Hiking @ BigSur and 17 miles drive @ Monterey
Hiking @ BigSur
Bigsur is known for its hiking places and rugged coastline. It is around 100+ miles drive from Mountain View taking us close to 2 and half hours to get there.
Our onward journey was great, cloudy and thin fog all around with lots of curls, twists and turns on the roads. Pacific Ocean was on a constant vigil over us throughout the trip. We had our lunch close to BigSur is a very nice looking restaurant. Ambiance was great...Pahad, Jharna, Lots of trees, cool breezes, beautiful people around and music....ekdam mast na... There came a pretty lady waiter having specs and politely asked "What can i get for you guys". After 5 mins of khus foos... we all settled for our safest best "PIZZA"... When asked for drinks we plainly replied "Water with NO ICE" hmmm. After a long waiting time there and lots of reasons given by the lady for pizza being served late, came our food - Pizza.
There are many state parks in BigSur area. We went to "Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park" where we had 2 things planned
1. Mcway fall
2. Ewoldsen trail
Mcway fall(height : 80 feet) is a 0.4 miles walking trail and it turned out to be way below our expectations (At least mine). The only merit it had was that none of us had seen a fall which directly fell in to the Ocean and the fact that it being ony 1 dhara :D check snap. Khoda pahad nikala chuha wali baat charitarth ho gayi...A good start to the trip :P (Apne india mein isse acche achhe falls dekhene mil jayenge yaar, bahut over hyped hai)... Nice thing about the fall was that we had to walk only 0.4 miles to see it, otherwise :P
Ewoldsen trail was a a true acid test of our stamina and physical strength... 4.7 miles of hiking ne humari waat laga di... We realized the true value of every drop of water and how it quenches ones thirst... Software job mein computer mein type karne ke alawa kuch physical exercise hi nahi hoti... lesson learnt - atleast once a week we all should do some physical activity and i would encourage everyone to make it part of their routine, Its never late than NEVER :P Trip started with great enthusiasm and smiling faces. The trail was highly uneven...Upar neecha...upar hi upar... "Aur kitna upar yaar"... "Hum log sahi ja rahe hai na, kho to nahi gaye"... Omkar was the most active boy of the trip constantly motivating us all and making sure everyone is together and we are on time. Good job Om... Finally we reached a place, one of the top most points of the trek ... View was great from here - we had pacific ocean right below our knees and clouds atop....with greenery all around. You will also see some of the biggest redwoods in the State park here... Many trees had caves in their trunk and almost all of these looked to have caught fire some time before....Wonder how come it was possible to have cave carved inside such huge trees???...The supportive part of this hike was the weather, which helped us a lot throughout our hike. (No sweating :D) Although this hike is a bit steep and difficult in spots, it is definitely well worth the effort.
17 miles drive @ Monterey
This drive is considered to very scenic and you will see vista points every 1 mile. Not sure if we all liked it or we did justice to it by doing Big Sur first and then Montere... After so much of being seeing pacific ocean all throughout our journey and in HalfMoon bay also thoda monotonous lag jata hai yaar... woh kehete hai na... jaroorat se jayda cheez hone pe, things start loosing their value, very true : D. But truly speaking its worth to drive here...There were some really really beautiful houses with some of them having private Golf courses...Millionaire guys bhai, paisa hai kya karein private golf field hi bana lete hai...he he... But these lush green golf fields looked really great and spectacular with Ocean view around them. Monterey also has a very famous aquarium which we decided not to go as it was quite late and dark and we needed to rush back.
Snaps available here :
http://picasaweb.google.com/chandan.maloo/BigSurMontere
http://picasaweb.google.com/omkar.kurode/BigSurAnd17MileDrive
San Francisco
The very thought of we going to SF was exciting for me. After Dheeraj ditched us on our 2nd weekend and the next Saturday again as he had to go for apartment hunt we did not feel we gonna make it this time to SF :-( but luckily for us... Dheeraj saahab maan gaye...I had been waiting for this trip for a long now. SF is considered to be the only city in bay area (If you claim one more then catch dheeraj (dhiru003ATgmail.com)
It was a 35 miles drive. We took around 45 mins (driving with the max speed of 80 Miles) freeways , 101's, highways, mountains all around... and finally reached Pier 39 our first planned** destination.
