Long Weekend – Day Three – Photos

1)

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

2)

3)

4)

5)

Dancing in circles…

6)

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

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

7)

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

8)

A water-ski show, pretty good.

9)

Feeding time for sea lions.

10)

That fin reminds one of “Free Willy”.

11)

, no words to describe it!

12)

Feeding time for dolphins.

13)

“Viva!”

14)

Stars of the show “Viva!”.

15)

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

1)

A beautiful morning to start the tram tour

2)

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

3)

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 =))

4)

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

5)

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

6)

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

7)

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

8)

F1 engines (Primary Stage) of Saturn V rocket

9)

Another view of the same engine.

10)

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

11)

Just cannot get enough of it!

12)

OK, one last time.

13)

A J-2 Engine (Second Stage)

14)

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

15)

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

16)

Complete model of the ISS

17)

Some Space Science Competition Award, looks pretty cool.

18)

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

19)

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!

20)

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…

Long Weekend – Day One – Photos

1)

See what I meant by “pyramids”? What would one expect?

2)

Inside the “Rain Forest Pyramid”

3)

OK. The reason I rarely, in fact never, appear in the photographs is because I cannot trust others to take reasonably good ones.

3)

A ray waiting for its prey

4)

Artificial Coral Reef

5)

I expected the whole pyramid to be constructed in this manner. This tunnel is just 5m long!

6)

Oooooh, Green Anaconda!

7)

I deserve a 10/10 for this!

8)

From the hotel room

9)

These sea gulls made my day

10)

Plenty of life in the rain forest

11)

Spent a lot of time watching these birds in action because we were too tired to visit the beach. Do we not have RK beach for that matter? LOL

Long Weekend – Day One

We visited Moody Gardens on Day 1. And man! What a disappointment it was. People, DO NOT and I repeat, DO NOT visit Moody Gardens on Galveston Island. Unless of course, if you are totally jobless with deep pockets and bored of the beach then this is only way. Or if you want to watch a good IMAX movie.

Why am I so disappointed by it? Well to start with, when I looked at the website for the list of attractions, I saw a picture of the location with couple of glassy pyramids in the background. Upon reading the details, I found out that those pyramids were actually an aquarium and a rain forest. So the picture I had in my mind was a spiral tunnel going all the way to the top of the pyramid, which unfortunately was _wrong_. And after visiting them I was so pissed that I actually brainstormed for a few hours to come up with a such a design.

It was the same old aquarium and the same old humid climate. Maybe I expected too much out of it. And then came the shows. A 4D theatre seems to be the norm here. What good is it anyway, if the movie is so full of crap? Some movie about the underwater life was shown with really stupid effects like poking from the inside of the back of my chair for a snakebite, vibrating chair for a jellyfish (I really do not know how they connect) and spraying water on the face for a splash effect. Then we went for a “180 degree FoV Ride Film” (FoV = Field of View, Quakers know better!). It was as pathetic as the 4D movie. No wait, it was more pathetic because I was expecting some fast paced motion sickness inducing action and got a PIXAR movie gone haywire.

Then it was time to visit “Discovery Pyramid” where artifacts retrieved from the Titanic were put on exhibit. Sad stories to read but good background music.

But the day ended well with “Grand Canyon Adventure”, a 3D IMAX movie. This is probably the best thing in Moody Gardens. Very good experience because you see, it is very unlikely that I will get to see the Grand Canyon first hand.

Some good pictures taken by _the_ photographer, yours truly, coming next.

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan

The trailer looked ok. The usual Adam Sandler comedy, with an accent this time. Lots of catching up to do in the movies section. I wonder how many movies have been downloaded in the college in these 2 weeks.

Getting a haircut is an expensive affair in America. The cheapest one I have had so far is $12, here in Texas. I cannot see the point because there is minimal labour involved. which generally is the primary reason for such high prices. A simple algorithm for the the process as follows,

Assuming that you have already entered the salon,

1. Write down your name on the notepad at the desk to get in line.
2. Sit down, read some magazine, unless of course you have some other way to pass the time. For some reason, I keep finding golfing magazines in every salon I go to.
3. When you are called upon and finally seated, you will be asked for a number or a combination of numbers. This is the tricky part for they use trimmers. The trimmer trend is catching up in India as well, simple and neat. So basically, there are varied depths which the trimmer can reach depending on the type of accessory attached to it. A zero is just above getting shaved and usually a six is the highest, meaning the least amount of hair is cut. I forgot which number meant what. So I just showed him my photo from first year. LOL. He was a bit shocked, I was expecting that! And then in his Korean accent he said, “Ahh, medium!” In his mind however, it must have been something else like, “Ahh, phat boy want a airkhut!” And anything that cannot be done by the trimmer, usually the finishing touches, is done using the scissors.
4. Do not expect the hairdresser to take out a blade for shaving behind the ears and at the back of the neck. So no point in splashing some after-shave-lotion either.
5. Tipping is customary here. So unless you plan visiting some other salon the next time, please tip for we are at their mercy.

See my point? More than a dollar a minute plus tip! For ladies, hehe, a totally different story.

A very long weekend ahead.

1. 5 hour drive to Moody Gardens in Galveston, spend the night there.
2. 1 hour drive to NASA in Houston.
3. 5 hour drive to San Antonio, spend the night there.
4. Sea World in San Antonio, spend the night there.
5. 1 hour drive to Prime Outlets in San Marcos.
6. 5 hour drive to home!