Day 4 - Disney's Magic Kingdom

Since I raved sufficiently about Magic Kingdom in the last post, I am not going to repeat that again here. Day 4 was one of those short days where we decided not to have the second entry to the park, instead decided to catch a longer sleep, & hit the pool in the hotel. It was also one of those days where the afternoon rain continued until late evening & killed the excitement.

As planned earlier, we reached the park at 9AM promptly after the sumptuous breakfast & hit the Fantasy Land. Since we had spent a good 4 hours in the same park last evening, we were pretty much comfortable with the layout & have even thought of where to go & what to see. We started off at Ariel’s grotto where my little mermaid met the Disney’s little mermaid – Ariel. She was in a shock for a minute (never expected a competition with the real look & feel), and then was a little shy to talk to the real Ariel. After a photo-shoot session with Ariel, we decided to move on to see the Snow White’s Scary Adventures – This was a dark ride where people rode in small cars though a location with visual effects where the scenes from the Story of Snow White are depicted. One particular scene that sent a chill in the spine was at the final stages where the evil queen trying push down a large boulder down on to you... just before the lightning strikes her down, and that – was scary! We went on to see the Many adventures of Winnie the pooh (Another dark ride with a story of Winnie, Tigger and their friends) before heading towards the Mad Tea Party.

The Mad tea party was fun & it is probably the one that little one enjoyed the most. We were all sitting in the small cars shaped tea cups and it starts rotating. The speed & direction of the spin of the cup can be controlled by the individual riders of the cups & believe me, it was real fun! Little one wanted to get onto it again & even went on to stay in the queue again. It took a while for us to explain to her that there are many more things she will miss, if she decides to hang on to just one ride. Little one came up with me to ride a racing cart on the Tomorrowland Speed Way & the interesting part was that she was managing the steering wheel & I was in charge of accelerating & breaking! It was really funny that after a little while, she lost interest in driving & wanted to just get off the car because of the bumpy ride. We went on to see one of the most popular attractions of the park then – It’s a small world. It is also the name of one of the very famous Disney tunes. It has probably become so famous because they play it continuously as a background score in the theme park. The ride features a large number of audio-animatronic dolls (~450 in number) in the style of children of the world, frolicking in a spirit of international unity and singing the ride's title track promoting a theme of global peace. In the 15 minute ride which you sail on a small boat, you probably come across most of the cultures in the various countries across the world.

We decided to have our lunch in the Columbian Style Harbor restaurant on seafood delicacies & some rest before heading off to the Mickey’s Toontown Fair. The Mickey’s Toontown Fair was probably the most crowded place inside the park, especially because they house the attractions such as Mickey's Country House, Minnie's Country House, Goofy's Barnstormer, and Donald's Boat. This place stood the testimony for children that the characters like Mickey & Minnie really do exist and you are actually visiting their home while they were away in the Court House meeting their friends, taking photographs & signing autographs. We went on to see Minnie’s house – the living room, her kitchen, study and the backyard. What amazed me most was the attention to detail that the designers had – in building the house, linking each and every aspect of the design to the stories that they had published earlier as books & animation films.

It was almost 2 PM by that time and the heat had already started to take its toll on us. But little one was very energetic with ‘Give me more!’ attitude. So, we went on to the Goofy’s Barnstormer which is a covered play area for children and let little one discover and play there while I & SH decided to sit in a corner bench watch her making new friends & playing together. She played for almost half an hour & from her face we could make out that she is dead tired and will crash down anytime. We took the WDW Railroad train from the Toontown station to Mainstreet USA and then the Monorail to the Ticketing Center & the Tram to the parking lot to drive back to our hotel for our nap. Little one already went to sleep in the Monorail (we weren’t surprised!) and it had already started raining by the time we reached the hotel.

It was still raining when we woke up at 5 and then we decided that we will stay back for the rest of the day rather than driving ourselves too much to fall sick & ruin the vacation. A nice time in the swimming pool and a home-made dinner followed.

End of Day 4!

