trip to orlando

This was our first trip after coming to US and unfortunately it was not a road trip. Oh! How we miss our bike, or motorcycle as they call it here. (When in rome... ;) ) But it was still a good trip. Let me start with the preparations. Since I promised to write about the food experiments and didnt keep up the promise, heres what i made the day before the trip :

chivda/chevdo/mixture whatever its called in different parts of india made from puffed rice and cornflakes.

Moong dal halwa - using this recipe. The only problem was the the dal didnt get ground finely in my mixer. Otherwise I can imagine this to be really tasty

Baked tikhat/tikhi puri - For this, I took wheat flour, besan, one grated garlic pod, til, ajwain, fair amount of warm oil, baking pwd, chilli pwd, dhana jeera pwd and made a stiff dough. Rolled out in a round shape and made cuts on it to prevent puffing. Baked them at 375 F for 5 mins on each side.

I knew that we are not going to eat so much of home food but this was just an opportunity to try the recipes I had wanted to try. Otherwise I am too lazy to make snack kind of recipes.

The next day, the journey to Orlando was not uneventful. Well, we missed the connecting flight from Atlanta. We were put on stand by on the next flight and if we couldn't get on that one, we would have to spend the night on the airport and leave next morning at 8. But luckily, we were cleared for the flight. But we had to endure a couple of stressful hours.

We were at our hotel by 4:30 in the evening. We were too tired to go out so we just went for a small walk around the place and had 2 nice subs from subway. I was surprised that we need to buy water and a water jug is not provided in the room unlike India :)

The hotel's guest service desk, told us that they have really good discounted tickets. And she said we also have a free tour of our resort and free breakfast and a presentation. And you will get the tickets after this 2 hour program. There was also a free pickup and drop. We could not see any harm in it since it started at 7:30 and we would be free by the time, the parks open. That was a mistake to have agreed to this. The so called "presentation" was to try and force us to buy a time-share vacation property. Somehow we managed to escape by 11:30. Then we had to wait in a long queue to get the tickets. And by the time we were back to the hotel, half a day was wasted. To cheer ourselves up, we went to the Indian restaurant buffet which was bang opposite to the hotel. The food was good and we were happy and stuffed again ;) Now was a good time for a nap. Before taking the nap, I made reservations for the dinner show at wonderworks. We already had the tickets now.

At 6 in the evening, we reached wonder-works. It was a fun place to fill up any free hours in Orlando, if you have them. The bed of nails and some video games were good. But the dinner show was the best part of the evening. It was a comedy and magic show. And it was great fun with lot of viewer interaction. And there was unlimited pizza, popcorn and drinks (that would be pepsi for us ;) ) That's wonderworks, the upside down building.

The next morning we took the shuttle service provided by the hotel to reach disney. We went only to one of the 4 disney theme parks and that was called magic kingdom. This being Christmas day, the park was completely crowded.
The jungle cruise ride was good fun. The cruise is supposed to take you through the rivers of African and Asian jungles. There are some wild animals and other surprises on the way. And the skipper who is supposed to navigate the boat keeps the humour going.
The Pirates of Caribbean ride was also a good one. Get to see the very real looking Capt. Jack Sparrow and other characters and experience some "mild but wild thrills" as they call it at Disney.
The Splash Mountain ride is very popular at Disney. We had to wait for nearly an hour in the queue to finally ride it. I was too busy anticipating the fear of a 5 stories drop into the water to enjoy the ride fully. It is better to let the ride surprise you rather than know what's going to happen. And well, it wasn't so frightening after all and I was like, is the drop already done! Then, we went to the Haunted Mansion. Another fun ride. All rides at Disney are fun rides and nothing too extreme.
We got to see the "Once upon a Christmastime parade". That was the highlight of the day. The Fantasyland part of Magic Kingdom can be completely skipped if there are no children in your group. Except Mickey's PhilharMagic which is a delightful 3-D show.
By evening we were exhausted. And decided against waiting for the fireworks display. We had to regain some stamina for Universal parks the next day.

