Kirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! Its 1.30 am. Yes, 1.30 AM. Atleast my clock is showing it. Yeah, I got up because I am heading to NY by 5.00 AM flight. Now you will ask, then why the hell you got up at 1.30AM. You know what, here there is nobody to wake you up, here is nobody to keep on asking you to get up when you say 'paach minutes'. Here is nobody to make a cup of hot tea for yourself. Everything is supposed to get done by yourself. I know it is different. When you are back home, you dont have really care about these things as there is somebody who is taking care of all these stuff for you. Yes, i am talking about my and everybody's mom. I am in her shoe today. It feels. It hurts. Ufff... Kahaan bukbuk karte baitha main. Here I am not supposed to talk about how I feel, but about my NewYork trip. Sit down, sit down!!!. Don't get excited. I am not going to express the way TGIS expresses in the newspapers :)
It's been long time we met. Nope.. I am not talking about my Girlfriends, I am talking about my NTP group. The first group of friends I made in this industry.
So I started from Seattle airport to go to Cleveland through Chikago.Lots of preparation at the last moment reminded me of my school trips. :)Really miss those days.
So I started at 6 in the morning by United Airlines flight to Chicago. And the bad news was there were no good air-hostess. So I didn't drink more than 1 glass of juice. :)
I reached Chicago airport around 12 noon local time. Pretty long flight. But still OK. Chicago airport, awesome airport in terms of crowd and other stuff. My next flight was supposed to start at 1.30. We sat in the flight, and flight started towards runway slowly. And I as usual slept. When I got up, I saw our flight was on runway. I thought it is cleveland airport. But then I realized we are still in Chicago. The poor flight brakes have gone down. :) Can you imagine. We were on runway for about 3 hours. Again came back to airport concourse. And they gave another flight at 6.30 pm. Shit!! 1.30 to 6.0. 5 hours of delay. Indian railways are much better than this. Anyways, finally reached Cleveland at 8.30 pm. Anish (my friend had come to recieve me) Then after that we went to roam around cleveland. If you dont know, cleveland is the city in Ohio state where most my group friends are there. We roamed around cleveland downtown. 4 of my friends were supposed to come from different city. We recieved them and then went home at 3 am.
Got up early morning, took the rented car from airport. It was awesome car. Called Dodge Durango. 8 seater SUV with V8 engine. See http://www.dodge.com/en/2007/durango/
I know, I know..you are jelous :) Started towards NYC around 7.30 in the morning. The weather was awesome. Bright and sunny day. 480 miles was the distance we were supposed to cover. And there were only 2 people who could drive. Me and Anish. So we both drove really nice and safe to reach New joursey city(NJ henceforth) in 7 hours. Yeah as you know, I drove car the way I drive my bike there in Pune :) :). consistantly at 80-90 MPH when max limit was 70 MPH on freeways. Still didnt get any ticket from Police mama. Once touched 110 miles (multiply by 1.6 to get KMPH :) :) )
Reached NJ around 3. We stayed in the hotel called Red-Roof. It was pretty nice place.
Took rest for around one hour. And then went to explore NJ. There is one street called Oaktree road which looks same as our Laxmi road + M.G. road. Yeah, hotels hotels and more hotels. And dozens of shops selling mithais and namkins. Afterall owned by Patels and other Gujjus. So you can imagine the kind of food you get there.. Yeah.. awesome.. You will get everything from Pani-poori to Pav-bhaji. Poli-bhaji to Gujrathi Undhiyu. Gujju fafda to Jilebi.. Hushh!!! It was great time.
Then around 8 pm we started towards NY from NJ by car. The road was very bad. Same as our University road in Pune. There was one good thing on that road. There was one tunnel going through hudson river. Yeah within that river. It was good experience to drive :)
This area of road is the place where you have all kind of transportation going parallally. There was train root next to Road which was next to airport runway and port for ships and all.. Nice view.
Ok.. Then we entered NY midtown. The place where famous times square is there. Oh my god... what a traffic. you can say, worst traffic in US. In other words it was worser than traffic on University road during flyover construction.
We roamed around there from 8 pm to 4 am in the morning. Covered various places like Times square, empire state, wall street, NY stock exchange and couple of more. It covered whole of downtown and midtown.
