to work out the logic of that one. We got there about 2PM and headed straight to the hotel. Both my friend and I fell ill, we were not able to go sight seeing or anything like that, we did not leave our hotel, but all in all, it was a great adventurous holiday with really good friends.

The island itself is really nice; the resort we stayed was good, there was access to the beach through the hotel, beautiful swimming pool. The weather was perfect, about 15-20 degrees Celsius in December.

I have been thoroughly enjoying my Amazon kindle and iphone from the time I bought it, both the gadgets are great and I love it!

We finally managed to get another car earlier this year (FEB), this time we bought a Toyota Rav4 as we wanted to experience a 4 wheel drive. It’s good fun to drive it and we are planning a few road trips this year, lets see how many of them actually end up happening.

Some of the other things I have been up to are
1) Going to gym at least 3 days a week
2) Reading books
3) Knitting a scarf (its going a bit slow now)
4) We got half of our garden paved, so M does not have to lawn mowe during summer
5) M is growing a fruits and veggies in the garden, so I get to eat fresh strawberries every other day :)
6) Been to India & Indonesia recently – was sooper fun..:)

Office is getting a bit boring now.. I think its about time I find another job which will bring some excitement back.

I have not been here for long time now.. :)

Phew.. It’s been ages since I have been to see how my blog has been doing.. I have been really busy lately with work especially and have been going back home late etc.

I have been working on a project recently, which suddenly gained pace making me extremely busy. Now, it’s slightly losing its pace as it’s close to Christmas and everyone is either planning what Christmas tree they should get, where to buy presents, what to do on Christmas day or what to wear to the yearly office Christmas party which I avoid going to! I hate parties that involve lot of drinking and loud music.

It’s been snowing in the UK and the local councils are struggling to cope with it. The snow has arrived early this year and its heavy, which means, no one is prepared for it and it's a dire mess. People stuck in trains, stations, roads etc for hours. The footpaths and roads are frozen and are like ice skating rinks. It has stopped snowing for now, and I hope it does not come back this winter.

Anyways.. I recently bought myself a delayed birthday present (that's my explanation to spend money) which is the Amazon Kindle. It’s amazing; I absolutely love it, the screen looks just like a book. I am really happy with it, it’s got its limitations as it can only be used read books and its not touch screen etc.. But I still like it. It’s really convenient for me to carry on trains while I travel. It’s not heavy and is compact. There are some books that are not available in the kindle version or an e-version, which can be a bit of a problem, but otherwise, it’s great. Love it.

MR got me an iphone yesterday (yay!), a 32GB 3gs black iphone. I have been plotting to get an iphone from a long time, but never got it, because most of the network providers wanted to bind me into a 24 month contract and I hate contracts. You end up with a phone that you can only use on their network and loads of free minutes that you don't want. MR had promised me that he would buy me one, when he finds the right one.. I don't like the iphone 4 so, I had asked him to look out for a iphone 3 preferably 32GB and yesterday, he just got it because he found a good deal. I was pleasantly surprised. He actually went looking for some network switch that he wanted for one of his friend’s office and ended up buying iphone for me.. I am really happy that I have yet another new toy to play with…:).. I am so eager to get it all set up and working..

I and my friend have been planning to go away this Christmas to some sort of a holiday place, where all we do is eat, sleep and relax. We are probably going to an island somewhere in Spain for about 3 nights. It’s not confirmed yet, and we have not done any bookings yet, but it looks like we are close to confirming it. It's a pity that we cannot go for more than 3 nights and also that MR cannot join us. Hope everything works as per plan… and may be I will blog again from some island in Spain…

A visit to Cotswold

Cotswold is a bunch of towns, cities and villages in the central western part of England. It runs across a few counties like Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire & Warwickshire. It’s apparently a range of hills the highest point of it being the Cleeve Hill.

This stretch is made up of a number of villages and towns with beautiful architecture. Most of the structures here are built with a yellow limestone that is found in this area.

Cotswold has some of the prettiest sights of England and is also regarded as a place of ‘outstanding natural beauty’. The Cotswold can be explored in many ways and we chose the easy one of driving. Moreover we only had a weekend (August Bank holiday weekend 2010) to explore the area with some friends who had to leave on Monday.

