Seattle Days

Friday, December 25, 2009

The flight was at 3 pm. Since it was the first domestic travel here, we (me my wife and son) started bit early. We commuted to airport by train ( BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit). Since it was Christmas day, there wasn’t much rush in the train. But the plane was full (except for first class and they offered an upgrade for just $50). Travelling on Christmas day has this advantage of getting a low fare. I got a window seat but since it is winter season it was foggy.

But still I could see many snow filled mountains…
It was beautiful

Reached at Seattle-Tacoma airport around 5.10 pm. Weather was different…it was colder than Fremont. Sister-in-law came to pick and we went to a Punjabi restaurant and bought some Indian food for dinner. At night went out to see the Seattle skyline. It was a great view but I had bad headache coz of lack of sleep on couple of previous nights. So went straight away to bed as soon as we reached home, I did not even change my dress…

Saturday, December 26, 2009

I wasn’t traveling to Seattle for tourism or sightseeing but my sister-in-law was kind enough to add some tourism element into it. Thus we decided to go to Snoqualmie falls and Pass, which was about 55 miles away from home. I was thrilled to see the snow but sis-in-law said if the weather is not good, she will cancel the trip (it was she who was driving the car). We went to the falls first. It wasn’t a great fall but it really was cold…I went out without wearing any jacket and when the wind blew, wow wow wow…but my jaws did not chatter.

Snoqualmie Falls

Next was Snoqualmie Pass, the mountain with snow. There are big billboard kind of things on the sides of roads which provide live update on traffic, weather etc and unfortunately, there came this warning ‘Gusty wind ahead’ and my sister in law said we better cancel the trip and come another day. But I did not agree to that. This resulted in her handing over the steering to me. I was driving that car for the first time, the steering has play, the wind was gusty, as they said, but luckily for me, there weren’t any snow or ice on the road which could have been a spoilsport. Finally we reached there and it was a fantastic view.

Lots of people were doing skiing and snowboarding.

At Snoqualmie Pass

Since we did not bring any of those equipments (sister in law knows how to ski and snowboard) I did not try anything funny (‘thank God!’ Said my poor old knees).

Way back home, I saw a young homeless man begging, hanging a placard in his neck which read: ’ Anything will help’…and came to know that it’s not a rare scene in the US.

Sunday, December 27, 2009.

Which is the easiest way to have a look around the Seattle city? Ride the Ducks !.

Space Needle

This city tour is operated by ‘Ride the Ducks’ (they have service in many other cities including San Francisco, which is about an hour’s drive from my apartment in Fremont). Duck is an amphibian. It can travel both in land and water. The design is taken from the DUKW (pronounced as ‘duck’), an amphibian truck designed by the General Motors during the World War II to transport goods and troops over land and water. Now Ride the Ducks manufactures its own vehicle.

The Captains of these ducks are all funny. They sing, crack jokes and entertain us throughout the journey, apart from providing other information about Seattle. I liked my captain very much. He was a real entertainer. The ride starts from (near) the famous Space Needle and takes us through the major streets. Seattle has lots of Starbucks, including the very first Starbucks in the world. The duck takes us to the Lake Union, which is a fresh water lake. We can see lots of private yachts and boats parked there
. It takes about one and a half hours to finish the ride. I really enjoyed the ride. Unfortunately, this time too I wasn’t wearing any coat and at some point of time, I even shivered…yes, it was a real cold day.

Though the duck went through the Pike Place market, we paid a visit there ourselves.

This market is near the Elliott Bay waterfront. This is one of the oldest farmer’s markets in the US. This place attracts around 10 million visitors in a year. There are lots of shops selling many different items. One fish shop

seemed to be an attraction for many visitors.
The first ever Starbucks is here. There was a crowd inside and outside hence I shyed away from taking a picture standing just in front of it (or have a coffee from there). This market place has some long history too.

We went to one Turkish restaurant. May be we visited at an odd hour coz there was only one lady to attend all the customers and hence we had to wait for some time. I ate Baklava and Spinach Borek. Baklava, the sweet, had some similarity to one of the Indian sweets.

We paid a visit to the Pacific Place mall too. This is one of the premium malls in Seattle. We went to the Bose store and experienced a demo of their home theatre system which was awesome. Since it was holiday season, there was live music. The lady who sang the songs ended it with ‘Jingle bells’.

We had dinner from an Ethiopian restaurant. This was a different experience. I never thought of having Ethiopian food in my life. I ate something called ‘Injera’ which is one of the most popular foods in Ethiopian cuisine. This was similar to our ‘dosa’ and ‘aappam’. I really liked the tea served by them.

Monday, 28 December 2009.

Spent the whole day at home….finally, to the purpose of the visit..sort, pack, work..

Tuesday, 29 December 2009.

This is the day of one of my dreams coming true. Visiting the final resting place of the legend Bruce Lee. When I had this dream of visiting his grave, I had no idea how it is going to happen; after all, from where the funds will come? I was in India and we had no US plans that time. But I had this strong wish to visit the grave, which was in Lake View cemetery (I passed Volunteer Park too, but did not go inside the Park), Seattle. I really really wanted to visit it someday.

When I really stood in front of his grave, my head/mind became blank.

It was hard to believe that finally I am standing there for real. I don’t know how to describe this moment….I thanked my Guru because it was one of his teachings that inspired me to keep such a big dream in my mind.