We came back around 4 am from NY to NJ hotel. And as usual went to sleep. :) Got up at 11 am in the morning. It was beutifull sunday morning. Then we all decided to enjoy some desi,gujrathi lunch. Then we all went to the hotel called ZUPADI means 'Small hut'What a hotel it was. Nice traditional gujrathi ambience. We ordered Gujrathi thali. Oh my god... Rotli, shaak, kathol, Undhiyu, kadhi, chhaas (P.S. these are gujju terms. pl. ask me what they mean, in case you dont know). Really nice taste..During that time, I missed my mom very very much. She makes much more better food than this. :) But that food was also awesome.. So had our lunch there.. And then had banarasi meetha pan. :) :) No words to explain!! :)
Then we all started towards Libarty iceland. The place where Statue of Liberty stays ( :) )Took a ferry for statue of liberty near Liberty iceland. There, we covered two places. One was Ellis island. This is the place similar to our Gateway of India. Previously during 1920s, lot of people used to migrate to US through this entry point. There is one awesome museum which describes everything about the migrants of that time and their feelings in their own words documented in the form of audio and signboards.
From there, we took another boat to Statue of liberty. A most famous landmark of NY, USA and one of 7 miracles in this world. This statue was gifted by france to USA (FYI, if you dont know :) )Roamed around there. Took lots lots of snaps. And then came back on our rooms.
After that, we took dinner in another indian punjabi hotel and then went to play my favorite game. Snooker :)Played there for couple of hours. And then came back on rooms and went to sleep.
On the next day, time had come which no one wanted to see. Yeah time to leave NY. :(We didn't believe that we spent last couple of days in NY. It was way too fast. Now I understand, why people call it Mumbai of USA. Tooo faast.. Ohh god, I love this city. It is just amazing.We started our journey back to Cleveland, OH. All set to drive 11 hours. Yeah long way, since we wanted to drive through Columbus to drop 3 of our friends.
Anish started driving for first 100-150 miles looking at my condition. (What? you didn't get it? see the snaps of NY. Look at the last few snaps, you will understand) After 130 miles, I took over. That was kind of test for me. I drove around 350 miles at a stretch (Yes, non-stop for 5 hours). Can you imagine? Thanks a ton to awesome roads and powerful car we hired. I personally enjoyed the driving :).
We started around 11 am from NJ, and reached around 11 pm at Cleveland. 12 hours of journey. Then we returned the car and then had dinner. 1 am. Went to sleep after that thinking about NY and dreaming about our next trip (don't know when will that happen :P)
I have had flight at 6 am in the morning, which departed and arrived in Seattle on time (Thanks a lot!! :) ).
Thats it... Yeah I know you must be feeling boring now.. :). Have a cup of coffee and get back to work now :) Enough of timepass. And remember to have a look at the snaps. The URL is http://picasaweb.google.com/anup.net/NewYork
Have fun guys :)
Monday, October 22, 2007
White river rafting
Ok here is some description of our river rafting.First of all I would like to request all of you to forgive me because I am not a good writer so expect some(infact many) mistakes in my description.
A day before, we all decided to do something on indep. day (i.d.). So planned for some river rafting. Since many of us were going for the first time, we decided to go to some safe place(level 1-2). And that is why we chose Wenatchee river which is around 120 miles from Redmond.
We all started in the early morning (i.e. 8 am) from my friend's place called foothills apt. We were 16 of us including 6 girls.
We took 4 cars on rent so that we can put 4 people in each car.
Thank god, I was in the car which had no girls in it. So no restrictions on speed, jokes, leg pulling etc.
The weather was very good in the morning.
So we all searched for the directions on google maps (yes, we still use our compettitors service) and then took the directions in writing on a piece of paper.
We were expecting 2.30 to 3 hours to reach there since the distance was huge and we didnt know the roads. But god willing we reached within 2 hrs approx. thanks to good roads and people with driving skills similar to my bike riding skills (yes, you took it right, very high speed :) )
We reached there by 10.30. And then reported there. They gave us wet suit(to protect from wind) and life jackets.Then we wore our wet suits and then they took us to the start point of the river which was 15-20 miles from that place. Then they gave us the detailed instruction and told us all the required things to keep in mind in case of emergancy.They provided one guide per boat. WE took 2 boats each including 5 boys, 3 gals and 1 instructor. Our instructor was very nice. He was very veteran instructor and very cool.
