Pained!

For the past 4 days I have been trying to get over thinking about the Mumbai terror, but my mind keeps going back to the senseless terror, the innocent people who lost their lives, their loved ones, their agony and so forth. I feel depressed, sad and extremely sorry for the victims and their family. My prayers are with them. Also hope I will regain my peace of mind soon. For the first time I feel that I should not fear such incidents, instead face whatever comes my way and not let the terrorists win!

Shopping with Dad

My dad and my husband are quite similar in many aspects, yet they have very different personalities. One aspect which my husband and dad are uniquely different are their shopping traits. I used to think my dad was unique when to came to shopping, because he loves shopping, especially with me, but I don't think thats true, because I hear from many of my friends that their dads were great shopping partners, while their husbands are not :-).

My dad used to shop clothes, jewellery and shoes for us whenever he used to travel to new places. I remember the time from childhood to teenage, my dad used to accompany me to all my shopping trips. He would scan the entire shop over and over again and get me clothes to the trial room to try. Dad would then patiently wait for me outside the dressing room to see what fits me best. If a particular outfit fitted and suited me well, we would be so thrilled about it, like we had won a lottery or something. The amazing part of this shopping routine was, my dad's tastes and mine were completely alligned. Many times, we would end up buying more than one set, just because we like it and endure the wrath of my mom at home. My dad is in his mid-sixities now and he is still very particular about clothes. After every shopping trip with him, my mom complains to me over phone about how she was tortured, while my dad took his own sweet time to decide on the clothes :-). I often smile when I hear this and relate to my dad so much. My husband can relate so much with my mom, as he gets really very impatient shopping with me.

My husband is like my mom. Shopping for them is a necessary evil, not a pleasure. There is no excitement in that process. While I eagerly look for clothes to try out, I always can sense my husband's impatience, like a child who wants to break free from the tight grasp of his mom to go play. After I try out and choose something I like, my husband would be happy like he won lottery (now, not because I found a good dress, but because he is free to go now :-( ).

I ofcourse miss my dear shopping partner (my dad), but I do appreciate my husband's tolerance levels. He accompanys me to every shopping trip, even though it is not an enjoyable process for him. :-)

image source: http://www.risingstars-uk.com/uploads/ImageRoot/images/WwbUiROM.j

Our Diwali Celebrations

I thought I will start off the blogging routine with a post about our Diwali celebrations. This Diwali was so much fun because this was the first Diwali I was at home after 7 years of being away from India and we had my husband's dad with us, so it was very special. I definitely missed celebrating Diwali in India, but I have been away from home for Diwali for so many years, that I don't remember the excitement and happiness that festival bought.

The day started off with nalangu, oil bath and wearing new clothes. I cooked the standard diwali cooking - more kulambu, rasam, vadai and payasam. We decorated the house with lamps and candles. We had our husband's cousin join us for dinner in the evening.

I have made medu vada before, but do not remember it turning out so well like yesterday. I got excellent tips from Vah Reh Vah youtube video. Check it out if you making medu vada.

Happy Diwali to all you bloggers!!:-) It is really fun to read other people's diwali celebrations.

Time to update my blog!

Finally I felt the need to update my blog. These past months I had so much I wanted to write about, I would think about new topics while I am getting ready to sleep or driving or in the shower, yet I could not bring myself to write any new posts. I then realized how difficult it is to keep a blog updated. Hats off to all of you who keep others entertained with your blog updates. Probably you deserve an award for this. Let me think of an award and pass to all the people who keep me entertained with their blog posts. As usual I have been reading a lot of blogs, even though I never kept mine updated.

These past few months so many changes have happened to me. Both on the personal and professional front. Luckily all these changes have been really good for me and I am happy about that.

I hope I can manage to write some new posts once in while..we'll see :-)

Olympic Inspirers

While everyone is going ga-ga about Olympic achievers Micheal Phelps, Usian Bolt, Nastia Lukin or Shawn Johnson, personally there are few that have captured my heart, even though they might have not won any medals or broken world records.

