Whirlwind Trip to Vancouver – Part 2

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Stanley Park is an urban park surrounding the city, a two minute walk from my hotel in Canada Place. I spent an early morning taking a stroll, watching the runners practice for the upcoming half marathon, mommies walking around with their babies in strollers, and tourists walking excitedly with their cameras, posing and taking pictures of everything. In fact, two of my lab mates signed up to run the half-marathon the day after their conference presentations, and it was inspiring to see people travel across the coast to talk at conferences, and then change into their gym clothes from the formal suits and go about running miles all around the city. Hats off to their energy, although this gave me some more time to sleep late.

Stanley Park is huge, and when I say it is huge, I mean it. If you have been to Central Park in New York City, this is even bigger than that, a paved path running around its circumference. Lined with tall trees, lush greenery, and full of enthusiastic people jogging around, Stanley Park is ranked the 16th best park in the world and the 6th best in North America.

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Revisiting Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

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How lucky one can be when one gets to time their conference trips with one of their favorite festivals happening concurrently at a different city, in fact, a different country? Once the conference dates in Vancouver was decided, I waited with bated breath for the official announcement of the dates for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, about 70 miles and 1 hour 10 minutes drive north of Seattle on I-90 (Exits 230, plus minus one). The tulip festival has been my favorite things to visit in Seattle, and every year, I waited for Spring to arrive, heralding a trip to the daffodil and tulip fields.

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National Cherry Blossom Festival, Washington, D.C.

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March and April are two of my favorite months. This is when the excruciatingly long winters come to an end, and new life springs in every corner and crevice. After seeing nothing but grey, snow white, and the bare skeletons of trees, it is a welcome change to see life sprouting, as buds, colorful flowers, and green leaves. Have you ever noticed the fresh greenness of the baby leaves in spring? The temperature has risen, but not enough to make you uncomfortable.

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Ghumakkar Insights – Camera-derie

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Browsing through old albums is one of those things that bring unalloyed joy. Be it the wedding pictures of my parents, the pictures from my birthdays and rice ceremony, the pictures of us as we grew up, or the pictures from that first trip to Puri and Vizag, I could spend hours browsing through memories left decades back in some forgotten alleys of time.

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Discovering Fried Eggs at Luray Caverns

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The caves resulted from the accumulation of layers of limestone over millions of years. The caves are confined to a 100 feet thick zone. Rain water trickles, dissolving the carbon dioxide to make a mildly acidic solution of carbonic acid (secondary school chemistry, people). The acidic water percolates through the limestone, eroding layers and carving out shapes in the cave. A precipitate of lime forms, making stalactites from the ceiling and stalagmites from the ground join together to form limestone pillars. It is like witnessing a chapter out of a Geography textbook right in front of you. This is an active cave and new deposits are formed @ one cubic inch in 120 years.

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A Day in Sintra

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An offshoot of the trip to Lisbon, one can easily spend 2-3 days marveling at the enormous palaces, forts, castles, and much more that Sintra is. Located about 30 km west of Lisbon, the trains that take you from the Rossio station in Lisbon to Sintra are frequent (every 15-20 minutes), cheap (was free with my Lisboa card), and extremely convenient. Sintra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its cityscape dominated by many mountains, palaces, and forts.

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Review: Hotel Residential Roxi (Lisbon, Portugal)

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Whenever I visit a place, the quality of my stay location remains a lasting association along with the destination itself. I have some wonderful things to say about my backpacking trip to Lisbon. Of the many good things about Lisbon, one of them would be Residencial Roxi, the hostel I stayed at. I have always wanted to write a review for them, and perhaps this is a great way to do it.

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“Fall”ing in Love

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One of the many abstract joys of traveling is discovering your fascination for specific things you learn to seek in your journeys. For example, I have an amazing fascination for sunrises and sunsets I never knew of before. I have difficulty waking up for my 9 am classes, but I will have no difficulty waking up at 5 on a cold, wintry morning to take a walk by the sea, hearing the waves roar and the birdies fly by as the sun comes up and says hi. Similarly, I have a fascination for trains.

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