So we all formed a team like who will sit where and all that stuff. He sat at the end.I was sitting in the middle initially and after some time, I took the first positions which was miserable but thrilling..
Then we all started rafting in the river. For few minutes he tought us basics and took us through simple lessons and relatively calm water force which improved our confidence exponentially..
Then the real game began. Our first rapid. Before that, our guide gave us detailed demo. of how to paddle in the coming rapid. And what if yuo do it properly and what if u dont do it properly.
You know what it was really funny and thrilling experience. But I personally felt very simple and easy. And after that for around 2 hours we went to some more rapids which were somewhat difficult at the same time thrilling which I enjoyed alot..
After that I got bored. And sat on the front to lead the boat.I was just settling down and our guide gave us the bad news. He told that the next rapid is the most difficult to ride and paddle. He He... I laughed like anything. I said to myself- you wanted more thrill na.. E.N.J.O.Y. then :)...
Huh... it was really difficult. We just went through it for 10 seconds but it was very thrilling.. My god...After that my fear went away and I became more confident.
After few minutes, there was one sharp turn - right turn, our guide told us to paddle hard during this turn so that we can easily cross it. But I had something different in my mind. I told all my partners that we will not paddle hard, so that we will go and crash on the big rock which is there in front of our river. Ofcourse I told all this in Hindi so that our guide dont understand. And as per the plan, we didnt paddle hard and crashed on the rock. My god.. it was really thrilling.. awesome.. And there was one girl who was sitting behind me. She is very sort and underweight. She went out of boat and started crying.. He he... but we knew it is safe outside. So we didnt panic and pulled her again in the boat.
After some time our last part began. It was relatively calm force of watter.. So I thought of getting out of boat though I dont know swimming. But due to life jacket, I was able to manage on top of water.. Oh god.. it was so nice being in the water..very cool and calm...I was in the water for about 10-15 minutes.
Then we were told to get into boat because we are about to reach our destination. And we got into boat.And now the real thrilling scene began.We were able to stop our boat near our destination and came out of it easily.But as I told you we had one more boat with us. They came shortly after us. But could not manage to park it properly and went away from the destination. After seeing this, the guide in there boat got tensed and jumped into the water to stop the boat. But she couldnt due to speed of the boat and she came in between boat and a rock. And to help her, another 3-4 people jumped into the boat, and the boat was still going away and away.
There was one guy called Amit in that boat. Who didnt know swimming. He also jumped into the water but not on the side where the shore was but on the opp. side and was able to manage to be there on top of water. And he started shouting "Bachao bachao". After few seconds he realised that we are not in india but in USA. And then he started shouting "help me help me".Haaa haahahahaha... that was really funny. After few seconds he managed to servive and came out of river..
After that, he was in complete shock. You can see him in the snaps which I send you previously. His is the lst snap in the album. Haahahahha.. After that we took our lunch at 4 pm. WE were very hungry due to 4 hours of rafting..
And then started our journy back to home with a thrilling and good memories of rafting. And on the way, decided to do it again but on a different river with somewhat difficult level.
Here are the snaps of actual river rafting - Enjoy them and try to find me there..http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/prsm.dll?eventthumbs?event=06I201040O&b=0&t=-1&start=0&password=
Enjoy....and give the feedback on my writing. I am planning to make one movie on this now.. KayNayThik (based in titanic)( :P
Regards,Anup
A day before, we all decided to do something on indep. day (i.d.). So planned for some river rafting. Since many of us were going for the first time, we decided to go to some safe place(level 1-2). And that is why we chose Wenatchee river which is around 120 miles from Redmond.
We all started in the early morning (i.e. 8 am) from my friend's place called foothills apt. We were 16 of us including 6 girls.
We took 4 cars on rent so that we can put 4 people in each car.
Thank god, I was in the car which had no girls in it. So no restrictions on speed, jokes, leg pulling etc.