Alicia Sacramone:



Gymnast Alicia Sacramone faltered on the balance beam before she even started her routine. You could hear the audience's shock and the commentator saying what a disaster this was for US gymnastic team. Alicia herself realized at the moment she lost balance that she stripped her team of any Gold medal dreams. However, she went on to completing the rest of her routine perfectly. Many people in her position would have given up, because after years of working for something so dear to you, losing it because of bad luck feels really awful. In her interview later she said that it was rare for her to have lost balance like that. But it happened and she moved on. What I liked about her was that she had the courage, determination and sportsmanship to continue and do what she needed to do. She accepted responsibility for her mistakes even though according to experts even if Alicia had given a perfect routine, they would be still lagging behind China has they performed routines with more difficulty. I really feel that she was unfairly scored in the vault competition which she competed for later and lost the chance of winning the bronze, but I knew this girl will get through it. :-)

Milorad Cavic (the guy who "almost" won Phelps)

Cavic would have changed history by defeating the world's greatest swimming champ. But he apparently came second place to Phelps by 1/100th of a second. This just seems like bad luck or plain unfairness. Even when one watches the clip by clip images of Phelps and Cavic, it is not crystal clear that Phelps finished the race earlier. However I am really impressed with how Cavic has taken this in his stride and moved on. Read his interview here. I guess thats life. It may not be fair, you might not get what you worked for. You might have played all the cards right and still might have not reaped its benefits. What can one do in these circumstances? I guess we have to just move on and as hard and difficult it might seem, we just need to maintain a positive attitude that our day will come.

Lolo Jones



I saw sprinter Lolo Jones do very well in the heats and in the semi-finals. I was shocked to see that she came 5th place in the finals. Unfortunately it was not her day. She was leading the race until she hit the 8th hurdle and lost her speed. According to her this rarely happens and happened during the most important day of her life. Jones had faced several difficulties in life and she managed to come this far, just because of her sheer determination and her love for the sport. It is really a very inspiring story. Read more here. Really an example of what life can throw at you in the most unexpected time and fashion. Like Jones says, what can you do in these circumstances other than to try again? Well easy to say, but really very difficult to follow. Time is the healer of all wounds.

I am sure there are many, many more Olympic heroes like these people who have captured our hearts in displaying mental strength in the face of adverse circumstances. Apart from sports there are many people in life who have shown greatness in spirit despite difficulties. My three cheers to them. I did read that you need not be a medal winner to be an Olympic champion. So true!

Financially Smart?

Yesterday my dad was talking to me about his life before I was born. My dad had a dream to do this his M.E and work part-time. But when my parents realized they had me coming on the way, he had to ditch his plans and work full-time to support his family. I got emotional hearing this, because I did not know about this so long and I suddenly realized what my parents had gone through to give me the life I have today. This made me really think about how easy things have been for me and whether I was really managing the hard-earned money smartly.

I don't know if I will ever be financially smart, since I never manage my finances actively. It has always been somebody else's responsibility. The only time I managed my finances was when I was doing my Masters and I had convinced myself that my finances were not the priority at that time and focussed my energy on studying. Whenever I needed cash, I would ask family and things would be solved.

Today I work full-time and manage a home, but I still feel I am financially challenged. For example, when somebody asks me "how much is that stuff at Indian store?, I have absolutely no idea what the price is. I know how much our weekly grocery bill comes up to, but I have never bothered to remember the prices of individual items. For the longest time, I did not know how much a gallon of milk costs. While I trust my husband to take care of our finances and I feel very guilty for being this way. I think my ignorance and disinterest in learning and actively managing finances has got to something with how I was raised. Though I come from a middle-class family background, my parents have never made any issues about money when it came to me. Being the only daughter, my dad would buy me anything I fancied. Even when money was tight, my parents never really made a big deal and did not explain the situation to me. I think this sort of spoiled me. Even after years of living away from my parents, I still have not learnt to manage my finances actively. I cannot blame my parents for this, because I think their lives were about fulfilling their kid's desires. But, I think it is going to be different with my kids. I will teach my kids early on to be financially accountable (after I learn to be one) :-)

Earliest Memory

I cannot believe that it has been more than a month and half since I blogged. I have been preoccupied with so many things, that I have not had the time to blog. But, I have started to read many blogs quite frequently.

My good old buddy Sachita tagged me to write about my earliest memory. This is really an interesting and good tag.

