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November 30th, 2005
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Archive for November, 2005
links for 2005-11-29
November 30th, 2005
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Paid Wi-Fi at SFO … lame !
November 29th, 2005
Yesterday I was trying to get online at the San Francisco International airport coz I had a few hours in hand to burn and there was hardly anything in the airport to browse around and window shop. I had got reasonably early to the airport since I had heard horror stories about the traffic on the roads on the Thanksgiving weekend’s sunday and the crazy crowds in the airports on that day. Apparently amongst the busiest air traffic days of the year
But maybe I was a bit too cautious or I was just plain lucky, I did not enounter either of these. Got the airport from the hotel in about 20 minutes time and the SFO Intl was reasonably empty, maybe the domestic terminal would have seen huge crowds. Anyways, got thru it unscathed
So coming back to trying to get online at SFO, I fired up my laptop, found the T-Mobile SSID but only to find that the service was paid. An hour’s access at US $ 9.99 … nah ! just not worth that kinda of money. So I typed out my Yosemite tour blog posting and it is now saved in my latop, ready to be posted when I get my laptop back online (this post is from one of the free Interent terminals at Changi airport)
Hey Google, why dont you provide free Wi-Fi access at SFO soon ? Those T-Mobile guys need a lesson in pricing … and what better lesson than PHREEE !!!
Back in Changi again …
November 28th, 2005
Here I am, having traveled almost half walf way across the world from San Francisco to Singapore. God, I have lost track of how long it has taken, how much & when I have eaten and whether I have slept enough thus far 
The flight stopped over at the Incheon airport in Seoul and then another 6 hour flight to Changi. The flight to Seoul was very very painful coz I was awake most of the time and was feeling very uncomfortable. I quite cant understand Singapore airlines’ logic of serving food at 10 pm SFO time before landing in Seoul
Caught 2 good movies in-flight thought. Bewitched starring Nicole Kidman. She does look & act pretty well in the flick. A funny movie about a witch wanting to lead a normal life but ends up playing role of a witch in a TV show. Michael Caine plays a good part as Kidman’s father
And then I saw Finding Forrester, the story of a African-American 16 year kid from Bronx New York who is not just good as Basketball but also at his Literary skills. A dare break in into a home finds him in contact with Sean Connery, a reclusive Author whose claim to fame is a bestselling book called Avalon landing. The rest of the movie is about how Connery gooms the young Jamal Wallace in his literary skills. Many parts of the movie reminds me of Al Pacino’s Scent of a Woman though
So that brings me to Changi … have to wait for 3 more hours for my flight back to Mumbai and a much awaited reunion with my wife … gawd … I am so looking forward to meet her. Really missed her for all these weeks
Alcatraz & San Francisco city tour
November 27th, 2005
I am like a day behind in chronicling my adventures in the West Coast of the USA. But anyways, here goes
Yesterday was the day for the San Francisco city tour on a Double decker bus and the trip to Alcatraz prison island
The day started off on a rather bad note with rain … well ! if you imagine rain and a a city tour on a top-less double decker bus, you’ll get the picture. Not good eh ? well, that was the start. So, off we went around 9.15ish in the morning and the first stop was the Golden Gate bridge, since it was kind if drizzling, I remained on the ground floor on the bus. Since I have seen the bridge enough number of times before, it was a great excitement for me. But talking of bridges, I really do wonder why the Bay Bridge never gets its due even though both of them were started at the same time ??? Really have to pity the Bay Bridge. I’d say it is good, it is much longer, has 2 decks, has a tunnel in between etc etc
Anyways, after golden gate started the real city tour, general trips around the Exploratarium, Civic center, Presedia, Union square, Van Ness, China town. A general trip around the places to see in SFO. It was OKish, not very impressed though. The Photo ops too were few and far in between. Looked like these folks were in a kind of a hurry (the tour was booked through sightseeingworld.com
In the afternoon post lunch, it was time for Alcatraz. The boat left for the Island at 1.15 and it was a brief 10 minute boat ride. I must say that Alcatraz is hyped as a tourist desitination. Yeah ! there is some kick in going inside a jail for the first time and too something as famous as the Alcatraz, but other than rows and rows of cells and various stories spun around the likes of Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, the Birdman of Alcatraz and the Escape stories there really isnt all that much in Alcatraz. If a push comes to a shove, this can be given the go by. There really arent any a ha ! moments here
The rest of the evening was spent around the Pier 39 area. Really loved the Sugar donuts that I had at Trish’s Mini Donuts. I’d certainly recommend this to anyone visiting San Francisco. The golden hued setting sun did give me a few good shots (hope they come out well)
Eating food has been a real challenge for me here. You just dont find veggie food and even if you do it would be some dull Salad or a cold Sandwich. Last night was no different. spent some good 45 minutes looking for dinner before once again settling for a Veggie sandwich which as expected was no great. I simply cannot understand why people eat food so bland here !!!
