~~Back from the holy trip~~

I m back from a back breaking trip and in need of good sleep.I have uploaded few pictures for preview , will blog about each and everyone of these places later.

~~Holy(free) Trip~~

After a long time I thought of going home for a weekend,reason being my school mate's reception. When I told my mum I m coming home for the weekend,she as usual said her calendar is booked and she has planned to go on a holy trip. And she asked whether I am interested to join. Then she added that you needn't bother about anything regarding this trip ,since everything is taken care by them (ie) Travel cost is FREE, place I m going to stay is FREE, food will be given for FREE. So like a person living in Doha I can enjoy everything for FREE for next few days :))

Place we planned to visit are Kollur,Dharmasthala, Subramanya, Hornadu, Sringeri and Udupi. I like Dakshin Karnataka not for their temples but for their beautiful surroundings and wonderful people. So having very high hopes about the trip. Since photography is banned inside the temples I can say well in advance I wont be able to post those pictures in the blog.

~~Pics for the day~~

These are pictures taken in the backwaters of Kumarakom in the year 2006, when our boat got struck in this traffic jam

~~Book I read~~

When I was in British Council last weekend ,a funky book cover caught my attention and went through few pages and my instinct said it should be a good book. I took it home and finished it at a stretch. "More than love letters" by Rosy Thornton is one the kind.



Its a story of an young woman Margaret who writes about the problems faced in her constituency to her MP. And incidents happen around that changes her life. The highlight of the novel its fully written in series of letters addressing to individuals.So the novel goes on describing series of events which had happened and how it happened. As the title says its not only the letters between the hero and heroine. Like there are letters from Margaret to her friend and vice versa ,to her granny and vice versa, MP's letter to his mentor and so on. Each letter is written from the character's own perspective and slowly adds pace to the novel. Some funny letters,some sarcastic,some telling the problem faced by men and some by women.For each letter we feel as if we fit on their shoes.

Margaret's granny enjoys reading her grand daughter's letter again and again saying , phone conversation cannot be recorded but letters can be reread at any time. There are times when one can make bold statements in the letter than talking with face to face.Finally novel end with letter on why letters are important in this electronic era as a hand written message will really touch the heart than a digital one. A different novel altogether,felt good after reading it.

~~Toaster in the rumbles~~

Last weekend I was cleaning one of my grandma's cupboards,many things which were not in use were stocked there. Things from small to large utensils,forks,spoons, juice maker are few things which I took from the rumble. What caught my attention was a new bread toaster hidden inside. I asked my grandma why didn't she uses it and she replied that thing occupies the space in the kitchen.

I found a place right on top of the microwave and to have continuous use of it, I brought packs of bread,peanut butter,cheese and jam during the weekend. After a gap of more than 15 months I am back into the kitchen. Even though I have just started with making toasts something better than nothing. I packed peanut butter toast and as usual found a fan.So have to take the toast tomorrow also.

EDIT:
What is the best compliment you ever got for your cooking ?
There are quite a few appreciations I have got for my cooking experiments. The one I got for today. Here it is as told " Yummy, it takes me back to the school days,my mum used to make stuffs for me like that". Isn't it a great compliment ?

~~Memories:Trip to Chitra Sabhai~~

This is part of the trip I went to Tenkasi and Kutralam last year, I have been wanting to write about it for a long long time but procrastinating it. There are five sabhais in Tamil Nadu were Lord Shiva was supposed to have danced and all these temples have stages to acknowledge the same. The place we were supposed to go was Chitra Sabhai,other places are Porsabhai(Chidambaram),rathina sabhai(tiruvalankadu) rajatha sabhai(Madurai) and Thamira sabhai(Tirunelveli)




After we had bath at five falls, we took an auto and reached the temple.We though it was a weekend we were the only people there.There was a single guy taking care of the entire temple and was giving us strict instructions not to take picture nor carry mobiles.Raj, worried somebody will take his woodlands slippers told us he will stay outside,finally he found a safe place to hide it from anyone's eyes and then joined us.

There were beautiful paintings all around the place depicting stories like Meenakshi kalyanam,tiruvilayadal etc. It was sad to see that most of the painting were damaged by some people scribbling their name or their girl friend's name. There were other paintings which got faded away fighting with the time. It would be great if government takes steps to renovate those stuffs.


Once we came outside we relaxed at the temples pond , it was not a pond even though it was a rainy season the place was dry.Raj and Padma tried ventured inside the pond and climbed into the inner sanctrum.Its easier to go up but getting down is difficult. They got struck there for sometime and got down with great difficulty.

~~My friend's trip~~

My friend Ashwin is passionate about Japan and its lifestyle. He was planning for a trip to Japan for quite sometime and finally made it this month beginning. One of his ambition is to get a Japanese girl friend and he is working hard on learning Japanese.

He has made a video on the trip he made.

When I asked why he choose that song as the BGM he said he missed a Japanese girl during the entire trip. Also linked are few pictures he taken during the trip.