My earliest memory is of course an incident that happened in my childhood. I think I was a toddler and I was sitting in the living room, when my dad was sitting on the sofa and reading the newspaper and drinking his morning coffee. I don't remember if I was wearing a plastic bangle that I removed or I found one on the floor, but I took it and put it in my mouth and was trying to swallow it. My dad who was just next to me, though engrossed in reading the paper, suddenly realized that something was wrong and looked at me. He saw me trying to push the bangle down my throat and his face turned blue. I clearly remember him screaming for my mother, while he put this fingers inside my mouth and pulled the bangle out which was really close to my throat. Apparently I was really young when this happened, but I am surprised how vividly I remember this incident, the living room, my dad reading the paper and all. :-)

My dad remembers his incident very well and how it scared the hell out of him :-)

The 10 Revelations

Mitr tagged me to reveal 10 secrets about myself. Here it goes:

1. I am a couch potato. Though I might discuss interesting hobbies with my friends and family, I can almost spend the entire day watching TV.

2. I can stay at home without stepping out of my house for months and months, if need be. I love my home and do not feel the need to venture out much, even though I might keep suggesting to my husband what places we should visit all the time.

3. I have always wanted to learn more in my field and qualify myself, and I know I can do it if I put my heart and soul into it, but I rarely do.

4. I can be extremely motivated at work to complete the task assigned to me. I will go any lengths to get my work done on time.

5. I hate letting down people who trust me - be it my family, friends or co-workers. I will put pressure on myself to not let down people, even though I know that sometimes it is inevitable and not in my control.

6. I sometimes evilly test the levels of my husband's extraordinary patience.

7. If some issue is bothering me, I cannot carry on day to day activities normally. I will be obsessed about it until I have a solution for it.

8. I envy my husband's ability to stick to a routine and not get bored by it.

9. Even though I prefer others be blunt and open with me, it is extremely hard for me to say what I feel sometimes.

10. I did not rag my juniors at college much, but I enjoyed ragging them when I did. :-)

Top 3 qualities

Everyone hates some qualities in others- be it dishonesty, arrogance, cheating, etc. It is often relatively easy to avoid such people, because you cannot envision having a decent relationship with them. But avoiding people who have only annoying qualities, but are generally good people, is very difficult. I am going to list such qualities of people, that I dislike and find extremely difficult to cope up with. The reason I am choosing to list qualities I dislike rather than like is because there are many qualities I like in a person and it is difficult to capture them as top 3. However, there are few qualities that really annoy me in people and I thought it would be easier to pen them down. Luckily my interactions with such people has been minimized greatly and I thank God for it.

1. People who dominate/control others:

These people are basically "control freaks". They generally like to control everything and anyone whom they can manipulate and control. They seem to derive some pleasure in doing so and often do this in order to feel important. People with this personality trait can usually be a pain at work. Especially if you work for them or work in a department that they generally dislike. I think the best way to deal with these people at work, is to just maintain your stance on what you feel is fair and not buckle down under pressure, as these people can be very forceful and demanding about what they want. If that does not work, just escalate the problem to your management or HR. When you encounter or have to deal with such a personality within relatives, it can be quite painful. They will have a say in everything you do and will often give you unsolicited advice. I have little tolerance to people who try to control me. Kids generally might feel that parents are the greatest control freaks, as they try to monitor and control all their activities. But, one adult trying to control another can be very traumatic to deal with. I try to avoid presence of such people in my life as much as possible.

2. People who have made bragging their habit:


Let me be honest here..everyone brags about something either intentionally or unintentionally during some point during their lives. I have no problems with that. I don't consider myself to be perfect either :-). But, there are people who make it a point to brag all the time. It is like a habit for them. Whenever you talk to them, it will always be about them - their kids milestones, their house, their car, their jobs, etc! I have read that people who are really insecure brag more than people who are secure..I am not sure how much of that is true. However, again I have little tolerance for such people. I do not have a good strategy to deal with such people other than to stay away from them.

3. People who are very verbose:


I am not talking about people who are generally talkative. I love people who talk a lot. I am talking about people who cannot stick to the topic at hand. For example, to say 'the color is white', they will generally say the 'color is not blue, not red, not purple, not black, blah, blah'. No matter how much time to give them they might not say the color is actually white. I find it extremely difficult to have a conversation with such people without interrupting them all the time. I find it very ill-mannered to do that, but it seems like I am losing precious time in letting them yap so much. Dealing with such people at work can be extremely unproductive. The effective strategy I feel to deal with such people is to just be direct and honest. Just say that you have something important to work on and will talk with them later. However, this is always not easy, especially if you need some information from them.

