One of the most efficient ways to relax my mind is to set off on a cycling ride with Vikram to an unknown destination. Today was one of those days ….
We just head out of home and decided to take off on our respective bikes for a while. The best I enjoy is biking through the country side, along the endless narrow roads, looking at the houses around and greeting the villagers and little children as we pass by them. After a long day, hearing to the birds chirp, viewing the sunset by a hill or watching a goat crank its neck to eat a tiny little leaf is just too soothing.
And whats best? These little pieces of heaven is so close to home! All it takes is a few miles of tolerating roaring traffic and the noise around.
It is also reassuring that you donot have to remember the route back home as it is almost impossible to get lost with the GPS around your wrist. The Garmin forerunner 205 is not only a life saver, it also gives you fancy statistics about the distance, time, speed and calories burnt! Voila!! Throw the gym membership away and invest in a Garmin today! Sounds like a nice tagline for publicizing Garmin, doest it? But its totally worth it …
Below are the statistics from today’s eventful cycling ride :
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15389542
They say that the courtship period is the most exciting phase of a relationship. But coming to think of it, post marriage seems even more fun! Not only do you get to spend most time with your best friend, you also get all the importance and the attention you have ever been craving for! Let alone a whole new wardrobe for yourself
Retrospecting the ‘event-of-a-lifetime’, it now feels like things got over at the wink of an eye with – the shopping spree to awaiting for the near and dear ones to arrive home to the ruckus we made together. To sum up, it is the indeed the people around who really made the event so eventful. Thanks so much to all those who made it a happy one I will relish the moments forever …
Location : Pangong Lake, September 8th 2009
Crystal blue water, reflecting off the sky amidst rocky Himalayan mountains
Location : Leh, September 7th, 2009
Post processing: Applied photoshop filter
My trip to China was one of my most anticipated travel. Having known so little about China and the Chinese, I was very curious to see the dragonland and learn more about the place. I was in Beijing for 4 weeks and was amazed to see the city they have built. It looked like any advanced city of the west.
Other than the magnificent infrastructure that Beijing has put up, there are some unique things I loved about Chinese and their capital.
1) This was my first visit to Chinaland. Beijing is a metropolitan and is up and ahead in fashion. It is one place where I never caught a sun rise while I was there. I made an attempt to keep the alarm as early as 5:30 am, anticipating to view the sunrise, but to my surprise, the dawn had broken already!
2) There are some unique attributes to Beijing. There are electric buses that run in the middle of the city. The buildings have creative architecture, other than the bird’s nest Olympic megastructure.
3) The Beijing metro is the most used to commute and needless to say is the most crowded. But there is something fascinating about it – There is pin drop silence inside the metro. Interestingly, most people dont listen to music, read, nor chit chat while commuting! And No, ipods or music players are not widely seen unlike in Singapore and in the west.
4) Everybody knows Bollywood. Atleast, everyone’s heard about it. A chinese colleague and I were talking about bollywood and I was taken aback when he started singing ‘awara hoon’ – an old rajkapoor’s song of the 1950s!
5) Almost every commercial and residential building is atleast 10 stories high and outside each office, in the corridors you can see people doing yogasanas during office hours! I am told the HR spread the awareness of yoga and it has become a fashion lately. Yoga instructors are in high demand in China
6) The part I enjoyed the most were my long walks, gazing the colorful streets of Beijing. I would try hard to recognize a pattern – to make sense of atleast one Chinese character by observing billboards, but all I could finally figure were the entry and the exit signs . The roads looked terrific, wide, flawless and smooth. People biking on the pathways, lawns next to the road, people smartly dressed, the huzzling and buzzling city life were all mere accompaniments.
7) Chinese are very warm and humble people. I made some very good friends during the 4 weeks of my stay there. They were all given English names so that its easier to address them, but when you make an attempt to call them with their Chinese names and they really appreciate it. English is rarely spoken and its most important to emphasize on the keywords in a sentence. Since I am a pure vegetarian, I found it tough to navigate my way through until I learnt the golden phrase ‘ ho chi su’ which means ‘I am vegetarian’ in Chinese. Roasted ducks and Shellfish were amoung the top favorites.