SF is completed located on this mountains. The landscape is quite uneven. As we started entering SF my myth of Chahal Pahal , no ppl in the street broke :D... Street and roads were all crowded. Felt good... to yaha hai Janta...Pier 39 is close to beach and things like Ghirardelli Square, Cruises, Fisherman Wharf and shopping center are very close by. Its one of the prime tourist attractions in SF. The shopping center near Pier 39 was really amazing and something i hadn't seen before. There was an int- e-resting shop(speaking in local language here :P) devoted to Lefties in the World... Jay Shah hai re tere liye kuch special :-) .
There we finally reached a place from where we could see more than180 degree view of the ocean... I saw my 1st sea lion in the ocean and got excited and was sharing it with Dheeraj and Omkar... We saw the Alcatraz jail (had never heard of it before) but is very important tourist attraction here. There are these telescopes there, where you can view a close view of the jail for 50 cents. We just kept roaming around for another 10 mins, heard some strange noises from our left side... we saw that there were 100's of Lazy sea lions shouting/yelling at us or probably making mockery...You never know :-) Some of them fighting with each other, to get a place on the docks kept exclusively for them. ( There is sea lion reserve project going around to prevent them) Sea lions are very similar to seals.
We then deiced to take a cruise which will take us through Golden Gate bridge and then Alcatraz jail for a duration of 2 hours and 22 $$$. Luckily for us there was another 25 mins to cruise, so we decided to roam around in fisherman's wharf. On our way we saw Wax musuem. Did not took ticket as its was not looking that great and the very same with Ridley's musuem. We saw our 1st view of Steep roads on the way... Good thing about this trip was that weather was at its best...Always motivating us. [ Surya Devta ki jay ho ]
On our way back to 22 $ cruise we found out a very cheap cruise... for only 10 bucks. We were extremely happy (very obvious)... The 1st thing very similar to India we noticed that people were standing on the road and persuading for the cruise... felt good and thought we should bargain :P (Purani aadat hai yaar..mushkil hai... dabe rehana itne din tak)... There was man there who used to hide in a artificial small tree and then used to come out of it instantly and scare people moving on the street.. Remember "Just for Laugh... Gags" we see on the TV... very similar to it.
Then started our cruise...The good thing about this cruise was the boat (whatever u call it) was small so ocean was very near to us, which would not have been possible with the 22$ cruise( which was a grand one, big ship with good height). Our cruise was truly AWESOmee. ekdam Jhakaas... Strong cool breezes and bumpy ocean ride made it like a real/natural roller coaster.. Guys recall our Rishikesh Trip.. Kapil, maine, Vikrant aur sush ne ulti maja liye the.. Bilkul waise hi... We were never allowed to balance ourselves... kabhi idhar to kabhie udhar.. dagamag dagmag :D... we were nearing Golden Gate.. jo ek tammana thi puri hone wali thi... But had a very basic doubt ...why was it called golden gate??? no one knew about it there... On our way we saw many ships/small/ big having some theme... looked like each of them were there for some kind of a fancy competition...One can also see Bay Bridge opposite to Golden gate Bridge... (its a combination of Cantilever bridge and suspension bridge and is bigger in length than golden gate bridge)... Mast maja aaya...We went straight beneath the bridge...After snaps we proceeded towards Alcatraz Jail ( Ye log pata nahi aise island pe jail kyu banate hai)... Bahut saare snaps liye. Our humty dumpty ride was approaching its end and then happend the worst part of the cruise...at the very end. Our Boat was caught by Coastal Police for violation of Safety law.Not sure what the poor guy broke. but i felt pity for him.. He would have only earned 300 $ but had to pay a lot to those officers.. Hopefully un cops ne use chode dena chaiyye... God please help him... The ship owner still maintained his cool and wished us good trip ahead.