Space needle is one of the major tourist attractions in Seattle but we did not visit it or took the elevator in the needle. Instead, sister –in-law took us to her office building, the Columbia Center, which is the tallest building (937 feet) in Seattle downtown, taller than the Space Needle (605 feet). Thus we got a wonderful view of the Seattle.

Space Needle and Seattle seen from Columbia Center

It was really beautiful. On my way back, I bought roasted chestnut from a street vendor. He was a nice guy and the street was beautiful coz of the decorations. I wished there were snow too. Then it would have been a magnificent view.

We travelled in a bus. The most interesting thing about Seattle is that the bus is free in the downtown area. It was hard to believe. May be Bill Gates is supporting them a lot. Since we caught the bus not from the downtown, we paid ($2 per tkt). It included a return trip too but we had to hire a taxi since we were in a hurry and we already wasted enough time walking here and there and eating chestnut..

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Woke up (as if I slept nicely, huh!) at 4 am with headache. Here in these weather conditions, if we do not drink enough water, it can result in headache. We are going back to Fremont by car. We had some work in city of Vancouver (Washington, not Canada) Motor Vehicles Department. That building and surrounding area was marvelous... everything covered in snow. It was just like the white Christmas I have seen in pictures and movies. Unfortunately, I did not take not even a single picture; one reason for my bad mood was my headache. But from Vancouver till my house, it was me who drove the car (over 1000 km). The drive was really good. It was scenic too. But we did not stop for any sightseeing since we had planned to reach home before midnight. This again is coz we had some other work next day morning.

This was the longest drive I ever did, so far, in single stretch. We saw lots of snow and ice on our way. Many mountains were covered in snow.
Luckily for us, there wasn’t any fresh snow fall on our way. I stopped the car at one restroom, stepped out of the car without wearing gloves and there it is….it was some minus temperature and my hands got almost frozen. But I enjoyed it. Though I was wearing a coat, it was really cold. And the view from that place was superb. Moon and snow covered mountains..Mother Nature is really beautiful.

Reached home around 9.30 pm. We prepared some express dinner and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The California Thing..

It wasn’t an all of a sudden affair. But I took it lightly since I already had a bad experience in a similar situation. So, I kept it low. Did not get excited about it…did not make any plans in advance… Finally, when things looked like a reality, I had very little time left to arrange things properly. This does not mean that I had no plans. My plans got interfered by many others. When you stand alone against many, it’s a different experience coated with frustration and pity. I always believe in planning in advance and I believe that some times we need to compromise money over convenience if we can afford it. When one is doing things alone, one can stick to his plans otherwise it’s not easy.

26-Nov-2009, Thursday

We are supposed to travel tomorrow. This is a long term assignment and hence we need to carry lots of things but even the packing was yet to start. There were many things to buy plus lots of things to move out from our apartment since we are going to let it out. We had one dinner invite too. My wife and I had to be at our apartment till almost 9 and thus reached the dinner place bit late. We stayed at my in-laws place. I could not sleep coz of two reasons – I was very tired then I did not get enough space to sleep (might sound silly but its true that I prefer to sleep alone in the bed…but this time the whole family, the three of us, had to share a single bed).

27-Nov-2009, Friday

Woke up with headache since I could not sleep last night. But there were still lots of things to be done, including some last minute shopping. I decided to do the out door chores and my wife decided to start packing. She did not get enough support since she did not want to blindly follow others opinion and thus it became a tiring job for her. I was running around till 6 pm that too without drinking enough water. Thus I was really tired.

We left at 10 in the night ( I wanted to leave at least by 9-9.30). Since we could not get the boarding passes early, we did not get window seat. Our first flight was from Bangalore to Hong Kong (Dragon Air). The flight was at 2.35 in the early morning. Couple of people in the flight had cold, it seems. I heard some sneeze and finally, I too started sneezing..then I had a tablet to arrest sneezing and headache.

28-Nov-2009, Saturday

I could not sleep well again and hence there was terrible headache. I wished I could lie down somewhere. This is the second consecutive day without much sleep. So, as soon as I boarded my flight (Cathay Pacific) I tried to sleep. The headache did not stop but increased heavily and hence I had one more tablet. Headache was not affordable for me since we had lots of luggage (we carried the maximum that airline allowed, in terms of number of suitcases and weight. This wasn’t my idea and I always prefer to travel light). We got two window seat and one middle seat. But we exchanged the window seat (a Chinese guy…this poor guy accepted one Indian vegetarian meal delivered to him which was supposed to be ours). I lied down on my wife’s lap for almost the entire trip (18 hours) but I could hardly sleep coz of the headache. The third tablet started suppressing it..

We reached San Francisco around 10. The officer who interviewed us was a Chinese man and he was very friendly and he gave 3 years permit though we had only 1 year visa. Now we can stay here for 3 years in one go (if we go out of US after one year, once again we need a new visa). My sister-in-law (who live in Seattle came here just for this purpose)was there to receive us. And within a few minutes, there came another relative (who are settled in SF). As soon as I came out of the airport I felt the coldness and this made me very happy (I love it, though my body might not like it many a times).

