Aasman Se

There was a fleet show in San Francisco on Oct6-7 as part of the Fleet week. The navy's blue-angels were the highlight of the day and judging by the huge huge huge crowd gathered, I must say the most awaited too. And boy! Were they good!!

One of my friend remarked: "They risk their lives for our entertainment". How true. One split-second hesitation/miscalculation and..I don't even wanna get to what would happen. It is scary.

Well, on a lighter note, we walked past Ghirardelli again ;-) But couldn't stop by coz of the long long queue! Had some amazing cup-cakes though, from a shop famous exclusively for them.

We went to take the SFO tour ride but..yep..the queue again!

So we went to get pictures of the crooked street :-) and to reach the street, we walked 4 blocks uphill!!! gosh.. what roads..It was a miracle that I didn't faint out of exhaustion!!! [I am def going to start going to the gym regularly again :-D]

And oh..there were a few firsts-for-me that day! [Yep, that's right, revealing only a little, which does make people curious. 2 of my friends do that to me and god, do I get irritated!!!!!! Its pay-back time!!!]

Here are some pictures of the air show and the crooked street and some flowers again! :-) Enjoy!!!!!



Topsy-turvy! The red-bull in action



Love is in the air!



Whooosh!!


Split up


The blue-angels in action


All together


The crooked street from the top


Wonder how they drive out there!


Road-kill???? :-)


Sea-lions at Pier-39!!


Pleasant ain't it??

Kuch toh hain!!

Last weekend I had a chance to visit Mystery Spot and Santa Cruz beach boardwalk. It was on a Saturday and the plan was to leave early [at around 8], which only meant my weekend sleep had to be cut short! I realized it was worth it! :-)

First things first, Mystery Spot is a place in Santa Cruz, where a strange phenomenon is noticed. Magnetic poles are reversed, and uphill seems downhill and vice-versa. For example: A water-bottle kept on a plank of wood kept at 45 degrees to the ground, rolls towards the higher end [against gravity] and rolls off the board! Neat isn't it!!

We did experience a little dizziness when we neared the mystery spot centre. And an absolute loss of balance. I, for one, could not even move one step without a firm grip on the side-rail. It was totally disorienting. Add to that, the optical illusion that comes with the leaning wooden cabin [which is built surrounding the mystery spot] and people leaning against it! Not able to picture it, then check this out.

Here are some pictures, where our guide, explained the phenomenon. First one's the rolling bottle one and the next the heavy pendulum which can be pushed easily on one side and difficult the other side.

There is also an apparent increase/decrease in height as one progress from one side of the mystery spot to another.

In this pic below, if the height difference b/w two people standing on opposite ends of the horizontal of T will be, say 1.5 ft, and then the two people exchange their positions, then the difference is, say 1 ft. And that's different right? :-)

This is some of the info I gathered from the tour. No one’s been able to exactly figure out why this happens and there are a few theories.

To get a better idea, try Google. :-) Or better still http://mysteryspot.com/.

Excerpt from the above Official Mystery spot site:

“Some speculate that cones of metal were secretly brought here and buried in our earth as guidance systems for their spacecraft. Some think that it is in fact the spacecraft itself burried deep within the ground. Other theories include carbon dioxide permeating from the earth, a hole in the ozone layer, a magma vortex, the highest dielectric biocosmic radiation known anywhere in the world, and radiesthesia. Whatever the cause is, it remains a mystery.”

After a scrumptious lunch of lemon rice and curd rice, which Jayanthi had packed for us, we headed to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk.

This place is colorful. It has an amusement park next to the beach, complete with a Merry-go-round! :-D

The rides looked pretty scary. I totally detest roller-coasters and the sole ride I took here, reinforced it.

Some snaps of the lively boardwalk and some of the rides.

This place doesn't boast of good vegetarian food [not considering the loads of ice-cream and other junk food shops], so best option would be to pack food and go.

The ride to Santa Cruz from San Jose is very nice, reminds one of the Western Ghats. But definitely not more beautiful!