Day 3 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Disney World has 4 theme parks and 3 Water parks in Orlando. Water parks are more or less like the Veega Land / Wonder La kind of parks – though I had been to neither of these places :) – and do not even have a good liking for Water Parks. The 4 Theme parks are Magic Kingdom – Built on the theme of the fairies and princesses, Animal Kingdom – Built on the themes of the getting to know the different animal species around the world, Hollywood Studios – A sneak preview of how the different Disney & Pixar animation films are made and EPCOT which is an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow – An Utopian idea of Walt Disney which was never completed.

I was very impressed by the way they are organized and especially the way how everything is managed in the parks. During the 5 days while we were visiting the Disney Theme Parks, I was NEVER disappointed for anything except the weather – which of course, they can do nothing about :). Parking lots up to the size of 20-30 football fields, trolleys that keep running every 5 minutes to take you to the gates, the SMILE on the face of EVERY employee starting from the parking booth attendant to the sweepers cleaning the walkways– it is just amazing! It is very true that a smile can do wonders and I really wonder how they manage to have each and every employee to have a pleasant and smiling face always - rain or shine. I am sure there must be lot of lessons for organizations on induction and orientation programs for employees.


So, Day 3 belongs to Disney’s Hollywood Studios!

The Park has various streets named Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Streets of America, Pixar Place where they had the various attractions & the shops selling Disney Merchandise. The first show that we got into was the ‘Voyage of the Little Mermaid’ – Little One’s favorite – in the Animation Courtyard. Almost every other day, ever since she read the story of The Little Mermaid, she turns out to be Ariel and myself King Triton!! This was a stage show with real people acting up as characters and I was really awed by the way how they created the 3D effects without having all of us wear those polarized glasses. The best one that I thought was very innovative was how they created the effect that all the audience was under the Ocean, They created some mist in the theater by fine spraying of water and used the laser beams on the 4 corners of the theater to make an illusion of the waves at the water level – which was projected on the mist! Little One did not want to go out even after the show ended & made up a small scene there.

We went on to the see another stage show next – Play House Disney. If you are a regular at the Disney TV Channel, you would have come across this show; the only difference was this was live. The kiddos had the option to dance along with their friends Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Pooh, Tiger, Handy Manny, Piglet et all (Phew! I got most of them…:) ). Little One was very cranky by the 10 minutes waiting time and added to the fact that she wanted to use the rest room, but wanted to go home & not use the public one – Her paranoia of public restrooms still continues after she got really scared by the noise of the flush after using one in an airplane. She also met Mickey in person near the Animation Courtyard & we took a couple of photos with her & Mickey.

The next pit stop was at the Toy Story Midway Mania where we rode on spinning vehicles wearing polarized glasses to play interactive 3D games by using the Toy Cannons to throw darts/shoot at an imaginary projectile to hit the target. Little One enjoyed this one and I was pleasantly surprised to note that she & SH had a better score than me!! (enough to brush up my male ego… grrr). We went on to see the attraction of the Chronicles of Narnia which did not really excite us – mainly due to the factor that we hadn’t seen the film series and had no clue on what is going on – I had an after thought at this point of time. If Little One had not been in our lives forcing us to read & see most of these story characters, we would have been really lost in most of the places not knowing what was going around. All I knew about animation & cartoons until she came to our lives were Tom & Jerry and Mickey Mouse (mascot)!

We decided to have our lunch at the Mama’s Italian Grille near the Streets of America where SH & Little One had a bountiful lunch of Raviolis, Pasta and Spaghetti. I ended up paying through my nose for a tuna steak, grilled to perfection (?? huh) on a fire-wood grill decorated by crossed asparagus resembling the swords in the Saudi Kingdom’s emblem. After lunch, we started off to see some of the attractions in the Streets of America. We skipped the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular and the Extreme Stunt Show where they enact the various stunt scenes from the movies to give you an idea on how some of the scenes are shot in the movies. We did some walking around in the Streets of America around the sets created as New York City and San Francisco and we ended up at the Kid’s attraction – Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! Based on the movie by the same name, you get into a kids play area where you have large grass & weeds & Coke cans as large as you – A total change in perspective when you get onto a lawn as a small ant or a fly. I rested a while under a ‘leaf’ while the girls went around playing in the play area. I lost my cool for the first time during the vacation because the girls went missing & I ended up scouring the whole area to find them. We then decided to check out the 3D Muppet Show. The waiting time was boring – mainly because we were not a big fan of the muppets, but however the A/C hall on a hot afternoon was welcome :). Indirectly, we were ready to even get bored to hide away from the Florida Sun. It was almost 3:30 PM by then and we decided to get back to the hotel for a quick nap.