We straight away went to that relative’s house and within 10 minutes I went to a nearby Chinese store to have an idea about how the US stores are like….Then we had lunch, Indian food. It was a nice house and they had an apple tree in the backyard. Since we were surrounded by our own people, I did not feel like I am really in the US. It was a surprise for all of them seeing me not sleepy coz of jet lag (my wife and son were sleepy). Yes, I wasn’t sleepy though I could not sleep for couple of days plus this long travel crossing time. (But this doesn’t mean that my body does not need sleep. It does need sleep just like anybody else. For me, this happens so coz of my mind. But body warns me with headaches and heartburn/acidity and sometimes even with chest pain).

In the evening we checked in to our hotel and then went to Starbucks to have coffee. Most of the malls here are not single huge building with escalators but lots of small but independent buildings/shops. It was cold and windy outside, but sunny too.

For dinner, we went to a place which sells pasta, pizza and some Mexican and American food. I did not much like the food but I had no issues in eating them. Everything had lots of cheese. Food was expensive.

29-Nov-2009, Sunday

Woke up very early. The complimentary breakfast wasn’t good. Re-arranged and re-packed stuffs and came to know that baniyan (an inner vest for men made of cotton which is worn under shirt/Tshirt) and the sandal that I bought as last minute purchase turned to be wrong size (they showed me something and packed something else). The only Indian traditional dress I brought got spoiled by some mango pickle (we were not supposed to bring this, I guess. But I was helpless…the one against many issue again).

Checked out many apartments. The houses were spacious and neat. There was one neighborhood full of Indians and my personal choice was to keep away from that. Finally we decided on one and told them that we are interested.

Did some essential goods purchase. Sister-in-law, who was driving the car, bought a GPS. We even got Indian roti/chapatti from one store. The variety available here in the US is amazing. We have lots of choice here. Even eggs come in many different varieties and sizes. Same with milk, it comes in different fat levels. One particular store called Costco sells everything in big quantities but at lesser price. There are so many chain shops specialized in different stuffs like food, grocery, stationery, saloons etc…I really enjoyed the shopping experience. Happened to be at a McDonald’s which did not have any vegetarian stuff and thus I had to go for a burger without anything inside.

30-Nov-2009, Monday

First working day after we arrived here. But woke up little late and hence had to hurry. We had so many things to do. First was to return a mobile phone which did not work and when returned, came to know that it was billed more when we purchased. There was a difference of $5. The we proceed for the most important thing in the US, the Social Security Number. I will never forget this visit, coz…

We entered the SSN office and parked the car. I got down from the car and started walking and heard a lady saying:

“Excuse me”

I saw a tall, athletic looking blonde lady saying that to my wife. She continued:

“You made a dent on my car”

Then my sister-in-law interfered

“There is no dent, nothing happened, its just a..’

She tried to wipe it off

Then that lady took her wallet and took an id and showed it. The first thing I read was

“POLICE” in bold red….

She was a police officer. I checked her car and yes, there is a dent. And that was caused by our car when my wife opened it…it ended up in claiming insurance…

Ooops @ Hong Kong

I wrote my earlier Hong Kong blog in a hurry. There was this slight jet lag, when I was writing that. Jet lag is nothing but lack of sleep to which I am used to. But after writing, when I went through it, it was a surprise – lots of mistakes. (Lack of sleep can do many such wonders. I have experienced it. Math related things are difficult during that kind of state. I have this experience of sitting with ‘how do I do this’ feeling when I had to solve some basic fraction problems. Remembering math tables too becomes difficult during that time) I fixed most of them and then published it. I think I missed out many little little things. Some observations, some incidents, names of many places I passed…

One thing I observed during the 4 days of stay there in Hong Kong is that I did not see any local people with dandruff. And some guys don’t even comb their hair.

A Muslim lady wearing burkha approached me and asked :
“Excuse me, are you a Muslim?”
“No”
“Can you please tell me where I can get halal meat?”
Very funny! When she asked me that, I was in look out for vegetarian food !!

Some of my regrets during this visit – 1. Did not find out Bruce Lee’s house. I can’t believe that I completely forgot to enquire about it. The authorities are busy making it into a museum and I hope this will get added to the tourist info, very shortly. 2. Not eating food from Po Lin monastery 3. Not eating egg tart (suggested by super star Jackie Chan in Travel and Living TV channel). 4. Missing out to take some particular/critical photos – like the food at the vegetarian restaurant and we eating it with chop sticks. And then the picture building where I stayed….there was many such silly things

There was a pleasant surprise (may be for Indians) and big relief - Taxis; they wont cheat. They will put meter and will return the change. They wont ask more money from a tourist.

There is this ‘feeling guilty thing’ too, in connection with this trip. I did not inform any of my friends (with whom I was in touch or with whom I used to share such info) about my vacation. I thought I will send a card from Hong Kong and thus I can give them a surprise. When I could not do that, I felt guilty (may be for no reason).

These are the things I remember for the time being

The Hong Kong Affair...

09-April-2009, Thursday

It started at 8.10 pm by making a move to the Bengaluru international airport. I reckon it was slightly late considering the situation. It was a long weekend (Good Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and hence this possibility of people going for small vacations. There was heavy traffic and I reached the airport by 9.50 pm. The flight was fully booked and most of the passengers took the boarding pass earlier than me. The result was no window seat available (I really love watching those sights we get during take off and landing; plus the magnificent clouds during the journey.



It gives a feeling to give a hug to God). OK, fine, after all, it’s a night journey.

