South Florida Fair 2010

Everyone loves different aspects of a fair. For most people it is the food and for others it is the rides, shopping, shows and/or the animals. As much as I also enjoy the food, this year I found the animals to be particularly cute. Below is a few pictures of some animals at the fair this year.

This last picture happens to be one of my past neighbor's daughter who was picked as a volunteer to help during the alligator show. The albino baby alligator she is holding is cute and she is cute and funny too!

Videos of India from our Trip last June!

No matter how many pictures I have of India they seem to be missing much of our experience in India and I only hope that these videos can help supplement to my past India Blogs some of what is missing. Seeing the people in action and hearing the sounds of India give another glimpse into this exotic culture. I tried to do my best to pick music that best represented the places we visited as I edited these videos. I hope these films will help you, whenever you plan a trip to India in order to pick the areas (that we caught on film from our visit) that you would most like to visit. We covered many of the famous spots in India but there are many more places to go in India that we have not yet visited ourselves.The videos go in order of the itinerary we put together for our trip.

The first two video begins in Delhi as we flew into Delhi and from there we drive to Jim Corbett National Park and stay at a camp called Wild Trail. We went on three safaris here, two of which were on an Elephant and one in a jeep where we saw a tiger. This was a truly beautiful place with a very different feel then the city's we visited in India.

Click on the picture below to view the video from Jim Corbett:


Click the picture below to continue to watch the second video of more of our adventures at Jim Corbett and Wild Trail :



The third video shows some traveling to a place called Haridwar and then Rishekesh. These are famous places in India where Indian people do pilgrimages to the Holy Ganges River and visit Temples. Haridwar is where most people bath in the Holy River and Rishekesh is where they have many Temples along the river. Uday and I also camped at a place called Shivpuri and went white-water rafting to Rishekesh where we visited my first temple and went shopping.

Click on the picture below to see our video around the Holy River Ganges:



Jaipur in Rajashthan is our 4th video and it shows some tourist places to visit there, highlighting the Elephant ride up to the Amber Fort and the exotic dinner place with local entertainment called Choki Dani. This dinner illustrates everything I dreamed Jaipur to be, but outside of this dinner place Jaipur is much different with it's hustle and bustle city-like atmosphere.

Click the picture below to see the video of Jaipur:



Our 5th video is Agra where we visited the Taj Mahal and that speaks for itself...

Click the picture below to see our Taj Mahal video:



And last but not least is the 6th video highlighting Uday's family, Ramoji Film Studio, and Hyderabad.

Click on the picture below to see the video of Uday's family and the place he grew up:


Hope these videos were helpful in giving another glimpse of India and planning your trip there some day and I hope that you had fun watching them. As always feel free to leave your comments about our trip to India in the comments section!

Time to Make our new Den in 2010!

Downtown Delray Beach, Fl

There are so many expectations some people have during New Year's Eve and I am certainly one of them! I don't understand people like my Mom who go to sleep before midnight and/or spend New Year's Eve by themselves watching T.V. when they don't have to. I would not say that it is a superstition, but I have experienced how good New Year's Eve's have made for exciting years and bad New Year's Eve's have brought boring or depressing years. I know intellectually that this is most probably a coincidence or perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy but I can't help but wonder some times if there is more too it! So this year, we did not have any real plans for New Year's since we are waiting and saving for our new home but I wanted to do something. Uday on the other hand did not put much thought into it and was fine with what ever we did and would have been fine if we did nothing. So we both agreed that it would be fun to go see this comedian that we both liked when we saw him on Comedy Central and he happened to be at "The Improv" in West Palm Beach for New Year. Uday does not know too many comedians so it seemed like it was a no brainier that we had to see this comedian named Ralphie May, being that he is Uday's and my favorite and he was here locally. So I was relieved that we would be doing something cool for New Year's starting it with laughter and hoped to be ending it with dancing, fire-works, and kissing (my kind of night). Seeing Ralphie May was awesome and his wife performed before him and she was really funny too! We both got pictures with Ralphie and his wife gave us a free hat they were selling and Ralphie autographed it for us! Here are the pictures below of us with Ralphie May. He says he looks like a Lesbian, see if you agree!




After we saw the show and had some food and drinks Uday decided that we should drive 30 minutes down south to Delray Beach for First Night since we never went there for New Year's. I agreed that we should go some time but thought we should just stay in West Palm since we were already here and we could see the fireworks for free and not have to drive anywhere. But Uday was determined to do something different in his effort to help me have a fun exciting time. When we got to Delray Beach it was a beautiful night but as I had suspected, the festivities that we were interested in seeing were already over and the rest was mainly for kids.