Hit the sack kind of early since I had to be up at 5 am to catch the 6 am van for the Yosemite trip … the trip today was a totally different deal. Really loved it … more about it later
links for 2005-11-26
November 27th, 2005
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Thus, we believe the next wave of e-commerce will allow users to connect to other users or merchants on a local level. We believe most consumers already greatly prefer to transact locally.â€
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Yosemite National Park embraces a spectacular tract of mountain-and-valley scenery in the Sierra Nevada, which was set aside as a national park in 1890. The park harbors a grand collection of waterfalls, meadows, and forests that include groves of giant s
Trip to Monterey & Carmel
November 26th, 2005
Alright folks, my last few days in the US of A (in this trip) are here. My plan to make the best possbile use of these 3 days (the Thanksgiving weekend) was originally to head to the Grand Canyon or maybe even Los Angeles. But the Airfares were just too expensive and I settled for other things
The plan is like this :
24 Nov – Monterey & Carmel
25 Nov – San Francisco day tour & Alcatraz
26 Nov – Yosemite day tour
27 Nov – SFO to Changi
So, on the evening of 23 rd I told my goodbyes to the folks at the eBay office and got picked up by Varma. Dinner at his place. We headed out the next day morning to the South
First stop was Point Lobos State Reserve. A state park by the Pacific ocean with Monterey Cypress & Pine tress and lots of birds . We did a few hikes around Point Lobos and managed quite few shots too
Since I had a desire to head down to Big Sur (or atleast drive on the famous highway by the sea), that is exactly what we did. A very scenic drive along the ocean. We did this for about 30 odd minutes before we headed back
Carmel was the next desitnation for Lunch. Pizza at an Italian joint called Nico’s. Carmel by the Sea is a quaint town where one can find lots of Aged tourists and the place is apparently well known for its Art galleries. At point of time it was an Artist’s village but now ofcourse all the artists are out of it because the real estate is rather expensive
From Carmel we then hit the 17 mile drive. A very scenic route, embellished by a few Golf courses (Pebble Beach where the US Open is played is here) and part of the drive is along the Ocean. One of the highlights is the Lone Cypress tree which is apparently around 200 + years old and stand alone by the Ocean. A very good photo-op
From here we headed on the road to Monterey, though we didn’t quite have the time to go to the Aquarium there and thereon to Salinas. Salinas is apparently famous for the Steinbeck house, though I wanted to see the place because of the reference to place in the song ‘Me & Bobby McGee‘. A very quaint town. The route from here to San Jose passed through what I hear is the Argicultural heartland of California. Large speard farms, though there is no cultivation happening now, possible winter is not quite the right season for it
Dinner again at Varma’s place and finally at close to 10 in the night got dropped by him to my Hotel in San Francisco
links for 2005-11-22
November 23rd, 2005
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Enjoy a picture tour of San Francisco’s unique neighborhoods including Alcatraz Island Prison, The Golden Gate Bridge, Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf
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Escape from San Francisco for the day and journey through cattle and horse ranching lands in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on our Yosemite National Park “Personal” Day Tour
On the Great American passion and other Outdoorsy things
November 22nd, 2005
It has been a real cool weekend for me I must say
Started off with a friday evening at the Walmart store in Milpitas, CA. My brush with this BIG American passion – Shopping and Consumerism. A large layout store selling everything from Lingerie to Jeans to Household goods to Car stuff and sports goods. I was kind of unimpressed given my expectations because it was more or less similar in terms of experience to a Big Bazaar or a Hypermarket that you find back in India, but that ofcourse would be because the stores in India are perhaps modelled on the Walmart model
Did my first bit of serious shopping on this trip there and picked up quite a few stuff. Prices were very reasonable, guess I got the reason why Walmart is a discount / low-price shopping paradise !
I liked the powered mini-carts that they have that people can use to go around the store, makes like convinient for senior citizens
And then came Saturday, I was to hook with a Friend to go camping with him and his family. The full scale types, Pitch tents, sleep in sleeping bags, cook your own Breakfast kind of thing. But getting to San Francisco where I was supposed to get picked up was the tough part. Got delayed at lunch by another friend and then had to somehow scamper across to the Caltrain station and just about got in time in to the train when it left at 3 pm. Phew … THAT was close !
On the way to the campsite, I was fortunate enough to catch a set of very good shots of the Golden Gate bridge in all its nightime finery. The weather so clear and good that it was almost unbelievable that I has seen this thing in the morning 2 weeks ago all drenched in Fog
So, we headed to the Samuel P Taylor state park which is at the foothills of MtTamal Pais in Marin County, CA and got there around 9ish in the night. Man, and it was getting COLD out there. By the time we set on our camp fire and pitched our tents it was around midnight. It was a rather cold and reasonably tough and sleepless night in the sleeping bag and I was up at 6.45 saying hello to a cold, cold morning with tempratures around 4 – 5 degree centigrade
Breakfast was real nice (Pancakes with Bread and Omlette) and then we head out for a smallish hike along the creek, Made it back to San Jose in the evening around 6, but not before going through a hellish traffic jam leading into the Bay Bridge on the way into San Francisco. Man, this was real bad, the jam stretched easily upto a mile even though there were like 16 odd lanes on the Freeway. What a pain that was !
links for 2005-11-21
November 22nd, 2005
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