Beijing is in a different league from the rest of China. I hope to see more of China sometime and learn more about rural Chinese. All in all, an awesome experience and a place that must not be missed by any traveler.
I was thinking of old friends today And how many have slipped away
Stopped calling, got married, lost touch Found new friends, got busy or just moved on.
Friends come and go, but the precious few always hold on The list of thick friends is always slim And its those who remain prominent.
Reminds me of a train journey with destination unknown People get on, people get off And there are some who travel till the end
With crackling laughter and colours bold I cherish the times spent together – forever
This one’s for All you wonderful people I have met so far!
I have tried to put together some moments and memories captured. Please click here to view them
This is one of my first experiences in Brussels and I had written about it long ago. I was just going through my diary and found this one hilarious. So thought of sharing with you.
Date : 12th October 2007.
Place : Brussels.
It was a typical Friday morning on a gloomy winter day in Brussels, the streets buzzing with people on a run to work with umbrellas in their hands. The traffic was jammed with cars making roaring noises at almost every intersection. I could see elderly people standing at the bus stops with mugs in their hands, sipping a drink as they caught up on the early morning news. While others wore high heels, fashionable dresses, hair neatly done, and chatting on the street with a friend or colleague.
One Event, Two Sports and an experience of a lifetime!
Run,Cycle,Fly was the slogan of the event. Indeed, I was flying high after completing 5th in the women’s 5K category in India’s first Duathlon that was held in Bangalore on the 14th of June, 2009.
Having been the first sports event I participated after school, I was apprehensive about completing the race, let alone the timing to complete it. The excitement set in when I bought my mountain bike – the ‘trek 4300′ a week before the race. As the days grew closer, the more apprehensive I got about the race. With the adrenaline rush and the anxiety setting in, I could hardly catch a wink of sleep the night before the race.
Vikram and I piled both our bikes in my Maruthi 800 and took off at 5AM to the venue. The car is awesome for the amount of space it provides when compared to the size of the car.
We arrived at the venue at 6AM, an hour before the race commenced. It was wonderful to see the high energy levels of all the participants ranging from the age of 7 to 78 with their colourful sports bikes.
The Duathlon consisted of the following race categories:
• 10k run + 20k cycling (split as 5k run + 20k cycle + 5k run)
• 5k run + 10k cycling (split as 2.5k run + 10k cycle + 2.5k run)
I had enrolled for the 5K run + 10K cycling and I completed the race in 1:07:06. It was heartening to see a lot of passersby cheer while running. Its interesting how long every minute felt during the 3rd leg of the race! It was then that a funny thought occurred to me – Time as a relative tool. ’An extra minute of run can seem so long when exhausted, while one extra minute of sleep feels absolutely insignificant’!
For pictures from the duathlon, please Click here
Congratulations to Vikram, Swaroop and Varun on completing the 10K category… You guys rock!
I read and follow umpteen blog posts of friends of mine and have always wondered ‘how do they get the dedication to write religiously’! And more importantly, how do they come up with such interesting topics to write about! Well, I have always wanted to get started with blogging to share my experiences, but never got around to it. Just like one of the innumerable interests I have but havent traveled that extra mile to realize it. So my fiance laid the platform and set up the blog for me, not to mention my ‘I dont like this theme’ sessions until we finally stumbled upon something that I liked!! Thanks Vikram! I owe you one.
Now was the bigger problem – Where do I start? What do I write about? and what title do I come up with? Its one of those classic where you want to make the best first impression, but the mind is taxed and all you see is a black board. I hit the mind block yet again. A few that crossed my mind were – ‘My first blog’ or the all famous techie lingo ‘Hello World’ – not appealing enough. So I just decided to write about how I decided on starting my blog
There you go! My First blog….. yay!
Location : Goa, 2nd Jan 2009
Spotted 2 crows on a tree admiring nature maybe..