We went towards Ghirardelli Square where Omkar and Dheeraj had an icecream...very famous here. I did not had it..EGG... Thats where i saw my first glimpse of The Big LIMO Car and a cop riding a cycle :P After some more tehelana we had our lunch.. PIZZA...our safest bet :D
Then we drove towards Japanese Tea garden. On the way we saw these houses... all made of wood and there is no space between each of them(full utilization of space)... Pata nahi... how people manage staying in these houses??... probably everyone likes hearing their neighbors blah blah...Sab kai sab awaaz ek dusre ko sunai aati hogi na??? The houses/look really good..neat and clean.. I would say it was an Impressive construction...
Japanese garden did not turn out that great. Its a good garden but was not worth the 4$ paid for it.. and we all agreed on it. So then we decided to take a drive to Golden gate bridge...
and thats turned out to be the most interesting par our trip... awesome thing happened...(difficult to describe here, but am trying) We kept moving up and up on the road and suddenly we did not saw anything... (similar to a cliff)...and there was way down the steepest road i had seen in my life and we were gonna drive over it...Its called by the name Lombard street here and there any many such roads here... Ultimate steep tha yaar..(check the snap :P) Rongte khade ho gaye.. bechara dheeraj hamara driver:D.. pata nahi kya hua hoga uska.. dil dhadak raha tha
But it was definitely adventurous and interesting...By GOD abhi tak ka best driving experience tha... thrillax ho gaye hum sabhi... (To put up in Dheeraj's words) Would like to drive once on this street once i get my Driving License...he he..
On this so steep road people had parked their cars... are agar ek thoda sa bhi dhakka laga na puri car neeche chali jayegi...chakna choor..pata nahi kya hoga, kisi wooden ghar se takrai to...god knows.. All cross/chownks are at the same height and with same steepness, which looks so great.. Imagine you standing at a cross and charoon taraf roads are full steep (50 degrees)... kaisa laga??? hmmm... mast na...same here :-)
Then we went to GG bridge.. People were driving crazily at 45 miles and the lanes were very narrow... Thodi si bhi gadi idhar udhar and accident ki line lag jayegi.. but since people are very disciplined.. kuch issue nahi.. There was a vista point where you can have a look of the whole city... ultimate view tha.. sab kuch dikhata hai.. Then we walked over the GG bridegg.. maja aa gaya.. mast thandi thandi hawa chal rahi thi...kewl man..
On our return we had an awesome 280 CA south drive which was a perfect finish to the trip. Thanks Dheeraj buddy... we will be troubling you a lot during our 2 month stay here... and we will not let you mind it... Ha Ha Ha.
To sum it up - If you are visiting SF make sure you drive across one of Steep roads. Its gonna be pakka a lifetime experience.
Snaps here :
http://picasaweb.google.com/chandan.maloo/SanFranciscoTrip
http://picasaweb.google.com/omkar.kurode/SanFranciscoTrip
Life in US
Its quite peaceful here. People seem much more organized, disciplined. Follow the Rules is something that has been an integral part of their upbringing... Break the rules is what works in India where people keep working on finding new ways to bypass the system.
People are health conscious. You see people jogging early morning, afternoon, night... any time :-) No matter which time of the day it is you will always see cool breezes keeping you moving. I guess thats why people seem to be so interested in jogging??? all throughout the day. The most surprising thing for me was length of day-time here. You will see sun smiling in the sky till 8 PM which in a way is good...basically more time to see places :-) Work mon-fri and enjoy weekends seems to be weekly routine for most of the people here. Enjoy the pleasant weather, Immerse yourself in nature are high on their TO DO list. People spend their weekends hiking, para sailing, biking,skiing, swimming in mighty pacific ocean which is so cold that is pakka bound to get your legs frozen and can even be fatal if it freezes the blood supply. BRAVO, people here have such a strong willpower and stamina. Some of them go for a barbeque to nearby places like montere, bigsur, halfmoon bay. There are lots of small beaches all around the bay area.