Now, I want to tag Mitr, Sachita and Priyamvada to write the top 3 qualities they like or dislike in people :-). Do it if you want to!!

Happy Day for you?

Read this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/2008-06-17-final-word_N.htm

Today, I believe has been declared as the happiest day of the year. Let me know your experiences..:-)

"Summoned" to read

I have been wanting to blog on this book since the time Mitr booky tagged me. I have been quite busy for the past few weeks, at the home front and at office. Finally today I wanted to get this done, as this felt like a 'nagging unfinished task' and you know according to Dr. Roizen (famous RealAge book guy), nagging unfinished tasks (NUTs) cause more stress, than other general everyday stress. This particular Grisham's book made an interesting read.

In "The Summons" we take a thrilling ride with Ray who tries to unravel his father's secret. Ray's choice between ethics and greed, the pain and burden that a secret causes can be easily identified with. The fast-paced read and unexpected ends are what makes Grisham's novel a par above other thrillers.

Now to the Booky tag rules...Page 123, fifth sentence and onwards reads...

"He's rumored to have a half a million bucks in cash, and she's after it. Got the ole boy wearing golf shirts and eating at the country club. He told his buddies he takes Viagra every day"

Probably there will be more hits to my blog, due to a particular word in the sentence above ;-)

I like to tag Sachita as she is yet to do the Booky Tag...lazy girl!! Get to it :-)

Sorry Mitr, will try to find four other people to Booky tag soon!!

Nothing very memorable for Memorial Day!

I have not posted any new blogs for the past week or so, mainly because I do not have any new stuff to post and I have been really busy relaxing!! :-). But, I have been reading other people's blogs frequently.

I read many blogs where bloggers had posted about their memorial day trips. It was fun reading them. We did not make any trips this memorial day and it was great. Right from childhood, I have always been a home person. I love staying at home and relaxing (or being lazy :-)). I love the relaxed pace of doing things during the long weekend. Previous two Memorial Day weekends we went to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe respectively. I am posting a pic. of Lake Tahoe just for the heck of it. :-).



So, this memorial day was a lot of fun just relaxing. But, we did a lot of prep work for my father-in-law's trip- getting his room organized, some basic shopping for him and basically doing everything to welcome him. :-) My father-in-law landed yesterday and it is great to have him with us.

Colorful Bell Pepper Rice

Having switched to brown rice on a regular basis, having a white rice dish once in a while is a treat for my husband and I...

I made this bell pepper rice yesterday with veggie kurma. I had bought red, yellow and green bell peppers to make paneer jalfrezi for some guests. In the end I changed my mind and cooked something else for the guests. So, I had the red and yellow peppers in my fridge and I decided to try out something new.

Bell Pepper Rice:

Ingredients:

1. One large Yellow Bell Pepper (finely cut)
2. One large Red Bell Pepper (finely cut)
3. 5 or 6 finely cut baby carrots
4. 1 to 1.5 cup(s) of white basmati rice
5. Finely cut half onion
6. Finely cut 2 cloves of garlic and half-an-inch of ginger
7. 2 cloves
8. 2 teaspoons olive oil
9. 1 teaspoon ghee
10. 2 spoons of crushed black pepper
11. 2 or 3 red chilles
12. 1 or 2 pods of cardamom
13. 1 or 2 spoons of salt (add according to requirement)
14. Half cup of frozen peas (optional)

Cooking Method:

1. Soak the white basmati rice in water for 10 to 15minutes.

2. Turn the rice cooker on and keep the setting to 'cook' and add 2 spoons of olive oil. (alternatively you can use a pan to cook this dish).

3. When the oil is warm, add cloves and cardamom.

4. Add the finely cut red and yellow bell pepper and fry for 2 minutes.

5. Drain the water from the soaked rice and add that to the rice cooker.

6. Add salt and add 2 to 3 cups of water. Adding excess water can cause the rice to become mushy. So, eyeball the amount of water just enough to soak the rice-veggie mix.

