Tag: North Carolina

Little Krishna’s Udupi!

Day 11:

Although it is a blissful life, waking up, playing in the beach and soaking in the pool and all, but we wanted to travel out for a little bit and visit Udupi. It was my idea to visit the Udupi Krishna’s temple and have the authentic local Udupi food and satisfy my curiosity.

It goes like this, during my childhood, my dad would take us on long drives and whenever we could, we would stop at the Udipi Hotel near Suryapet, which was then a major hub. I would always eat their puri and sabzi, which was always out of the world. Now that Suryapet has undergone a major makeover, the restaurant we would  frequent, has been demolished. I wanted to compare my childhood memory of Udipi Hotel and the authentic Udupi food, at Udupi!

Anyway….

We started for Udupi at 10 A.M, after having a couple of uthappam and the usual ice cold watermelon pieces (frozen for storage, apparently) with a cup of poha. I also had a cup of hot chai. The drive from Mangalore to Udupi was 20 minutes over an hour. The drive was pleasant and the traffic was mild. We had fun during the drive.

The huge kamaan, the arch at the entrance of Udupi had a chariot with Krishna as Saarathi and Arjuna, with his bow and arrow. It is a scene from the battle of Kurukshetra, Mahabharat. (It is not visible in the picture below, you can only see the horse hooves. This is the only image which is aesthetic. The only other image which is clearer, has been locked for free usage by others!)

Even I tried my hand at photography by clicking the Udupi kamaan, but I am at the best, a still photographer! Taking a pic out of a window, in a moving car, with a baby in my lap is too much pressure to perform! That is the reason I don’t have an ‘uploadable pic’.

The Udupi Kamaan – Source:Google

Sadly, we forgot it was a Saturday, until we reached the temple. The hoards of devotees waiting in lines for darshan reminded me of it being a weekend. I cursed myself for lazing around on Friday and visiting a temple on Saturday! Mr.Bee refused to go to the temple. He didn’t want to deal with standing in a line with a kid in his arms and another on his shoulders! (Whenever we visit temples, both the kids perch on their dad’s body, like birds!) I accepted defeat for the moment.

Since breakfast was not the strong point of the resort we are staying at, we were famished. We ate like a family of hens, which nibble selectively! As a last resort, I asked Mr.Bee if he was willing to return to the temple after a meal, to check how the crowd was and then think of darshan or not. He agreed, at last.

We let our car stay in the parking lot, since it is difficult to get good parking spots anywhere in India, much less tourist destinations on weekends! We hailed an auto, asked the autowala to take us to a good restaurant nearby and that was how we landed at Woodland, Udupi. For anyone interested, Udupi is a humid city.

At the restaurant, Mr.Bee ordered a North Indian thali and I, a South Indian thali. We always order different food, because we never know what our picky little eaters want to have. We also ordered watermelon juice, our staple. Sadly, GBee managed to disturb his juice and it fell, drenching my beautiful sunny green and pink tie and dye dress, which I love and incidentally, was my first time wearing it. I cried sad tears in my head, gave an in-promptu lecture to GBee about the importance of looking at where their hands go! (He has the habit of getting distracted easily.) The lecture was a success as GBee offered a sorry and some tissues to me! I was the highlight at the restaurant with everyone’s pitiful glances. I managed to clean most of the dress at the washroom and since it was summer, my dress was dry by the time our lunch was done and we were on the road. (Thank you Sri Krishna. You helped Draupadi by giving sarees and You helped me, by drying my dress on time! Of course both incidents are as different as chalk and cheese, but let me show-off my mythological gyaan! Incidentally, I bought myself a Kanchi saree. in Udupi.)

I think in the history of temple visits, this one stands out for us, because, we never eat when visiting a temple. We eat only after the darshan. But this time, we had a meager breakfast as well as a hearty lunch, before entering the Udupi temple. The darshan queues were parallel to the perimeter of the temple and we could peek inside to see the close to 50 turtles in the temple well.

The temple well as visible from outside – Source: Google

I bought a plastic hand fan and fanned away for the kids, mostly. The darshan queue is near the shops, so I managed to shop a little, while Mr.Bee waited in the line, to hold my spot.

The darshan itself took us ten minutes, but the wait time was close to one hour. I was happy, I could visit the temple. The main idol is only visible through the windows. I still remember the eyes of Lord Krishna. It was beautiful to say the least. The statue of Krishna is jet black and the eyes stand out. Here Krishna is in a child avatar, with a stick in His right hand, may be to signify that He was once a cow-herd!

