The Big Apple!

New York City, the city that practically never sleeps, the big apple. Now I seem to have stumbled upon the reason to why it is called the Big Apple. In the 1900's the Jazz scene in NY was huge. And people were attracted to the money involved here. And they used to also refer to the money as 'sugar'. So NY got 'Da Sugar'. And the apple has the highest concentration of sugar amongst fruits. So there you have it folks! After drawing a few links here and there, this is the birth of the term "The Big Apple'.


Now first thing you realize when you are in New York is the massiveness of everything, huge scale of buildings...
And next would be the people there. A bustling crowd is what greets you here with every body running around with fancy formals and sweaty ties. They all have enough on their own hands to care to look up and see the sights.

Another thing that would come to mind is the amazing inter connectivity in the City. Every place is connected by the strands of Subways, Taxi networks, buses and metros. Subways are right within your reach almost always under the roads of streets. The sounds of trains whistling through the tracks can even be heard above. Sum up all these modes of transport and what you get is a perfect three-dimensional transport network for everyone and anyone.

NY is the financial hub of the world. But, clearly the recession has not taken as much of a toll on the city. Life is as always the way it is.Times square is always lit up. Metros are always on time. The grand central station is as majestic as ever. But the National Debt clock is always ticking. The Debt of the country has gone skywards and the old school place value system isn't working for me. I'm gonna take a wild guess and estimate it amongst the 100 trillion dollar range. And plus before this they had run out of digit space so they had to insert another digit.


The sights of New York are staggering.Take the Empire State Building for example Now the tallest building in New York ( I guess everyone knows why), it presents an absolutely unprecedented view of the New York skyline and surely have you wondering how on earth they build these things. Thankfully the city is blessed with solid bedrock. But I don't think bedrock would be a key issue for the New Yorkers.

Terrorism would though. NY had been badly wounded by the 9/11 and the only mark I see today would be the intense security. They have learnt their lesson and beefed up the security big time. Now those are good signs.

There are so many people donning those I <3 NY shirts on the streets and so I wonder, how can anyone NOT love New York??

Signing off...for now! Sudharshan

Yes, I still know I have a blog!

I haven't been posting anything, because I don't seem to be getting the time in NYC. Because I'm an idiot.


OK, ignore the last statement unless you guys have already taken that for granted. Coming to my point...I'll be posting something as soon as I'm back from NYC or as soon as I can leech wi-fi for a considerable period of time.

BTW...just finished off with the big apple and will be leaving for Buffalo and Niagara Falls tomorrow.

Signing off....Sudharshan!!

Destination NY!

It's late tonite. Well, late considering i gotta catch a flight tomorrow morning. And no! Don't get me started on how much I hate flights. But, you gotta do what you gotta do. So, yeah...an 8 hour flight with a boring stopover. But, where? New York! That is the only real good thing. The Big Apple, Manhattan! Now that's worth the flight.
Anyways...
Signing Off for now...Sudharshan!

Are we there yet?

7 and a half grueling hours from Barstow back to Folsom. May sound like child's play considering already going through a 20 hr flight but nevertheless quite a long journey. Well, perhaps it went better than I expected. Correction- MUCH better than i expected. Couldn't realize time fly. A quick complementary breakfast (with the same sneaky methods of dining as we practiced in the previous hotels), and we begin the journey.
A relatively boring route in comparison to the others we inched our way through Arizona and into Cali. From here a marathon of Owl City's monotonous trebles set the tone of our journey. After a quick pit stop at Little Caesars for a bite we progressed through our journey. A hearty game of 20 questions entertained us throughout the second leg of the trip and before we knew it we were back home!

Signing off for now...Sudharshan!

{Bloggin' starts here!!}

The date is may 15, midway through the month and nearly through the vacation. The United States is a fabulous place and I guess I'm going to start with blogging here ( My uncle's amazing idea...!).
I know it's kinda late...but as some guy used to say...Better late than never.
So, I'm going to be working backwards and forwards in time here..Good luck to myself!

Signing off for now...Sudharshan!

Peer over the edge (but don't fall off!)

After yesterday's spectacular sunset at the Canyons, we progressed onto the East side of the South Rim. We discarded that wisecrack of an idea of watching the sunrise at 5:30 in the morning and just progressed slowly across the south rim.
There were quite a few points with differently uncreative names such as Grandview Point and Desert View Point which were quite amazing actually. The view changed dramatically by giving the canyon with visible lifelessness a winding Colorado Rapid. Not to say that the other parts of the canyon are lifeless, but that's simply all a person can see from such great heights.
Desert view was an interesting place. Along with a good view it also showcase an old Indian tower. Don't ask me why but a sign proudly stated that the tower was rated PG! That apart it had some cool architecture and paintings.
We then took a mini-route down toward the cliff and took a few snaps. That drop was nasty, but then, where in the Grand Canyon is there NO drop??

Following all this we stopped by at the hotel again, checked out and traveled for 4 hours to Barstow. Barstow was kind of a moderately sized town, but it pales it comparison with the size of the trucks that travel through the route. From what I understand Barstow is a truck haven with the traffic going helter-skelter. Hmm...reminds me of Chennai :)
Checked into the Country Inn and that's it for the day.

Signing Off for now...Sudharshan!

From the posh strip to a sunset trip...