I boarded the plane (Thai Airways International) at midnight and it zoomed into the sky at 12.35 am (00.35 hrs). May be that is the reason, the day became 10th April. The food served onboard was nice




(yep, vegetarian meal). I couldn’t sleep properly.

10-April-2009, Friday

Reached Bangkok ( Suvarnabhumi International Airport) at 5.35 am (local time, which is one and a half hours ahead of my time).


The connection flight to Hong Kong was only at 10.40 am and hence there was more than enough time. I had been to this Airport twice before and I like it. So, I walked around to recollect memories and stuffs. I boarded around 10.15 and it took off at 10.45 am. This time too I did not get window seat. But the American lady who was sitting next to me (enjoying the window seat) was nice and hence when we are about to land, she sat in such a way as to not to obstruct the view I was getting.

The aerial view of Hong Kong was fantastic. Sea, islands and boats, just like the ones I had seen in pics and movies. It made me soooo happy. I became bit excited too.

I reached Hong Kong airport at 2.30 pm local time (which again is one hour ahead of Thailand time).



I was taken for a surprise when a bunch of people comprising both men and women suddenly appeared and one guy told me ‘Immigration’. I thought those were guys who are trying to help me for a fee. So I said ‘NO’ to them and tried to evade. They covered me and said ‘Passport checking’. Then I said sorry. He smiled and he was friendly. Usually we queue up near a counter to meet the immigration people plus they wear uniform. These guys were in jeans and with different type of shirts and coats. He asked what the relationship between me and the lady who was travelling with me (my wife...it was a 'we two' trip). They just checked the passport and let me go. There was a long queue to get the Visa stamped. After a couple of questions, including ‘what is the relationship between you....’, the officer gave the typical 14 days Tourist Visa.

I had collected some basic info about Hong Kong. So, first thing I did after converting some USD into HKD was to buy an Octopus card.



Octopus card is a smartcard used in Hong Kong mainly for transport. This card is also accepted in many restaurants. The minimum amount was HK$150. Out of which we can spend $100 and 50 remains as deposit and will be refunded when we return the card (to avoid inconvenience and make things more friendly, it goes to minus amount with a warning beep, when it falls below Hk$ 50). This card can be recharged at all the railway stations and 7 Eleven stores.

There was assistance in getting a taxi. They wrote the destination address in Chinese to show it to the taxi driver and asked me to take a Red Taxi (there was this Green one too). Luckily, my taxi driver understood English.

Sky scrapers. There were lots of high raise buildings and I saw many constructions going on.



There are over 100 such buildings here. The tallest one, which will have over 100 floors, is under construction. As of now, it is the International Finance Centre or IFC standing tallest with its 88 floors (10th tallest building in the world, as on this date). I passed the big HSBC building. There wasn’t much rush till I entered the heart of the city.

Drivers strictly followed traffic rules (a BIG surprise for me who comes from Bangalore). They were driving at good speeds within the city. Bikers were zooming. There were lots of Double Deckers and trams too. Hong Kong is the ONLY place in the world where all the trams are Double Decker trams.

Though Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, it is truly capitalistic and is world’s one of the top financial centres (in fact, there is an agreement with China that it wont impose its socialism for the next 50 years starting from 1984). It is like another free country except that the foreign policy and defense is handled by China itself. There are over 250 islands here but the major ones are Hong Kong, Lantau Island, New Territories and the Kowloon peninsula. I had booked my room in Mong Kok (Kowloon)

I reached there by 4.30. The owner, Jacky Chan, speaks English. He is not a soft guy. Or better put, he is a ‘you mind your business and I mind my business guy’. He showed me my room, which was on 9th floor and asked me to handover my passport to him. He said he will return it once I make the full payment (in advance). By doing that, he was giving me time to freshen myself by taking a shower and changing my dress. The room had many notices (one said if we forget to switch off the A/C while going out, he will fine HK$100) which indirectly tells us that Mr. Chan is very strict. But it was a safe place with CCTV placed at many common areas including lift. The room was tiny, but the rent was reasonable compared to the prevailing rates in HK (Hong Kong’s GDP mainly depends on service sector which includes hotel industry).



And local calls were free for us (may be this clever guy was sure that we wont make much local calls). The cot/bed looked like it was made for a 5 feet tall person. So was the quilt. Well, I am not tall (as per Indian standard) and hence it wasn’t an issue.

When I made the full payment, he returned my passport and gave the receipt. Mr. Chan owns a cute dog, which was friendly to me and wagged its cute little tail looking at me with its big eyes.

Went to McDonalds with a hope that they will have something vegetarian but resulted in practically learning the meaning of ‘high hopes’. Went to another local restaurant and they did not even understand the word vegetarian. There was an eatery just down the corner of my building which sells local food. The smell was really awful for me. I saw even some western tourists closing their nose and go. But since I felt it insulting, I just held my breath whenever I passed that shop (me and my wife never talked during that ‘take a deeeeeeeeep breath and hold it’ time).

There is a saying in Malayalam, my mother tongue, ‘ onnil pizhachal moonnu’ which means ‘if first one fails, the third (will be a success)’. So, tried KFC and I was lucky. They had some potato stuff and Veg salad. After this incident, I met Mr. Chan and requested him to write the required thing in Chinese to get vegetarian food and he wrote something which he himself translated ‘ I am a vegetarian, no meat’. He said there are no vegetarian restaurants around (which was a wrong info. I found out a restaurant which serves ONLY Chinese vegetarian food). Anyway, then on, breakfast was bread and bun related stuffs coz of one more reason – food is very expensive here and thus food started eating the budget I had kept for other things.

