Long Weekend – Day Three – Photos

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Star of the show “Believe”, in fact “Shamu” is the star of the park!

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Dancing in circles…

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“One way or another, I’m gonna find ya’

I’m gonna get ya’, get ya’, get ya’, get ya’ “

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A couple of detectives trying to solve a case on missing fish.

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A water-ski show, pretty good.

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Feeding time for sea lions.

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That fin reminds one of “Free Willy”.

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, no words to describe it!

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Feeding time for dolphins.

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“Viva!”

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Stars of the show “Viva!”.

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Dolphins, Beluga whales, Syncronized swimming == “Viva!”

Amazing stunts they were…

Long Weekend – Day Three

After a good day at NASA, we left for San Antonio, to visit Sea World. Sea World is AWESOME. Just looking at those beautiful animals makes one go wild. All the shows arefantastic, starring different sea animals very well trained by their trainers. They also have a 4D theatre, showing some kid-pirate movie starring Leslie Nielsen (No wonder the movie rocked!).

The best moment of the day was me touching a dolphin. Well I got to touch its tail only, but so what! The major roller coaster ride, “Steel Eel”, was closed due to some technical problems, so that was a bummer. The rest of the rides had a waiting time for atleast 2 hours, so lite.

The River Walk in San Antonio Downtown is quite famous. We found out why the moment we reached the place. It was magnificient, astounding. Think of Mall Road in Simla, except for a water channel instead of tar and countless restaurants, hawkers and a pavement on both sides of the channel along a stretch of 1500m. There are small boats which server dinner and a short trip for about $35 per person, which is good enough. I still kick myself (Yes, you can really do that) for not bringing the camera with me. Riverside dining with ducks floating close by for morsels, it was quite an experience.

Long Weekend – Day Two – Photos

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A beautiful morning to start the tram tour

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Apparently, even the “President of the United States of America” cannot override the “Flight Director” during a mission. Cool!

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Old Mission Control Center, monitoring ISS 24/7.

The plaques on the left wall are from successful missions, and the ones on the right wall near the door are from failed and yet-to-be-launched ones.

The three projections show, from left to right – some technical details of ISS – orbit and current position of ISS (Over the International Date Line at the time of our visit) – live video feed from ISS.

We got to watch the sunrise over the Pacific – big deal, the astronauts get to watch it 16 times in a day =))

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A replica of ISS in Building 9, training ground for astronauts.

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A replica of the Canadian Arm, used to perform heavy duty work in space aboard ISS.

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Wierd treadmill setup for the astronauts to get used to walking in zero gravity.

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Mars rover, and apparently that really is Au all over it.

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F1 engines (Primary Stage) of Saturn V rocket

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Another view of the same engine.

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Ashamed of myself, to be not able to cover it in one shot.

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Just cannot get enough of it!

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OK, one last time.

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A J-2 Engine (Second Stage)

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Just look at those horns! The cattle raised here are part of some project by students majoring in Animal Husbandry.

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Back to engines! I am not sure where this goes though.

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Complete model of the ISS

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Some Space Science Competition Award, looks pretty cool.

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More engines! This time it is a space shutte’s engine.

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Some stuff designed for astronauts in space which reminds me of that joke where Americans designed a hi-tech anti-gravity pen – Russians used a pencil. ROFL!

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Replica of the camera used on the “Moon”

The End.

Long Weekend – Day Two

After a very tiring journey the day before, coupled with the awesome adventure at Moody Gardens and _cold_ breakfast (which also was _awesome_) in the morning, we started out to Houston. Nana and I in particular, were very keen on reaching this place as quickly as possible. It must be a guy thing, we are all gadget freaks right? Kirthi told me about his experience in NASA and we did some amount of research about the places we were to visit so as to “save” time.

The trip to NASA turned out to be neat. We were among the first ones to reach the place. We on the tram tour which took us around the Johnson Space Center. Mission Control Center, Building 9 – where the astronauts train, and Saturn V rocket display were the waypoints.

After that, we watched a couple of movies featuring “man landing on moon” and “America the Great” (“” for the obvious reasons ). The movies were good. There is a space gallery where some artifacts used by the “astronauts who landed on the moon” are displayed. Some “moon rocks” are on display too, with one in an open case for people to touch. I saw so many people going “Ooooh” and “Aaaah” when they touched it. I mean really! Come on! It reminded me of an episode from the TV Show Monk (an awesome detective series I got hooked on to here, thanks to amma) in which a thief steals the moon rock and replaces it with a replica. And guess what, nobody realizes it, lol! I agree that such a feat is quite not possible but it does make one think!

This place is a good place for kids, because they have lots of stuff to play with. A few space shuttle landing and docking at ISS simulators for everyone to try. Kirthi told me that he crashed his shuttle during landing. I played around with mine, tried to do a 360 degree turn and flip – stupid programmers did not let me. Instead some stupid voice kept telling me, “WARNING! You are approaching landing strip. Please align the circle on the square” or some crap like that. I finally landed it perfectly, poor Kirthi – it really is a piece of cake!

Having covered almost everything, we left NASA and started towards San Antonio, the home of Spurs! Pictures, good ones as always, coming in the next post…