Days pass by

Finally I got the guts to rent a car. Driving is the only thing I like US better than in India. Its simple and easy since driving is predictable here, you can define how the other vehicles are going to act. Its transportation automation here. But Indian driving, its R&D...

Ok, Friday evening I visited Annapurna restaurant at San Mateo. Same place, nothing has changed really. Even the waiters are the same. I order for a "Sambar Vada" and a "Masala Dosa". The Dosa was so big that I could have slept on it, but I did not complain, a week without dosa is too much for Sudhu.

More importantly I found some company. A guy called Vasanth, an employee of Accenture working for a project in Oracle on a short term trip as me and staying in the same hotel. We went out Friday and finally seems like I got some company to hang around! He was expecting some guests and he would be out on Saturday, but I had a plan for Saturday too.

Saturday was lonely but not too boring. A vehicle makes all the difference here. The vehicle I rented for the weekend was a Pontiac G6, a full size car. For breakfast I drove out to Ralston and had a coffee breakfast at Starbucks. Then I collected some information on Sony service for Sriram anna's broken laptop. I found one at Stanford shopping center at Palo Alto about 15 miles from my place.

Drive to Stanford was eventful, lost my way a couple times and then clawed back into the right route to finally get to the shopping center. My God it was huge. Managed to find the place and give the laptop for service, its gonna take a week to a months time depending on whats gone wrong. The way back was easy and I came back with no issues.

Each drive was carefully planned. Go to maps.google.com for a route chart, get accustomed to the turns and curves and then write down the text map. Then start the drive. Late afternoon I drove back to Ralston and lunched Chinese at a Hongkong restaurant. Was nice, not too different from the Indian Chinese food. But 90% of the menu is pork and beef based and I avoided all those and took to a chicken order.

Done with the food and a chat with its Chinese owner, man that guy was very informative, he has been living here for 30 years... Drove back to the hotel and spent a quiet afternoon. Actually I was just waiting for the evening to arrive. At about 8 PM I started the drive to Saravana Bhavan at Sunnyvale. This was a simple route and one that I had taken numerous time during my last trip, but I got lost.

Instead of talking the Fremont avenue exit, I went past it, but it helped that I knew the route, basically I had to go left on taking the exit into Fremont avenue and at S Mary I needed a right. So I decided to take the next exit and follow the same path and try my luck. Yes it did last, the next exit into the lane parallel to Fremont also met S Mary and I reached the restaurant unscathed.

Boring Saturday and a eventful Sunday

Yesterday was the most boring saturday of my life. I spent the whole day lazing around. I ordered a medium domnino pizza for lunch and had the same for dinner too. I did not move outside the room and at night it started raining. I downloaded a couple of movies, "Vennila kabadi kuzhu" being one among them. Today morning also I woke up early, early being 4 AM. The jet lag is still not off me completely and I get asleep in the evenings and manage to eat dinner early.

Today is a good one I hope, I am visiting Kiran today and will be taking the train to visit him. I also managed to withdraw some cash from an ATM here in safeway super market. The bank is Wells Fargo. We have had some business interaction from Oracle with the bank and I just remembered the work we did that time...

Now I am aboard the caltrain and typing this as I pass hayward park station. I must alight at Milbrae and take a connecting BART transport to Rockridge where Kiran will be picking me up...

Got a little confused in buying BART tickets at the Milbrae station, one machine I tried was not accepting $1 coins, help was nearby and I tried another machine and it worked. Anyways I had planned for a little time there since I know I need to get the tickets and now I am aboard the BART train heading towards Pittsburg/Bay point and will get down at Rockridge station. Kiran will be waiting at that station to pick me up.

I hope that we will be able to visit the ethiopian restaurant just like last time and have some good food.

To be continued...

Continuation
No it did not happen that way, just as I was getting into the BART, I got a voice message, change of plans, I got to transfer at Mc Arthur station into the Richmond line and get down at Downtown Berkeley. Oh yeah, its the same kind of places as in "Adiye Kolludhe" from "Varanam Ayiram"... Lunched with Kiran at a Salvadorian cusine and then walks down the way in downtown. Kiran asked me to join him and company for a movie.

Well coming to the company, two girls, both tamil, but more American than Indian, both 30s, both single, both students. Kiran has great friends. One was pretty the other moderate. Well I kind of felt odd to join them for a movie, had coffee with these guys and parted ways. Retraced my train route back to hotel... Was full tired and man crashed hard...

Off to the US on a business trip

A quick trip got planned for a new project in office and I am off to US for 3 months. I will be based out of SFO. I expect the work to be tight so that I am kept occupied, for I do not have many friends in SFO and bay area now and weekends will surely be boring.

Currently in transit in Singapore airport, just thought I will make a quick update. Lovely Singapore airport again. I have got confirmed that when I return back I can stay in Singpore for upto 4 days with a on arrival visa since I have a valid US visa and travel tickets back to India within the limit 96 hours.