For a 500 ml Coke, we need to pay four times the amount we pay in India. Soap, brush, paste, cosmetic, gift items, Tshirts, Jeans... for most of these items we need to pay almost 7 times more compared to my city (when converted into my money). A Nokia E-71 mobile was costing 22000-23000, that too on sale. The same is available here in my city for 19000. Gatorade costs double. To put it in a nutshell, for anything which was available both at Hong Kong and in India, we need to pay more there in Hong Kong.

The day’s plan was to visit ‘A Symphony of Lights’ at Avenue of Stars.



It’s located along the Victoria Harbor waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui. (Like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Avenue of Stars is autographed by the hand prints of Stars and personalities from Hong Kong film industry. There is a sculpture of the one and only Bruce Lee too).



This holds a world record as world’s largest permanent light and sound show. 44 tall buildings across the Victoria harbor participate in this show, every day, exactly at 8 pm. The show uses laser beams (cost of implementing this technology was over 40 million HK$). This was a superb show.



I had a strange experience at this place. I was walking along the Avenue of Stars and I heard a “Namaste Ji” (a form of greeting by Hindi speaking Indians) from behind. I stopped walking and two Sikh men appeared. One guy was smiling at me and one guy, who was the elder one, was staring at me. I greeted him back. The smiling one introduced himself as a resident of Hong Kong (HK has a minority of Indian residents from Hindu, Sindhi and Sikh community) and told me that the other guy is a ‘baba’ (kind of religious teacher) from India who is visiting him. Then the other guy looked at me and told something about me, my luck and a comment on my past life. He said how many kids I have got, asked me to pray in the morning and finally, took a piece of paper and scribbled something and made it a ball and gave it to me. Then he said:

“Tell me the name of a color”

Two colors came into my mind. White and blue and I was confused which one to tell and finally I said:

“Blue”

“Now open that paper and read it. If what is written is blue, what I said is right…”

I opened it and, yes, he had written blue. It was a real surprise to me and I looked at him. But he was standing like nothing special has happened….I discouraged him from further talks and walked away.

I was moving around mostly using the Mass Transit Railway (MTR), the metro rail system. And couple of other times, I used the bus. The public transport system in Hong Kong is excellent and this is the only place in the world where over 90% of the population depends on public transport for their daily movement. There is this notice to wear a mask if one is suffering from cold and cough and I saw people following it ( yes, a real surprise for any Indian). Hong Kong looked disabled friendly, even for those who needed a wheel chair. There was a mechanism at the metro exits which when operated becomes kind of escalator for wheel chair people. When it rained, there was this “Floor is wet, please be careful” warning at MTR stations.

The place I stayed was very convenient.



Bus, Metro, Taxi, Shops, 7 Eleven, KFC, McDonalds….everything was near. Found out an eatery which serves excellent and exotic dishes based ONLY on fruits. I had something which contained mango, strawberry, papaya and some other fruits. It was sooooo yummy.

Went to bed bit early and zzzzzzzz purrrrrrrrrr

11-April-2009-Saturday

I slept without waking up in the middle, which was unusual. I was damn tired yesterday. Lack of sleep. I did not sleep while I was onboard on my way to HK plus I did not sleep well the night just before that. Thus two night’s sleep was due and my body’s water level was very low. Overall effect was a headache. I felt like I just woke up from my grave, completely drained. But I couldn’t afford to rest. So, after having a pumpkin bread and coffee breakfast, I had a pain killer and started the day. Off to Ngong Ping 360 (yep, we get a 360 degree view), which was in Lantau Island and I had to cross Hong Kong Island to reach here (I was staying in Kowloon Island).

The aim is to reach at the top of a hill, where there is this Big Buddha. There are three ways one can reach there – hiking, bus and then cable car. The attraction is cable car.



The difficult part was the queue and waiting to get the ticket. I waited for two hours and in that, one hour was under sun. Since many years, I wished to ride a cable car and finally Lord Buddha decided to grant my wish. It was a nice and cool ride. Sometimes luck comes in a strange way. The car got stopped (and then came the announcement saying we are safe and there is nothing to worry about) in the middle and thus we got a chance to have a great view. We can clearly see the airport while sitting in the cable car. This was about 5 km ride.



The Po Lin Buddhist monastery is located here.Here we get very good vegetarian food. We can see the Big Buddha from the cable car. There were many shops, restaurants, tea house etc. which were other attractions for a tourist apart from some major ones like ‘Walking with Buddha’ and ‘Monkey’s Tale Theatre’ which I did not visit.

I went to a restaurant and showed that ‘I am a vegetarian’ slip written in Chinese. And they suggested some noodles. No offence meant, but I felt like vomiting coz of some sea weeds that was part of this noodle soup. It smelled like fish. I could not eat it fully. Lord Buddha’s blessings came in the form of Starbucks Coffee. I had a Cappuccino and some muffin. A blueberry cheese cake smiled at me and I said ‘No No, I am stuffed’.