The next day we went to Universal resort. They have 2 parks. We first went to Islands of Adventure. This was a day full of adrenaline rush. In this respect, Disney and Universal are different. Disney is more plain fun and Universal is more of extreme fun. But each of them is unique. It is good thing, we covered both. The first ride we went to was called "Incredible Hulk Coaster". Some interesting facts about the coaster :
The Incredible Hulk launches riders upward 150 feet in three seconds. Immediately, riders experience a zero-g heartline inversion and turned upside down 110-feet above the ground.

The Incredible Hulk reaches top speeds of 67 mph. It also features one of the highest inversions in the world at 109 feet.

The G-force experienced on the Incredible Hulk Coaster is equivalent to that felt by the pilot of an F-16 fighter jet.

The Incredible Hulk launcher provides about 45,000 pounds of thrust for two seconds. If the same thrust were used on a bowing ball, it would reach the Pacific Ocean. More facts found here

Do I need to say we were shaky for a while after the ride? But I loved the ride. Next we went to the "Amazing Adventures of Spiderman" ride. The most popular ride at Universal. And we waited an hour in the queue. But the best part is that the story is slowly built upon as you wait in the queue. So you are not bored and get into the Spiderman mood before the actual ride. This story building is part of many rides at Universal and Disney which is a good thing considering the way these parks get crowded. The story goes that you are sent out to get pictures of Spiderman as the city is taken over by all the baddies. The baddies come to hurt you while Spiderman saves you. You need 3-D night vision glasses for this ride. I really cannot write much about it. It has to be experienced, and several times at that. This really was the highlight of the day along with the revenge of the mummy ride.

Next was the Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges ride. You pass through white water rapids on large, round rafts that seat eight people. Everyone gets soaked on this ride. The next soaking ride was Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls. Experience a 75 foot drop into the water sitting inside a log. Guaranteed fun and guaranteed soaking! One problem was the ride experienced some technical difficulty when we were half way through the queue. So some time lost there.

Next up was Duelling Dragons which is also a very popular roller coaster at universal. But we didn't get much of a queue because it was lunch time. And no one would dare ride this on a full stomach. We planned on a late lunch after finishing this ride. There are two inter-looped roller coasters called "Fire" and "Ice". It has several inversions, including a zero-g roll, a Cobra roll, two corkscrews, and two vertical loops but the distinct feature of this ride are the 3 near misses with the other coaster. It seems as if the 2 coasters come straight at each other in a head-on collision but are steered away at the last minute. If you are brave enough, the ride is best experienced in the front row. There is a separate queue for the front row seats.

After lunch, we headed straight to universal studios park. First up, was Shrek 4D. It didn't impress as much, maybe because we already did the mickey 3D show and this wasn't much different other than moving seats.

Next, we headed for the Revenge of the Mummy ride. Another great ride, similar to Spiderman. The queue area is used to create a story line. You wander on to the sets of Mummy and later into the Mummy's tomb. Good set-up all the way. Ride itself is a lot of thrilling fun. Universal calls it psychological thrill ride. Again a must-see attraction for adults.

As soon as we got out of the Mummy Ride, we were just in time and the right place for Macy's Holiday Parade. So, we were lucky to catch it. Although, the Disney parade is better, this ones good too. By, the end of it, it was already going to be 6 o clock in the evening and we had had enough of thrills for a day. So, we just roamed around a bit and headed back to the hotel.

The next day, we went to SeaWorld. If you are staying near International Drive, it is better to use the I-Ride trolley instead of the hotel shuttle which takes forever to reach SeaWorld because it goes to both Universal and SeaWorld. This day was like a breath of fresh air after all the mad roller-coaster and waiting in queues days. We went straight to the Shamu "Believe" show. Shamu is the killer whale and unlike its name, it looks so beautiful. If I could, I would have sat in that stadium to see the show over and over again. It was definitely the highlight of the day and of the trip too. The relationship between the trainers and the whales, touches the heart. Again, one of those indescribable things which needs to be experienced.