People here are quite fond of dogs. Pashu premi hai bhai :-)...people can have 1, 2 , 3 or even more dogs. you will find dogs in all sizes/shapes... big bulldogs, dogs having layers of thick fur,some times its difficult to even see eyes of the dog (not sure how they mange), paris hilton type dogs...dotted ones...all types... They carry them everywhere especially women...looks to me as if dogs/puppies are their own babies...jahan bhi jaatein hai saath mein nanhe munhe puppies zaroor le jaate hai :D
Human sighting is a rare sight here on roads. If you find a bunch of people, its gonna be definitely a CalTrain station. All around the road/streets you will see machines moving at high speeds. Do not dare to cross the road in between. Always use the pedestrian walk...What?? is this. If I need to just cross and go to next side, I am required to walk 4 times the distance which could have been easily accomplished by moving straight and crossing the road... But Safety comes first..Jaan hai to jahaan hai bhai...But isn't it a little waste of time in the world where time is money and the only resource limited in nature which once missed will never comeback... The road is completely empty and still you need to follow rules...Come-on atleast in this case we could have taken the shortcut. Can't we??? Waise I saw my 1st violation of traffic rules here...KEWL ... some students from stanford( i guess??) crossed the road directly even though there was traffic on the road.. So yessss there are people here who do break rules...But wait, if you get caught then the fine is hefty minimum of 250$...so think thrice not twice before doing it... he he
Driving here is pleasure but becomes pain if you miss any turn you need to go all around and come back and if missed again go around and around... This happened with us during our shoreline park drive...Me and Omkar missed one turn and wanted to avoid freeway, so had to go all around... pain hai yaar :-(
Pedestrians are treated as god of the roads and never dare to hit a one... you may run the risk of getting your license canceled for x years and the worst if he decides to sue or go to court... People give due respect to all pedestrians , they are given 1st preference while crossing roads... India mein kuch karna padega...
Chahal pahal mushkil hi hai yaha, you will rarely see people talking around.. The only thing that constantly act as an input to your ears is the woooo of cars moving around.
Life seems to be perfect here... hmmm (especially bachelor one :D)
Shoreline park, Mountain View
Its a very very big park surrounded by mountains on all sides. I guess that's how the place got its name -- "Mountain View".
Lush green fields all around, a big blue lake, trees , golf course, lots of chucks, kids with their grandparents, couples, grandparents cycling with their grandsons, teaching them how to drive bike..(cycle is popular by the name BIKE here) Cool *sweet* breezes constantly kept shivering us, telling us not to just sit on the bench but move around and enjoy the place. It was nice company... Shukriya Breeze bhai log... he he ... Even at 3 o clock in the afternoon we were feeling cold...good news was that surya devta saare bay area pe meherbaan the helping us in beating the cool breezes.
Its spring time presently in bay area... you will see greenery everywhere... All trees/flowers to their best... Pregnant women moving with their husbands,People Jogging, Some people generally walking around the park , enjoying the scenic view with their dear ones, some boating, kayaking. We choose to just roam around and enjoy the weather.
There are kite flying areas inside the park where you will find kids and even elders flying big kites. But surprisingly people do not use very long threads like we use in India and no fighting like us... pench ladana bhi nahi :-( They have a fixed length string and some kites even have 4 strings... Since its windy within seconds you will see your kite in air...which is what many kids enjoy... felt completely childish here... gosh, if i could get one for me or even ask someone if i can try flying it for some time.
I like the types of cycle here. 2 seater cycles are really awesome... You can teach your child how to pedal a cycle and keep the control of cycle in your hands...No worries of falling and slipping... This is really really good... we should have some of them made in India :-)...There's one more thing i found new was that you can attach bikes to your car...There are these special stands attached to the car that can be used to fix your cycles... Its a very nice feature, can be very useful if one is going to a remote place or for trekking... Imagine after a long tiresome trek one way you find you have cycle with you that you can take back... it will be so relaxing... Ab hum aaram se to wapas jaa hi sakte hai :D
Its a very peaceful park and a good weekend hanging place for the family. Nature at its best... Ye khula aasman...
Click for Snaps
