The last month has been busy.. the kids are both in high school, the travel, school calendars are blocked to a point of exhaustion.. Then comes Navarathri festival.
This year was a mixed bag. Could visit folks only on three days.. The rest of the days were spent in pick up and drop off duties or in meetings. Also the kids did not dress up even once and visit any Golu. That was a new low.
There were games to be played, bands to be marched in, or the self imposed ban on attending functions while on periods. In any case, someone had to step up and dress up with San.. especially after day one when I told everyone I was ready to go in my T-shirt and shorts...
There was a lot of shaming and I decided to match her Sari.. there were a lot of compliments from friends, partly because they were all so used to seeing me in the same T-shirt that anything else was a step up.
Then I decided to do it the other two days of golu hopping as well. . . the end result .. a photomerge to remember..
This year the golus saw a lot of antique dolls that were inheritences for the ladies from their grandparents.. some of them were 100 years old handed down generations.. and they are all making their way to the bay area.. Cupertino and Fremont are the New Mylapore and New Mambalam.. have said that before and will say it again!
There were also a these miniature dolls with amazing detail. None of them are more than 3-4 inches in any dimension but the intricate color work is mind boggling.
My favorite from this year..
For the first time all the photos from the Golus were taking with an iPhone 11 Pro Max.. the new phone came just in time for the Golu season and is still being figured out..
Slide shows of the golus..
now for the individual doll portraits.. at least these dolls were unique across the golus I attended this year.. the iPhone has a neat portrait feature and if the dolls are lifelike, it takes portraits and enhances them automatically.. to me that is a measure of how life like the dolls are..
and finally, the photoshop masterpiece..that made the experience a fun one!
This blog has been capturing local golus for almost 15 years now.. hope to keep doing that over the years.. it has been one constant that has held over time for this blog!
Happy Vijayadasami to everyone! May the start of this academic year be a good and fruitful one!
Another year rolls by.. and this year I had to explain to kids why Tamil New years day is as important to me as Jan 1st. They saw it as something less to celebrate.. the world turns irrespective of our celebrating and all these days are random markers in time .. birthdays, new years based on different dates.. etc.
I had to tell them about the history of New years on Jan 1st and how things have changed just in 2000 years with respect to Jan 1. The Tamil year system is more complex but the new Years is April 14th.
We went to the temple yesterday given it was Rama Navami and decided to stay put at home today. There is 4 temples in the area and they are all super crowded. So we prayed for a good new year on "new year's eve" I guess!
We were glad to have some friends visit us for lunch. The highlight was San's friends parents who came and blessed us with all their heart. To me, that is always what I miss about Tamil New Year here. When in India, you go to older relatvies and get their blessing.. Here I look around and realize that I AM the older relative!!! (when my MIL is not around).
My MIL was happy today as well as she was superseeded by folks who could bless her!
and what is a new years post without a family portrait?!
I am not exactly jet lagged but tired. It was time to turn on the sprinkler system today and I have not spent much time in the backyard in ages.. so went to check on things and ended up pulling out a lot of weeds.. some of them got to me. So I had puffy eyes for the pictures..
My saluations to all the elders on New Years and my blessings to all my younger family members.. Yes, I am now old enough to start blessing people as well as receive blessings..
This years name is Vihari, which is the 32nd of the 60 year cycle.. Wikipedia may not be the best source for this information (whenever westerners get to write or rewrite history.. a lot is lost in factual accuracy and translation)..but for what it is worth here is the link..
Given 2019 as a year did not start well for me.. counting on Vihari being a good year for me.. we can always count new years different ways, no?!
That alone tells you that it really does not matter where the count starts. It is a good reason to celebrate, thank your stars and more importantly thank your elders and make sure you understand your responsibility as an older person to set an example for the young ones on this pretext.
The earth continues revolving and that is a good thing..
The previous post in this series of the Belize trip is here..
When we were waiting in line for the Ziplining on day 3, I overheard another family talk excitedly about the Belize Zoo. They had come to the cavetubing / ziplining place from a cruise ship and were complaining about how they didn't get a chance to pet a Jaguar.