Up and recharged by 6 PM, we decided to make a quick entry to the Disney’s Magic Kingdom since we knew that this park is open until 10 PM (We had a park-hopper ticket which actually allowed us to hop between the parks). The best park among the four, truly living up to their punch line – “Where dreams come true” – Magic Kingdom is a true wonder.

From the parking lot, you are ‘transported’ into a Magical World either by a Ferry or by a Monorail (you can chose what to take) and this place is where all the characters in the Disney’s Princesses, Fairies and other animated magical stories live. The kind of happiness and surprise that I saw on Little One’s face when she got to see Tinker Bell, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rosetta, Jasmine & Aladdin in life – It is just beyond description! Very true to their slogan and the punch line – To believe in your dreams, you should believe in yourself – they motivate children to dream bigger, larger, king size and to believe in their dreams… It will then come true… It is not a surprise that even now, most of the innovations happen on this side of the world.

The biggest attraction and the icon of the Magic Kingdom is the Cinderella’s Castle. We walked through the Main Street USA which leads to the castle and went through the castle to the Fantasy Land. SH & Little One rode on Dumbo – The Flying Elephant and the Cinderella’s Golden Carousel - The oldest ride in Disney World, while I went out to get the Fast Pass for the Mickey’s PhilharMagic – A 3D movie experience with Mickey & Donald. It was already 8 by the time we finished up with Philhar Magic and we wanted to grab our dinner and get a nice place to watch the “SpectroMagic” parade that starts at 9 PM and “Wishes” - The Fireworks Spectacular that will start at 10 PM after which the Park closes for the day. We grabbed some bites from the restaurant at Tomorrow Land since we could not find a good place to watch the SpectroMagic Parade, and waited for the fireworks to start.

And the Fireworks, it is all in here!!! Just no words to describe (Listen with the Audio on to hear the background theme song – Wishes!)

I was again and again impressed by the management & organizing skills of the Park while at the end of fireworks, thousands and thousands of people exiting out of the park at the same time, and the only way to get back to the Parking lot (real world - as they say) was through the Ferry or the Mono Rail, it took us no more than 25 minutes, end-to-end. Talk about Capacity planning…

Day 3 ended past 11PM while we crashed back at the hotel.

Day 2 - The day with Shamu @ Seaworld

The Day 2 started off well after a relaxed waking up at 7 & a nice & filling continental breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast was complimentary for the stay (which is normally the case for most hotels in the US) and was really filling. We have also developed a liking towards bagels, eggs, sausage & cheese off-late; but the real advantage was that little one would have a decent meal in the morning because this is her normal routine & breakfast at school – most of the days!

And the plan for the day was to spend time at Sea World Adventure Park in Orlando. We picked up the print-outs of the vouchers which we will have to exchange at the gate for the tickets, punched in the address in the GPS & started off. It was just 5 miles away from where we stayed & we were at the gates in less than 25 minutes. The walk from the parking to the gate gave us a taste of the day that was ahead of us, the temperature soaring at a 90F by 9:30 in the morning.

The crowd was big, being a Sunday and we started short-listing the attractions from the maps – after a photo-shoot with the mascot of Sea World – ‘Shamu, the Killer Whale’ near the entrance. Deciding to take the stroller was one of the best decisions, especially due to the heat. We walked past a few Flamingoes towards the Dolphin nursery and also stopped near the Sting Ray pond to see the ‘teacher’ of the famous Disney movie – ‘Finding Nemo’. Little one was expecting a larger fish as the teacher and was quite disappointed to see that the Sting rays aren’t as large as she thought it was. SH came up with the idea of going to see the Dolphin show that was scheduled to start at 11 in the Dolphin Theater. We thought of seeing the Dolphin Nursery & the Alligator pond so that we spend our time judiciously until the show starts. Little one wanted to pluck a bunch of flowers from the garden (and she managed to do that without us noticing it!!) to hold it in her hands & that led to some ‘exciting moments’ with dad & daughterJ.