Next up, Blue Horizons show. It was spectacular with elaborate costumes and stunts. There were dolphins, parrots and amazing stunt actors. Since, this was the holiday season which translates into hoards of tourists. We had to reach the respective stadiums at least half an hour before the show. There is also a dolphin nursery and dolphin cove where you can feed and touch the dolphins. Stingray lagoon where you can touch and feed Stingrays. We also saw the manatees, penguins and sharks. People can pay to be put up in cages in the shark pool! That's what they call a "close" encounter :) The other show that we saw was A'lure, the call of the ocean. No animals on this show. It has some amazing performers and silk yo-yo artists. Underwater viewing of whales and dolphin pools is also good. And if you are lucky, you can see them right next to your nose, like the dolphin in the picture. Did you see the air ring it is creating?

We had reservations for the dinner show, Arabian nights. So, we left at around 6. First there is a magic show in the waiting area. It is more hard core magic unlike the comedy magic show of wonderworks. And then everyone is led into a stadium for the actual show. There was salad, pasta and some strange icecream. The show was good. I think they had brought in a new story line for Christmas. Much of the acrobatics was as seen in the A'lure show. The exception being, there were lots and lots of horses here and some good performers on the horse. It is not worth the 50-60$ they ask for. But we got discounted tickets so that was fine.

That was our last outing in Orlando before we caught a flight back home the next afternoon.

Some of the new tastes I discovered during this trip were : salad and honey mustard dressing. Who knew salad could taste so good? Fresh and crunchy lettuce and other greens spiked with the lovely honey mustard dressing. And I also loved the creamy scrambled eggs. And the lovely Italian herbs and cheese bread at subway. I can now understand how people can eat a sub everyday at subway. Some mouth-watering memories those! So, on our next trip to the grocery store we bought a bottle of honey mustard dressing and salad greens.

Continuing the story

Continuing my story from the previous post, I landed here in Charlotte with nothing particular to do. People had warned me "You will be bored out of your mind there, alone and jobless". Well, I am different. At least these 3 months have not had that effect on me. Does that mean I like being jobless and whiling away my time being lazy? Oh well. Bad question. Forget about it.
Now the first month was gone in trying to arrange the house and search for furniture. Every weekend, there was a shopping list to tackle. Well, that is still the case but now it focuses more on groceries.
In the second month, Harry Potter took over my life. I was with him day and night. That just means I read all the seven books. It was a crazy time as if I lived in another world. The author is one amazing woman. It was only after I read the books that I could understand why people used to go crazy when a new book was released. As always, the movies do not do anything for me, compared to the book. It brings in only fourth of the excitement of the book for me.
Before that, I read "the 3 mistakes of my life" by Chetan Bhagat. His books are always a short and a good read. There was major drama towards the end of the book. Very much like a Hindi movie. But I doubt if I will ever like a movie more than a book.
I also did some more of my experimental cooking. Tried out new recipes and some old ones. Having a nice oven helped. Some thing like this. More oven cooking is in the plan.
Now I am trying to finish the anchor stitch kit scenery. It was bought nearly 4 years ago. I didn't get time for it before. It is a complicated scenery. I will post it if it gets completed and it looks good :)

And by the way, beware of "Dostana" movie :) since people are likely to waste their money on it seeing the 3 and a half stars review. Definitely does not match up to the review. Avoid it people and save your time and money or see it without any expectation. Then you might like it. I preferred Golmaal Returns over this, if all you want to see is comedy.
Spell check gave spelling suggestion "Dustpan" for "Dostana" :) Interesting!
And don't you think the new James Bond is absolutely drool worthy? None of the actors have had this effect on me before.