Had I heard it right? Did that kid actually say "pet a jaguar?" . On our way back I asked our guide and he said "yes, we have a Belize zoo. In fact we will be crossing it on our way back to the resort. This is not your typical zoo. It has only Belize animals in it which were mostly rescued or abandoned by the parents. I also believe for an extra fee you can pet a Jaguar but you have to book it ahead of time. You can ask the guide who takes folks to the zoo when we get back"
The first thing we did after going back to the resort was to find out if we could squeeze in the Zoo, the next afternoon. Altun Ha was a half day affair so we could technically do both the Zoo and Altun Ha in one day if we left early. Lucky for us, the only other family there with kids who happened to also be from California heard this and said "count us also in" . There was still some juggling to do for the resort manager.
A couple from Rhode Island who were with us for the Altun Ha visit had to be dropped back before we left for the Zoo. As luck would have it, they also changed their plans and said "we would like to go to the Zoo as well with this group!". So we had a 10 people group going one shot and that meant more time at the Zoo.
The resort packed us lunches as well. We went straight from Altun Ha to the Zoo on day 4.
On the way we saw prisoners to the Hattieville prison being transported in open lorries. Belize was weird. They call the prison the Ramada Inn. The prison had a gift shop!
The Zoo had a simple entrance.
The place was started quite accidentally by this lady who suddenly ended up having to take care of 20 animals! We met the lady and she was walking slowly through the zoo. Her story is truly inspiring!
The thing that caught my eye near the Zoo entrance was this mural..
We paid the 50$ extra to meet the Jaguar and were told that there is a time window for it. Our guide went with us to the Zoo and he knew the place very well. He knew what we wanted. See every animal in the zoo within the 3 hour window. We also had to wait for the Jaguar encounter. He said "No problem". He also gave us details about the animals that was not there in the exhibit notice and that was interesting.
The highlight of course was the Jaugar.
Indians : Cows :: Belizians : Jaguars
If there is a term "holy cow!", there is a "holier Jaguar!". They revere this cat! It is a god there.
This one was a cub raised in the zoo. It was abandoned by its mother. The villagers caught a Jaguar hunting their dogs and brought it to the Zoo and they did not know she was pregnant. The cub was raised in the zoo and kids could hold it, but that was 11 years ago. Now the cub is a fully grown Jaguar and the term "petting" is not fair.. or so we learned. What happens now is that you go into a cage within the Jaguar enclosure and while the rest of the zoo visitors watch, the Jaguar jumps on top of the cage after doing somersaults and you get to touch its feet and tail.
You also get your forehead licked by the Jaguar through the gap in the cages, should you choose to do it and can also feed it Chicken pieces. Jr and me did get our foreheads licked by the Jaguar. It was like a sandpaper scratch! Did not expect a cat's toungue to be so rough.
When the Jaguar was called back, we got up and I promptly hit my head on the cage. It is still recovering..
The video of the Zoo below starts with the Jaguar enounter..
This Zoo also had a baby Tapir which was incredibly cute..
and a few other Tapirs. It is interesting to see that Tapirs are found in Malaysia and Belize.. they look different.. kind of like the Indian vs. African elephants.
There was a sad story behind every animal. This one's mom was shot.
They had Toucans, which is a bird local to Belize. They were beautiful.
The other thing that was unique to the zoo was an albino Coatimundi.. which was very rare. Coatimundi's are a very local animal..
There were many other unique local Belizian animals and birds (vulture, Jabiru stork etc.) and a lot of them were too far away or were sleeping in the afternoon.
These were not my best animal photographs given they were taking with a zoom on an iPhone X and edited in Photoshop (which did not work at all) or were taking with the 24-105 lens on the Canon at 105mm. Those actually turned out much better!
Next time, I will haul my 70-200mm and the extender on long trips. My family said "what is the point of having a 2000$ lens and leaving it at home?!".
The rest of the pictures are in the picture galleries..
We had an amazing time at the Belize zoo and would strongly recommend it as one of the "not to miss" activities in Belize. Go and get the Jaguar encounter booked ahead. They allow a max of 4 people at a time into that enclosure and the wait can be long, but it is worth it!
This is the first of a series of posts on our trip to Belize to round up 2018. . .
It all started with me getting a mail from some guided tours and such, addressed to the previous owners of our house "or current resident". Most of the time San throws those out in the garbage on her way into the house. This time by some miracle it made it to the table. There were many places on that list and one of those was Belize. I did not know much about Belize. There were two places that were touted as must see.