We got our seats in time for the Dolphin Show which was choreographed as the story of a girl who meets her Prince intertwined with some suspense, drama and some exciting stunts by the dolphins. We also met Kirsten from Ohio, a year-and-a-half old boy who had come to visit the Sea World with his Mom & Dad – He was in the row ahead of us and was very friendly & playful with us (especially my hat & the sunglasses) – until the show started! The show lasted for almost 45 minutes and we decide to stop near the watering hole before we headed towards the Penguins Cove. The girls ordered the frostees and I had a large glass of lime-soda a.k.a Sprite. The Penguin cove was an indoor attraction & not surprisingly was very crowded – the heat must have been in the upper 90s by then. One of the interesting designs that I found in there was the multiple levels of Penguin spotting – the upper level was a hard floor level where people who want to stay for a while, take photographs & spend some time could use, while the lower level had an escalator belt that kept moving at a minimal speed so that the people who just want to see it as a part of their checklist, could do so without really feeling disappointed by the slow moving crowd! There was also a whole bunch of Artic & Antarctic birds apart from the Penguins that were show-cased in a glass enclosure with a temperature appropriate for them. And then, it was lunch time!!

After lunch (What else? Burgers, nuggets & fries…) at the waterside restaurant, we started off to the Shark Tank where after the display of various sea creatures, they take us though a glass tunnel under a large tank of Sharks. The conveyor belt ride was deployed even here, may be to reduce the congestion inside the tunnel by people getting crowded there. The mood of the crowd (me included) started switching, thanks to the heat and we decided that it is time to get into the crowd puller show - Shamu, The Killer Whale. We checked the map to see that it is half way on the other side of the park and planned to get there for the 2:30 PM show with a quick stop over at the Marine Carousel where little one rode on a little dolphin with her mommy standing by!

The Shamu show was disappointing mainly because of my ignorance (I think). Shamu is not a ‘Whale’ in the true sense. It is an Orca (sea wolf) and belongs to the dolphin family and are apex predators in the sea. They are the largest species in the dolphin family and an adult male can measure up to 6-8 meters in length. The reason why it is called a ‘whale’ is still unknown, though that is the commonly referred name to Orcas. So, partially due to my ignorance & partially due to the marketing gimmick of the Theme Park, I was really disappointed to see a gloated dolphin with some other distinct features like the eye patches & the dorsal fin as the Killer Whale! But that provided a good rest of 40 minutes in the open shade for a very hot day outside.

It was almost 4PM then and the heat had started taking a toll on each of us (yeah, the first day of fulltime out-doors after a very long time) and we decided that it would be beneficial for all of us to return back to the hotel before the situation gets worse and ending up spoiling a good vacation. Good sense prevailed and we decided to head back to the hotel, with a small stop over at the dolphin nursery. The guard at the gate had a very pleasant smile asking us if we enjoyed our day & we told him that we were tired of the heat & was unable to see a lot of the attractions. He took the initiative to process an additional set of tickets for us to come back to the park on any of the days within the next seven days – absolutely free of cost! – Talk about Customer Service!!

We reached back at the hotel by 4:15 and little one had already slept off in the car. We too had a quick nap for an hour to jump into the swimming pool at 6. By 6:45, we were all fresh and recharged and that’s when SH suggested that we go to the Downtown Disney Shopping Area. (Did I hear shopping!???!! LOL ). We had picked up some bare minimum groceries for the week while returning from Clearwater the previous day; SH prepared a quick dinner and then we went for a drive through the Downtown Disney. I was very particular that we drive very slowly near the stores, with special emphasis that we are not stopping anywhere… LOL

End of Day 2!