There was a shop which had many souvenirs, which included some Buddhist stuffs too. I checked in that shop. I asked a lady in that shop to suggest an audio CD. She asked me what kind of song I am looking for. But I was unable to express it. Anyway, at the end, she suggested 4 CDs. There was a song (or I better say tune) in my mind since long time which I wanted to hear. I had spent hours and days in search of that in the internet but in vain. All of a sudden I heard it. And I told that lady "This is the one I was looking for".( Am sooo happy to have that CD. Love you, Lord Buddha !)

I came back by bus. It was a ‘beautiful’ travel. Lush forest, beaches, boats, hills and man made tall buildings too. it was a mixture of nature’s gift and man’s crafty work. The roads in Hong Kong Island were more sloppy/steeply compared to Kowloon.

When I reached my room, I rested for a while and had coconut bun for dinner. Then went out and had an awesome mango, strawberry, rice ball thing. WOW. It was soooo niceeee. Then I checked out the ‘Ladies Market’ which was just a street away from ‘my apartment’. Well well, we need to bargain a lot. For one Chinese fan, from 60 HK$, it came down till 30. So, I decided to play safe and did not buy much from there. If we don’t have some idea about the price, we might easily get cheated.

Most of the people here were wearing Jeans. And black was the most common color for Tshirts and jackets. I had this impression that I can buy Chinese make mobile phones at cheap rate from Hong Kong. But that proved wrong. Most of the people use Nokia or Sony Ericson (or Motorola). And I observed that many people carry two mobiles. Majority of them were seen with the (hands free) earphones plugged into their ears (white color was the most common). Playing PSP while in the metro was a common thing. I saw free internet kiosks in some metro stations (may be its there in every station and I just did not observe it) For the first time, I saw a girl with a very colorful shoe which had different colored shoelace for each shoe.

The zebra crossings were assisted with light and sound for making the life easy. That is, we hear a kind of beep when the pedestrian crossing light is red and the beats become faster when it’s green. Then again for the last 10 counts, the beat is different. I found it very convenient. Most of the pedestrians follow traffic rules.

Went to bed at 11.30

12-April-2009 – Sunday.

After breakfast went to Times Square which is located in Causeway Bay, in Hong Kong island.



This is a huge building consisting of shopping centers and office complex. Most of the (or all?) shops were exclusive ones for international brands. There is no bargain. I did not buy anything but had coffee and blue berry cheese cake from Starbucks.

Off to Stanley market, in a Double Decker, this is the right place in Hong Kong for purchase, if anyone is interested in shopping. The rates for same items in most of the shops were same (for fan, Tshirt, umbrella, torch, pen etc). There were lots of shops. An interesting thing I saw was one shop selling food products from India (MTR brand heat and serve items). So far, the only thing I found cheap (in Hong Kong) was Chinese apples.




Hong Kong is a very neat and clean place. Fines are heavy for littering at public places (HK$ 1500) and smoking at public places (HK$5000) and eating food onboard a bus or train and paid areas of metro (HK$2000).



But once I saw some girls breaking this eating and drinking rule and nobody fined them.

I had pizza for dinner.

13-April-2009 – Monday

It was Victoria Peak (or The Peak) for today, which was in HK Island. Just like any other tourist, I too decided to try the Peak Tram.



This is a special tram which climbs the mountain. At some places it moves at 45 degree or more and we can feel the strain in our neck. It was a nice experience. At the top, there is wax museum (Madame Tussauds), shops, restaurants, coffee shops etc.




If we want to go to the top of the peak tower, we need to pay. And if we want to use the BIG binoculars, we need to pay again (we can pay using Octopus card). We can see Hong Kong, Victoria harbor and Kowloon from here and it’s a wonderful panoramic view.

Who can afford to miss the star cruise at Victoria harbor, during a Hong Kong visit? So I too tried it. I sat in the upper deck. It was a short trip.



Just hung around the Nathan Street and Jordan Street and found time for a blue berry cheese cake.




I had burger from Burger King for lunch. After taking a little rest, I visited Golden Computer Arcade, which is the place for electronic and computer goods. It wasn’t that cheap and CDs and DVDs were costlier than my city. Hence I did not buy anything.

It was time to have my last dinner at Hong Kong for this trip. There was an exclusive vegetarian restaurant in Yau Ma Tei. They had lots of Cantonese dishes including ‘vegetarian chicken and fish’. But I had noodles, spring roll and Chinese tea, all authentic Chinese dishes. This was a nice experience.

I became a little sad when the thought ‘oh, I have to leave tomorrow early morning’ came into my mind. So was the case with my wife, coz we really started liking Hong Kong.

Met Mr. Chan and told him that I will leave in the early morning and asked him about the check out formality (and about the availability of taxi at that wee hour).

“Just leave the keys in the room and go…taxis will be waiting down”

So, ‘trust’ is still alive. Nice to see that.

14-April-2009, Tuesday.

Did not sleep well the other night, but woke up at 3.30 in the morning. Left the room at 4.20 and as Mr. Chan said, there were taxis. The driver did not understand ‘Airport’. He called up somebody who can speak English and gave us the phone. Done… He was a very careful and cautious driver who never crossed the speed limits.

Reached Bangkok airport around 9.45 am local time. My next flight was only at night. I booked it that way coz I had a plan to get a transit or regular visa and go out. This was to meet a friend of mine and spent some time with her. And then, I can do some shopping at MBK, if I get time. But she was busy and hence I could not meet her. So I ditched the plan to go out for shopping too.

