NeYearEve's Count down party

     This is my third New year's day in Taiwan. For the past two years I couldn't make it for the count down party due to reasons. This year I made up my mind strongly to watch that spectacular event. I invited few of my friends. Pola rejected and rest turned up. I didn't anticipate I will be going with 10 people to Taipei. I imagined I will be going with Pola, Srikanth and Raghu if he is willing to join us. It is very hard for us to persuade Rahu to join us in any social gatherings but some  how he showed up. Along with him he brought a localite from Taipei. He is Perry. He helped us all the way. Anyway as the news spread others joined us. I am a bit happy for that.

Gang at HSR

    
     We started at around 6:20 in Hsinchu HSR station. Even though we didn't reserve our tickets we are lucky enough to get seats in the non reserved compartment.

HSR arrived

Inside HSR

  As soon as we arrived Taipei MRT we saw a herd moving towards City hall.

Crowd at Taipei metro

 Now started messing up things. In our group there are many people who are first time visitors to Taipei and few are not fluent with topography. Everybody got down at S.Y. memorial hall station except one guy. So we had to call him to find where he was. Networks were very busy. Finally he told he got down at city hall and was looking for us at city hall exit 2. We walked to city hall exit2 and still couldn't find him in that huge crowd. Somehow after 20mins we find him. After this we went to Nirala Indian store, purchased some Indian snacks and grocery. We had our dinner in some Pakistani restaurant. The restaurant is inside a dinning hall. So it became very difficult to find a place to sit and eat. OMG! may be after 20mins standing beside the people who were eating we could get seats to eat. After we finished dinner we came out and saw the crowd number was increasing. We started to move towards city hall. Suddenly one guy was missing. He is new to city. He neither has a balance in his mobile nor we could  call him due to network problem. I asked others to wait and went in search of him. Finally located him after 10mins and we started to move  again. Meanwhile I received a call from one of my friend stating he was missing. Then once again i went back and got him. We resumed our walk. Mean while I heard one of my friend was speaking over phone and rest were moving away. I waited for  a while but I felt I may miss everyone and I moved to locate the passing group. Once I saw everyone I asked them to wait and came back but these people were not there. This time 3 people were missing. Finally we reached the building at around 11:30 and found a suitable place to sit at around 11:50.

Finally found a place to sit after we start from Hsinchu and they are glad to be the part of count down.

Fire work summary

                          

Music Concert

                      
   Then I managed myself to send sms to missing friends. Finally the countdown began. I couldn't hear huge noise as I imagined. Of course they counted but the noise was not sufficient for me. Once the fireworks started everyone just looked at it spellbound and noise and no disturbance from anyone. Among various fireworks the fire work displaying 100 on air attracted most of the crowd.

     Once This was done everybody started dispersing silently. Ofocurse there were few energetic guys who said hello and happy new year to us here and there in between our journey to Hsinchu. They are curious to ask us from which country we are from.. but couldn't ask i don't know why? While returning we gathered at SY memorial hall station at around 12:20. The announcement in Chinese asked us to walk to Taipei main station or else wait for 30mins. But Raghu decided to stay there which was a bad decision. We stood there for 90mins literally on the same place. It not only wasted time but killed our New year's day. I slept whole day after returning. We finally returned at 6:30am in the morning

   The facilities provided by Taipei government are to be appreciated. They gave a metro round the clock with a frequency of 1metro for every 3mins or something. Even the crowd were very patient enough they didn't caused much trouble to the volunteers who is controlling the crowd and giving instructions. I saw Europeans sitting on the dividers, enjoying their drink and clapping hands and passing New year wishes to everyone.

   Next time if i go i will not return after the event I will just stay there and enjoy the concerts or sit in any garden until the traffic clears.. lol

BBQ-Moon festival

We had a BBQ for the moon festival with our group. Here a few lighter moments in the BBQ.

Guys working @BBQ to have delicious food

Dr. Yabumoto and Hemanth at BBQ

Nonveg

Veg BBQ

Kang-Kang in his style

Here is my delicious  (hot) dog!!!

I can eat nothin other than these bamboo shoots(but very delicious):-(

Pet lovers(Prof and student)

Lemee eat my delicious prawn I can't even wait until you  guys fry  it!!