1. The Sacred cave or Cave of the Stone Sepulcher also called ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal)
2. The Great blue hole which is a UNESCO world heritage site
Belize has been a bucket list item for at least three years now. This year we had a shutdown between Christmas and New Years and San made the plans. The Great Blue hole was a helicopter ride off Belize City and it was ~1000$ per person. So the original plan was for me to see the hole while the family relaxed. That would have still been too hectic, so I cancelled that. Would rather go with the family.
ATM was on the plan for sure. I did not give the family details and they did not go to the Wiki pages or read other peoples account of their trips or they would have never agreed to come. Good thing they just took my word for it that it is "just a short hike to see a crystallized skeleton".
There were other things to see in Belize as well and we had to balance out the fact that the kids wanted a "relaxing vacation". Their idea of a vacation is to sit in bed and read books, or sleep, and they definitely don't want to wake up "early". Early is relative... so we stuck some kind of compromise.
We got to stay in the Belize Boutique resort and Spa. How San found this place I have no idea, but it was worth what we paid for it. It was amazing! In the middle of forest land, a small group of accomodations, maybe 30-40 people at any time staying there, food that is freshly made for every meal from stuff grown right there, a guy who puts ladders up coconut trees and cuts up cocunuts for you to drink, it was pampering..
My friend has a Wellness place close to Chennai that we visited last year. This was very similar.
It was close to most of the sites or activities we wanted to do. They had guides for everything except ATM (those guides are locals at the ATM site but the Resort made the arrangements for us ahead of time).
We had a great experience where we did things for four days, then had a day "off" to make the kids happy and flew back. There were massages on the day "off" at the Spa, which was an interesting exprience in itself.
Just watching the reefs and the shallow green waters as we landed, set the expectation high for Belize!
One thing that hit us after we got to the resort was that everything had a hibiscus on it..
The welcome drinks had it, the table in the room, the pillows, the slippers, even the restoom and toilet were decorated with a single hibiscus leaf and a flower. It was the Spa's theme or something..
We were all encouraged to eat hibiscus and were told that it improves memory. Given we have lots of hibiscus in our house but we never ate one, San was the only one brave enough to eat the flower petals. She declared them tasty and started eating one a day. Not sure if her memory has improved yet.. The kids and me were content to admire the flowers and watching her like young experimenters in a biology lab looking at a petri dish.
The place was amazing. An air conditioned stucco hut with a tatched roof (covered by a corrugated tin sheets). We did not use the air conditioning, except as air circulation. It was pleasant outside. There was non stop noise from animals, birds, frogs and lizards, but we slept peacefully.
Every little thing was well decorated, with things you would not think of as decorations.. door latches, thumb tacks etc..
The dining area was also very nicely set!
Then there was the stone and wood artwork that were all around the place..
did I mention coconut trees already?
There was this spiritual meditation chalet made of colored bottles and it did make some amazing light effects during sunrise and sunset, but I did not use that room. Just sitting outside our little Villa was calming enough with the gentle breeze!
We stayed at the Opium Villa.. there was no Opium involved.. They have interesting names for the various huts. Fertility suite, Honeymoon hotel, Viper, Mayan Loft etc.. Most of them were isolated single storied structures with the exception of two double level buildings.. It was mostly couples staying there.. there were three families at most times and we met some fun folks over the week which was an added plus! It was like an extended family!
It was just beautiful. Have stayed in lots of places over the years, but the Opium Villa is one to remember! There was a giant Chess set in a cute setting right outside our hut. The kids did not offer to play chess with me.. I sat there for a few seconds to admire the setting..
There were pretty birds outside our hut working on their own honeymoons.
Sometimes a video does justice to things pictures don't.. so here is one!
It did rain on and off the day we landed. So we just relaxed, walked around the place, got adjusted to the time difference a little.. and went to bed early.. They were going to knock on our door at 6:30 in the morning. We pre-ordered breakfast (they make everything fresh starting at 6.. so we had to preorder) and we were going to leave at 8AM sharp for our first activity on Day 2...
We did realize one thing on day 1. There were plenty of things that bit us. The Spa gave a special spray made of natural stuff that was to repel the insects, but the smell of it shut down my nose and lungs instantly. So I did not spray that on.. it was going to prove a costly mistake over the coming days.. The kids used DEET.. which also suprisingly shuts me down.. Maybe I am an insect myself?! was what I was thinking..