7. Turn the rice cooker setting to 'cook'. Now add the cut carrots, crushed black pepper, peas and red chilles to the rice. Rice cooks within 10 to 15 minutes. Make sure to not over-cook the rice, by keeping in 'warm' setting for a long period of time. Transfer the content to a bowl.

8. Add 1 spoon of ghee to the rice-mix to give it some more flavor. This is optional. The rice tastes good without adding ghee.

9. Fry finely cut onions, garlic and ginger and add to the rice-mix.

Bell pepper rice tasted great with veggie-kurma. I found the recipe for veggie kurma here. I added only 1 teaspoon of coconut for health reasons and still the kurma tasted really good.

Remakes...Remakes...Remakes....

I was recently watching snippets of the movie (Kuzhanthayum Deivamum) on SunTV in which 'kutti padmini' acted and I immediately realized that the crux of the movie was similar to the movie Parent Trap that Lindsay Lohan acted. Suddenly I realized that the english version seemed to have released later than the tamil version. I thought it was not possible for an english movie to be remade from a tamil film, so I yahooed the movie. I found that the first Parent Trap was taken in the 60s and the Tamil version was taken after that. The second Parent Trap was taken after this. Also I found a Hindi movie also remade from Parent Trap.

The story is about twin girls who accidentally meet and switch places to re-unite their separated parents. It is a cute story, but I cannot understand why Indian cinema always get their ideas from western movies. :-)

Tofu Eggplant Sautee

Preparation Time: 25 to 30 min

Inspired from Vegan Cooking

Ingredients:

• 2 cups reduced sodium soy sauce
• 1 cup rice vinegar
• crushed red chilli flakes (2 or 3)
• 3 spoons white or brown sugar
• 2 or 3 spoons of rice flour
• 1 packet of extra firm tofu
• 1 or 2 chinese eggplant
• 5 to 10 basil leaves
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 inch ginger
• 5 or 6 spoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)
• 2 spoons crushed peanuts (optional)

Cooking Method:

1. Cut Tofu into cubes. In a cooking pan add 3 spoons of olive oil. Fry tofu with minced garlic in the oil until it turns brown on both sides. Keep aside.

2. Cut chinese eggplant into big chunks. Fry eggplant with minced ginger and very little salt until eggplant is cooked.

3. Mix soy sauce, chilli flakes, rice vinegar and sugar in a bowl. Also add 2 to 3 spoons of rice flour to make the mix thick

4. Add the fried tofu to the eggplant. Add the soy sauce mix on step 3 to tofu and eggplant. Saute for few minutes in reduced heat.

5. Add fresh basil leaves and saute for few more minutes.

6. Add crushed peanuts and sprinkle some sesame seeds after transferring it to a bowl or container.

The above recipe is healthy, quick to prepare and tastes great with brown rice and is quite filling.

Great Wall (panorama)

Trip to fasicinating Beijing

My husband and I returned back from a one-week trip to Beijing, China yesterday. My husband's purpose of visit was to attend the conference and I was taking my much needed vacation away from US.

We left from SFO airport to Beijing last Sunday. The preparation for the trip included some grocery shopping for ready-made Indian snacks and food. I was determined to cook, so we got our mini rice cooker. Two days before leaving to China, I realized that the voltage at China was 220v and I needed a step down transformer, if I wanted to cook. This information did not stop me from wanting to cook, so we purchased a transformer and an adapter suitable for Chinese plug points. I made check-lists of everything else we needed before the trip and checked and re-checked it. Basically, I wanted it to be a well planned trip...well, what do we know, God has always his plans :-)

Our flight left to Beijing was on time and the flight journey was very smooth and the Indian veggie food was really good. I enjoyed John Grisham's latest "The Summons", while my husband was dozing off as usual. I envied his remarkable ability to attune himself to any environment and sleep anywhere anytime...some lucky people :-). The guy sitting next to my husband was a Chinese and he knew how to speak English. He suggested some places of interest and explained the concept of "ring roads" in Beijing. He was really nice. He offered to help us, in case we had any language problems and gave us his visiting card.

