Christmas at Shocolatery…

Since J-Lo came here, he had been wanting to take Multimedia gang out for a dinner. It could happen only on Christmas evening and the gang headed to Shocolatery – our first experiment with this restaurant.

Its off CG Road and at a quite place…

Its more like a pastry and cake shop and surprisingly, all bakery items here are egg-less.

While waiting for the food to arrive, we did some experimental shooting… The lighting inside was a bit poor for photography though…

From Left to right: KK’s Samsung, RG’s Nokia, two iPhones, Yogi’s Nokia and J-Lo’s Nokia resting on Canon 70-200 IS f2.8L … In the front is J-Lo’s P&S…

The food seemed interesting here. While this pizza did not look great, KK said it did taste good. For non-eaters like J-Lo, RG and me, this pizza wasn’t any temptive :)!

We had some good time trying to capture this kiddo with the lens at the full focal length under very poor lighting condition… Even though the IS was turned on and the aperture was fully open, it was difficult to capture him. This was the best of all shots I could get…

While this place was good, not sure if we would frequent it as much as Barista. Barista still tops our places for hang-out.

Saga de Ammerikka – 2009 – 2

After returning from NZ, within few days, I was on a trip to US… I flew Emirates Airlines this time and I am happy for this decision. The flight from Ahmedabad to Dubai was on time and in just more than a couple of hours, I was at Dubai airport terminal 3.

And this was good enough to start my loitering for a while.

The down lighters of this newly opened terminals were very impressive.

While loitering, I came across this… Costa is equally if not more popular here.

My flight from Dubai to JFK was very interesting. I could get a full row empty giving me the luxury of a business class! I carried my food with me on the flight and the air hostess was kind enough to serve it to me as soon as the flight reached the final cruising altitude. I already had my sleeping medicine and as soon as I finished my breakfast, I fell asleep for next 8 hours. When I woke up, I was feeling fresh and ready for a long day. As each seat had AC power in this flight, I could work till flight started descending.

Next day, I flew to LA from Terminal 7 of JFK. It is exclusive for American Airlines.

This was one of those longest escalators… the descent was kinda scarry.

I was in Anaheim for few days to attend ASIS. The exhibition was very productive for me though the recession was clearly visible.

From California, I was in Florida for few days. From there,  I flew to Philly for a day’s stop over.

I then came to NJ and had a weekend stop over at Het’s place in NY. Dr A and Dhwanil were at his place and it gave me an excuse to be in NY! It was first time of me meeting him after he has moved to US.

His daughter Ananya is so cute!

Once she got along well with me, she did not mind posing for my camera…

That evening, I noticed a contrast in a relationship…

First the love… followed by the first domestic violence…

Had this violence not enough, we decided to visit Bronx Zoo next day…

This was the only stare I could capture in this visit.

DAAHT posed for me before they dropped me to Penn station for my way back to NJ…

Next evening, I was on my way back to India. I was carrying the food Devalbhabhi had prepared for this. It was Yogesh’s birthday and though she was very busy with its preparation/celebrations, she cooked nice and delicious dinner for me on top of the food for the flight. Dhwani and Chhaganbhai came to drop me to the airport. I wasn’t as lucky in this flight as I could not get any row empty but flight was otherwise comfortable.

Starbucks and the terminal was light when I arrived there. Free internet helped me kill few hours of layover there before landing in Amdavad.

Saga de New Zealand

It has been quite a while I was wanting to post about my NZ trip. Today was a different day for me and this evening, after almost 15 hours of total sleep, I decided to spend some time here….

Few months back, I had a trip to New Zealand. I never had been to this country before and when I applied for the visa, I was very surprised that it arrived in just two days!

On my way to Auckland, I stopped over Singapore for a day. I picked up some stuff from a supplier to carry it to Auckland. We forgot it in the taxi’s trunk but Singapore’s taxi service is so good that we got it back in a couple of hours. Dings came down to see me at airport in the evening.

My first few days after landing in Auckland were very busy. Except loitering around J-Lo’s place, I was more or less confined to the work place and his house. The first day was terrible as I was stuck badly by the jet lag. Even at 5pm in evening, I was very sleepy.

Amidst all busy days, one morning, Divyesh took me to one of the major attractions of Auckland – Mount Eden.

Mount Eden is a volcano peak/crater and the view of Auckland city was a visual delight.

As J-Lo was busy with his business same evening, Divyesh took me to Mission Bay – another tourist attraction of Auckland.

We found “Masala Indian Restaurent” there! Masala is so famous everywhere now!

And this was my first Starbucks outing too!

While original trip was of a week only, J-Lo’s father got it extended by few days so that I could finish all work and also get a day trip to some of the beautiful places of NZ…

One evening, J-Lo took me to a trip of SkyTower…

J-Lo, Divyesh, Dilesh and I headed one morning for this day trip…

We stopped at Tirau for a coffee break…

We then arrived at a site famous for volcanic activities.

I have heard of such sites in India and a couple of them are few hundreds of Kms away from my place but never have been there yet…

It was interesting visit to this place… Sulfur smell and bubbling water was something new for me.

We then stopped by at Lake Rotorua for a lunch… You will notice a large box full of food we carried with us…

We then stopped by for a Starbucks break…

We then headed to Lake Taupo – one of the most beautiful lakes of NZ…
On our way, it was so scenic everywhere…

The sun was about to set when we reached near to Lake Taupo… The golden light illuminated the houses nearby…

And to this tree too!

By the time we reached near to this tree, the sun already set… no more golden light :(

This lake has a very crystal clear water. It was so peaceful that we could have stayed overnight here…

A morning before my departure, J-Lo asked me to go out with him for a quick drive for a very stupid reason… The reason did not make any sense at that time but I just obeyed him. He parked his car on a back street of some shopping center and asked me to wait in the car for a few minutes… again citing a stupid reason. I smelled something fishy going on but I trusted him… He returned after almost half an hour. He then took me to some gas station for a car wash and again left me in the car while he went in the store to meet someone… When he returned, he handed me over a gift which made my hands and body shivering and shaking and I refused to accept it. He assured me that he had sought a full permission for this gift and such gift would not put either of us in any trouble…

Next day, I left for Singapore and had a couple of days stopover. I went to Sentosa to check on one of the technical installations there. It did not impress me much. Dings again came down to airport to send me off.

I missed my camera in this trip. It was needed back home… In NZ, I used J-Lo’s 50D. Its much comfortable camera compared to my 450D.