San Francisco and its environs

Christmas time!!! What a lovely time to be in the USA. Every home is decorated, colourful lights and some decorations with themes...and if you are lucky, clear skies in the evening making it such a beautiful sight for anyone! And for an Indian software engineer like me, this means the time to relax without fear of delays in projects or having to think of deadlines. This is the true holiday time in the whole year (eventhough you might still be "working").

This Christmas, I used the vacation time to visit relatives on the West Coast/Silicon Valley - San Francisco (and its neighbouring towns of San Jose, Palo Alto, etc.). I would suggest the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" by Martyn Burke. Its a movie based on the book "Fire in the Valley" and is a comedy on the stories of "Apple" and "Microsoft". And thankfully for once in this year, there wasn't much problem with the flights! Even the dreaded red-eye flights weren't so bad. But yeah, the laziness and age in me finally caught up and when I landed back in Kansas, I slept like a baby. I took the newly bought Tamron 75-300mm lens for my Canon 350D on a spin during the trip and boy, my wife (my sponsor for the lens) was impressed with the amazing portraits that have come of her!!!!

The usual spots of Golden Gate, Downtown San Francisco and Stanford University and town were covered in this trip. This trip was mostly about family time and we stayed indoors. We had 2 wonderful family get-togethers at different locations and it felt real good. And personally for me, it was a great change in the environment. Here I'm, seeing loads of Sunshine and greenery around with beautiful autumn colours still present in many areas .....contrast that to the dull,lifeless environment in Kansas with the cold, bare trees and craving to have some sunshine fall on your body to produce Vitamin D!!!!!!!! Fell in love with California. Though everyone was wearing sweaters and jackets, this seemed like summer for me having spent almost 1.5 months in the Kansas winter.

The Stanford University is a private University and was started by Leland Stanford and his wife Jane Stanford. Leland was also the Governor of California during the years 1861-1863. Born and brought up in New York state, he started his career as a lawyer in Wisconsin and moved to California during the "California Gold Rush" and became a very successful business man. He started the Stanford University in memory of his only son who died at a young age of 16 due to typhoid during a trip to Italy. The picture above, is of the Hoover Tower which houses a library collection and is named after the former US president Herbert Hoover. He also happens to be the "first" student of Stanford University. It also has the largest university campus in the world (there are other colleges which own larger campuses, but they are not universities). They even have an old "clock tower" which rings on the hour and the university has a nice display of the mechanical parts making the clock tick.

I personally enjoyed this trip - lot of family time with relatives, nice food and excellent weather (compared to Kansas). And the sponsor of my new lens is a happy person seeing her wonderful portrait pictures it produced ;-)

Trip to the Niagara Falls

Started off the year (2007) with a nice trip to Mauritius and ending it with a trip to the USA. What more can a traveller/photo hobbyist like me ask for...a very GOOD YEAR.

The first travel in USA this year has been to the famous Niagara Falls. We left Kansas City (MCI) at 9:23 AM by a NorthWest Airline DC9-50 aircraft to Detroit. It was a nice 2 hour flight. Weather was good. The flight took an interesting route. It flew over Lake Michigan before landing on the automobile city of Detroit. The view from the sky of the lake was breathtaking. It didn't look like we were over the lake...but over the Atlantic or the Pacific. It was water and the shoreline near Chicago & Milwakee as far as we could see. We landed at the Detroit airport on time. But there wasn't enough time left before our next flight to catch up with Sudarshan, buddy since college (ahhh...the good times).

Detroit airport started off in late 1920s and with frequent upgrades/renovation, facilities are as good as any of the new airports can boast of. It even has an "Express Tram", to facilitate passenger movement between the 97 terminals at the McNamara terminal. And this is within the terminal building...just above the counters!!!! The terminal was impressive for the architecture and the cleanliness. But failed to satisfy my food needs. I was delighted to see a "Vegan Sandwich with Pita Bread" in one of the grill bars. Only when I had it in my hand did I know that I would have to pack food next time I plan to travel. It was loads of cheese (2 varieties) and a big Spinach leaf rolled into the Pita Bread!!!! Somehow managed to eat it leaving, probably 400g, of cheese behind.

