Sep 22-23 was another fun filled weekend at US. We went to see the beautiful Monterey city. For your knowledge this place is also famous for its wineries , but unfortunately we didnt get the time to taste that at its famous tasteries
Well according to our plans we started at 8:00 in morning with Asharam and Krishna on driver seats of our two splendid cars and Vijay and me navigating them respectively. Our car had a GPS system but still we took the Google maps along with us. Obviously Google is more reliable than anybody else. On our way to Monterey we had planned to visit a Mystery Spot.This was a mysterious place (obviously the name says that). The amazing thing about the spot was probably something related to magnetism fundaes. The guide kept a ball in the middle of an inclined piece of wood. Now on a normal place the ball must have rolled down but since it was a mystery spot the ball climbed up without any force. That was absolutely amazing. But we geeky engineers though the ball had some trick in it. We tried that with our water bottle but even that behaved in the same way. This convinced us fully that there is something more mysterious than the women on this earth :D. After that we went to the special mystery cabin where again our Engineering knowledge was put to the test. There was a pendulum hanging from the ceiling. Now according to our physics study the pendulum swings the same distance to and fro on both sides. But here again the pendulum covered more distance on one side than other. The cabin itself was mysterious. We were standing straight in the cabin but still we were tending to fall on one side (and one person left the railing and he really fell down to be the laughing stock of the group). Also though we were standing straight on the ground, it felt as if we are standing inclined at some angle.
After playing with mysteries, we left for Monterey. The drive to this place was awesome. We went through some hilly areas which had some sharp curves and some steep slopes. Also the sceneries on our side after that were awesome. Saw the beautiful US farms and country side homes and tried to capture most of them in our cams. Finally we reached the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was a busy area and thronged by people and we realised that soon when it took us 30 minutes to park our car. Finally we went in to explore the wonderful sea creatures which included my first experience with the sea otters. They swam so well and so cutely and their back stroke was awesome. Four of them were playing a kind of hide n seek game which the crowd enjoyed a lot. After that I went to spend some time with the jelly fish. I had seen a few of them in Sentosa, Singapore but the number and variety here was huge. Before this I never imagined that we have so many kinds of jelly fish on this planet and I am sure we were still missing many more. More, I saw the different fishes, sharks, octopus, crabs etc-etc-etc, more I realised how vast and beautiful our nature is.
And after this was the time for the best shot. Yes, it was time for the 17 mile drive which had the beautiful 21 spots including some golf courses, wonderful beaches, awesome view points, a ghost tree and the best country side houses on the way. Well, due to the shopping spree of my dear fellas we weren't able to cover all of them but we did mange to stop at some of them and got ourselves clicked with the beautiful sceneries behind us. As it was getting dark we had to rush back to our place as we had to drive another 80 miles. But some of us were quite hungry and it took us 3 hours to satisfy their hunger(actually half of the time to look for the Indian restaurant.
we love Indian food..dont we:P)Finally, the restaurant was a good find where we even managed to have a hukka for the first time. And we ended the dinner, by bursting away that hukka. Now, dont ask me how we did that. After all we are engineers man and dont we know that if we blow with force in a closed surface it will burst out of pressure, especially when it is made up of glass!! But anyways we got rid of it and even managed to get an apology from the owner.
So, it was time to say good bye to the beautiful Monterey and the safe driving placed us in our apartments in one piece at 1:30 in night. To summarize, it was a memorable trip and the pics would now do the rest of talking
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
Trip To Santa Cruz
After a long journey of 36 hours including the 10 hr exciting transit at Singapore, Santosh, Krishna and me reached San Fransisco airport and from there straight to the Mountain View hotel. We hardly got 5 hrs to sleep as our fellow Googlers have already planned an exciting trip to Santa Cruz BroadWalk. Though we were little tired and suffering from jet lag but we couldnt say no for such a wondeful trip. And obiously, weekends are not the time to sleep but to enjoy. So early in the morning we left to see the beautiful beaches. But half of the excitement came down when we missed the bus and our fellow friends. The best part of the story was that we didnt had the cell phone and I dont know why the US phone booths were very stubborn and didnt let me make any call. But somehow we managed to get hold of each other and started for the trip by boarding the bus.
Now according to our fellow Googler Vijay's directions who was playing the role of guide, we had to change the bus and take another one which goes to Santa Cruz. But we found out that the bus he figured out doesnt go there. But the driver told us some other way out. So we have to come back to the point where we started. Then finally we got the right bus. It took around an hour and went through some slopes which had beautiful sceneries( acc to Namrata) but what I observed the most were the nice cars. They were too good. And the bikes which we saw were ultimate. I wish I could own one such.
And then we reached Santa Cruz BroadWalk. It was a lovely place. The beach was huge and had an amusement park on the shore. Since we guys were very hungry, we though of grabbing a pizza. Now here I wud like to mention that US is very strange sometimes in categorising its food products in veg/non-veg. There was a vegetable dish on the menu which contained egg :D and some dishes which contained the dairy products were categorised as non veg :P
After filling up our stomaches, we started with the the real fun; we went to the beach. The water was so chilled that for the moment it looked that I am frozen. But within a minute I got used to that and started enjoying. The huge waves were hitting me with a pressure and I was enjoying fighting with them. Facing the waves without moving form my place gave me a felling of being strong and I loved that. The fun part was when the waves receded back, it took the mud along with it and u would feel as if the earth below u is moving away :). Krishna knew swimming and he went faraway into the sea and counting on him that he would save me, even I dared to go ahead a little :P.