The flight landed on time (around 2:00pm Beijing time). After we collected our baggage, it would not be as simple as getting out of the airport and taking a taxi to our destination. Later we would realize the communication techniques needed to go around Beijing, but at that time, we preferred to rely on somebody to help us out. As far as speaking the language, I knew only "Ni Hao" meaning "hello", while my husband knew more words compared to me and kept repeating it like a parrot all the time. He would tell me the word and the meaning and ask me to repeat it. After 5 mins he would ask me word again. I would forget the word. I always knew my brain was not meant to retain stuff like that :-)..Anyway, we looked around for the conference booth at the airport, setup by the organizers of the conference. We found them after looking around for a while. They were a bunch of college grad students at the booth. They were giggling and eager to help out. Their English was not perfect, but good enough to communicate and understand each other. One of the guys accompanied us outside the airport. He explained to the driver where we needed to go and loaded our luggage and opened the cab doors for us. How sweet...my husband thanked him in Chinese correctly, while my natural response was "thank you very much" in English.

The travel time from the airport to the hotel was around 45-50mins. During my trip in the cab, I was quite excited to see the traffic signs, buildings and everything else in Chinese. This experience was totally new to me, as I had never visited a country where English was not one of the spoken languages. The trip from the airport to the hotel consisted of mostly freeways, similar to US. I was impressed as I had expected Beijing to be similar to India as regards the roads. However, I did find that the Beijing drivers were as resistant to following traffic laws as much as the Indian counter-parts. I closed my eyes, while the driver speeded away overtaking buses and other slower moving vehicles and of course I got reminded of India :-)...My husband offered to tip the driver after we reached our hotel. But the driver refused to accept it, his body language indicated that tipping was uncommon in China.

We then checked into the hotel. We were exhausted by now and I just wanted to sleep. But, we had to hold-off on sleeping, as we wanted to get used to the local time. We were hungry and I offered to cook. At this point, I was very proud that we had all the ingredients needed for a tasty Indian meal. We connected our transformer and rice cooker. We turned the switch on, and eureka..the cooker worked..or so it seemed. After filling the cooker with rice to cook and the thought of relaxing came to mind, within 5 minutes the cooker stopped working and the lights were out. Apparently, the transformer conversion did not seem to work well and it blew the fuse. We realized that a microwave would solve our problem and we called the front-desk. My husband asked the receptionist for a microwave and I could hear the person at the reception slowly spell out "microwave". At this point, it was apparent that it was not a commonly requested item and we wondered whether she even knew what a microwave was.

All my cooking plans were ditched at this point and in some ways I was happy and relieved. I did not have the burden of the cooking responsibility and it meant my husband had to be in-charge of the food business, after all he was the "provider" ;-)..Anyway, at that time, my husband was slightly disappointed as he was very hungry. We searched for the room-service menu, but we were not able to find it. Anyway, I called room-service and ordered steamed rice. We heated one of our ready-to-eat packets in hot water and our dinner was all set. Well, like the saying goes "when God closes one door, he opens another". It might be too silly to use that in this situation, but as humans we always find a way to survive and I believe God has given us that ability.

The first 2 days we were jetlagged. I hardly slept for 5 hours in a day. My husband's presentation at the conference went well on the third day. He attended the conference for one more day, while I was trying to get out of my jetlag. On the evening on the second day, we ventured out. We realized there was a departmental store next to the hotel. Even though, we got a map to the store, it was not clear. Of course we were not able to communicate with locals in their language, so we showed them the Chinese words for the store on the map. Thus, our communication standards were established and this would be our protocol wherever we went. This also gave us the confidence that we could venture out alone in the city. The people were quite friendly and nice. We must have asked 4 or 5 people for directions and we tried to guess from their body language where the store was. This was a very interesting, new and fun experience. Finally, we reached the store and later realized that we had earlier missed taking some turns and took the long route. The departmental store had a grocery section in the ground floor. We wanted to get some fruits; we were trying to locate them. Passing through the store, we had to see and smell things, that we had rather not, but what the hell, everything was part of the Beijing experience. Finally we found what we needed and returned back to the hotel.

The third day my husband returned from the conference at 4:30pm and we decided to visit the famous Lama temple, as it was pretty close to the hotel. I really wanted to see a Buddhist temple and I was very excited about the visit. We took a cab and reached the lama temple within 20 minutes. These pictures were taken from inside the cab during the trip to the temple.