After another bout of shopping for sovereigns, we were on the road, to Mangalore.

Mr.Bee had other plans, though! He took us to Pithrody. This is how the beach looks from a drone.

Ocean and River separated by a tiny village – Pithrody – Source: Google

The peace I felt here, can never be put in words! It was awesome. I even had my favourite choco bar ice-cream here and sealed the moment in my memory!

The coconut trees look like slanting lines…

After taking in as much positivity as we can from the nature, we started for the resort, at Mangalore for another bout of beach fun and pool games. We ended our day with a simple dinner.

P.S:

  1. If you are a keen observer, you will know I have been using two different words. Udupi, Udipi! Udupi is the original city in Karnataka one and Udipi is the stuff we normally get anywhere other than Udupi! (and I am referring to the food)
  2. Kamaan is an Urdu word, so people from other states, if you are reading this post, you may find the word new.
  3. Pithrody village in Udupi is the Key West of India! Key West is a similar island in the city of Florida. Mr.Bee wanted us to travel to Key West during our stay in the US, but we couldn’t visit, because I was expecting GBee then and my gynecologist warned us against visiting Florida in particular. We ended up visiting Niagara Falls!
  4. Let me add that the constructions in Pithrody are small scale and that is the reason the  shuttering being used is wooden. That is the first time I saw a wooden shuttering (only read about it). I have visited less number of villages and towns. So it is a new experience for me, as a civil engineer.
  5. The one hour we spent at Pithrody reminded me of the 4 day vacation we had at Maldives, another natural beauty!
  6. I almost forgot to mention Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA. It is the peninsula in Atlantic Ocean. It is like staying in the ocean. I saw many natural wonders here. So this is one of my favourites. It is also the first vacation Mr.Bee and I ever had. Magnificent, isn’t it?

The pointy tip in the ocean visible from space is Cape Hatteras

I still have so much to share about Udupi, but this post is already huge and I don’t want to scare off my readers! Cheerio friends, till the next post.

Of the Ocean and the Beach!

Day 10:

All the four of us are lazy souls, so we wake up late, at every possible chance we get! We don’t have exams to prepare for or have a flight to catch, so yes, waking up at leisure is not that bad. (Warning; Don’t try this at home! If you get beatings from your parents for waking up late, it is not my fault!)

As we were lazing on the beds, watching Insta reels and FB posts, the caretaker assigned for us at the resort came up to our door, begging us to come have our breakfast! It was hardly 8 A.M. (Either he had other stuff to do or is a punctual guy!)

That’s when I took the matters into my hands, woke up both the kiddos, gave them baths. All of us were ready by approximately 8:40 A.M.

Our caretaker brought us 4 thalis filled with neer dosa, onion poha and slices of ice cold watermelon, along with yellow coloured kesar. I don’t know if people in Mangalore ate sweet for breakfast, but I hardly eat sweet 10 times throughout the year. I prefer sinful chocolates and sinful is not a brand name!

Anyway, breakfast was a bust. What is this Neer Dosa? I couldn’t eat it, even if my life depended on it. It was bland and soft to touch. I like dosa which is crunchy and crispy and nothing could change my prejudice against neer dosa, not even the chutney or the sambar. (I had to wash it down my throat with huge sips of water or neer, maybe that’s why it is called Neer Dosa!)

neither crispy nor crunchy – no second chances! – pic source: Google

The breakfast menu sucked big time, mostly because I am also not a fan of poha, but if it were batata poha, the breakfast would have been in my tummy in a jiffy, thanks to the potato, but onion poha was a no-no. (It seems, the caretaker is not a specialist when it came to making breakfast!) Interestingly, this caretaker guy thought that both my kids, who are less than 7 years old combined, would eat as much as us, adults. Their plates were exactly plated like ours, in adult portions! Such wastage of food, that too, the food which none of us like!

After our not-so-satisfactory breakfast, we rushed to the beach, applying 2mm thick sunscreen and continued playing till black spots began appearing before our eyes. (Playing under the scorching Sun can do that to your eyes!)

Three to Tango!

We returned to the resort, showered under the shower head and got into the pool.  We continued our fun in the swimming pool for more than half an hour, before returning to the room, taking baths again and changing into fresh dry clothes. It is hard to make the kiddos come out of the pool. Their favourite pass time is playing with water and they love swimming pool, more than anything.