We headed off on Saturday morning after breakfast towards Oxford which is famous for its universities. Swiftly moved from there and headed towards Burford for the first glimpse of Cotswold villages.

The next village we went to was called ‘Burton on Water’. This is a typical English village is set around River Windrush. Clear water, the small bridges, lush green trees was such a pleasure to see. It’s also called ‘Venice of Cotswold’. Since it was the bank holiday weekend, there were just too many people in the village, so we decided to go back later in the year, in the autumn when there would be fewer tourists.

We headed up towards the north of the Cotswold covering a few more villages on the way. Some of the villages we visited were; The slaughters, Stow on the wold, Moreton-on-marsh, Chipping Camden, Broadway and finally Snowshill. On the way to these villages we saw some amazing cottages. Some cottages had different roofs, looked like thatched roofs, but very stylish ones.

As it was the bank holiday weekend, most places that we wanted to stay were fully booked so; we ended up staying in a town called Cirencester.
English villages have traditional tea rooms that serve Creme teas. This means, they serve scones, jam, fresh clotted creme and black tea. They were delicious.

The second day, we headed off towards a village called Lacock and then headed of towards a Castle Coombe. Castle Coombe was beautiful, it had some nice streets with good looking cottages. I wish I could just sit there and stare at those streets forever. We accidentally managed to bump into an English gentleman who works for a big consultancy and has been to India a number of times. He manages a few teams in Hyderabad and Mumbai from the UK. He was quite friendly and also managed to utter a few Hindi words.

After Castle Coombe, we headed towards the north of the Cotswold again covering Malmesbury, Tetbury, Nailsworth, Stroud, Painswick, Winchcombe, and back to Broadway & Snowshill. After which we headed home. Although, it was just a weekend.. we had a great time and it still reminds us of some really good conversations.

Bangalore Auto saga....

Couple of months ago, I went to Bangalore after 2 years. I had heard that the auto situation in Bangalore is a complete joke, and I experienced it big time.
Firstly, when you call for an auto, some don't look, if they do, they don't stop, if they stop, they don't want to ride you to the destination you need them to.. ! And above all, they demand crazy money if they decide to come to your destination.

One of my experiences this time around.. I wanted to go to Sadashivnagar from NandiDurga Road- Its probably about 5-6 km or even less. It was about 9.00 AM. I go to the main road with a hope of getting an auto. About 10 autos later, one guy stops for me.
He speaks in Hindi,

Me: Sadashivnagar
He: Who kahan hai, mujhe rasta pata nahi?
Me: Mekhri Circle se jaana padega, aapko mekhri cirle ka rasta pata to hoga na?
He: Nahi madam, pata nahin
Me: Chalo, mein bata doongi.. aap chalo..
He: Ok madam, aap ko Rs 80 dena padega..
Me(Shocked & angry) : Aapko ye pata nahin, ki Sadashivnagar kahan hai, aur aap mujhe bolte hai Rs 80 dho... Aapko kaise pata kitna door hai?
He: Smiles...
Me: Walk away to find another auto.. !

This guy annoyed me like crazy, first of all has no clue where Sadashivnagar is, forget that, does not even know where Mekhri circle is, cannot speak Kannada(local language) and then wants me to pay Rs 80(normally would have costed Rs40 or so) and tell him the route of how to get there.. If he could have, he probably would have asked me to ride his auto and he would have sat behind ! He has no clue how far away this place is or anything like that, for all he knows, I could have said Basavangudi!

Its a real frustration when you don't have a bike or a car that you can travel from one place to the other. The auto situation in Bangalore, made me helpless many times.. and I realised pretty quickly, that's its not a very pleasant state to be in,,,

A picture... I wil remember..

A break.. from the norm…

This was on my list of places to visit from a long time. Isle of Wight, a beautiful island famous for its natural beauty and sandy beaches. It’s apparently the largest island of England. In about 2-3 hours, one could drive around the island.

View from the ferry

I was the organiser of the trip (nothing new there), since it’s an island, we need to get to a port first, after which we can get on a ferry that will take us across to the island. Portsmouth was our port of exit from mainland England which is about 2 hours away from where we live. We (I) decided that it would be nice to leave early, get to the destination in good time, drive around the coast for a few hours and then relax in our rooms for the rest of day.

