Sundar Narayanan : Desi Engineer in California married to a Desi Engineer. This is a log of my travel experience, food reviews and life's "little" quirks. . .
Disclaimer : My thoughts on this site are not intended to cause physical emotional or financial harm to any person or thing mentioned in this site or to the reader and I take no responsibiilty for the same.. So read at your own risk!! I also hope this font is large enough to be considered legal and small enough not to make my blog ugly !
Monday, May 28, 2012
Cherry picking
We spent the afternoon at Brentwood, approximately 15 miles from Livermore picking cherries off the trees. The kids had a blast as we went with their classmates.
It was difficult to find a place that was open and it was more difficult to find parking and we got stuck in the return home traffic on 580 and 680 to San Jose... but, there is always a but..
It was great watching the kids go crazy with the picking, sampling, becoming instant experts on fruit ripeness metrology and watching them compare notes on cherry softness, color etc. It was hilarious!
The weekend has now come to a close and it is back to work and school tomorrow with two of six folks in the house still sniffling with a cold. In retrospect, it was a wise move not traveling far this weekend.
The parents who have extreme diet restrictions as well as movement restrictions have successfully made it from Cupertino to Great Mall and back and have topped the record with the Brentwood trip.
Next step, 2 hour trip somewhere.. fast.. so we can get ready for 4th of July!
The perceptive lull in blog posts is due to three things
1. Lot of travel. In the last 21 days have visited Austin, Phoenix, Seattle. While the first two were business trips, the last one was personal. We attended the Ceremonial South Indian Baby Shower for my SIL. It was a fun event with family and friends.
2. The increased travel which translates indirectly to yoga attendance has left me with some vulnerability for hay fever and allergens. Also flights at this season must be notorious for picking up germs. No amount of Emergen-C packets prepared me for the allergy onslaught this week. Had to leave work thursday afternoon and slept through the entire evening. In a fit of determination, went and did Yoga first thing friday morning only to be sent back reeling friday night. Right now the body is on a delicate balance and have waved the white flag with the pollen around Cupertino.
3. There was a lot of photoshopping between sickness and work in the evenings over the last week. Finally got done with that.
While we were in Seattle got a chance to visit Roosengarde, a place for Tulips. We missed the fields of Tulips by 3 days. They did have a few gardens still left uncut and we were lucky enough to get some snaps. Now that my strategy for Photographing landscapes has changed with the Photoshop CS5, you can see the preliminary results ..
Two more pictures after making three copies of the same picture and focusing separately on water, rocks and trees and a final merge..
Another technique that came in handy was to focus separately on things in foreground and things in background (with tripod) and merge the photos together.
Tried it on the Golden Gate bridge the other day from Sausalito and it works.. Same goes for waterfalls. Got this tip from Jay Patel who happens to have a wonderful website where he tells us how he took the photograph! A big thanks to him for the pointers.
Think that pretty much covers the falls in the two mile hike radius from the parking lot!
It takes me an average of 15 minutes a photo to work out the entire pictures..
Focus on green leaves and grass, water streaks, rocks, bridges etc, skylight on individual basis and then apply all the elements to the landscape photograph.
This is no different from the teeth whitening, red eye reduction, skin wrinkle removing, eye lash sharpening and putting these elements in a portrait photo.
Still feel it is too long. Have to figure out how to automate some of these tasks!
We visited Uvas Canyon State Park near Morgan Hill last Sunday with the Cousins. Was in two minds to go on Sunday as there was an early flight to catch on Monday morning, but went anyways.
We walked around for 5+ hours through the park and covered multiple waterfalls and walked along creeks. It was a very pleasant day and we thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon enjoying nature.
This was my first trip with the Canon 5D Mark II with the L series lens and most importantly the Manfrotto tripod.
The pictures have improved by leaps and bounds compared to the old broken tripod and the 400D + sigma lens combination. Not that those were bad photographs but yours truly has learned a lot of tricks since that trip two years ago..
Here are a few pictures.. (the second and fourth Images are HDR composites of 5 images taken at -2.0, -1.0, 0, +1 and +2 Exposures respectively and then tone adjusted in Photoshop)
Last weekend we decided to drive to Sausalito, thanks to NPR. Apparently the storm had moved over the bay area and it was supposed to be an extremely good visibility day to see the golden gate bridge and also the road down to Sausalito was going to be kept open over the weekend.
So off we drove and had a great time. Got to take some pictures of the bridge, then the kids spent two hours at the Kids discovery museum and we ended up driving around the cute downtown in Sausalito and had some great food at a Nepalese restaurant called "Taste of the Himalayas"
It was an afternoon well spent with something for everyone in the family!
A few photographs from the trip.
Separate posts on the museum trip and tiffin experience later...
Friends notified us that yesterday was "negative tide day" and a rare occurrence that coincided with sunset time!