Lama Temple (Yonghegong):

Lama temple was totally fascinating. There were several halls with statues of Buddha in all shapes and forms. I found the temple similar to the temple in India in terms of practices within the temple. Like for example, people light incenses to worship the lord. Also, inside the sanctum people perform "semi-sashtanga" worship of the lord. Another thing I found similar was that Buddha seemed to take many "avatars" - for harmony and peace, everlasting protection, happiness, etc. The monks inside the temple would not allow anyone to take pictures inside the sanctum. Out of all the amazing Buddha’s I had visualized, the last and the most amazing was "Maitreya Buddha". Apparently, this Buddha statue was carved out of single white sandalwood. The statue was 60 feet tall (can you imagine) and looked very majestic. We would have loved to take pictures, but practices of the temple had to be respected. I found a picture of "Matrieya Buddha" on the net (I am not sure how this person got the picture .. anyway, here it is. For more detailed information about the lama temple, navigate to the Picture Source: http://www.kinabaloo.com/yonghegong.html

One the fifth day (Friday), we decided to visit one of the must-see places at Beijing.

Temple of Heaven and Shopping at HongQiao Market:

We packed lunch using the ready-to-eat stuff and headed to the temple of heaven. We decided to visit the temple of heaven and then head to the shopping market, as they were close to each other. We reached the temple of heaven around 9:00am and we found many locals and tourists. Inside the temple of heaven we found many locals practicing Tai-chi and dancing. The temple of heaven has 3 main areas and one must walk a lot from one area to another. The 3 areas were

1. The Altar of Heaven -

This architecture was different from the rest of the temple of heaven structures. There were 3 white circular structures built out of white marble.

2. The Imperial Vault of Heaven




This is next to the Altar of Heaven. The architecture looks amazing and I did find that similar to the lama temple. I believe you can hear your echoes seamlessly through one side of the wall to the other side, but we did not experience this. Instead, there was a big queue to view this hall and part of it was closed.






3. The Hall of harvest - This one was a big hall and I believe it was used to pray for good harvests long back in those good old days. I found the temple of heaven very interesting, but I did like the Lama temple better, as each hall in the lama temple had a something new to offer, unlike the temple of heaven halls, which did not have much inside them. Most of them were dark and public was not allowed inside the halls.


Shopping at HongQio Market:
This was the most fun part of the trip. I think we shopped for 4 to 5 hours, the longest my husband has tolerated shopping :-)...I think he enjoyed the bargaining more than me and I really think he became a pro there. Actually everybody does, after a couple of bargaining experiences. The HongQiao market had everything ranging from silk scarfs, electronics, clothes, handicrafts, shoes, purses and other accessories. In my world, this is a shopper's delight. The initial prices quoted by the vendors will be 10 times more than the actual price (I am not joking:-)) and it is funny how everyone uses the same pricing strategy. They will say "this is very expensive" and the price is XXXRMB and then they will say "since you are a special customer, I will give it for YYYRMB". If you act disinterested at this point, they will say "quote me your price". You really have to shamelessly divide their price by 10 and say that. The intense bargaining starts at that point, you will have to remain firm or increase the price only 5 or 10 RMB. However, we gave in many times and probably paid 20 or 30RMB more than the initial value we started with, as we were really tired with this process after a while and our time was limited. I think we managed to get some really good stuff. Silk is very famous in China. So, I recommend buying silk scarfs here. Of course they might not be real silk, but who cares...I think they will serve good for rare use. Fake brand watches are very cheap..like Rolex and Cartier, etc. I bought a Rolex for 10$ and a Cartier for 5$!! I also got some custom made pearl necklace and earring for 7$. We also got some other handicrafts. I could have spent an entire day there, but like I said the time was limited and my husband had reached his shopping threshold.

One the sixth day (our last day at Beijing before taking the flight next day), we visited Great Wall of China (how can we miss that), Forbidden City and Tianamen Square.