We saw a few things and took pictures of the big Christmas Tree and the Carousel and I took some pictures of these random Asian women dressed traditional. I snapped the shot around the same time as the professional was taking there pictures and any one else who wanted their pictures taken in front of the white background as he was doing beautiful black and white pictures of people and charging $10 per picture. Here is my picture of them in color below.


We also watched some ballroom dance teachers teach some dance and we got to participate along with the crowd even though we did not buy our "First Night Pin". I was wondering how we were able to participate without the pin ($20 a person) but was glad that we did not have to spend the extra $40 since not much was happening. The last thing the dance teacher said was what ever you do make sure you are dancing by Midnight because that means that you will be dancing the rest of the year! I thought to myself as my eyes where getting slightly watery, "I could not have said it better myself"! I so much want to have a good year and want to dance again. I have been too busy to take dance lessons the last 6 months or so. Afterward, we decided we better go to the location where they are having the fireworks since it was already 11:30pm. At this location they would also have dancing and since it was in the middle of tennis courts they were going to be having a bunch of ping-pong balls let go at midnight. I was getting excited to dance and see the fireworks until we found out that we did have to pay to get into this area. I was trying to be smart, and non-selfish as much as I wanted to dance and be in with the action I told Uday that it was silly to pay when there will be only 20 minutes left. I have been trying to save money to prepare for the things we need to buy when we get our new home. Uday tried to talk me into it but I became frustrated at him that we did not just stay put in West Palm Beach and frustrated that he did not do better research before going to Delray. I was frustrated with myself for making a good night become a bad night but I was not sure how to change it. So I finally decided that maybe we would have a better view from the back and away from the people and not have to pay to see the fire-works and still hear the music. I thought that maybe we would be away from the crowd and the bright light and we could make this frustrating situation (at least frustrating in my own mind at that time) better. We walked to the back but I had a difficult time changing my attitude, thinking about how stupid I was for not realizing that we should have paid for the First Night pin when we got there and we could have danced longer and been with the action for hours before midnight! As my attitude got worse as we were waiting outside of the back area away from where the people were, Uday's attitude was not any better either, and when it was midnight he gave me a quick kiss on the cheek like my grandfather used to and he told me to hurry up and get my camera out to take pictures of the fire-works! My expectations of starting the New Year off right went from this (picture taken before the night became bad and symbolic of my passion to have a good night and great year):


to this (picture taken when I decided not to take pictures of the fire-works and I was hurt and angry):


Needless to say, I was too upset to even look at the fire-works and we got in the car and left early and that was our New Year's Eve. Feeling doomed for the rest of the year, after we vented to each other and were mean and childish to each other I tried to analyze how the night kept getting worse and worse. I knew and still know that I made this night worse and I knew as it was happening but felt like I could not fix it. Is this due to the pressure that I and some people in our society put on New Year's? Am I doomed for the rest of the year to have a boring or worse, angry fighting year? If I attracted this negativity how can this be a lesson for me to learn to change that behavior when I am feeling stuck? Later Uday told me that he learned how important New Year's is to me and he will make sure that he gives me a good kiss at midnight even if I am not in a good mood next time. I felt embarrassed that I acted childish and made a resolution for this bad night, not to make for a bad year. I guess only time will tell, but somehow I felt that Uday and I did get closer from this experience by the next day, and we are looking forward to making our nest when we finally get our new home. Like Raymond, on "Everyone loves Raymond" has said, "you only see good memories in photo albums and remember the good times that happened, here's to the good memories!" I will remember the good laughs Uday and I had when we saw Ralphie May for the New Year's Eve before 2010!

Whether your New Year's Eve was great or not, let's make this a great and happy New Year!

Monkey Jungle - "It's my birthday!"

Come on in and join the party, you're all invited even if you're tardy. It is time to do some monkey business!

Uday took me and Mom to Monkey Jungle in Miami, for my birthday after we both worked a few hours in the morning and took a half day off as my birthday fell on a Monday this year. We took a few pictures of us as well but we were all pretty tired and the monkeys look much better in the pictures than we do so I did not add us this time. With the exception of pictures of Uday because he was acting like a monkey anyway! Monkey Jungle is a small park that took us more time to drive to than the amount of time needed to see it completely, but it was nice to be around the wildlife for a change instead of being at work.



In some places at Monkey Jungle the monkey's are not caged in and you can feed them in a cup with a string that they pull up to the roof and eat. Uday was having fun doing this as you can see below.


Smile pretty for the camera!!


Dazed and confused...


There were a few other creatures there in addition to monkeys and they were interesting as well...



This Gorilla looks like he is contemplating life and how to create World Peace!