The weather was perfect and there were more than 2000 people in Half moon bay to walk the tide pools and show kids the little critters that are found in the few hours where the water recedes far back (things which were 6 feet underwater come to within a foot of water levels during a 2 hour period)..
We walked 2+ miles with the kids on slippery sea weed, kelp, gravel and barnacle covered rocks to see some amazing little ecosystems!
Here are some photographs..
The pelicans and gulls were enjoying the critters as well, albeit differently! They celebrated tide pool day as early dinner day!
When the water receded there was a 500 feet stretch of sand that was almost a marsh glistening in the sunlight..
Snails and mollusks everywhere in all kinds of colors, trying to hide under the rocks, but not fast enough.
This fish was well camouflaged in a very small tide pool. An older experienced tide pooler?! pointed it out to us as we were asking him "there is nothing there! what are you photographing?"
What looks like an ugly bag is a living creature which shrinks to the touch and supports a zillion other organisms that are piggy back riding on it..
We saw four different starfish, a chocolate brown starfish..
A red and gray softer starfish (softer to touch)..
An orange starfish
and a pink starfish
We also saw some sea anemones that were simply gorgeous!
We made our way back out of the tidepools towards the rocks to enjoy what was definitely one of our best sunsets to date!
When you have a whole bunch of kids on a beach all excited and hyper the energy level of the place is up a few notches and that adds to the experience.
Just wished that the tripod which was in the van had also been lugged around to capture the colors post sunset. Another day, another time!
This is the best I could get with a high ISO sin tripod.. It was too wet and slushy with kids and dogs running around to place camera on anything and try a timer shot.
The time spent at the beach and the tide pools was worth it. It took us an extra hour to get to the beach because of traffic and we also spent one hour getting out of the parking lot to the freeway! So if you do plan on doing this next year (or the next negative tide day), get there at least two hours before the low tide starts and make dinner plans in one of those beach side restaurants and drive home with less traffic later.
If you have kids in the under ten age group, the tide walk is strongly recommended!
When we were in 9th or 10th grade there was a story in our English Non-Detailed textbook called "A table is a table" (forgot the author already) where an old man who is bored out of his wits decides to call his table a bed and a plate a spoon etc. and renames everything one day at a time. He is a loner and soon loses his mind as his warped language becomes out of tune with the rest of the world.. it is a sad story.
Well that was a side story just to put the title in context? Maybe not. Just writing that title reminded me of that old story. So if you have a link to that story on the web, do let me know.
This post is really about our one day trip to Allahabad from Varanasi during our recent India visit. We started early in the morning and went to the Triveni Sangam. Then went on to visit Nehruji's house which is now a museum and on the way back to Varanasi stopped by a place called "Sita Mardi" which according to our van driver is the place where Sita is supposed to have gone into the ground at the end of the Ramayana. There was nothing to indicate this at the site even according to religious propaganda people, but it was a cool place and a neat temple in a great setting. So it was worth it.
The kids were their co-operative best considering we had to stop at roadside tea stalls for breakfast and tea. The flies were buzzing by the 100's and daddy and grandpa were designated swatters as mommy watched the tea cups (mud cups of course). In spite of the swatting the little one ended up with gastro-enteritis the next day and we were dealing with doctor visits in Varanasi!
We made it to Prayag and saw the place where the Ganges in full flow met a relatively timid Yamuna river. There were many boats that were willing to carry us to the confluence so "we" could take bath (on the boat?). Let me just say that those ads by Aamir Khan on how to treat tourists in India are simply not working!
The boatmen were hell bent on conning us and our cab driver seemed to be in on the scam for his kickback. Finally after some bargaining we managed to get in one boat and the funny thing was the "exclusive boat for your family only" ended up taking two last minute extras. The boatman said "this is a priest who will go to the sangam and back many times, so he doesn't count against the exclusivity clause".
Off we went and this priest gets to the point and says he will offer a short prayer and it is not going to cost us anything since we paid for the boat. Our spider sense did not tingle and we said "okay". Then he started off and we followed and before you know it the dude is asking us to donate 10000 rupees for some religious charity as part of the prayer!
We told him as politely as we could that he gives the whole priestly class a bad name. Then the rest of the family backed out the "dip" plan because of the strong current and only yours truly decided to take a dip in the confluence of rivers. They had guys on either side of a platform created between boats to catch anyone who drifts off. It was nice and the water was definitely murky and muddy but super fast.
They tell you that when you take that dip at Prayag, you should give up something for the rest of your life. Well, I gave up trusting priests from the UP!
Just before taking the dip we put a few coconuts into the water and this was part of the deal but the guy who drops the coconuts added a 100 rupee note to the coconuts. There are people who go recover the coconuts and the notes and that is another story. But that guy was doing hard labor and I let it slide. So gave him a 100 rupees and told my FIL to give the priest also a token 100 rupees (in spite of his attempted con job) and guess what he says?