May 13, 2010- Thursday

Goodbye Las Vegas!!
Through the morning a certain amount of moving around had to be done and when that is done within the vicinity of TI, it is practically inevitable that you will be forced to watch the Ti's ads. There is nothing more irritating than some woman sayin' "Hang on...Tight!" over and over and over again.

and over...
and over...
enough said.

So after getting through all that, we sit down to drink a Good Ol' coffee and (after much contemplation) try our luck at the slots one final time. Well, when I say we tried the slots I obviously mean my Mom and Uncle  :) And talk about lucky endings, we struck gold! If you call getting a hundred bucks from a miserable $2 striking gold...well yeah... But with all yesterday's futile attempts and money-burning we calculated hardly a 50$ net gain in Vegas. Whatever be the amount, we left in positives.

Destination Grand Canyon, and we reached there with plenty of time to spare too...!
Breathtaking views is what we wanted and that is just what we got. The way the canyon suddenly appears from nowhere is outstanding. One minute you think your on flat unending land, next minute you find yourself peering down cliff of Gigantic proportions. We had just enough time on our hands to go traverse the South Rim and visit the Hopi point for sunset. A marvelous sunset, so to speak.

The transport within the GC is pretty sweet too, maybe not as awesome as Zion, but mentionable.Catching up with a bus, we sped away back towards our hotel and immersed ourselves in an extraordinary movie on the Grand Canyon by Nat Geo in the IMAX theater. That brought us as close to the Grand Canyon as we could possibly get. Tons of skilled cinematography and helicopter filming gave us an up close and personal look at the Colorado River and the striking canyons. The movie tried it's best to explain the futile attempts of the never-satisfied Europeans to enter the canyon.
Ah...well words fail to describe for me. Let me just let John Wesley Powell explain to you guys-
 
"The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail."
 
A carry-out pizza at Pizza Hut ended our day, and that's that.

Signing off for now...Sudharshan!

Zion Canyons...the inverse of the Grand Canyons...!

Everyone knows about the splendor of the Grand Canyon and it's picturesque beauty. But this lesser known canyon hide under the huge shadow of the Grand Canyon. Well, that is just simply a figure of speech employed and not a reality considering the fact that the bottom of the Zion Canyons is the Top of the Grand Canyons.

 And that's exactly where we went to today! The first thing that might catch your eye might be the reddish tinged roads. Or maybe the neatly lined transport buses. Perhaps the towering canyons. But if you look really, really carefully...you may observe swarms of little critters littering the ground. Nah! You don't need to be observant nor look carefully, they are just all over the place. After a bit of asking around we discovered they were the commonly called ten-caterpillars. Hmm...are they harmful? Nope...pretty harmless apparently. But still heck icky and annoying.

Coming back to the story after that random outburst...the roads are red due to the presence of minerals in the rock they use for the laying, which of course is the rock found in the Zion region. As we progressed to the bus-stop, I found the bus routes and Park map neatly presented with every comfort for the visitors. There are around 8 bus-stop locations throughout the park and each stop is visited by the bus. You only need to wait a maximum of 8 minutes in a stop for a bus to pop up.

First up, the Canyon Junction! it gives us a neat trail to walk on the shores of the Virgin river. Speaking of the Virgin River, I felt it extremely hard to fathom that that small stream single-handedly created towering canyons of that massive proportion. Erosion and carving of the rocks of the canyons by this river created what we see currently of the Zion Canyons. This may be the case for other canyons too. The Grand Canyon is a grand example. It is simply cannot be imagined by the human mind how such Canyons form due to erosion. Why? Simple. The time-frame we are talking about is over millions of years. And a human life is hardly a hundred. Do the math.

And yet again i manage to drift away from the topic. ah! Yes, The Court of The Patriarchs was our next stop. We got an amazing view of the Three peaks christened Abraham Peak, Jacob Peak and Isaac Peak.  The Grotto and The Zion Lodge were our next stops. These were the start point for various hikes and trails. Each trail was so enticing and I really felt like going on one. But Alas! Time was still a ticking factor. Besides I had no idea how those trail would turn out.

For example there was one called Angel's Landing. A well-known and visited one, it gives you a bird's-eye view of the Canyons. But there's a catch. 2 and a half miles of trekking and a half mile involving steep climb and a ridge which has huge drops on both sides of the trail. All that can be said here is- Don't look down!!

As we progressed through the park we covered the rest of the points and captured breathtaking photographs on the way too. All until we reached the Temple Of Sinawava where the canyons surrounding us suddenly converge. And the Virgin river is left just a small path in between the Canyons to trickle through.

And that was that. Zion Canyon is best enjoyed when trekking on the trails. Which we didn't do :(. Nevertheless an awesome sight. Catching a quick nap on the way back from the canyon on bus, we set off to our next destination. VEGAS!! Now that is sure to be three awesome days!!

But no! It's sooner then that! We check into our hotel in Vegas on the same night! Treasure Island. Smack dead in the middle of the renowned strip. Everything in that hotel was astonishingly lavish. The lobby, casinos, rooms, pool and of course, ( who would forget!)  the bathrooms!
But even in that room, in the hotel, in Las Vegas- there is hardly a feeling that people are being ripped off in the casinos and losing stashes of cash. It's all fun and games. Maybe, that's the charm of Vegas.

Signing off for now....Sudharshan!!