Phila-brotherly love

I am updating this portal after quite a while now....it's nearly an year that I was away from it...got a job in Philadlephia, so relocated to the city of brotherly love (Greek:-"brotherly love" from philos "loving" and adelphos "brother")in Jan last week. Heard a lot about this city and was planning to explore it since the day I am here, but the sad part is, because of work i haven't spend more than 5 weekends in this damn place. After being here been to BOSTON thrice, New Jersey once, Marlyand thrice (Baltimore twice and Ocean city once), Chicago once (for a week), California (a lot about this in the next post) and Dallas once, St.louis (once), upstate New York once and Washington D.C. once. Because of this crazy scehdule though I was in this city for the 5 weekends, used that time as a breather and cool off period. Fortunaltely today I got to see the city more closely.

Dropped my friend at 3oth street station and the next bus to King of Prussia was half hour later,. The best way of killing time is always reading, talking to people or sight seeing, I am good at the third once as compared to the other too. So thought of walking down the Market street till the City hall (Market and 15th street intersection). City hall, a victorian construction which has Bronze statue of Willaim Penn atop it's tower, is a very nice place to start the tour because you can see this construction, from any street of the city and you can orient yourself accordingly. This city has many old cathedrals, churches science and art institutes. It's nice to start at Benjamin Franklin Parkway (that starts from City hall and then ends at the Art Museum of Philadelphia). From City hall you can cover the Masonic Temple, J. K. Kennedy sqaure, Logan square, Franklin institute of science (http://www2.fi.edu/) and then finally the art museum. I don't know much about the city, yet. But there is a city tour shuttle service that runs every weekend, which can provide more information about the historical evidence of this structures. Most of the construction looks victorian (30 th street station is one of them). Actually I will call this a major area where you can experience the city's uniqueness to it's best. I still haven't seen the some places of historic significance such as liberty bell.

The Philadelphia downtown has the high rises as well as contruction of historic significance, science and art museums and beautiful fountains and green spots. So it's not totally a concrete construction all around like new york and nor just the place of historic significance like Washington D.C. This city has both the ancient and modern blends in it. When it comes to cleanliness it's not comparable to the clean Chicago at all. One of the advantage of this is city is it's transportation system, which makes it easily acessible from it's suburbs. There are two big universitsites such as UPENN and Drexel on the west end i.e. down to 4oth street from 3oth street. Upenn is very old and an Ivy league university and offers courses in varied fields. It's management school Wharton is once of the best B schools. As I said earlier commute is pretty easy in and around downtown, so one can plan taking further education when working fulltime in the downtonwn. Based on these advantages I think it's not the best but still a better city to live in.

Weirdo

Every human being is weird in some sense or the other. Being human how can I be left out?

1)Bathing.
I can't go out anywhere without taking a bath. No matter how urgent the situation is. If bathing is going to lose me my meeting I am ok with it, I can ask to reschedule it. But I have to take bath before going out.

2) Whenever I have pen and notebook in my hand, I have to try different signatures. I always felt that my signature is not at all good. It's small and easy to understand, but I don't want that. So I always keep trying different signatures, but the funny part is, I haven't changed my signature in last 5 years.

3) While walking, if I find a dry leaf on any shrub or any tree I like to pick that and peal the veins and blades of that leaf to midrib, so that I have just midrib in my hand. This habbit really says that I am eccentirc and in some sense, cruel. But can't help.

Gosh.. I think these three are enough to deal with. Hope I get rid of the third one really soon. Hope is a good thing and good thing never dies.

Yosemite National Park

I covered bay area (Google head quarters, Zepplin Hangars, Sunnyvale, Mountain View) and 17 mile drive in first four days of my California exploration. I knew from my friends in Cali. that even if you go for trek every weekend and that to for 5 years you will not repeat any terk. So, the rest of my vacation in Californai was dedicated to trek.
As planned earlier we, Ajay, myself and Ashwin went to a park known for it's scenic beauty, treking, hiking and all other wild sports, Yosemite National Park. For the hilly areas we rented a special vehicle "Wrangler", a jeep, because we thought adventure should begin right from travelling. Had fun driving "Wrangler". Reached Yosemite at around 2 pm on last Sunday 07/02/06, we had been told that, at the visitor entrance a map of all the treks and hikes will be provided, so were pretty sure that the first day is going to be adventurous. It was adventurous but not in case of hikes of treks but some wild adventure.
We started our trek based on the the time availability, as didn't have flaslights we had to finish the trek before it get's dark, so choose small trails of 1 to 2 miles. Started with Taft point, this point is know for fissures in the rock plataeu, cliffs and a spactaucular view of the whole valley.