3 years since

Three years back, this very day, I took a ride in the intercity express and life went on an absolute roller coaster. I met a girl on the train, this very day three years back. The journey was absorbing, we got acquainted and chatted and chatted and chatted. I liked her immediately, but her first take was too much. She liked me so much that, when we got off the train she concluded that she wanted to get a guy like me. Her long standing wait for a soul mate was finally going to get over.

Days turned to weeks and acquaintance turned into a relationship, a little more than friendship but not measuring enough to be termed as love. I finally appreciated the fact that Bangalore has some very beautiful and romantic parks. More and more I got convinced that if I missed this chance, that would be the most costly miss of my life. I was not sweet sixteen, but those were the best days of my life.

Weeks turned to months and eventually the family snooped by. My side was happy for my decision since the girl was much known to them. In fact everybody adored her. Roller coaster began its twists and turns when her family got into the loop and raised a strong veto against the relationship. Every thing cannot be smooth all the time and whats the thrill without some troubles. We have had our fair share of them and time is the best answer to most.

Months turned to a year and when finally all family issues were resolved, things started to get real rosy again. She is clearly the best thing that has happened to me. Sometime I so wonder how much she completes me. She kind of gels in well with the character that I am and same must be how she felt too. In unspoken words, in sly and seductive glances is a story of requited love that changed two lives and many more.

One and half years since the day we met each other we got married. It was a simple affair, a temple wedding and simple reception. It was a day that we can never forget in our lives, when the moment arrived, I looked into her eyes and she into mine. There was family all around us, but nothing else mattered but that moment. No words came out, yet everything that is so important in this world were then spoken. I tied the knot and thus we became man and wife.

Moving in together, our married existence was a world apart to to our vaguely joint lives so far and each day brought something new, sometimes something to remember. Mostly we do cohabit, we have very few stuff that each other dislike, and I now feel that is more important to a relationship than the things we are alike. We managed to retain our individuality and yet coexist and that I consider as the one thing in each other that we cherish the most.

Between work and home, weekdays and weekends, commercial street and visits to 'Blossoms', between her love for books and my passion for aquariums, cricket and shopping, we spent our lives, and we have so far spent it well. I donot yet know if I have been a perfect guy to her, but she has been the sweetest girl I have known. These three years have been the most eventful years that my life has so far known. But without a doubt these have been the best.

Belur Halebeed and Sravanabelagola

The trip was planned over night, the trippers just me and her.

We took a bus to Majestic at 6:45 AM and reached in half an hour. We took a state transport bus towards Hassan. Plan was to use Hassan as the base and travel out of there to these places. Hassan was about four and half hour of uneventful journey. We checked out a couple of places for accomodation, but they were not suitable for a family. We tried the posh hotel Southern star Hassan and it turned out to be 4000 bucks a night for a double room, my foot. Finally checked into a Hotel Sri Krishna which was a budget but decent hotel for 800 bucks a night.

The road to Belur from Hassan is an excellant one maintained by the ASI I guess and it took an hour to get there. We went directly to the Chennikeshava temple and it took us just 2 hours to roam the temple complex. The complex has numerous temples each in a style of its own. The commonality was the temple exterior and interior was full of carvings and reliefs and each design was very intricate.

From Belur we took a short (half hour) bus ride to Halebeed. I like this temple complex better than Belur because it was chic and more scenic with surrounded gardens a nearby lake and very picturesque. We finished with Halebeed in another one and half hours and returned to Hassan. The journey back to Hassan was the one I liked the most, it went past numerous villages with nice scenery of sunflower blooms and shades of green of different vegetation. Was very refreshing to the eyes and a very pleasant evening.

For dinner we headed back to Hotel Southern Star, assuming that a expensive star hotel must be having a good restaurant. The lunch we had at Sri Krishna was pathetic so we wanted good food. Our efforts did not go waste. Southern star offered a good menu and excellant taste and value for money. So I recommend staying at Sri Krishna and dining at Southern Star. Whats more they are 2 mins walk apart.

The next morning we checked out at 10 and proceeded to Sravanabelagola. Again taking public transport to Channarayapatna and onward to Sravanabelagola which took us one and half hours to get there. The sun was up and bright and sunny but not very hot. But it did take some more time and us some effort to get ourselves on top of the hill and winding stairways to reach the tallest monolith of Gomateshwara. The monolith is surrounded by shrines dedicated to the tirthakars of Jaina religion.

After the descent we had lunch at a joint in Sravanabelagola before proceeding to Hirisave, a half hour bus journey. At Hirisave we boarded the bus to Bangalore at about 3:30 and reached Majestic about 7:45. When we reached home at 8:30 we were dusty, tired and beaten down but satisfied of visiting three places most noted for sculptures and temple architecture.

Speak the magic word to view the pictures:  

View pictures of Belur.

View pictures of Halebeed

Pictures of Sravanabelagola