Sunday, December 14, 2008

San Franscisco








San Franscisco:
This Thanks-Giving we planned for an SFO trip with a huge gathering of my friends and collegues. This is indeed important for me as I will be meeting Ananthu (good old college friend of mine) and for Sharmila, its her days-out with her pup friend Mohanapriya. Note that both Ananthu's and Priya's family are in SFO.

Day one - We hired a caravan for seven and started afresh late in the night from LA. It was a pleasant, mild with cold and encouraging journey. At dawn we reached SFO and myself&family stayed at Priya's home. It was a warm welcome from both Priya and Kandhavel (Priya's hubby) as we started to roam on the beaches of SFO. SFO has its own mark of having all IT giants, locking in its silicon valley. Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, CISCO and many others. The CISCO office premises is exciting with 40&odds identical building arranged in a well framed row. I called up ananthu as he joined alone with this team. We took a cruiser and watched the SFO golden bridge at a closer shot. The cruise also covered sight seeings of the Alcatraz prison, however it did not allowed to step into the prison. We quickly geared up the steep lanes of the downtown and climbed down the crook street. This street is famous for a zig zag design and the architechtural geniosity in constructing houses alongside the road. Later in the evening we also covered the light house builiding. I spent the night with Ananthu and family and prepared for the early morning Black friday shopping. Aradhana (daughter) is totally fun filled playing around me as Vishnu (his wife) prepared delicious Idli chuttney.

The second day, ananthu could not join, however the trip was exciting at the "Mystery spot".The lady who described the mystery spot is really a total mystery with fun filled real time examples. You will be leaning towards the ground (45 degree inclination) when inside the home.. that is the so-called mystery. Then we played Volley ball in the beaches and returned back home safely. Priya made delicious supper and I went back to sleep for the next day dreams.
The third day, ananthu joined me again with family, where we all went to Napa Valley. This is famous for wine making, with a large landscape covered with grape plantations. The Castillo de Caprosa is an ideal place for everyone, where our guide detailed the in and outs of the making of the entire castle (built for attraction alone). Exciting. We then went to "Hot Geyser" where hot water raises from ground for every 30 minutes or less.. should the volcano be passive.
The next day.. planning to leave to LA. Priya and Kandhavel did a delicious crab curry with other non-veg savvies. Wonderful. We said good bye to the family and local teams who joined us on the tour and reached LA at midnight.


Get-To-Gather

Sunday, Dec 14th - We called for a get-together @my home with some of my collegues/friends. Lakshmi, Thanu, Swaroop, Rajesh, Vedha, Prabha, Ajith and Alex. Sharmila, as usual did a good job challenging her own culinary skills, with a variety of veggie and non-veg dishes. Awesome. Its another time to watch the tamil movie "Arithum ariyalum" which steamed up more laughter and fun for this party. Playing card game "Ace", really aced up the show.

Me

Me