The weather was very good in the morning.
So we all searched for the directions on google maps (yes, we still use our compettitors service) and then took the directions in writing on a piece of paper.
We were expecting 2.30 to 3 hours to reach there since the distance was huge and we didnt know the roads. But god willing we reached within 2 hrs approx. thanks to good roads and people with driving skills similar to my bike riding skills (yes, you took it right, very high speed :) )
We reached there by 10.30. And then reported there. They gave us wet suit(to protect from wind) and life jackets.Then we wore our wet suits and then they took us to the start point of the river which was 15-20 miles from that place. Then they gave us the detailed instruction and told us all the required things to keep in mind in case of emergancy.They provided one guide per boat. WE took 2 boats each including 5 boys, 3 gals and 1 instructor. Our instructor was very nice. He was very veteran instructor and very cool.
So we all formed a team like who will sit where and all that stuff. He sat at the end.I was sitting in the middle initially and after some time, I took the first positions which was miserable but thrilling..
Then we all started rafting in the river. For few minutes he tought us basics and took us through simple lessons and relatively calm water force which improved our confidence exponentially..
Then the real game began. Our first rapid. Before that, our guide gave us detailed demo. of how to paddle in the coming rapid. And what if yuo do it properly and what if u dont do it properly.
You know what it was really funny and thrilling experience. But I personally felt very simple and easy. And after that for around 2 hours we went to some more rapids which were somewhat difficult at the same time thrilling which I enjoyed alot..
After that I got bored. And sat on the front to lead the boat.I was just settling down and our guide gave us the bad news. He told that the next rapid is the most difficult to ride and paddle. He He... I laughed like anything. I said to myself- you wanted more thrill na.. E.N.J.O.Y. then :)...
Huh... it was really difficult. We just went through it for 10 seconds but it was very thrilling.. My god...After that my fear went away and I became more confident.
After few minutes, there was one sharp turn - right turn, our guide told us to paddle hard during this turn so that we can easily cross it. But I had something different in my mind. I told all my partners that we will not paddle hard, so that we will go and crash on the big rock which is there in front of our river. Ofcourse I told all this in Hindi so that our guide dont understand. And as per the plan, we didnt paddle hard and crashed on the rock. My god.. it was really thrilling.. awesome.. And there was one girl who was sitting behind me. She is very sort and underweight. She went out of boat and started crying.. He he... but we knew it is safe outside. So we didnt panic and pulled her again in the boat.
After some time our last part began. It was relatively calm force of watter.. So I thought of getting out of boat though I dont know swimming. But due to life jacket, I was able to manage on top of water.. Oh god.. it was so nice being in the water..very cool and calm...I was in the water for about 10-15 minutes.
Then we were told to get into boat because we are about to reach our destination. And we got into boat.And now the real thrilling scene began.We were able to stop our boat near our destination and came out of it easily.But as I told you we had one more boat with us. They came shortly after us. But could not manage to park it properly and went away from the destination. After seeing this, the guide in there boat got tensed and jumped into the water to stop the boat. But she couldnt due to speed of the boat and she came in between boat and a rock. And to help her, another 3-4 people jumped into the boat, and the boat was still going away and away.
There was one guy called Amit in that boat. Who didnt know swimming. He also jumped into the water but not on the side where the shore was but on the opp. side and was able to manage to be there on top of water. And he started shouting "Bachao bachao". After few seconds he realised that we are not in india but in USA. And then he started shouting "help me help me".Haaa haahahahaha... that was really funny. After few seconds he managed to servive and came out of river..
After that, he was in complete shock. You can see him in the snaps which I send you previously. His is the lst snap in the album. Haahahahha.. After that we took our lunch at 4 pm. WE were very hungry due to 4 hours of rafting..
And then started our journy back to home with a thrilling and good memories of rafting. And on the way, decided to do it again but on a different river with somewhat difficult level.
Here are the snaps of actual river rafting - Enjoy them and try to find me there..http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/prsm.dll?eventthumbs?event=06I201040O&b=0&t=-1&start=0&password=
Enjoy....and give the feedback on my writing. I am planning to make one movie on this now.. KayNayThik (based in titanic)( :P
Regards,Anup
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