In any case, use the Deet if you go there, or the organic herbal spray. Don't be like me!
Will continue the blog posts over the next few days...
This is the last post on the Europe trip. The previous post on the series is here..
The last day (day 13) of the Europe trip was spent on two things. Most of the day was an Evans and Evans trip to Hogwarts.. let's just call it that. It was actually the Warner Brothers studios shooting location for all the Harry Potter movies over 10 years that is now a Studio tour.
As usual we had to go from Kings cross station to Victoria, then board the bus which took us to the studio in a little over an hour and we were handed tickets and told that we had a little over 4 hours to come back to the bus. We will be back in Victoria Station area at 5:15-5:30 PM.
We also had tickets for the London Eye that evening. We wanted to see the views of London as the sun set so I could get some pictures with the daylight and some with the buildings lighting up.
First it was almost our last day and this would be almost the last time leaving the Kings Cross station. The kids were eyeing Lola's hand crafted cup cakes two days straight.. so today was their day!
Then we were off..
Full disclosure. I had not read a single Harry Potter book to date. Have only watched the movies as they came out in theaters. Missed the Order of the Phoenix in theaters and caught bits and pieces of it at a later date in someones house but that was it. Was and still am a big fan of the whole series of movies. Who can resist magic?
Don't think there is a picture of me and San being happier in this trip!
We had four hours to spend at the place and we walked through every room, exhibit and hallway and when we came out of the place it was exactly 4 hours. This included a 20 minute break to have lunch before going into the studio.
The kids were given little Hogwart's passports and they had to find the 7 secret Horcruxes in the place.. so they were busy searching for those in the various rooms..
Then there was the butterbeer, which can give kids a brain freeze, has unknown health effects on muggles and gives dads wallets a cold..
The whole experience was amazing.. our 4 hours is condensed into the video below..
The skies were brilliant and my hopes for great pictures from the London eye were already high..
We reached the Victoria station, walked towards the London Eye and realized that the entire area was a circus. Apparently there was a large protest for DJT's visit to London and the wife and kids had heard about it through social media and our tour guide from the previous day's trip.
The whole place was crawling with people who had signs in their hands.
It had become hot and a little on the "about to rain" side and I removed my jacket to avoid going into one of those dangerous "avalanche sweats" as I call it. Was also proudly wearing my 60 day Challenge Bikram Yoga San Jose T-shirt to announce to the folks on the street that I was American.
Given the generic anti-American sentiment on the streets that day, was thinking if I should buy one of those London T-shirts.. then we realized no one cared.. The London protesters were an interesting bunch.
We got some great views of the city from the London Eye after we saw a 4D show at the basement that was part of the ticket.
A video of the London Eye experience ..
Got two pano shots from the London eye..
One from either side as our little carriage made it up and down over 40 minutes.
Slide shows of pictures from Hogwart's and the London Eye
When we came out it was about to rain, the streets were extremely crowded with protesters and we wanted to find dinner.
San's classmate had recommended a Chat place which had 8 branches in London and was very popular, but based on the 1 hour 20 minute wait time (there were 100+ folks standing in line knowing the wait time) we decided to take his second recommendation. A place called Shapur's in Strand area.
We went to Shapur's and had a nice dinner..
We walked to the train station from there past the Royal Opera house which was beautiful..
Then it started raining and we realized (were actually told by someone) that this is the "typical" London weather and we were really fortunate to miss it over our three day trip.
Apparently that is what London looks on an average day.. "like Seattle" is what we all said at the same time and walked down the steps to the train station.
The next morning we were going to take one last train ride on the Europe trip to Gatwick airport and it was going to be back in the US..
We thoroughly enjoyed this 14 day trip. It took a lot of planning from San and the kids and San pretty much arranged every little thing. I was happy to be on package tours so I could also play tourist and enjoy the sights with the lens or my eyes.
It was also a blessing to be able to meet San's Sister and her family during this trip, not to mention two of her classmates and one of our family friends.
We would definitely recommend the tours we took and the Air B&B's we used in various locations.
I also loved writing about this trip.. even though it has taken two full months to finish writing about a two week trip.
Monday, October 7, 2019 at 7:06PM ;)
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