Hemanth and me

Our group picture 

Sudha's Summer Vacation 2010

    It's been two years away from home and I started to become less energetic, life seemed boring and mostly I became more adamant at work. My body stopped listening my commands. I realised  what I need and I felt I couldn't drag any more with such a mental fatigue. The next moment I told the same to my close friends(roomies). They couldn't understand why I want to go at the end of the summer vacation. Even my Dad couldn't believe my decision because I declined his earlier proposal about coming home during vacation. He felt I was kiddin or something at first. But everyone respected my idea after they reconginised the seriousness in my proposal. I should thank my professor for granting me leave at the end of vacation.( I returned Taiwan after the registrtaion for the fall semester was over.)
 As my decision was all of a sudden even ticket booking(different destination ticket) and ARC(visa extension) was not so smooth. I have to spend little excess on ticket and redo ARC once again after I came.
Finally, after all hurdles I flew from Taiwan. My trip was some thing like this.  Taipei-New Delhi-Varanasi-Vijaywada-Hyderabad-Hsinchu.

 First I planned to visit Banaras Hindu University where I did my masters degree and visit Prof. Saha , roam around the ghats and scenic places in Vaaranasi. So inorder to reach Varanasi I should take train from New Delhi which takes 12hrs if everything goes well. I had six and hours before I board train in New Delhi. I brought some wiki maps with me. This is my first experience to use wiki maps in India. I struggled a bit because Delhi became very messy and every where some construtions are taking place due to common wealth games. There are no sign boards on any roads that can lead me to a Metro or any historic place. I managed to reach the Red fort by a metro and on foot with out anybody's help and from there I could reach Jamma masjid very easily. This is one of the oldest mosques in India. After that I had a very less time and I should return to the railway station to board my train to Varanasi. I have less time. I came out and I couldn't find any direcctions to the nearest metro station. Some how I used wiki maps and believed my instincts. The horribe part is the roads are very narrow and heavy traffic and even a pedastrain can't move ahead. Only people who experienced can understand the situation. Sorry I couldn't take any picture(bcoz I became sick in that mess). I walked for about thirty minutes in that traffic to reach the nearest metro and then I felt like I am in heaven. Finally I reached station on time and could board the train.


Jamma masjid-New Delhi



A salute to Nation -Red fort-New Delhi

  Prof. Saha booked accomodation for me in BHU and I could enjoy my stay in Varanasi. He took care of me like his own kid. I could never forget the love and affection he has shown when I was in Varanasi. He even took  me to ghats but I forgot to take camera so I have no pictures which can show the holiness of Varanasi.I enjoyed myself a lot in Anshu's(Prof.Saha's son) B'day. This reduced my stress a lot.

Prof. Saha, Anshu and Mrs. Saha



Viswanath Temple inside BHU- Varanasi



BHU maingate decorated for Janmasatami(Lord Krishna's B'day)

Flow of River Krishna at my home Town due to heavy rains

 After that I went back home to Vijaywada with the message and moral support Dr.Saha has given to me. During my journey(34hr journey) a disaster occured, the power cable of my Macbook was broken. No more I could open my computer at home.(Macintosh is not  popular in VZA, I have to travel 300kms once again to fix it and which I am not sure) I was disappointed a bit but  anyway the purpose of my visit is to enjoy the warmthness in the love of my mom and dad. I enjoyed each and every moment of my vacation at home.I spent all my day time at home talking with mom(some or the other relatives who visited our home)and in the evening i used to roam in our city centre. I was born and brought up in the same city so I still have quite a good number of friends. I covered as many as I can. My mom and my aunts made various varieties of dishes during my stay. My younger brother took care of my final day trip to Hyderabad(300Kms from VZA). So i had a very less burden. On the final day I had good time with my younger sister. Both of us had lunch and went for shopping. Finally I said good bye to everyone and flew back to Hsinchu.

beauty at my home

Yet another one



Sudha with his brother's and sisters(all are younger than me)

After I returned I feel refreshed and I want to be back on track soon with a mission.

Still I haven't fixed my lappy. Blogging  from Hemanth's lappy. Thanx dude for your cooperation.