Will be back with my cooking experiments next.
Pic from http://salestores.com

Trying to start blogging again :)

Its been a long long time since my last post. I have had such breaks many times but because I am now at home most of the time, many of my friends and I had expected myself to blog more frequently. But I always used to freeze each time I opened blogger :) Writer's block? Maybe if I am a writer at all ;)

Today I am determined to write. So, lets see. I have come to the US for the first time. And now its been more than 2 months that I am here. I could have written about the flight. Everyone told me they think that my 17 hour Mumbai to New York direct flight would be quite difficult and boring as it is so long. They had taken flights with a stop over in Europe. But the flight was pretty cool. Well, literally too. I had to ask for 2 blankets :). I boarded the flight at 12:30 in the night and then we were served dinner after an hour I think. I had to wake up from sleep to have the dinner which wasn't really worth breaking my sleep for. Then I was mostly drifting on and off sleep. And eating every now and then what the folks were serving on the plane. Many people in the plane weren't so much into sleeping as I was. They were watching movie after movie. I watched only one movie. I love my sleep :) And when I reached New York, it was 6:30 in the morning and it was raining. By the time I finished all formalities and checked my luggage into the connecting flight, it was 9:30. I had 4-5 hours to kill before my flight. I roamed around the "HUGE" JFK airport a bit. There was a terminal only for Delta Airways. And to me only that part looked bigger than the Bangalore Airport. I settled down in a quiet place with my book. And well, after a few hours I landed in Charlotte. Anurag, Sumit and his wife were there to receive me. It was a nice ride back home. I remember the first thing I noticed was how empty and smooth the roads looked. And then I noticed the beautiful houses. I felt as if I was in a movie. Coz the houses looked like the ones I had seen in Hollywood movies. Funny thought that one! I was still a little dazed and couldn't feel this was real maybe because of the jet lag.

Anurag's nice friends made tea and dinner for me (and for him ;)) We reached back home at 10 in the night with the house littered with my huge suitcases. We were late in calling back home. And miraculously the phones were also giving some problems. Finally we opened a skype account and called up and everyone was ready to reprimand us for being so late in calling. Things like this happen so often. When you are in a hurry, everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. :) I have too many instances for this. Lesson to be learnt? (still not learnt) "Don't wait till the last moment to do something." 

Wow...I just wrote a post...not bad!! Let me just go ahead and publish this. Stay tuned for the next.

Experiments in my mom's kitchen

Some big changes happened in my life since my previous post. For one, I am unemployed right now and totally enjoying the break. I am at my mom's place for about 2 weeks and using her oven for my experiments.
The first experiment is not really an experiment. I made a baked pasta dish. Made it in 3 parts, first were vegetables, I sautéed onion, tomato, corn, cauliflower, basically whatever was at hand with salt and sugar. The second part was boiling the pasta in salted water. The third was white sauce. About a tablespoon each, of olive oil and butter. Some whole spices: pepper, cinnamon, clove. Added 4 tablespoons of flour and roasted it and added a cup of milk, some salt and pepper and a bit of water as the whole thing started getting thicker. Take care not to cause any lumps. In case you are lazy to avoid lumps, just run it in the mixie and you have a smooth sauce, just like me. :) In a borosil glass dish, add the veggies and pasta, mix and pour the white sauce on top and spread some cheese over it. Bake it in a hot oven for 10 mins and delicious pasta is ready. I think it would taste equally good even if its not baked.

The other experiment was baked bread rolls. Bread rolls here are the potato stuffed bread which are generally deep-fried. But deep frying bread completely puts me off. So I just stuffed the bread with the usual potato stuffing, applied oil over it with the brush and baked it for a long time in the oven. It doesn’t look as brown like the deep fried version but definitely better than oil sticking in your throat. Usual potato stuffing : boiled, mashed potatoes, grated ginger, chopped coriander leaves, salt, dhaniya powder, bit of garam masala.