Our next flight to Buffalo was a one hour flight and we landed on time at the Buffalo International Airport. This route too was interesting... as we flew close to the international border. A bridge across a narrow stretch of Lake Erie takes you over to Canada. View from the sky was breathtaking. Wanted to take some snaps...but was hesitant as I didn't want to talk to the marshalls if photography wasn't allowed. Just before landing at Buffalo we could even spot the Mist coming from the Horse Shoe falls in the distance very clearly.

We didn't have a Canadian Visa and so booked ourselves in a hotel close to the falls on the American Side - Howard Johnson (Closest to the falls on Main St, Niagara Falls, NY). The taxi fare is a standard to any of the hotels in that area from airport - $60. With the cabbie talking continuously and our eyes wandering to see the country side, the short 30mins (26mile) drive was good. This is adjacent to the border crossing checkpoint for the Rainbow Bridge.

After checking into the hotel, we walked to the Niagara Falls State Park area. It was clear skies and Sun was out. But cold winds were blowing into our excited spirit to see the falls. It was a brief 5 mins walk before we got the first glimpse of the water. Water was sounding ferocious that evening. Gallons of water at high speed across the rapids finally culminating in the American Falls. The Goat Island just at the falls, makes it a set of 3 falls - Horseshoe (between Goat Island and Table Rock), Bridal Veil (between Goat Island and Luna Island) and the American Falls (Luna Island and Prospect Point). Roughly about 20% of the water falls thru the American falls while about 80% is thru the Horse Shoe falls, named after the shape. We walked all our way in the national park area and got some nice snaps of the American Falls and the HorseShoe falls as can be seen from the American Side during Winters. Most of the attractions like the "Maid of the Mist" and the "Cave of the Winds" were closed because of Winter and also some trails close to the water too as they would become dangerous n slippery with ice formations. There was some portion of the Cave of the Winds which was open, but we didn't take it.

Since we landed on a Friday, we were lucky to catch some fireworks on display at 9pm local time. Though it wasn't as grand as they show on TV for sporting events or New Years in Sydney Harbor, it was still something to watch out for. The sight of lights probably about half a mile away across the gorge falling on the falls must be a spectacle for the eyes from the Canadian side. Could only take snaps from the American side.

There is a mini park within the Niagara Falls State Park which has been built in the form of the Great Lakes. Lakes are depicted by the grass formations and the paths are in the shape of land. There are other attractions too like the Aquarium and "Casino" which we skipped. On day 2, there was snow fall too and most of the trees were covered with ice. We left on Sunday afternoon (day 3) and traced our way back to Kansas via Atlanta this time. We took the Delta flights. This was the first time for me when after boarding the flight, we were asked to deplane. Half the passengers boarded the flight when the captain received information that all incoming traffic to Atlanta airport has been stopped. So after a 4 hr delay, we finally landed at Atlanta at were at the gate for the next flight (which too got delayed) by 11:10pm and the gates closed by 11. :-( One interesting thing to note here is the "taxiing" (that is what my wife calls it). Its more of a drive in the aircraft. At almost all the airports I have landed on this trip - Paris, Atlanta, Kansas, Buffalo, Detroit - the aircraft takes a 10-15 drive from the runway to the gates at a fairly good speed!!!!! Anyway, after spending the night at the Atlanta Airport Concourse B (with all restaurants and shops closed down by 12), we were lucky to get seats on the next day morning flight as 2 passengers couldn't turn up due to bad weather. Landed finally on day 4 at 9AM local time to finish this exhausting travel trip.

Overall it was a good trip with a lot of things for the eye to see and appreciate nature! So long till my next trip......