The Ocean meets the sky in the background while the foreground has a cutesy pool.

For lunch, we had Veg Fried Rice, Paneer Sabzi and a foot long glass filled upto brim with masala buttermilk.

After an hour or two, we returned to the beach, with the plastic tools bought in Subrahmanya, to make the sand castles. I would make a sand castle and the baby KBee would have a hearty laugh after stamping and razing the buckets of sand, every single time. He would laugh out loud and once he is in his fits of laughter, he ends up with hiccups. So ya, its interesting watching him laugh between hiccups! (I know who he takes after!)

We also fought each other in the sand, took some pictures and again had brief fun at the swimming pool before calling it a day.

Baby with an Umbrella as a shield – KBee after a sand fight!

I took loads of pictures of Sunset and one Mr.X, an uncle of a close friend advised us that it is not a good omen to take pictures of ourselves with the setting Sun. So, there goes our beach photo session in vain! (We decided not to show them to others, lest they pass any such comments!)

Morning to noon – empty beach

Another click from my cellphone….

Coconut trees on a beach have a charm of their own.

We ate paper thin pulkas, dal tadka and had fresh watermelon juice to finish off the dinner. Both the kids are extremely picky, so the only juice they like having is that of watermelon and I too order watermelon juice if mosambi is unavailable.

With a completely satisfied stomach, we ended our day, with the background music of the rising tides of the ocean waves. Another day of leisure comes to an end.

P.S:

  1. Sorry folks if I offended anyone about the neer dosa, but honesty is the best policy and I follow it everyday of my life.  Andddd, people do have varied tastes and thank God for that!
  2. Even if Mangalore is a beach city, we didn’t feel the humidity at all, maybe because we dressed appropriately for the beach. Food for thought!
  3. The caretaker looked like a pukka South Indian, but turns out, he is from Assam and had relocated to Mangalore during the pandemic! That maybe the reason why his South dishes failed to impress us, whereas, pulkas and rotis were fabulous! I still can’t understand, how anyone can make a paper thin pulka! I am not giving neer dosa another chance though. It is completely opposite of everything I like, it is a no-go!
  4. Visiting a beach on weekday, from morning to noon is the best thing one can do. No human traffic, which means, we can have the beach to ourselves. Beach at Mangalore felt like a private beach for a whole day!
  5. Like I mentioned in previous post, never miss the masala buttermilk in any city or town of Karnataka. It is the best.
  6. Sometimes, when Mr.Bee and I drive to far off locations, with mountains and hills, we remember Charlotte and miss those beautiful mountains, we would frequently visit, every month! I miss you GrandFather Mountain, Gatlinburg and Mt.Soma! I miss you too, Pigeon Forge and Chimney Rock!

Cheerio, till the next post.

Precious Lapidary!

I am hoping against hope that none of my readers ever heard about Lapidary, especially if you are from India. (I am being extremely preposterous! It is better to teach something new and unique, which, lesser number of people have heard of, than talk about stuff people already know.) If you are a Geologist or a person who takes particular interest in stones, then you might know what Lapidary is about.

Without much ado, let’s get into L for Lapidary.

Lapidary is the art of shaping stones into Cabochons or even faceting precious stones . Lapidary involves cutting, grinding and polishing stones or gems.

Cabochon Gemstones – Dome shaped at the top and flat at the bottom

If you are a fan of any kind of diamond jewellery and if you especially love diamond solitaires, you probably know that there are different kinds of diamond cuts. Each diamond cut has a different number of facets. Who makes the cuts? A Lapidarist does!

Diamond cuts and different facets

The best kind of diamond cut is the Round Cut. It is also the costliest cut too, since the shine of the diamond increases manifold, thanks to the round cut.  The second best is the Radiant Cut.

***Flash back begins***

The state of North Carolina is famous for its Amethysts. During our stay in Charlotte, Mr.Bee , I and D (Mr.Bee’s friend) went mining at Emerald Hollow Mine, during a weekend.  I should say, that was the most fun I ever had. What with Geology and anything related to stones,rocks or gems being my favourite. Each of us bought a bucket of dirt taken directly from the Emerald Hollow Mine. We were given tools, we sat near the sluice and had fun washing away the dirt in water to reveal beautiful gems. I found myself a number of tiny Amethysts and a 3 inch Agate.  There is also an in-house Lapidarist and I got myself a silver Amethyst ring made (they shipped it to my address, after a month or so) and an Agate Cabochon.  That’s when I came to know about Lapidary.