The third was truly an experiment. Biscuits, which can be eaten for the fast or "upwas" as it is called. And this being the "Shravan" month of the Hindu calendar, lot of religious fasting is done, though I don't follow this. I took equal amounts of shinghada and rajgira flours which was about 2 and a half cups. Added 3/4 the cup sugar, 1/2 cup beaten ghee, one and a half cups of chopped pista, cashew, dates, dried apricots, 1 tsp of baking powder, some cardamom powder and mixed everything up. Added some milk to get dough. Shaped it into rounds and baked for about 10 minutes. They tasted divine, obviously considering the tasty ingredients that went into it.

Read at your own risk!!

I didnt know what title to give this post written in the middle of a Sunday night (if 11 o'clock can be called middle of the night ;) ) It might be a depressing read so proceed at your own risk!! So, I gave the warning in the title :)

Why is life full of difficulties? Well, it has its share of happiness too. But sometimes I think about this a lot: why life? I really cannot understand why millions of people exist on earth and each one goes through similar hardships and ups and downs, one birth after another, if the reincarnation theory is to be believed. It baffles me, why god, if there is one, wants not one or two but millions of people to go on living completely insignificant lives. I mean ok, some people have made history and all that, but fine, I fail to see the importance of all of this.
I wonder why I am alive. It wouldn’t make any difference to anyone if I was not born. But now that I have already lived a few years, some people would be sad if I am not here but they will recover sooner or later. And to think, people want to give birth to bring more people to live through miserable lives!! The kid would fall sick, cry while going to school, get bullied at school, get depressed at not doing as well in exams as the other kid, worry about getting admission to college, struggle to get a job, find a spouse, learn to adjust into married life, become a parent, struggle to take care of finances, child’s education, parents health, his own health, grow old and suffer all the aches and pains of old age, and then die only to be reborn and live through all of this again!! Sounds very terrible to me.
The saints/gurus say that happiness/bliss is within you and all that stuff. It sounds good to listen to. But what bliss are they talking about. And it is within you! Are you serious? I can only see misery, tensions with a bit of happiness here and there.
Well don’t get me wrong. I am not unhappy or leading a very miserable life as per the normal standards. My life is pretty much above average: I have wonderful people in my life and there are a lot of people to care for me and look after my happiness.
I haven’t even completed half of my life; considering average human lifespan and I already feel like I don’t have much more to do in life. I don’t want to go on living just for the sake of it. I feel like vanishing somewhere. Hey, the Himalayas sound like a good idea ;)

You know, I think I found why I feel all this. Maybe it is because I don't like to face hardships or difficulties or anything which requires more effort. I love running away from difficulties and I want difficulties to run away from me. Is there any way I can do that? other than going to the Himalayas and getting buried under the snow :)

Weekend stress buster - Bandipur and Gopalswamy Betta

This weekend was not a long weekend. But the itch to go somewhere was strong. We had a few options - Bandipur and Gopalswamy Betta, Nagarhole and Irupu falls, Yellagiri and optional Vellore. Finally at the last moment, we picked Bandipur and just packed whatever we could lay our hands on. We had had a lazy Saturday morning and an even lazier lunch of yummy mango custard and brown chana sprouts. It was 5:15 by the time we could leave home. We filled petrol and bought water bottles and we were on NICE road by 5:45. A break for tea and a dosa at the restaurant behind Coffee Day after Channapatna. We were at our hotel room in Mysore by 8:45. The room was small and nothing great but still cost us Rs 700.

Next morning, we left the hotel at 4:30 in the morning. We took a break by the road side to eat the biscuits we had got with us and reached the safari office at Bandipur at 6:45. The van was already filled and ready to leave. The driver cum guide told us to join him in the van. We got to sit on the wooden planks next to the driver's seat which offered the best view. But there wasn't much to view. There were lots of deer; some bison, some orange mongoose, some peacocks and one of them was dancing with his feathers spread out. There was also a lone elephant eating some leaves. We had more elephant sightings on our Ooty trip than this safari. The van had a noisy family who just couldn't keep quite in spite of the driver reminding them again and again that we are in a forest and should maintain silence. That was the irritating part.
With the safari done, there wasn't much else to do at Bandipur. So we had a nice breakfast at Pugmark restaurant and had a walk around the resort.

