Travels and thoughts

We woke up to Mothers day which was cloudy and breezy. Arvind and I decided to step out for a walk to enjoy the outside greenery and the cool breeze. Coming from Dubai - a dry and arid place, the verdant green and the rains are a constant source of happiness to us. We checked the temperature and it said it might rain for the next half hour. Deciding to delay our departure by half an hour we opted for coffee and listening to some music. Meanwhile Shruthi woke up and decided to join us for the walk. She suggested a decadent food tour on the special day. I was all ready for this yet another new experience with Shruthi. Stepping out we realized it was colder than expected. Our first stop was Saxby's at Locust street. We decided to start the day with a spiced Mocha and Decaf coffee. Saxby's is a warm neighborhood cafe with soft furnishings. Typical of cafes that dot University towns, many work tables are placed for students to work in groups or individually. The background sound ...

M y visits to my daughter are always fun filled and fulfilling. In the three years she has stayed here, she always finds time to take me out on weekends and some weekdays too. She continues to surprise me with these small quaint places she takes me to. She resides in west Philly close to the University. Her house is a corner house with views to the streets on either sides. The mile long street is lined with trees. Some of the trees bear colorful flowers. Paved footpath makes it convenient to walk along the road at any time of the day. Both sides of the street has tall brick houses. The trees arch from either side of the road providing shade while walking.  It was the season of Petunia when I visited her this time. Yellow, White and Pink petunia bulbs could be see all around . Their long strong stems holding the tender petals of the colorful blooms. One could sit in silence and marvel at the wonderment of nature. Most of the houses had small garden patches in front of their...

I was visiting my daughter for the first time since she moved to Philadelphia to complete her education. She was working there for almost 6 months now and lived in a small, neat apartment. I got a window seat on a clear day as we boarded the flight to New York from Dubai. I had made up my mind to use some of the features on the flight to track and observe the path instead of succumbing to the usual temptation of movies, chat and music. And so I peered out of the window, subscribed to the inflight WiFi to see if the iPhone and the flight map would capture the right geo tags! Settling myself in comfortably after some usual pleasantries with the crew and helping myself to a refreshing drink, I lounged and looked out to clear, blue skies dotted with sparse clouds as we gained attitude. However, the early morning departure meant that sleep drifted over me like a tidal wave. Nearly 5 hours past the take off, having conducted some casual conversations with fellow passengers, seated to ri...

Our flight touched down at Narita airport at 1735 hours on a windy Friday with crosswinds certainly measuring close to 20m/s. As our first venture this far east was about to begin and a long flight of almost 10 hours about to end, we were eagerly waiting for the landing when gusts of crosswind engulfed the A380 aircraft and it swerved under the pressure. As I peered outside to see if LA could be spotted on the other side, we were brought to the ground with a thud and the human and machine struggled with nature to put things in order. Soon, we were walking out of the plane with a smile and overheard the crew remarking that it was a scary landing! The first impressions of the airport was colorless but orderly and the long queue at immigration did move quickly. Walking to the luggage counter, we found to our surprise that they neatly stacked with the handles pointed up and the baggage tags facing us to enable easy identification. So thoughtful! Our taxi driver, sent us a text messag...

Returning to Tokyo late in the evening, we checked into Ana Intercontinental at Minato-Ku. After a quick nap, social updates, and dinner we set out to watch the acclaimed Robot Show having read all about it on Lonely Planet, Trip Advisor and other blogs on the net. Deciding to take the metro line which was close to our hotel, we were awestruck by the network of underground metro in the city. Each of the metros were interlinked by the passage. The passages had many shops to browse and for food also. It was a city underground throbbing with life. We boarded the Red line and alighted at the Shinjuku stop. There seemed to be millions of people on the road. Finding our way took up almost 15 minutes asking our way around, just out of an interest to talk to people, we reached the  the Robot Restaurant . We descended the bright and outrageous technicolor stairways to a hall with plain cemented floor and a ceiling of tacky pulleys, chains and hoists resembling an IKEA showroom ...