Okay, answer this: Where is this temple? Somewhere in Banashankari? Nope. It is in Houston (okay, Pearland near Houston, for the picky). It is managed by Sri Meenakshi Temple Society. More info here
Friday, July 29, 2005
More of good at Austin
More on the positive side, weekends have been quite eventful ever since I landed here. On the very first weekend I went with Manju and his friends for kayaking in some lake within Austin. I was doing it for the very first time in life, so it was fun. And then had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant.
One other weekend I went to 'Tubing' in the Guadalupe river (I hope I got the spelling right) It is a simple relaxing ride down the river sitting on an inflated tube. There was not much water in the river, making our ride very safe ;-) However, we desis were the only ones with life jackets tightly tucked to our body! More info here: http://www.riversportstubes.com/.
On 17th Jul I saw a Kannada movie after a long time. I had to come all the way to US to see a Kannada movie. Dwarakish was there to add 'star' value to the place. It was his movie - "Aapta Mitra" It was a surprisingly well-made movie. I have heard it is going to complete 1 year of non-stop running in Bangalore soon.
The last weekend (23-24Jul) we (I and Murali) hired a car and drove to our satisfaction. On Saturday we drove to Lake Buchanan and surrounding areas. It was raining like mad, so our trip was mostly about driving and less about sight-seeing. On Saturday we went to Houston! It is 4 hour drive from here. We went straight to Meenakshi temple on the southern periphery of the city. It looks like any traditional South Indian temple. The 'Food Service' at the back of the temple was drawing even more crowds :-) It is just like a nice 'Darshini' style of restaurant in Bangalore. Cheap and tasty food. Added to it the belief that this was God's 'prasada'. People were packing enough food to last a famine!
Later we drove to Galveston Island. Saw the Aquarium pyramid at Moody Gardens and then took a duck ride around the town and it's waters. Lovely little city. While driving back at night we drove to Houston downtown. I have never been to the real down-town of any real city in the US, so I was very impressed. Since it was late at night there were hardly any people on road, though. On our trip back to Austin we had to put in herculean effort just to figure our way out of Houston downtown onto the nice freeways that were running right in front of us. Mental note to myself : "Never travel to any city without the city's map in hand"!
Getting some nice food once in a while, thanks to Madras Pavilion and some nice people around who want to feed us! So life is mostly alright!
One other weekend I went to 'Tubing' in the Guadalupe river (I hope I got the spelling right) It is a simple relaxing ride down the river sitting on an inflated tube. There was not much water in the river, making our ride very safe ;-) However, we desis were the only ones with life jackets tightly tucked to our body! More info here: http://www.riversportstubes.com/.
On 17th Jul I saw a Kannada movie after a long time. I had to come all the way to US to see a Kannada movie. Dwarakish was there to add 'star' value to the place. It was his movie - "Aapta Mitra" It was a surprisingly well-made movie. I have heard it is going to complete 1 year of non-stop running in Bangalore soon.
The last weekend (23-24Jul) we (I and Murali) hired a car and drove to our satisfaction. On Saturday we drove to Lake Buchanan and surrounding areas. It was raining like mad, so our trip was mostly about driving and less about sight-seeing. On Saturday we went to Houston! It is 4 hour drive from here. We went straight to Meenakshi temple on the southern periphery of the city. It looks like any traditional South Indian temple. The 'Food Service' at the back of the temple was drawing even more crowds :-) It is just like a nice 'Darshini' style of restaurant in Bangalore. Cheap and tasty food. Added to it the belief that this was God's 'prasada'. People were packing enough food to last a famine!
Later we drove to Galveston Island. Saw the Aquarium pyramid at Moody Gardens and then took a duck ride around the town and it's waters. Lovely little city. While driving back at night we drove to Houston downtown. I have never been to the real down-town of any real city in the US, so I was very impressed. Since it was late at night there were hardly any people on road, though. On our trip back to Austin we had to put in herculean effort just to figure our way out of Houston downtown onto the nice freeways that were running right in front of us. Mental note to myself : "Never travel to any city without the city's map in hand"!
Getting some nice food once in a while, thanks to Madras Pavilion and some nice people around who want to feed us! So life is mostly alright!
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Early days of life in Austin
Things have been quite 'eventful' (usually means bad) ever since I landed in Austin. My checked-in luggages took 3 days to travel from Chicago to Austin. I am facing some problems with setting myself at the apartment and other places. Add to that a disk crash on my laptop threatening to take away all my data!
On the brighter side, there are people to help me with (read Manju) and home is very close to the office (it was never as close in all my life).
On the brighter side, there are people to help me with (read Manju) and home is very close to the office (it was never as close in all my life).
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Started the new blog
Started this new blog today. This will be a generic blog, not about any topic in particular.
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