Day 1 - The 'Home Alone' Story

The end of another tiring week and by the time I & my girls came home on Friday, it was 30 minutes past 8 in the night. We were very excited, not just by the fact that it is going to be a weekend, but that we were going to be on a week long vacation!! At the same time, we hadn’t even started packing for the week. I am a very ‘light’ traveler, (there had been instances while as a bachelor, I had gone home from Bangalore empty handed – and Amma would be like…Did you lose your bag?) but things have changed since the last 7 years… My significant half (SH) is a ‘check-list’ traveler. She normally keeps a checklist of stuff that she plans to carry & ensures that they are packed (talk about quality control…) and 2 girls – they are a crowd!

It was past 1 AM by the time we finished packing, finished QC checking round 1 & 2 and retired to bed. With the fact that we have to catch a 7 AM flight and the airport 14 miles away from home, we decided to wakeup by 4 so that we can plan to push-off by 5:45. I was entrusted to change the daily alarm to 4:00 AM from the regular 5:45 AM, which I religiously did & we crashed.

PAPPAAAA!!!!
That one jolted me up from the sleep!

“The alarm did not go off… It is already 5:30!!!” The long story short, we literally enacted the ‘Home Alone’ scene to start off in the car by 6. I did my first ever (in 2 years) over-speeding of 15 miles above speed limit of 65mph (in patches) and managed to reach the Airport by 6:20, returned my rental car at the counter, caught the air train to the terminal, went to the counter for baggage check-in, security check & to the gate, to see the half the crowd has been boarded & the rest of them in the queue. “Run, run, run… run baby run….” I bought some chocolates & some other stuff to engage little one during take-offs & landings and we finally boarded the Jet Blue flight 531 as the last set of passengers heading towards Orlando Florida.

The three and a half hour flight gave some time for SH to catch up more on sleep, little one to mess-up with the drawing board she carried & me to introspect why the alarm did not go off. After the take off was complete & the permission granted to switch on electronic devices, I switched on my phone to see what went wrong. It didn’t take longer for me to figure it out… Advanced settings are so convenient, but do not take care of exceptions! There was an option in the Alarm settings – ‘Ignore on Weekends’, because they knew most of the people will sleep longer on weekends & my phone did exactly what it is supposed to do. It ignored the Alarm on the weekend! Damn!!! So far so good, thankfully the vacation did not start off with a disaster & the excitement started to flow back in…


We landed at the Orlando International Airport at 10:45 AM (on time), collected the baggage & went to the car rentals office - Our companion for the next 8 days was a Chevrolet Equinox. I am no expert in SUVs (never owned one & have had some of the drives with friends), but I felt it was a decent one & comfortable. I started the GPS, punched in my hotel address & started towards our hotel in the Lake Buena Vista area. We decided to have our brunch before we checked in & had a Mexican brunch at Chevys (A Mexican restaurant chain). After an initial hiccup (check-in time was 3 & the rooms weren’t ready), we managed to check-in to the hotel at around 2 PM & got some sleep for a couple of hours.



At around 4, we started our drive towards the Clearwater Beach, Florida. It is around 100 miles from Orlando & takes about 2 hours to reach there. The sunset at the Pier 60 is a famous attraction and even though we visitied the place we couldn’t afford to stay until sunset which was around 8:30 PM because it would be too late for us by the time we get back & we may end up spoiling our next day too – especially since we hadn’t had a good sleep the previous night (After all, a vacation is to relax & unwind – right?) Little one & SH had a good time at the beach (I am very reluctant to get into the water) while I watched them from the shore & took photographs. The real paradox of the story is that among us, I am the only one who knows swimmimg & I am the most reluctant to get into the water (at public places)! Little one did a very thoughtful act of collecting sea shells to give it to her classmates when she returns back after vacation (And she did that yesterday!). I am pretty sure that ‘sharing’ was out of my dictionary when I was 4… LOL.