***Flash back ends***

If you ever go to Gem stone mining areas and if at all there is a Lapidarist nearby, do go and shop for your heart’s content.  That is what I did at Chimney Rock, North Carolina. I got myself a beautiful blue Topaz ring. (I swear by gem stone rings. I collected quite a few of them during my USA stay. Gemstone rings are popular there, unlike in India, where we mostly run after gold and diamonds alone.

Do you love Lapidary so much? If so, why not buy a Lapidary Bowl? (In India, you can get these from Jaipur, the unofficial Lapidary capital of India!)

Rose Quartz Lapidary Fruit bowl

P.S:

  1. The other hobbies starting with L are Landscaping, Listening to Music and Letter Writing.
  2. While we were at the Emerald Hollow Mine, I could only find tiny Amethysts, but the ring I got made was from the Amethyst Mr.Bee found. The Agate Cabochan was made from the Agate I found.  Yay to me, for getting two gemstones!
  3. Russian Lapidary is mostly about huge bowls made of rocks. Inlays done on stones also comes under lapidary. Go ahead and check it out, if you want to know more.
  4. Till the next post, cheerio!

Baking is fun!

Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake baker’s man,

Bake me a cake as fast as you can,

Pat it and roll it and mark it with a ‘B’,

Put it in the oven for baby and me!

so goes the rhyme….that is how much fun baking can be, if you put your mind into it!

B for Baking….

If you search the net for the definition of baking, you will know that, baking is a process in which cooking is done using dry heat, like that in an oven or cooking on hot stones or even hot sand. (I remember when my mom used to make yummy Osmania biscuits, which she baked on hot sand and fed us poor souls! She loves to cook, so I have tasted many varieties of dishes and that has made a picky eater like me into a complete foodie. Thank you Amma.)

Thankfully, baking doesn’t only mean cooking in oven or on hot stones and sand, it can also be done through steam, called steam baking and our own pressure cookers are the perfect examples of that. You can even buy Steam Oven if you are invested in cooking healthy!

But it is difficult to talk about baking and not to mention French Bakers and their breads.  While we lived in Charlotte, NC, USA, Mr.Bee and I used to visit a French Bakery Amelie, which always had a heavy inflow of customers, coming for their chocolate eclairs and croissants. Although I didn’t mind eating there, I still missed the curry puffs from our Desi bakeries, back home! I love their bread, though. Never seen so many different shapes of bread and I found heaven on earth. (Bread makes me salivate!)

Anyway, baking is a good hobby. I managed to bake a cake on GBee‘s third birthday, during peak COVID lock-down, with the help of Mr.Bee. I decorated it with crushed Gems, because GBee loves them, like a lot!!

The cake may not look like it, but it was yummy. We made it with bourbon biscuits, thanks to my friend K. (Even Marie biscuits can be used to bake a cake. They are Indian alternate to Graham Crackers)  Even though the cake had a wonderful taste and vanished into our mouths an hour after our baking, GBee hardly had a spoonful. He hates cakes. Even now, he only eats the chocolate flowers or balls which are used on top of a cake for decoration, but leaves out the main cake!

Now that I think about it, Mr.Bee baked me a cake, a year into our marriage.  He made it from scratch, moulds, multi purpose flour, whisking, baking in oven etc etc. (we were in USA then) I think it was a chocolate lava cake or something. Thank you Mr.Bee, once again!

Mr.Bee made the cake, topping it with my favourite fruit, strawberry.

So, have you even tried baking as a hobby yet?

P.S:

  1. Cooking in a Tandoor (clay) oven to make naan comes under baking.
  2. The French bread that I love is the Wheat Stalk bread, which I had at the Venetian, Las Vegas. (That might be because I loved the place as well!)

3. I love watching MasterChef Australia. It taught me so much. Although I don’t cook most of what is shown in the series, I enjoy watching chefs exhibit their creativity.

I also love a webtoon, Gourmet Hound, which taught me so much about French Baking!

Let me add Li Ziqi in the mix! She is a Chinese vlogger, whose videos I watch, which promote healthy traditional way of living.

4. The other hobbies starting with a B are Barbecuing , Badminton and Body Building. I have a long list of hobbies to post, so there will be a windfall of posts this month. Till the next hobby post, cheerio. Oh, do check out all the links in the post, if you want to go deeper into the topic. Au revoir my French bread loving friends!

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