We headed out at 7.00 AM, for there about 9.00 AM for our 9.30 ferry. It was a new experience for some of them being in ferry with the car. We had breakfast in the ferry which was a new experience. Reached a place called Fishbourne near a town called Ryde and decided that we would carry on driving along the coast and would stop if we found anything exciting. We stopped at a vineyard for some wine tasting, had some really nice fresh apple juice and tasty liqueurs. I loved the Elderberry liqueur and we got some home with us too. We also stopped at a place called waltzing waters and watched a spectacular musical fountain, it’s the best we have seen so far.

On the way - English countryside

After a few hours of driving, everyone decided that we ought to stop for a bite. On consensus, we ended up in an English pub that served with some delicious veggie food to our surprise. After a nice meal, we headed to our sea-front rooms, checked in, changed and got ready to head down to the beach of Ventnor. The beach was not as good as we expected, had a quick stroll, wet our feet, realised that the water was too cold and therefore went into a amusement arena and played some games instead :)
By this stage, all of us were a little tired and wanted to hit the bed, but ended up playing cards, having dinner and chatting until about 1 in the morning.

Beautiful city of Ventnor

Day 2: After a heavy breakfast, we headed to Alum Bay where the world famous ‘Needles’ are situated. On the way, we got the witness the beautiful English country which has something different to offer all the time. It’s just beautiful. I love the lush green meadows, yellow mustard fields, colourful shrubs and flowers spread all across. Isle of Wight reminded me of Scotland. We also got to see the white cliffs of Isle of Wight on our way to Alum bay.

Alum Bay had a glass making factory and there we witnessed glass making process. It was amazing to see colourful glasses being made. I bought a nice vase from there just for memory. It was indeed a wonderful experience.

On the whole, was an exciting trip and wonderful memories and quality time spent with some of our closest friends who mean a lot to us, and it’s a pity that one of them are leaving us and heading back to our homeland for good. We will miss you :(

White cliffs of Isle of Wight

Roma...

Its been long since I have been here.. :( Don't know why.. just did not have anything to share..or rather..did not bother making the effort.. :(

Just back from a wonderful & fun trip to Italy.. We went to Rome, Florence and Pisa.. Had a blast... Rome was bright and sunny.. a beautiful place. We hired a guide who told us a lot about the Roman history and how the Roman empire came about. For the first half an hour it was interesting after that.. I was like.. Yeah.. Whatever!

The city of Rome itself is extremely beautiful (not as much as London.. but may be I am biased). The streets, the frightfully expensive designer shops, the entire city is filled with tourists.. and luckily a lot of people actually spoke English. Food wise, being vegetarians we stuck to Bruschetta & Penne/Pasta most times. The pizza's in Rome were pathetic! The ice-creams were really really good.. one of the best ice-creams that I have ever had.. slurp...slurp...

Vatican City the smallest sovereign state in the world was fascinating. St Peter's Basilica being the best. Its beautiful.. its an absolute treat to the eyes. The domes, the walls, paintings and the list goes on - Basically Roman Architecture at its best.. Its grand and splendid..


Florence was a nice city.. filled with art and artifacts.. but not my kind... !

80 miles from Florence is Pisa.. a small village where the 'leaning tower of Pisa' is situated...
I just loved this place.. We also got to climb the tower.. it was a great experience. Since the tower is leaning.. as you climb the stairs to go up to the tower.. the power of gravity pulls you to one side. There is always restoration going on.. but even then.. the tower is standing leaning to a side for centuries even after soo many people going up and down the tower every day. Thats probably why its called a 'wonder of the world'

All in all.. was a fantastic trip.. with lots to see and do... The leather shops in Italy were amazing.. I went crazy looking at the shops there, Italian leather is beautiful.. and the designs they have there is superb.. !

Lake District...

Lake District in West part of United Kingdom is one of the most scenic places.. The sunshine and the spring colours are always a perfect match.. and its a treat for the eyes..

One of the most beautiful places in England.. Lake District...

There are also some intresting and exciting drives.. Some of the passes are extremely steep.. but very exciting as well.. The roads are fantastic.. and absolutely enjoyable..

