Abhay returns to India

Abhay has been staying with us for around 6 months now. His assignment over here has come to an end and he is returning back to India on July 6. So we all decided to go a dinner to one of the high class Mexican restaurants around. Had been to this place once before. The food is strictly OK but the girls are good looking. That's the only motivation to go there and plus Abhay had never been there. We had our dinner and decided to watch the movie "WANTED" starring Angelina Jolie. If you want to see some insane crappy action, 'Wanted' is the movie. The story is stupid, predictable and the action absurd. Its for those who want to shut off theirs brains and watch nonsense action.

WALL-E

Pixar once again creates a materpiece. One more of the Pixar's great animation creations. The story is about WALL*E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) who discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. Its about love and lonliness between Robots with a great human touch. WALL-E has adventure, thrills and moments where you can laugh your heart out. Its a treat to watch!!

June 22, 2008 - Muniyandi Vilas

We sacrificed the gr8 Spain Vs Italy Euro cup quater finals to go for lunch. Vinod was getting mad at us for not getting ready on time. I am going to kill Vinod for taking us to this horrible restaurant - 'Muniyandi Vilas'. The food was pathetic, the service horrible and Ambience sucked. I am going to call Vinod "Muniyandi Vinod" for the rest of my life.

June 21,2008 - Day out at Pescadero beach

A very hot day and the temperatures were soring high. We hit one of the beaches on CA1- Pescadero State beach. The water was ice cold. We could hardly be in the water for a couple of minutes. Then we just relaxed on the beach. Laid down under the sun for a while. Was good fun on a very hot day!

Angel Island

Angel Island is a hilly, grass and forest-covered island, the largest in San Francisco Bay, located one mile from the Tiburon Peninsula.

The trip was very relaxing and the scenic beauty around was amazing. I along with Vinod, Tarun and Praful started at around noon. We took a ferry from the Tiburon to reach Angel Island. The
lunch we had at Pizza place in Tiburon was yummy - Thai chicken pizza - one of the best pizza's i have ever eaten. The ferry ride was nice and short and we were clicking away our cameras to
glory. Snaps with cap, without cap, with cap and glares,the list goes on....hahaha....

Once we reached the island we hiked to Mt Livermore point. The point provided spectacular views of Marin County, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate, and the entire Bay Area.

While comming back i was driving - for the first time on Golden gate bridge...had always wanted to do that. Tough not very competent in driving, i think i did a decent job.

Evening Thiru had come to our place. We went for the movie - Incredible HULK. Nice movie, good action and graphics - enjoyed it. It was already 2 am when we returned..and were very tired. In the end was a nice day, had a good outing, enjoyed a lot.

July 16,2006 - Nikko is Nippon

Nikko has been one of the finest trips of my life...Its like the things u dont expect,turn out to better that the ones u expect. We had all decided for a one day trip covering Nikko and Tobu World sqaure. But we were so mesmerised by the beauty of the place that we ended up stayin two days(wearin the same clothes ;-) i shud say)enjoyin every moment of it..

We started off early on Saturday 15 July. As usual we were all late to take off but managed to get the connecting train from Asakusa on time. It took arnd two and half hrs to reach Nikko. Soon we rchd Tobu World sqaure. Fabulous as it looked in the photographs was the place. It had 102 monuments from all around the world mapped to a scale of 1/25. We were all stunned by the beauty and the art work behind the creation of such fantastic replicas. It was as if the entire world was in front of you. We all got busy with our snappy sessions :-). Back from Tobu we rchd Nikko staion were we had nice Indian lunch(was like a oasis in a desert for us). It was around 3.30 and we hadnt even covered main Nikko, n we didnt even have the time to do so. so we decided to head back home :-(...hey but wait a sec...............we just enquired abt gettin rooms for an overnight stay...........n yeppie we got it!!!....all of us were so trilled that we got one more day to explore this beautiful place. so we headed to our hotel,freshened ourselves and moved out to explore the nearing waterfall. Next we explored the view point from where we cud see the beautiful Kegon falls. Stinking as we all were, we got some Deo's that cud save us. To our suprise the hotel housekeeping provided us with Yukata - A Japanese wrap around kinda thing.....we were soooo relived to have it :-)