We wound up by around 7:30 after an hour and half in the beach to get back to Orlando. One sight that amazed me was the drive over the Howard Franklin Bay Bridge on the Interstate 275 just before you arrive at Clearwater, immediately after you cross the city of Tampa. It is approximately 8 miles long over the Old Tampa Bay. At one point of time, you feel like you are driving on a bridge at the middle of the sea – though you can see buildings on each side, pretty far away… We stopped over at a Thai restaurant for dinner to reach back at the hotel by 10:30 in the night.

End of Day 1

The vacation of a lifetime!

Back with a big-bang after a month of hibernation! And yes, I am planning to write a tour-diary about our week long vacation to Florida from 9th May 09 to 17th May 09 (Heavy draught of topics - you guessed it.. LOL). Hectic schedules at work, stressful days of uncertainty, and what we really wanted was a break. A good long break to chill off from the day-to-day scrambling with work & home.

Our schedule looked something like this when we planned & it pretty much stayed on plan throughout the week, except for some tight moments… :)

Day 1 - 9th May 2009 , Saturday
- Take the 7:00 AM flight from Newark Airport to Orlando
- Drive down to Clearwater Beach (2 hours drive from Orlando) for the evening
- Return by 10 PM & crash.

Day 2 – 10th May 2009, Sunday
- Visit the Sea World Adventure Park

Day 3 – 11th May 2009, Monday
- Visit the Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Day 4 – 12th May 2009, Tuesday
- Visit the Disney’s Magic Kingdom

Day 5 – 13th May 2009, Wednesday
- Visit the Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Day 6 – 14th May 2009, Thursday
- Take the bus tour to Miami

Day 7 – 15th May 2009, Friday
- Visit the Disney’s Epcot Center

Day 8 – 16th May 2009, Saturday
- Visit Universal Studios, Orlando

Day 9 – 17th May 2009, Sunday
- Catch the 8 AM flight from Orlando Airport to Newark


And the day by day adventures will follow…

Empire State Building & Madame Tussauds

I and Gautham started off from Candlewood suites at 6AM in the morning in my Chevrolet Impala to Lindsley Alms to pick up Ben & Edna to start our exploratory trip to Manhattan, NY. After breakfast, we set out on our trip at 6:45 AM. Ben had done some research on parking spaces and he was driving since my license(IDP) did not allow me to drive in the state of NY.

The traffic was light, and without major hiccups, we reached our designated parking at 8:15 AM and was heartbroken to see that the parking would cost us $38 different from the $12 that was mentioned in the website. Whatever; the more we start looking out, we might end up with not getting a parking at all. So we subscribed to the same parking lot and started our exploration with a hand held GPS & a black berry. We walked on to the nearest intersection and started our search for the Empire State building. While the GPS was downloading information, I read out the name of the building right in front of us and it read - "Empire State Building" - Now, Isn't that amazing? But again, this is the problem if all the buildings are sky scrapers, cant make out which one is the tallest from our frame of reference.

We bought tickets for the 86th floor deck & the 102nd floor observatory to have a view of downtown Manhattan. There was an express lift available to the 80th floor and then another to the 86th one and yet another one to the 102nd observatory. It was a very nice view from the top, though it was foggy, later during the day, the vision cleared - We could see the Liberty Statue, Ground zero (Where the twin towers stood before the terrorists brought it down), The neighbouring islands, ferry, dock and stuff like that. After about spending 3 hours there and clicking pictures, we decided to continue our expedition; but obviously after taking a bite at the nearby McDonald's.

We decided to go to the Times Square next. Times Square is a major intersection in Manhattan, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Times Square has achieved the status of an iconic world landmark and has become a symbol of its home city. Times Square is principally defined by its animated, digital advertisements. We took a Taxi to Times Square and realized that noon was a wrong time to be at Times Square, though we hit a jackpot there. Somebody was distributing $10 discount cards to go to the Madame Tussuad's wax museum which was pretty close. And I must say that the best deal of the day was the this wax museum; though we were a bit disappointed to see that our own AB, SRK & Aish are in the London museum & not in the NY museum.