Bangkok was on the verge of a civil war. There were these anti-government protests going on which even became violent. One person died coz of police firing. So, anyway, it wasn’t a good idea to get out of the airport, especially for a tourist.

So, I spent the whole day at the airport. It never was/is boring to spend some time at this airport. It’s a big and beautiful airport with so many shops around. And since it was Songkran festival time, there were live shows which were connected to the art, culture and music of Thailand. Enjoyed a Thai meal for lunch...later, snacked at Starbucks and Burger king . Did some purchase from Duty Free shops and there I go off to Bangalore, with a ‘not so happy but soo happy’ mind.



15-April

Reached home at wee hours.

Kurumba Village Resort - A Trip..

16-apr-08

We had planned to start at 5 am sharp, tomorrow, since we need to reach the resort by noon, the check-in time (I booked/ paid in advance). Wife kept alarm at 4 am. But I asked her, “ should I also set alarm in my fone?” she said

‘No need’ ….

(Our cook had come in the evening and while cooking, saying the weather is hot, she kept the door (to balcony) open and thus mosquitoes already entered the house and hid at tactical places, without my knowledge)

It really was a hot night. I can’t sleep just under the fan as it might give a stiff neck (coz of my cervical spondylosis) . Can’t keep the windows open since there might be some disturbance (honking, police siren, dogs) and I am a light sleeper (who actually needs some sleep)….we decided to go to bed very early….

There came a thought about my friends… it wasn’t pleasant. I felt a lil sad…. then I felt like sending a mail to a friend….but the internet wasn’t working since an hour or so….but then I saw it started working… I sent a one-liner …before I could do anything with the net, it failed again….

I stayed awake for sometime….then I slept, may be by 11 or 11.30 …

Within 10-15 minutes I woke up again… it was hot… I got up and opened the windows.. I saw some dogs running towards my apartment's direction, barking (not at me !) … so I closed the windows … mosquitoes…. Then I decided to sleep in the hall switching on the far off fan, by that time it became 1 am, already… I could not sleep…then I thought of some pleasant moments in my life, to comfort myself…and …

17-apr-08

“Wake up, we are already late!” wife woke me up… so its already 4 am…. “ its 4.20, get up, I woke up at 4 am and thought that I will snooze for a short while but I fell asleep…” said my wife…

“very good…I told you that I will also keep the alarm…”..

The other day , I did some swimming, there was some running around, went to gym at night, did not drink enough water and did not get enough sleep too… so I felt like I just came out of my grave…, tired…

Then for a moment I thought – should I blame her and crib? Then the mood will go…that will spoil the enjoyment of the trip….anyway we cant help , we are late and just accept it and start as early as possible … then I thought of some alternative options, drive a lil more fast (which I couldn’t convince myself), reduce rest in between…. not to drink enough water so that I don’t have to stop to pee many times….

When we all got ready, it became 5.35… and we started by 5.47 sharp. 47 minutes late !!

The result? From my apartment itself, there was traffic, though not that heavy.. I couldn’t reach the main road (to Mysore) in time..

Main road, the Highway, too had traffic, but it wasn’t that heavy…I was the fastest on the road, on that time and I overtook all the vehicles that were in front of me, at some point of time, I touched 150 km/hr, may be the maximum my car can go… I tried to keep some steady speed and the result?



Wife had told me that we need 2 and a half to 3 hours to reach Mysore (she collected this info from the net, reading many trip diaries).. I reached Mysore in one hour and 40 minutes, pretty well. So, now we are not running 47 minutes late.. relief !

The ride through the Bandipur forest region was very good. The road was good (half the way), we were lucky to spot some elephants…



But we weren’t that lucky to spot any leopard or deer or peacocks (if you hit any animal, you straight away go to jail). Forest fire is common here and we saw a stretch like that, with burnt trees.



There were bad roads stretching to 12 km, filled with lots of potholes. I took more than half an hour to cover this. (I love my car - any car that I drive - and hence I never move fast on bad roads).

We stopped at Mysore to have breakfast. I checked mails using my mobile and was happy that I got a reply from a friend and a :) too….

There were 36 hairpin curves to climb up and then 10 to climb down to reach our resort. We reached there well in time, by 12.41 pm, sharp !

The way to (from the road we need to take a side route) the resort was very ‘steeply down’, that too with a sharp curve. For a moment, I thought the tyre might slip and we might hit somewhere and topple. But that did not happen…

Our cottage was near the office/restaurant/pool (I made such a request when I booked). One thing I observed was the use of more wood/bamboo and very less plastic. The door handle, towel rods, lamp units, everything was wooden. Even the electric switches were of Bakelite.







The bath room was very clean. Every cottage had individual electric geyser. So we always had hot water.



My mobile did not work there. It looks like only BSNL connections will work, as of now. TV had very limited channels (one Hindi, one Tamil and one news), no news paper… totally cut from the outside world but in to the deep nature..




We had our lunch. The food was nice( lots of food – sweet corn soup, veg salad, ghee rice, fried rice, plain rice, pulao, roti, dhal thadka, pickles, papad, rasam, pulissery, curd rice, beef fry, fish fry, chicken curry, ice cream, fruits salad, chocolate moose…..).




We took a table at the end so that we can see the hills and forest. The place where this resort is located is not fully natural.




Its mainly an estate. The main plantation is Nutmeg and cloves. But everywhere we turn, its green. Filled with trees.






