~~Trip to UN~~

  Though I am in NYC for more than a year I never visited UN, most of the time we have speakers from UN coming to our college. When I found there was an event in UN I decided to go there. UN is located in the east river which directly opposite to where I stay so it around 45 minutes to go there.
  Getting in UN is more like getting into the center of the world where you see people from different parts of the world. I found few of my college mates there so it was more like home. The topic was on how legitimate the organization and speaker talked about various policies taken by the organization and the reforms needed to make the organization better.

~~Memories: kochi days~~

While we were in Kerala we were planning where to go for weekend ,one friend came up with an idea and said lets go to Sabarimalai.  This was during the off season time ,so we were in for the game. We told to few other people in the office and quickly we got a big gang. It was decided we all put proper maalais and get necessary items needed for the trip as we wanted to be like the proper devotees. So we went for shopping in the evening got our black attire bags etc.

We got up early in the morning went to the local temple and priest was really impressed to see the young and religious crowd. So one by one he performed main pooja and gave the erumudi to each one of us. We booked a 15 seater van for the weekend and we began our journey with devotional songs in the back ground. We visited few temples on the way. Our first stop our Eruveli since for most of us it was our first trips we were called as கண்ணி swamis and we were given some color powders to play with. We visited a nearby temple and mosque at that place and took bath in the nearby river. From there we travelled for an hour and  reached the pamba, being off season and just after monsoon the river was clean and flowing to the brim. We spent almost an hour in the river and then started our main task of climbing up the hill.

It was past six when we started the climb and it was getting dark. Being bare legged walking in that path was really tricky. Though more than 80% of the path is paved with concrete there were those 20% which was filled with gravels. I felt sorry for many people who were struggling to go up, there were many who need first aid it and many had to use dolaks to go up. Government could build a winch like in Palani at least old people can make use of it.There shops around the path which were ridiculously priced charging 2 or 3times the normal amount.I hate it when I see business centers around religious place. It took solid 4 hours to reach the top though we were exhausted we headed directly to the temple.

 Though it was off season there would have been more than thousand people in the temple, climbing the 18 steps was our next step and we had to wait sometime as only few people can go in that steps at a time. I climbed the step one by one and finally had a good darshan. Once everybody was done we headed to a nearby restaurant and had a good dinner. We had a good sleep in night and next day woke up had bath and went to have darshan again. Then we got the kovil prasadham,some souvenirs and  started our walk down. Walking down was more difficult as our legs have become tired but we eventually made it down.  The legs were literally broken and it took a day full of rest to get back to normal.

~~party at river basin~~

   Today I attended my friend's birthday party at river basin. This is a beautiful river side restaurant located on the banks of river Hudson.  My friend even messaged stay hydrated till the evening as today was the hottest day in the year so far in the year in NYC. But by evening there was little rain which cooled down the temperature.

 I was thinking of gift to get for my friend then I finally packed the Snoopy I had, since she likes dogs. It proved to be a great idea she liked the gift very much and I got a big hug and two kisses for that gift :)

~~Wisdom in the face~~

  Today went to attend  an investors conference  on Chile where Chile's mining minister gave a speech inviting the investors to make use of the resources in the country. I like the ministers from Chile, most of them have masters degrees from famous universities. Its always good to see a minister taking the initiative and marketing his country. The Q&A session was interesting as one person asked the question Chile has reached 0% percent population growth so why would investors go there as the cost of human capital would be high.
  I took my Japanese friend for this event he ended meeting his boss who had come for the event.The boss asked him to ask a question about the investment by their firm. After the conference my friend introduced to his boss who asked me which class I take mistaking me for a professor, I asked am I looking so old he replied back saying your wisdom in your face made me to ask that question :)

~~Long walk home~~

  I went to conference in mid town today and while coming back why not I walk back to my home, I have walked 30 or 40 blocks but not 75 blocks which is around 4 miles. I accepted the challenge and started walking, I knew in my mind the last half mile would be the most difficult part as the body would be tired and at the same time its not worth taking the subway for it. So anyways I started walking though the streets , I stopped once in the middle at the Gray's payapa shop and grabbed glass of fresh papaya juice. The last mile I called my friend and started chating with him which kept me occupied and within minutes I reached home.

4 miles in 90 minutes a milestone reached :)

~~~Goodies I got~~

Went to conference today apart from the interesting people I met and speeches I heard, I got few goodies from the organizers. Below is one of the goodies I got!

~~Kumbhabhishekam at NYC temple~~

  New York Mahavallabha Ganapathy temple was renovated and the grand kumbhabhishekam was held today. The renovation was going on for sometime and the temple looks complete now. I joined Diana and Ganesh who started their journey early morning from Philly and me from my room. From flushing station we walked to the temple. The weather was perfect for a Sunday outing.

 At 11 am the kumbhabhishekam ceremony was performed and we were allowed to go in. There were more than 1000 people who had come from different places for this occasion and it was difficult to find a space to stand. We entered in the slow moving queue offered our prayers, then we moved to see the temple elephant and had good lunch prepared in the temple. We spent an hour more in the temple to get the final aarathi, Diana got me some snacks from the temple canteen and we walked our way back to the station.

PS:Sheila,since I dont have a camera I m using Di and G's picture :)