A beautiful, memorable trip.. to the beautiful lake district... .

Looking forward to...

The Easter weekend… We are planning to go to Lancaster for 2 nights with some friends.. I am sure it will be a lot of fun provided the weather co-operates. I will also have to spend a lot of time after I come back to finish my course exams as I need to complete 3 exams and should have sent them by now.

This is one of the longest bank holidays we have in the UK after Christmas. This is the only weekend where we have both Monday and Friday as holiday. All the other summer and spring holidays have just the Monday as holiday.

I always look forward to the weekends.. just so that I don’t have to wake up early in the morning, I hate waking up early in the morning.. I could stay late at night, the other day we had a girls night out in one of my friends night, and we stayed as late at 3.00 AM .. It was great…

One of our friend has a plan of what we are going to be doing in Lancaster. Its good, as I love surprises and since we have been out to Dubai and other places with this set of friends.. they have a good choice and I am sure they will make a great choice…

I am really looking forward to relax and enjoy.. and sleep a lot. .. if possible

Dubai....

Dubai..... its quite amazing what wealth/money can do... once a barren land, a dessert.. that today stands as one of the most popular and populous cities in the UAE..

Our good friends actually decided on the location and I am always ready for travel and visiting new places.. so we decided to tag along with them. Its more fun when your exploring together with friends.. and boy.. we had a ball...

We were looking forward to get out of the cold London and go to a warm and sunny Dubai.. and Dubai did live up to our expectations and excitement.. It was about 20-25 degrees Celsius throughout and felt really nice to be able to walk around places without many layers of clothing..

We did not have a lot in mind that we wanted to see or do in Dubai... all we knew we should not miss is the Dessert Safari. Dubai is a city of malls and luxury hotels and resorts. There were a few malls that we were suggested to visit.. one of which was Dubai Mall..which we did..
We went to a place called Global village.. which is apparently only held during the shopping festival.. this place was fantastic.. they had designated areas for every country and they had shops within that area for clothes,artifacts etc from that country. It was massive and there was no way we could cover every country.. some of my favorites there was Kenya, Turkey, India (of course).. they had really good stuff..

The dessert safari was the best.. that is something one should not miss on their trip to Dubai.. Like the name suggests... its a safari withing the dessert.. We are all taken on a 4by4 (land cruiser) into the dessert.. We are taken up and down on sand dunes.. its like a roller coaster ride.. was real good fun.. :) MR was really scared for a little while as he hates these kind of rides.... I thoroughly enjoyed myself.. and I was really happy on that day since I had got my ACCA results that morning and I had cleared all the exams..

The Gold and spice souks were great too.. We could see some interesting spices.. and some of them had dried roses, Iranian Saffron and various other spices.. that can be used as scents/air diffusers or as herbal Hookah's....
Some parts of Meena Baazar (near spice and gold Souk) looks similar to Avenue road.. We also found a lot of duplicate goods, replicas.. of bags, watches..electronics.. you name it and they have it.. We also managed to shop some nice big bags...

The food in Dubai was fantastic.. there is no problems for Indians.. as there are lots of Udipi restaurants..and also a lot of Indian restaurants.... We enjoyed Indian tea wherever we went.. and some great coffee....
I also got to taste Arabian coffee.. which was very different... Altogether was a fantastic experience.. and a great place.. to visit..
I really don't mind going back there just to do the dessert safari.. !

Scotland....

We decided in Oct 2007 that we wanted to visit Scotland.. so started making a plan to visit some parts of Scotland... Did some research on the internet, decided that we should take a flight to Edinburgh and then hire a car from there rather than driving from London... moreover it did not look feasible to drive all the way with the time we had.. So we started off planning.. what to see.. where to go.. etc..

As per the plan.. Got to Edinburgh.. Got a VW Passat.. It was a brand new car.. it took us about 15-20 mins to figure out how to start the car.. and get used to its features.. etc.. Was a good learning experience too and was hilarious.. as we had to call the guy from the hire car counter.. to ask him how to ignite the car.. It was indeed funny.. The guy had such a weird expression on his face.. he must be wondering.. and hoping his car comes back safe, in one piece.. !

This was one of the first pictures, we took as we headed out on our driving trip around Scotland.. The weather was promising.. atleast when we started off.. we were hoping it would stay like that...