The place around had a stream (may be coz its summer and later it might become a lil more wider with more water flowing) and then there is pure nature, untouched by humans. It is sort of forest. There were lots of hills around and rocks too….. after all, this is a hill station…..The air was fresh, the weather was cool, though it was summer….




After lunch, we took rest… In the evening, I went to try out the pool. The deep zone was only 5 foot 6 inches, which was safe for me. The pool was good , neat and clear. Initially I did not use any goggles and hence my eyes became red…




Then there was this complementary tea and snacks. Thy were making it fresh. We tell them what we want (from a limited choice like potato baji, onion baji, capsicum baji etc) and the cook will make the snack just for us.

Wife and son borrowed some books and started reading….I spent the time just watching the nature, listening to the sound of the stream, birds etc. ..there were many sight seeing packages which I did not opt for. There were lots of monkeys and birds. There are about 40 types of birds in and around this resort area. I saw only four different types. But we can hear many different types of chirping sounds.



It became night and its dinner time (hot and sour soup, salads, chapatti, noodles, fried rice, plain rice, pepper chicken, beef fry, Chinese chicken, veg cutlet, ice cream, payasam, carrot halwa…)

It became cold. We needed a blanket to cover at night. I enjoyed the cold weather and night….There were lots of glow worms. I managed to catch one and kept it inside my room for a minute to take a pic. But the interesting thing was, as soon as the camera’s focus light fell on it, it stopped glowing…...Good Night…

18-apr-08

I woke up at 6.30 am but stayed in the bed just thinking… …lots of birdie sounds…and the sound of the running stream ….. it was cold and pleasant

A group of monkeys came to visit us... A 'guy' tried to break into the room..He looked like the chief of that group. I gave banana to a couple of them.




We were curious to checkout the breakfast items. There were a lot – corn flake, choco flake, orange juice, pine apple juice, pine apple, papaya, idli, sambar, coconut chutney, tomato and chilly chutney, vada, varieties of dosa and egg items (they will make exclusively for us), puri, potato sagu, chicken sausage, potato fry, tomato fry, bread toast, ragi upma, tea, coffee….

I kept a plate of food on the table and went to take a cup of coffee…and a monkey came and took one puri from my plate, though my wife and son was sitting in the table, they could not do anything… a staff came to take the plate with the rest of the food but I told him I don’t have any issue and I will eat it (share it with monkey). But he did not allow me, he said it’s not healthy and it is unhygienic. He was not ready to take any risk.

Then we visited the stream. Spent lot of time there just playing in the cold water…it was refreshing.. then walked around, rested some time in hammocks, then it became lunch time again….




I did not go to the pool in the evening, but spent time near the stream. I used the pleasant and blessed condition for a quick meditation. It was soo relaxing. …

The thought of ‘we need to leave tomorrow morning’ made all of us a lil disappointed. So we decided not to think about it.

There was camp fire, live music and a housie game at night… it was fun

It became dinner time… it was very cold. I loved that weather. But son did not like it. We did not bring any winter wear even for him…. Back to cottage

19-apr-08

Monkey visit....but nothing to give...

Decided to vacate after breakfast. And also decided to take a different route to go back home. It was said that the new route is more scenic, though we need to travel about 30 km extra. Wife collected this info from somebody’s travel diary. It had also said that, though we need to travel extra distance, the road is much better and there is no hairpin bends. I wasn’t worried about the hairpin curves, which I was very comfortable with. Good road, more scenic and trying a new route… that sounded fine to me…. But?

That was the biggest and only blunder we made during the entire trip (except that we did not carry the charger for the camera). It was scenic, but our camera had no power to take snaps.




The road? Horrible… pathetic…it was nothing but a collection of potholes…At many places, road work is going on…. I was on first and second gear for more than 10- 15 kilometers … thus wasted lots of petrol… now I cant calculate the average mileage my car gave for the trip…. then the wear and tear… car started to produce some creaky sounds… was it only 30 extra kilometers? Nope, at the end, we realized that we travelled at least 50 kilometers extra, that too which had a long stretch of bad roads…

We knew that we wont reach home as per our plan. I don’t like driving at night in the highways coz of two main reasons. One, my car is not fitted with hi-power halogen bulb and the second is most of the vehicles plying will be using those bulbs that too with high beam... so, I decided to take a by-pass which had 10 extra kilometers (than cutting thru the Mysore city) but offered good road. Race ….race …race… race with every car that you see in front of you….. this time, I could not defeat two cars – a Hyundai Terracan and a Skoda Octavia, both high end cars …..

When we reached near our apartment, we stopped to buy dinner and stretch our legs. My knees were paining due to that 10 km of half clutch driving…. But it became OK in a few minutes of walk.

Back home, it was hot…. Fan, cold water bath…. Then wife asked

“ are you not going to check mails?” , she gave a kind of smile…she knew that I was eagerly waiting for that…

“yes, I am” …….

“how many mails are there?”

“46….but mostly from the resident’s association and then the news letters I subscribe…no mails from any of my friends…”

I had told almost every friend I am in touch with that I am going…but, not even a single ‘happy journey’, not even a single ‘ where are you going’ ….not even a single ‘ how are you doing’….not even a single….

Sigh…. Wife looked at me, my face, read something….

“People go for vacations, and sometimes our friends may not wish a happy journey, so forget it”

Sometimes my wife is wise…..