After taking entry ticket in to the museum where we had Paris Hilton & the Shrek (wax statues) to welcome us at the entrance. The statues looked so real and at many places (where I dint know the real celebrity), I mistook them for real people. There was a self portrait that Madame Tussauds(1761-1850) had personally modelled in 1842 when she was 82. All I could say is that it is just amazing! Who ever plans to visit Manhattan should not miss this. It is definitely worth it! We went ahead clicking pictures with each and every celebrity and the most recent one was Johny Depp in the last version of the Pirates of Caribbean - At worlds end. We spent time until 3:30 there and the finally decided that we should cover the Central Park too before we start back to Morris town. After a few minutes of effort to find out out way through blackberry & GPS, we figured out that the best way to go to Central park is to take another taxi. And that took us there.

There was a group of street dancers whop had put up a show there and we were kind of relaxing there. Then thundershowers started playing spoiled sport then and we just saw the south entrance of the central park and decided to stay away from adventure since we had costly electronic equipment with us and more importantly due to other factors of Ben's family. We decided to go back. Another taxi to the parking lot where the taxi driver was a paki. We found that most of the Cabbies in New York are either Pakistanis or Indians and some others.

We were much relaxed to see that the parking had cost us only $14 unlike the anticipated $38 because of some early bird offer; and the website was true! And the travel back to Morris town started amidst the rain, and we figured out that it was bright sunlight in New Jersey... And back home by 6 PM.

And all through the trip, I missed my dear daughter Amiya & Kannu. I wish they are with me...

My New Jersey Diary - A travel log #1

I have been transferred to our New Jersey Office for a period of 1 year starting 4th June 2007. Unlike my earlier travel this is for a quite a long time, and I thought I would write a travel log... though I am not sure how long it would be before I call it quits to writing... even though... as long as it goes... let it go.

This is my travel log...

On the night of 2nd July, I stepped out of `Swapnakoodu` with a heavy luggage and a much heavier mind. I am going to be away from my family for a month until they joins me in New Jersey. I did my check in at 10 PM for my 2AM flight to New Jersey via Frankfurt. After the check in & prior to immigration, there is an area in Bangalore Airport where you can meet the people who have come to say farewell to you across a steel fence. Amiya, my princess wanted to come to me across the fence and was nagging for that. My heavy mind started becoming heavier with the guilt of leaving her & her mom; even though it is for a month. The security check was OK; I declared my camera at the customs so that I wouldn't have an issue while coming back, though the customs officer told me that there is no need to declare anything. The long wait for the flight started then. I realized that 10PM was too early to check in for a 2 AM flight...

Before the boarding for my flight started, there was a Singapore airlines to Singapore, Thai airways to Bangkok, Air India to Singapore and Air France to Paris (this was simultaneous to our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt)... around 1200 people crowded in a hall of size of a mini auditorium... very hot, sweating and people inching for space. I managed to get a seat because I chose to check in earlier and my plans to call home before I boarded the flight was shot down by seeing the queue on the ONLY available telephone booth there and the serpentine queues...

At around 1 AM, the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt taxied straight into the only terminal gate and it was this huge Boeing 747 aircraft (also known as jumbo jet in local parlance) the large double-decker flight. The configuration for economy class was not as good as British Airways one that I took last time... the simple reason is that it does not have the personal entertainment system - A TV (a couple of them at strategic locations) mounted at the top like the ones in Kallada travels. The seats seemed to me more congested by the 3+4+3 configuration... YES 10 seats in a row!! And all of them were full. Jam packed on a weekend... I guess the whole IT crowd travels on a weekend!

After the other formalities, the flight started taxiing to the runway on time... 1:55 AM... taxied to the Marathahalli end of the runway and started racing towards the west... The running continued on and on and on and did not take off... and I started wondering whether it would run against the embassy golf links offices. Finally at the end of the runway, the huge metal bird slowly lifted and I could see the ring road very close...very very close... very slowly & steadily it gained height and by the time it reached the required altitude, almost 45 minutes had gone past.