After this cool waterbath, we went for some breath stopping rides. We started with the double shot which shot up in a flash to a height of 25 ft and gave us a free fall from there. I was so hell scared. But the real scary and daring part was the Typhoon ride. It was like the pendulum ride of other parks. But instead of taking us only to the extreme ends, they made us to revolve in a full circle. And the moment we were on the highest point , we were completely upside down. For the moment I though that I would fall down and that would be the end of everything. But thank God, these americans have tied us down properly:). And here too they gave us a free fall from the highest point which took the hell out of me again.
Now according to our fellow Googler Vijay's directions who was playing the role of guide, we had to change the bus and take another one which goes to Santa Cruz. But we found out that the bus he figured out doesnt go there. But the driver told us some other way out. So we have to come back to the point where we started. Then finally we got the right bus. It took around an hour and went through some slopes which had beautiful sceneries( acc to Namrata) but what I observed the most were the nice cars. They were too good. And the bikes which we saw were ultimate. I wish I could own one such.
And then we reached Santa Cruz BroadWalk. It was a lovely place. The beach was huge and had an amusement park on the shore. Since we guys were very hungry, we though of grabbing a pizza. Now here I wud like to mention that US is very strange sometimes in categorising its food products in veg/non-veg. There was a vegetable dish on the menu which contained egg :D and some dishes which contained the dairy products were categorised as non veg :P
After filling up our stomaches, we started with the the real fun; we went to the beach. The water was so chilled that for the moment it looked that I am frozen. But within a minute I got used to that and started enjoying. The huge waves were hitting me with a pressure and I was enjoying fighting with them. Facing the waves without moving form my place gave me a felling of being strong and I loved that. The fun part was when the waves receded back, it took the mud along with it and u would feel as if the earth below u is moving away :). Krishna knew swimming and he went faraway into the sea and counting on him that he would save me, even I dared to go ahead a little :P.
After this cool waterbath, we went for some breath stopping rides. We started with the double shot which shot up in a flash to a height of 25 ft and gave us a free fall from there. I was so hell scared. But the real scary and daring part was the Typhoon ride. It was like the pendulum ride of other parks. But instead of taking us only to the extreme ends, they made us to revolve in a full circle. And the moment we were on the highest point , we were completely upside down. For the moment I though that I would fall down and that would be the end of everything. But thank God, these americans have tied us down properly:). And here too they gave us a free fall from the highest point which took the hell out of me again.
After this fun filled and thrilling days it was time to say goood bye to Santa Cruz and to return to our hotel. But yeah it was a nice starting of the US stay:).
The pic album along with the captions can be seen at: http://picasaweb.google.com/bansal.vikas84/SantaCruz
Monday, September 10, 2007
First trip outside India.....Singapore!!!!!!
My first international visit was supposed to be US. But Singapore got the honor. Actually Singapore was a transit for my trip from Hyderabad to San Fransisco and it was 10 hrs long... thanks to the Singapore Airlines. So we(Krishna, Santosh and me) thought of taking an advantage of this and went to see the Sentosa Island. Its a beuatiful tourist spot with a beach and lot of other funs. We went for underground water park in which I moved in a tunnel with a huge variety of fishes and other sea animals on my either sides in glass. It was so damn exciting to see all this from so close. Some times I had the feeling as if I am moving in the sea and these animals would just touch me. Oh I forgot to tell you that there was a small pond in which we could even touch these fishes( but gently). I was so excited on this part but also a little afraid and wasnt able to touch any of the fishes as they were too fast :(. I even saw the crabs and the jelly fish for the first time.
After this, I went for the Dolphin show. This was a real fun to see the dolphins acting on the directions of the trainer. They were acting so smart and so cute. One of my frens Chetan(Singapore local) even got a chance to shake hands with dolphin. After these two exciting shows we went for the beach. It was a nice and clean beach with people enjoying in the kayaks and all. Sadly we didn't had much time to do that. So we just sat on the beach side for some time and started back to airport. On our way, we grabbed some food and also the downtown area of Singapore.....the commercial hub of the country with huge skyscrapers. Some buildings were too big and too good.
Overall, this country had a good impression on my mind but I also had a feeling that India is not far behind. We have a metro system similar to them, though we that hav the sytem of taking the tickets ourselves from the automated machines(which even accpeted notes and gave back the exact change...didnt see this even in US). Also the buses were too good and the streets were excellent with greenery and flowers all around. Yea I know there was a lot more another stuff to be explored but gosh we were running out of time. My flight was sceduled at 5:00 and i just boarded it at 4:50...I know a close call.
And finally I was on my way to San Fransisco...about which I would write more in my next blog. :)
See the pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/bansal.vikas84/Singapore
After this, I went for the Dolphin show. This was a real fun to see the dolphins acting on the directions of the trainer. They were acting so smart and so cute. One of my frens Chetan(Singapore local) even got a chance to shake hands with dolphin. After these two exciting shows we went for the beach. It was a nice and clean beach with people enjoying in the kayaks and all. Sadly we didn't had much time to do that. So we just sat on the beach side for some time and started back to airport. On our way, we grabbed some food and also the downtown area of Singapore.....the commercial hub of the country with huge skyscrapers. Some buildings were too big and too good.
Overall, this country had a good impression on my mind but I also had a feeling that India is not far behind. We have a metro system similar to them, though we that hav the sytem of taking the tickets ourselves from the automated machines(which even accpeted notes and gave back the exact change...didnt see this even in US). Also the buses were too good and the streets were excellent with greenery and flowers all around. Yea I know there was a lot more another stuff to be explored but gosh we were running out of time. My flight was sceduled at 5:00 and i just boarded it at 4:50...I know a close call.
And finally I was on my way to San Fransisco...about which I would write more in my next blog. :)
See the pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/bansal.vikas84/Singapore
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