After that we were ready to go to Gopalswamy Betta. It is about 20 kms from Bandipur on the way to Mysore in Hangal village. It was nice to pass through the sleepy little village. Most of the fields had a “machan” because wild animals come to the area after dark. At the forest gate 25 Rs fee needs to be paid to climb up the hill. The road is open only from 7 am to 5 pm. It was nice to experience a couple of steep curves. It reminded us of the Ooty trip. At the top of the hill, we were greeted by some amazing views and a temple. After going to the temple, we sat at the temple compound for a while soaking in the greenery and the silence. We are suckers for greenery and silence ;) Finally at 11:30 we left the temple and were on our way back to Mysore.

At 1 we were near the bangalore by pass road and for some weird reason, we decided to take that route instead of going through Mysore city. That route seemed nealy 10-15 kms longer!! And it got quite frustrating when the White Orchid restaurant before Srirangapatnam said they are booked and cannot allow us to have lunch there. It seemed the Punjab police had booked the hotel as there were lots of police cars standing there. There go our plans of eating a relaxed lunch in a nice place. We were thinking we could have found an A/C restaurant in Mysore and had a good lunch. On the way we saw Fun Fort which had a restaurant. We decided to find out if we could have lunch there. The sun was beating down hard and we just needed a break. Thankfully, for restaurant entry they charge 50 per head which would be deducted from the bill if the bill amount is more than 100 Rs. Otherwise the entry fee is 275 per head. The restaurant was called seafood restaurant but we were assured of getting vegetarian food. Thankfully, we got vegetarian food which wasn't too bad.

At 3:45 we were on the road again. This time there was some Sunday evening traffic along the entire stretch between Srirangapatnam and Bangalore. With nothing else to do, I started reading the sign boards along the way and found some funny ones "Sri 'some name' parboiled by rice" !!! , 'Sachin heir saloon'

We stopped at Kamat for tea. And as soon as we were about to finish our tea, the rain and wind started coming down heavily. So we waited for a while for the rain to subside a bit. We left from there at around 6 and were home by 7:30.

Welcoming the microwave oven

Last week, we bought a new microwave oven. So, this weekend, I made complete use of it. I baked a brownie using this simple recipe. I didn't use the brown sugar and orange zest and forgot the salt. I also used the normal wheat flour instead of maida. It was good enough but slightly overbaked. First I baked them for 15 mins at 180C but it was slightly undercooked. Then i microwaved it for 3 mins and it got overcooked. Next time, I will try out the egg less brownie recipe by tarla dalal. I also made rice in the microwave and I think it is better than the pressure cooker for making rice. The grains puff nicely and are seperate from each other. I boiled potatoes in it and also roasted peanuts. I made mint flavoured peanut butter also for the first time. It is pretty simple. Just put peanuts, mint leaves, sugar, salt. I added a bit of chilli powder and run it in a mixie with little oil till it looks spreadable.

Brownie Update (4/28/2008) :
I did make the brownie using tarla dalal recipe. I added flour, curd, baking pwd, baking soda, cocoa pwd, walnuts and oil. That called for a lot of replacements like replacing butter with oil, dark choclate with cocoa pwd and flour with a mix of whole wheat and refined wheat flour. But after all this, the batter still looked a bit dry so I added milk till it looked wet like cake batter. This time I just microwaved it. It was done in about 6 mins and was moist. I think the moistness was majorly due to the added milk otherwise this time too it would have dried out. But the problem this time was, it was a bit too choclatey...more bitter than sweet...and thats not the way I like it. Either the sugar I have is not sweet or the recipe proportions are not correct or brownies are not meant to be sweet....
Well....hope to have better luck next time. :)