As per plan we were treking towards Sentennial point, this trek trail is little off the usual trails and so more isolated. After traking for a mile or so, we heard a wild roar. We looked in the direction of that roar and oh.. my god.. can't imagine it was a wild black bear, Ashwin pointed in that direction and with in a blink we started running back, we nearly ran for 15 minutes with our back packs, that was terrific, but phew.. we were in good shape because of that terffic running. Otherwise don't know what would have happened, but I was little depressed as I couldn't get a chance to shoot the bear through my camcorder. That was the last short trek for that day, because the other trek trails were longer and it was almost 5 pm then, so decided to go to the Glacier point most recommended sceninc place in the Yosemite Park. From Glacier point we got to see some snow covered peaks, a highest peak of Yosemite (Half Dome), beautiful yosemite valley and two gigantic water falls (Vernal and Nevada) (which seemed to be very small from the height of 5000 ft. of Gacier point). The view was so beautiful that we decided to experience nature's beauty till sunset.

The day ended at Glacier point returned back to a Motel, in Oakhurst, (couldn't get a campground in Yosemite, it was all booked 2 months ago) 16 mile away from Yosemite park. Decided to gather more information of the hike trails as the inormation provided at the entrance of the park was not sufficient.

17-mile Drive

17 mile Drive-
Highlights:-
1) Scenic beauty 2) Scenic beauty 3) Scenic beauty


A scenic drive at the coast of pacific ocean. This drive which is really 17 miles as per it's name goes through the hilly areas and then parallel to all the beaches of pacific ocean. So, thess 17 miles are 17 different points from where you can see the beauty of Pacific ocean.

You will come across a bird rock, a beach full of "seals"(this a dumbest animal I have ever seen, just swims and take a sunbath at the beach. But I think at 17 mile drive even this animal is worth watching), a beautiful golf course and pleasant temparature. Can't even imagine the rates of real estates along this drive. I can't write much on this beacuse beauty though scenic is to be observed and not necessarily narrated.

Cali--28th June--29th June

Starting from yesterday evening---
I was alone yesterday mid afternoon, so decided to explore Sunnyvale area, in specific, Freemont road. Walked down 1 mile to a place called "Sarvana Dham". While going there i had my Camcorder with me, so I shot many people walking on sidewalk(a rare scene in Dallas). The climate is so good here.Yesterday even though it was a day time, the weather was very pleasant and the tempareture was around 70 F. The area around was really grt, nice small apartment comlexes or nice bunglows next to the sidewalks, with many Indian stores or an Indian restaurant around. In the evening we three (AJ and one more AJ (Ajoshi) and Akshay) went to Akshay's apartment, a nice place in Mountain view(take the name of the place literally--"Mountain VIEW"). Then we left home to see National Semiconductor and just explored the corporate area around Sunnyvale. i did see some train stations which are next to the Expressway, those stations reminded me of Marine lines station (Western railway in Mumbai). Just like Marine lines here most of the train stations are next to the road, so much like Mumbai. So no chance of missing Mumbai.Had a nice dinner (courtesy AJ)in Mountain View downtown. It was so much fun to be with these two guys. I was enjoying and laughing all the time. Probably I was enjoying to hide some emotions, oh..ho don't need to go on the emotional side. We stopped our day with a good night sleep at Akshay's apt. Still a lot of fun ahead. hope u enjoy reading it. if not ignore it. hahahahaha...

California-Day one (28th June 2006)

Doston,
Landed to San Jose airport today morning at 10:30 am. Before landing when I just looked down from the airplane window, the first thing I noticed was a mountain range with no greenary at all. I was counting the green spots. It was barren land all over, just like desert. I was expecting this from Texas, when I was landing on DFW airport for the first time in AUG. 2003. But i think Dallas is more green than Cali, San Jose at least. This dryness or scarce greenary in Californai is referred as "June gloom" because of insufficient rainfall. The first impression of CALI was no that good.I think that's why there have more developed green forests here, as greenary is not very common. Akshay came at right time on the Airport to take me from Airport to Ajay's apt. He served as a good guide as he explained me all the roads and the areas around. As we were advancing towards AJ's apt. I understood why they called "California as Konkan or CAli. is more like India" because of it's Indianish look. You will get a feeling as if you are in some metro of India, u will see people walking on side walks (not very common in Dallas), of which many are Indian's. So, till now I liked Cali. because of it's Indian feeling. Even if you keep your windows open you won't feel hot the climate is soothing, little humid to some extent as Bombay. So waiting for more fun ahead and more Cali to explore. Hope I am not boring you. If I am then sincere apologies, can't help it and can't restrict myself from talking or giving detailed description.take care.