Everyone's favorite at this park were the Mandrills. We had never see a species like this in person and they are just fascinating. Mandrills are the largest of the monkey family (unlike the Gorilla and Orangutan which are the great Apes). We felt bad that these ones were in a cage that was too small. We talked to a person that works there and he agreed and he told us that they are working on fixing this by moving one of them to a new location.



They yawn a lot especially when they are feeling some tension. They have very large sharp teeth!



This Orangutan looked a little sad, but I found it interesting to watch and take pictures of her.



She still has a sense of humor!!


This was a fun little trip seeing the monkeys before we went out for Thai food for my birthday dinner... Thanks to Mom and Uday for all of your love and gifts!

Click on the picture below to see a short video from Monkey Jungle:

Videos from trip to U.S. & British Virgin Islands

On keeping with the theme of Making the World a More Creative Place, I finally got around to editing the videos and setting them to music from our trip to the Virgin Islands. It has almost been a year since we visited the Virgin Islands... my, how fast time goes. What fun it is looking back at a trip after some time especially on video. It takes one right back to feeling like he/she was there again. For those of you who have not yet visited these Islands, I hope these video's give you a good idea of what these places have to offer and a tool to planing your next trip!

There are several videos that I made of our trip and they go in order of our itinerary. Just click on the picture in each category to see the video.

The first one is of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands... click on the picture below to see the video:


The second one is of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, (partI)... click on the picture below to see the video:


The next one is of Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands... click on the picture below to see the video:


Then St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, (partII)... click on the picture below to see the video:


and finally, St. John U.S. Virgin Islands, (partIII). Click on the picture below to see the video:


Hope you enjoy the videos and have an easier time planning your trip to the Virgin Islands. These Islands are a definite, "must see"!!

Bike Riding at Riverbend Park, Jupiter Florida

The weather was perfect, warm and sunny with a small cool breeze. We brought one bike and rented another (for $10 for the whole day) and we were on our way to explore the great outdoors. We have been to this park canoeing before (called Canoe Outfitters), but we never got to go through the biking and walking trails until this Thanksgiving weekend. Although we visited other parks this weekend and had fun taking pictures of nature, I was looking forward to enjoying the freedom and exercise outdoors.







There were a lot of Tiki Huts along the way where we eventually had our picnic lunch that we packed. I have a fondness for Tiki Huts so much that I had my wedding reception in one.




We came to a Christmas Tree patch and I thought the Florida looking Christmas Tree was funny, coming from a New England perspective. It reminds me of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but for the record the real ones that people buy around here appear to be from up North.



We still could not resist taking some pictures but this time spent more time on our bikes. Since I did not take too many pictures and we were sometimes in motion they are not the best pictures so I did have some fun touching them up in order to make them more interesting.


Uday and I found another colorful grasshopper that we took turns taking pictures of and I took the first one where it is besides it's shadow. Uday took most of the rest. We both still find these grasshoppers so interesting especially their mouth.

Arthur Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge & Wakodahatchee Wetlands on Thanksgiving Weekend

Due to car problems this weekend we had to change our plans from going on a long road trip to visit some state parks up north, to simply visiting some locally. We got the car fixed and met up with our friend Scott to check out two local parks. Scott, Uday and I all enjoy taking pictures of nature and had a great time together. The first park we went to is called Arthur Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. We did not see too much so we only stayed here for a short time but I managed to get a few pictures of the wildlife there. The picture above is also one from that park as well as the next few below.




Then Scott took us to another park that he was at earlier that day before meeting up with us and this was such a pleasant surprise! This is a free park and it is full of wildlife. Uday and I were amazed at how much we saw and how difficult it was to share our one camera with each other. This park is called Wakodahachee Wetlands. Here are a few our our favorite pictures that we captured on this day.


We saw many birds, turtles and alligators at this park among other wildlife!


Here is a picture of Scott doing his favorite hobby... (he takes awesome pictures and some of them can be seen on his Outlanders website and for those who know him, on his Facebook).


Here are more of our nature pictures taken at this same park...



























This picture below was one of the highlight's of the park! It is not often that one sees an Otter in south Florida and I was able to capture it on camera! It was a lot of fun to watch!


This is Scott's favorite Bird! Can you believe these two pictures are of the same bird!!


































A nice couple took this picture of Uday and I and Scott also took pictures of Uday and I on his camera.


A nice moon in broad daylight!


Two nature adventurers captured! Thanks for showing us these parks Scott.


When we got home we found a few more nature pictures we could not resist taking... I love this one! These birds stand on the ducks out here every day!


We often see these birds in my mom's neighborhood and finally got to take some pictures of them. They are beautiful birds.


Uday and I were having a little competition with our close-up shots. I took the one below:



and Uday took this one below...


Which picture do you like the best?