We headed to a city called Inverness, where we had booked our first night stay..... and decided to visit a few places on the way..

We first went to Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness.. It looked beautiful on the internet while I was doing my research on places to visit in Scotland.. And indeed.. it was beautiful.. the lush green grasslands.. the lovely looking Loch ness... and this castle is on the banks of Loch ness.. It was a beautiful sight.. we spent time clicking photos and discovering about the castle...

Incidentally, also remembered.. that one of the songs in Hindi Movie 'Kuch Kuch hota hai' was shot in this castle.. I loved this place....... sometimes.. The camera did not do justice to this place, or that experience or that moment.. It was one of the best few hours that I spent.. was wonderful....

Scotland is such a wonderful place.... we just travelled along the road to get to inverness.. and found a lot of interesting places to stop and watch....

This is a canal kind of a place we found on the way.. Its not a tourist spot or anything like that.. we could see some waterfalls close by and so, we decided to stop and check it out.. a little further down that muddy slippery path.. looks what we see.. a beautiful spot.. I could stand there staring at this place all along.. Lovely.... a wonderful place.. Imagine waking up to this every morning, sipping a cup of coffee looking at this.. how peaceful...

Its full of surprises.. we found a lot of such small waterfalls through out our trips... It was a wonderful experience.. all together... ..

Our trip had many many stops.. one such stop was to take this picture.. where we could see many lovely colours.. Lovely colours.. some of the places were mind-blowing..

It was an experience of a lifetime.. I look forward to go to Scotland one more time.. as we could not cover all parts of the country..

We also went to a few places like Ben Nevis..Loch Lomond, Fort William, Glen Coe.. etc.


This was the view on the way to Loch Lomond..

It was a great trip.. where I enjoyed every bit of it.. :)

First Day back after break....

Today is my first day back in the office... after a great Christmas break. I am not at all a morning person, I love to lay inside the warm quilt on my bed, with a table fan blowing air softly at me.. We have been waking up really late during the holidays and also sleeping late. But from the last two days, we have been practising to sleep early and wake up early, but ended up sleeping early and waking up late. At least me. MR does not sleep early and he was struggling to sleep at 11 yesterday.
Imagine, not having to wake up to a go to work, imagine waking up in the morning when your body says.. 'that’s enough, you have rested enough', imagine waking up, making a hot cup of masala tea and some hot breakfast, lazing on the couch, not having to worry about life, work, family, job etc etc..
I am sure there are some people in this world who are living such a life, some lucky and some have worked hard for it...
But anyways.. I strongly believe that we should be happy with what we have and live life to its fullest with what we have but dream for bigger and better things and work hard towards achieving it.
Today, I have a birthday party to attend. My friend’s daughter’s birthday party, she is 6 today and is really excited that its her Birthday and she gets to cut the cake. She is also expecting, that everyone coming today will bring her a present, she is a sweetheart and I have got her a nice winter jacket as a present to keep her warm.. hope she likes it. Look forward to the tasty food my friends are preparing today for all guests for her birthday, which means me and MR don’t have to cook tonight. We can take it easy, relax, go to the party, watch TV, spend time together and relax.
That’s it for today…. Will write more tomorrow..
Bye for now
Cheers!

Visit to Watford....

I have had a good long 11 day break.. and tomorrow I am back to work.. :(
We went to ISKCON temple in a place called Watford. Its about 1 hour drive for us from home. As we hail from Udipi, we have a strong attachment to Krishna, so we make it a point to go there when we find time and when we feel like doing the trek..

Its actually a beautiful home converted in to a temple. The temple has huge gardens, a lake with ducks and very picturesque walks. They also have a small Bhagavat Geetha walk, which explains some parts of the Geetha.

This beautiful house converted to temple was once owned by George Harrison of the Beatles who then gifted the whole property to ISKCON. The house/temple is massive with beautiful wodden doors, floors, huge french windows with grills etc..
All in all.. its a beautiful place to visit.. Check this link ...
http://www.krishnatemple.com/home/

We also had some good prasadam and headed back home..
Back to work tomorrow.. and I am really not looking forward to it :( Oh well... I guess we have to do it.. !
Will write more later..
Cheers!