Some more snaps and post ka THE END!

Something's Fishy!

That's as much 'creative' writing I am able to squeeze in these days...[the title of the post I mean]
Sheesh! I really do love writing. Which does remind me of how my friend still loves telling other friends/colleagues the incredibly fascinating tale of
"how-vinutha-used-to-write-the-english-exam-paper -for-a-full-3 hours [and oh she took extra sheets too!!!]"

Allow me to justify here! Who could resist the "Explain in no more than 10[or was it 20? or was there a limit even??] your perspective on Subashini's life in the story "Subashini"?" or "Write a brief summary on King Lear and was he justified in his treatment of his 3 daughters?" Not me..i loved them!!!

And I must say, getting top scores in language subjects always made me happy! How exactly the teacher even deciphered my hand-writing..hmm...That's a topic I wont elaborate on [at least for now!]

A little retrospect on the subject matter at hand, and hey..I came up with the following 3 laws [which holds true for my alarmingly diminishing write-ups on the blog] and oh!! Remember..you heard them here first!!! ;-) ]:
1. When you feel like writing..just do. If that moment passes..well..you are pretty much left with a blank notepad/word doc and well that's pretty blank ain't it!

2. The more you postpone writing about that silly incident you saw today, that awesome trek you had, that hilarious movie you saw, the unexpected turns in life, the moments of sadness..ok...ok..i stop...but you get the point! Now, where was I?? oh yes... the more time you postpone it, the more averse you become to capture it in words.
[This law may very well be misunderstood to sound like a corollary to Law no 1. But no it isn't]

3. If you start posting pictures, you always have something to post. So you end up writing less.
Justification to Law no 3: Apparently, a picture is worth a thousand words!!!

Hmm..strayed away hopelessly from the title didn't I?
So a combination of all the above-stated laws results in this picture account of a recent trip to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco!!! [ now you get the title?!??!??]

Self-explanatory

We took a ferry ride, which has this very informative audio tour. Seriously.

Some creative name for a red and white fleet isn't it?

This was how the weather was. Cloudy and drizzling at times too.

:-) Loved the composition of this one!

Peeping Tom??

My friend's very cute and well-behaved niece.

The ferry-ride comprises of a tour of few places of SFO and the golden gate bridge had to be one of them.

This is THE ROCK! ALCATRAZ. The audio tour at this point had some sinister music with a detailed account of a particular breakout from this prison. The 3 who escaped were never found!

And to end this, as usual, some random shots.



You can find lots of these birds everywhere. As much as I like them, it was quite annoying to see them flying all over the place.


p.s: If you are still wondering, What happened to Vinutha's usual writing style? Did she actually write this post? Let's just say she is hugely "inspired" by the immensely enjoyable accounts of a fellow-blogger she chanced upon today!
And like everything else, this will pass too!

Realisation!!!!!!!

I can cook!!!!!!!

and oh..the food I prepare is very much edible...and hmmmmm, kinda tasty too!!
[Bhuv would vouch for that! :-)] I am slightly amused too!!

Assorted!

View from above the clouds

Its a nice timepass to just stare outside the window in a plane..some parts reminded me of narada/demigods/gods descending to earth in movies :-)

Park in Santa-Clara

I call this the last ray of light!! ---- for the simple reason that it was taken during sunset!


Ghirardelli chocolate shop in SFO. The dark choc fudge sauce they give is just mind-blowing!
The shop has a display of the the machines used in the process of making fine chocolate from cocoa-beans. Here are a few of them..













And to end this assorted post, here are some macro shots of flowers! I can almost hear a few ppl saying "here we go again...we expected nothing less!!!"

Different strokes

And here i go again with a combination of mist and trees.. [with a lil post-processing ;-) ]
Btw these were near Jog falls only... :-) and with this I complete the Jog trilogy!!!

Black 'n white

its a mesh!

Shady

Hazy

finally..some brightness!!! :-)

More of Jog!

Some more pics of Jog.

A different perspective!

Calmness

Here flows Raja!

All White