"Don't give that untouchable and me the same money! Don't insult a brahmin like this!"
At that point, wanted to just spit on his face and get out of there, but one cannot walk out of a boat that is between two fast moving rivers. So told him to return the 100 rupee note and when we came back to the bank of the river told him that I was touched by the untouchable while he disgraced me.
We have a long way to go and it is hard to believe this is 2011 after an experience like this.
Some pictures from the boats..
It is truly a humbling experience to let the river surround you..
With the exception of the con artists, everything else went well and we did enjoy the boat ride and the small temples on the river banks.
People say you should visit Prayag at least once in your lifetime..
Well, our "once" is done! It may be our "only once" considering the wife, kids and FIL all said "Not again unless we have our own boat!"
Guindy " National Park" - aka Childrens Park and Zoo
The Children Park and Zoo in Guindy is a 5 minute bus ride from my brothers place. It was a favorite hang out for us as kids and it is still a favorite for my nephew.
Have taken Jr. to this park when she was a baby but she did not remember it. This time we had an afternoon where yours truly was responsible for engaging the kids (add to that a power outage at home) and off we went to Guindy Park.
It is a neatly arranged park with a lot of animals, birds and reptiles for such a small park. The look and feel of it is very clean and the maintenance is excellent.
There is a kids play area where the kids just enjoyed the slides, swings and merry go rounds. They even have 4 folks sweeping the sands on a regular basis to clear out the leaves that fall in the sand.
It was a hot and very humid day and it was about to drizzle any minute. So the three male peacocks (two normal and one albino) all decided to dance. It was spectacular! Because of having to deal with three kids with two hands, decided to leave the camera bag at home.. Luckily had the iPhone with me to capture a few videos and pictures. Could not zoom past the wire fences, still the videos have come out nice.
Here are some pictures..
There are nice display boards for every enclosure!
There was a "roadrunner" bird. The one that comes in the Warner brothers cartoons and happens to be the mascot for our kids school! They were so thrilled to see a real roadrunner bird!
and here is the video collage of the trip..
The kids loved the 90 minutes we spent in the park. We had to rush back because of the drizzle. One can easily spend 3-4 hours in this park and have fun.
Totally recommended if you are in Chennai and want some shade on a sunny day and engage the kids..
The little one had not much hair to go for this but insisted and she was also too short to touch the generator.
Jr. who was reluctant to go (citing that her hair has many "sikku" and "sedukku" .. knots and twists) eventually agreed and charged her sister by holding her hand.
She was right..
My theory that once the hair stands out on edge the knots will go away was wrong! Her hair became even more complicated. My sister did the combing exercise for a much annoyed Jr. to calm her down.
The Magic house was just amazing. They had miniature rooms that are every kids dream. A kitchen, a library, a bank, a hospital, a mini store, a room with water, another with sand, a third one with art supplies, a tree house, a pond to catch magnetic toy fish, the list goes on and on.
Wanted to show FIL at least some local place before his return to India.
Chose Filoli. Promised a 2 hour trip max. Still bad idea.
It was 96+ C out there. The van temp indicator read 106 F!
Filoli gardens are very well watered. The steam sizzles off the floor. The heat, humidity and pollen form a bad combination for people prone to hay fever.
So, this post will be brief...
Two pictures..
Daddy danced with the little one again for a short time and she was ecstatic! We had fun while we were at Filoli. It just had side effects for daddy.
On a side note Jr. was busy making cards.
Me : ???
Jr. : I want to make a yellow card and a red card
Me : ???
Jr. : To give to amma! (mommy)
Me : (thinking.. finally someone in this house dares to give Amma a yellow card or red card ?! this must be some sight) ????
Jr. : That way if Amma feels slightly upset with someone in the house she can show them the yellow card and if she is really upset with someone she can give them the red card!
Me : (very disappointed, but accepting the inevitable fact that the only person who gets carding authority in the house as Amma) Can I give a yellow card?
Jr. : NO. Only Amma!
At the end of the day, we might actually adopt this system. Yellow is warning. Red card means person will have to go to garage for a timeout.
Jr. and the little one told me that their gift to me on daddy's day will be "great posing".
Both of them tried to pose for me at Twin Peaks in San Francisco and again at the Coyote Point Park and Museum. The Twin Peaks view point was amazing. Fantastic 360 degree view of San Francisco!
The Coyote Point Museum and Center for Environmental education was really good for kids. They made education entertaining. They taught kids all about Reptiles by bringing out some real reptiles like bearded dragons, tortoise, California King snake and a Boa constrictor! Jr. was thoroughly entertained and touched a snake for the first time. Apparently being a brave girl was another father's day gift..
We had a ton of fun at both places and are back home to get some rest before the week starts again tomorrow!
To all the dads out there... have a great father's day.