We decided to take the hotel arranged tour for this visit, as the Great Wall was really far away from our hotel and we decided that only a hotel tour would help us cover all these places on the same day. Also, the lunch was arranged and they promised us that they would arrange for veggie food. We started the tour at 7:30am. Our hotel was the first pickup location. We spent the next one hour picking up other people, from other hotels. It was interesting to see the city, traffic, people and shops along the way. As usual the traffic laws were not obeyed as strict as U.S and everyone drove based on their moods and skill-set. Some of the streets looked very similar to Mount Road, Chennai (place from where I come from) and my husband told me some streets looked like Bombay (place from where he lived for most part of his life). We had a very entertaining English-speaking Chinese as our tour guide. His English was very good and he was very funny. He told us a lot of interesting things about China I never knew- for example, he explained how jade was the most precious stone in China, how the color red meant happiness and always used at weddings, taught us some simple Chinese characters, and how people at China get married only on even days, his experiences with tourists at Great Wall - how fascinating and dangerous the climb can be and he also spoke about chairman Mao and a lot of history. He seemed very proud of his heritage and his culture. I also learned about the different dynasties- most of the Chinese belong to the "Hun" dynasty. However, Jackie Chan belongs to Manchu dynasty.


Forbidden City:

Our first stop was Forbidden City/Kingdom. The guide said the place was so named because in the good old days commoners were not allowed into Forbidden City, only the king, his ministries, queen and several of his mistresses. Forbidden City has about 9999 rooms, used for several purposes by the King/Emperor. The famous movie "Last Emperor" was filmed predominately in this place. Most of the rooms looked alike. Public was not allowed to enter these halls; however you can see them from outside. They had rooms for weddings, official meetings, relaxing and conducting other ritual and ceremonies. It does give you an impression that life was a lot more fun for the kings back then. We walked for about one mile and reached the Tiananmen Square on the other end of the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Square:

I did not find anything very special about this place. Basically, this place was a huge square where 10,000 people or more can gather for political meetings, etc. It place is significant because of the huge protests by the local people against the government in 1989. After Tiananmen Square we headed to the Silk Factory. Though, the visit to this place by the tour guide was based on making the tourist buy Silk, they had a demo that showed how silk is extracted from cocoon, which was interesting to see. The prices here were triple of what we got at Hongqiao market, but it was real silk. After this we headed for lunch to get the energy needed to climb the Great Wall of China.

Great Wall of China:

For lunch we went to a Chinese place. My husband and I were wary of the food we were going to get and had made backup plans. But to our surprise, the restaurant looked and did not smell bad. Even the non-veggie food, did not look that scary. They served us veggie food separately. We got tofu in soy sauce, some mildly salted cucumbers; green beans mildly fried in oil and steamed white rice. The food was decent, with no weird smell. We ate well preparing the hiking up the Great Wall. After the lunch, we reached Great wall, Badaling section. Like everyone else who sees the Great Wall and gets amazed, I was amazed too. I wondered how such a wall could have been built 2000 years ago. Really very fascinating. I believe that this 6000km long wall was built over a period of several 100 years and the main purpose was to protect the borders of the country. It seemed like Great Wall seemed like better security system, compared to the border protection at US. :-). We climbed some steps and then focused on taking some pictures. We decided not to climb to the top, as the steps were very steep and I was feeling giddy. We returned back to our tour bus after one hour and proceeded back to our hotel.

Olympic Stadium:



On our way back to the hotel we saw the Olympic stadium. According to the tour guide, China has already spent about 40 billion US dollars on building the stadiums and getting the city prepped up for the summer Olympics. We saw several stadiums, but the one closest to our hotel was called the “Bird’s Nest”, where the opening ceremony will be held. Nobody was allowed to go in to the stadium, so we clicked some pictures from outside. We also saw the Olympic Garden Village building where the athletes will be staying.

We left to the airport the next day and took the flight to SFO. It was a very bumpy flight to make up for the smooth ride we had during our arrival to Beijing. In short, the trip was very enjoyable and it motivated me so much to write a blog :-). We arrived at SFO around 8:30am. Nothing much had changed in SFO, during the time we had gone :-)…the only thing that has changed is our laptop wallpaper. We now have the Great Wall wallpaper.

20 min Italian Dinner

Pesto Pasta, salad and garlic bread


I really never knew that making pesto was so simple. Below is the recipe for making pesto pasta. I used this recipe

I bought the garlic bread from the store and baked it at 450 in the oven for 10 mins, while I was making the pesto pasta. I got the romaine hearts packet from the store. Cut some tomatoes and onions and drizzled some olive oil and lime juice. I then added some grated Parmesan cheese to it.

The entire cooking time was only 20 mins and I enjoyed making it and we loved the food.