I was very sleepy and wanted to catch up some sleep... but then they started serving dinner! Dinner at around 3 AM... I think they referred to the dinner in Germany because it would have been 11PM there then. They asked me for a choice and I said chicken and the food was better than vegetarian food that was some kind of steamed food made of corn (I peeped into my neighbor’s box). I had the food and that was just filling... not more; not less and then slowly got into a decent sleep... waking up occasionally and eyes red with headache.

After a long 7 hours, the captain announced the landing at the Frankfurt airport, it was 6:50 AM local time... the flight landed very smoothly and I dint even know that the flight landed until the brakes were applied... It was so smooth and I think Boeing 747 is a great flight...

The horrendous waiting at the Frankfurt airport started then. There was high vigil at the US terminals especially after few people were arrested plotting to do something at JFK airport, New York the previous day. My next flight to Newark was at 11:45 AM which got pushed to 1PM. It was really horrible waiting there... there is very little space in Frankfurt airport and people were like sitting and sleeping on the floor. The high security has added into the existing space constraints. I saw many people from Honeywell, at least 6-7 of them on their way back to India. I met my friend Rajesh in the airport on his way back to India and he gave me good company until his flight was announced.

During the waiting period, I felt very thirsty and wanted to buy a bottle of water, but the US security will keep it away and will not let me take it with me... so i was in a dilemma whether to spend euros on water or not. I finally decided to have a cappuccino. That fellow charged me 3 euros for a cup of kaapi.. pandaarakaalan.

After the long waiting period, 12 PM arrived and they let me into the terminal to check in. The view from the terminal was really gorgeous. The all glass pane could see most of the airplanes lined up and I took a chair that was facing right into the taxiway. The flight had not yet come then. After a few minutes; I saw my next flight, another Boeing 747 jumbo jet taxiing near to the gate which was on to my right side. It was being pulled by a special vehicle (looked like a cross breed of a truck & tractor) and it took a quick turn near the gate and started advancing towards me. That is a very special view... It came intriguingly closer and at one point I felt it is going to crash into the terminal. And it stopped a few meters away.

This flight was full of students from central Europe & Israel who were traveling to US for their higher studies. And it was not crowded. I was disappointed to see that I have to sit next to a couple; both of them triple my size and I dreaded about the next 7 hours of flying... It was then the airhostess came over and asked me whether I would like to shift to another seat in the middle row... Though I initially hesitated; later when I saw the row of seats, I could not refuse the offer... the whole row was empty... 4 seats and me. After take off, I can keep the hand rests upright and can lie down... And I took them. After take off; they served lunch at around 2PM and I had a good lunch along with scotch and caught up with some more sleep.

It was uneventful & boring through the whole 7 hours except for the last 30 mins. The captain announced that we are nearing Newark and they are expecting thunderstorms in the evening and the weather is cloudy. While flying above somewhere near Boston, the aircraft got into an air-pocket. It was a terrifying experience. For around 5 seconds, the plane did a free fall... The kids in the aircraft started screaming & howling and I saw an Indian aunty (who must be going to visit her children) saying her prayers... eyes closed and quickly chanting something... People become really funny when they see uncertainty in front of them; especially when it comes to your life

A few minutes more and we landed at the Liberty International Airport in Newark, NJ 15 mins ahead of schedule (despite starting 1 hr late) the immigration took another 40 mins and finally I was out in the lobby at 3:30 PM local time. I was looking for my friends Jobin & Susha since they had promised to come & pick me up. And I couldn't find him there initially. Lucky that I carried some loose change with me, I could call him. I tried a couple of times and I couldn't reach him and I exhausted my coins. Then I decided to find my own way and took a taxi to Candlewood suites in Morris plains. The taxi guy was an Indian and was really helpful though he had to rely on the GPS since he himself did not know the route.

After I checked into the hotel, I called Jobin and found out that he was caught in a huge traffic pile up and by the time he reached the hotel, I had left and he still was at the airport then looking for me. They came over to my hotel and we went out to do some basic shopping for the day to day survival - bread; milk; cereals and fruits. We had our dinner at the Mexican restaurant near to my hotel and finally I came back to catch some sleep by 9:30 PM.

And interestingly, the sunset here is now around 9PM and it would be bright day light until then...More to go in the following editions...