Next day we started at around 8 in d morning....we took a bus from Nikki station to Chezunji lake. The bus ride was very pleasent...we were slowly rising the mountains taking sharp turns n twists..the scenery around was just amazing. We rchd our stop on top of the mountains and headed for Kirifuri falls. Between the high mountains the falls were a visual treat. Next we covered chezunji lake where we took a speed boat ride. The boat was reeeeeeally fast. had never sat in such a fast one before. Then We took a long walk towards another view pont where we took a rope way ride. altough the ride was small i had never experienced it bfore and evry moment of the it was worth. During the rest of the day we covered the famous Toshogu shrine,Rinnoji temple and Sanbutsudo. Sanbutsudo contains three immense gilded images of Buddha, very impressive, but no photgraps were allowed. Every surface of the shrine is covered in detailed and colourful ornamentation, creating a kind of visual overload.Soon it was time to head back home. We were all pretty tired but the return journey was also fun with lots of Jokes and funny talks.Manny Manny thanks to Ashu san for organising such a wonderful trip and leading us all the way. Kudos Ashu san

My Travellings - Mt Takao, Japan

Mt Takao 3rd June, 2006.

It’s was a cloudy cold morning here in Tokyo. We had plans of going out to an amusement park called the ‘Yokohama Sea Paradise’. Its known to be a place for youngsters with lots n lots of exciting rides. But somehow looking at the foggy climate outside we thought it would be better to go to some nature friendly place. So finally we decided to go for a treck to Mt Takao.

Mt Takao – ‘Takaosan’ as they call it here is a densely wooded mountain and is one of the closest natural recreation areas to central Tokyo, offering beautiful scenery, an interesting temple and attractive hiking opportunities. The peak is 599 meters over sea level and offers views of Tokyo, Mount Fuji and as far as Yokohama. Considered a sacred mountain, Takaosan has been a center of mountain worship for more than 1000 years. The attractive temple Yakuoin stands near the mountain's top. Visitors pray there to Shinto-Buddhist mountain gods (tengu) for good fortune. Statues of the gods, one with a long nose and one with a crow beak, can be found at the temple and all over the mountain.

Hey the treck begins – So all geared up, me and my three friends were on our way to explore Takaosan. It’s was about 2 hrs journey from our place to Takao station. The view that we got as we came out of the station was simply fascinating. The station was surrounded on all sides by dense green mountains. We got all d more excited and just wanted to hit the top of the mountains. It even started drizzling a little adding ferver to our hiking campaign. There were cable cars which we cud take to go to the top. But we all decided to walk with the nature n enjoy every minute of it.. Singing and chitchatting we soon reached the first level of Takaosan. The view simply got better and better and pretty soon we were all in the clouds. It reminded me a lot about the Mahableshwer trip which our LnT batch had last year…..Greeting the jappus ‘konichiwa’ all along the way we soon reached the Yakuion temple and the shrine….The guardian of the mountain is Tengu, a red-faced ogre with a long pointy nose, whose image can be found all over Takao.All of us got busy with our cameras capturing all that we could. Near Yakunoin is a smaller temple surrounded by dozens of little statues of Buddha.For lunch somehow we managed to nibble on some strange looking Jappu items. After lunch it was time to conquer the peak of Takaosan. We chose to go by the narrow and the slippery path all the way to the top. It was steep and rocky, with tree roots eroded wooden steps, as well as mud from this morning’s rain, making it a bit of a challenge to stay upright. Here and there the fluting of the birds echoed through the ravine and the fluting mingled with the chuckle and gurgling of the creek running nearby .We reached in about an hour and the view was simply unbelievable...felt soooo great to be on the top….The mountain was shrouded in mist, which really enhanced the beauty of the forests. It also completely obscured the view, and instead of seeing Mount Fuji on one side and central Tokyo on the other, all we saw was an endless white fog. It was just great!!!We started the descend and took a cable car on our way down. Indeed the trip was very fascinating and we enjoyed every moment of it.