Japanese Gardens

A bit of traveling back in time, when I used to travel often to Minneapolis to meet my wife .. The thing that struck me was how cramped your lifestyle becomes if you dont have a car of your own, and the next thing was that Minneapolis is a really green. Lush green describes it the best.
During one of my visits there, went to the Como Zoo and Conservatory. The Zoo itself was pretty good with the Tigers, Orangutans and the Lone Polar Bear providing some good challenges to capture them at their best.
Next to the zoo was the conservatory which has a couple of gardens, the Sunken Garden and the Japanese Gardens.
Japanese Gardens are pretty famous and has its roots in Buddhist and Tao philosophy. It is a place to sit and reflect, to meditate. Usual Japanese Garden objects would be the Waterfall, Pond, Rocks, Plants and Bridges.



The shot shown here was taken from a friends camera, borrowed a new Canon SD300 and he was yet to get his memory card. So was using the one that comes default .. 32MB .. so was taking snaps at low resolution. But was impressed with the Camera. Excellent Colour Quality, above par Sharp images and ease of handling. But there is a major minus, for me personally, that it has only 3X or 4X optical zoom. Else I might even gone ahead and bought it. Still hoping that they release an SD model with 8 - 10 X zoom.
Coming back to the Pic, when I had taken it, I looked at it and was like WOW, because it had captures the Japanese Garden as it actually was. I could see the ripples in the water, standing still, the kind of atmosphere that the garden is supposed to evoke, of stillness, quite and peace, where you can sit back and look inside you.
Another view of the garden below

On top of the world ...

well .. not exactly .. but that's how it felt .. we were on the Trail Ridge Road, the highest Paved road in US. (Boulder, state of Colorado)
Actually, the precise description would be "Highest Continuous Paved Road in North America". At an altitude of 12,183 ft, well above the treeline, where vegetation is sparse and the thinning atmosphere makes you light headed and dizzy, we were there .. and it felt good !
Clear blue skies, and the Road seen for miles, twisting in and out of sight, hiding behind small peaks, the wind howling and tearing at us .. it was quite an experience.
Just a couple of hours out of the City of Boulder, made me really envious of my friends who stay there. But am also grateful to them for having shared this experience with us and it was great fun to meet Old friends.



The snap posted here was taken from very close to the road and aimed directly at the sun, which has caused a couple of flare's, but is not too bad. Have not modified this in any way except to resize it to a Postcard size.
Really gives the feeling of the Top of the world, in'it? :-)

Covered Bridges of New Hampshire

Back to New Hampshire, land of White Mountains, beautiful Fall Foliage and the NH specialty, Covered Bridges.
I was visiting NH during the First wknd of Sept and as I found out to my pleasant surprise, there is a lot you can cover in one day.
There is the Cannon Mountains, The Echo lake, the Flume Gorge etc all within a few miles of each other, so that you can cover all of them pretty easily and still have time to take the odd hike or sit in the silence of the sighing winds.
(Separate pics for each o the above mentioned places soon !)
Coming to the Covered Bridges, you can find lots of such Bridges in NH and most of them are pretty old. They are also called "kissing bridges" for obvious reasons :-)
More info on Covered Bridges can be found here.



The particular bridge that I have featured here can be found on the way to The Flume Gorge.
This is built over the Pemigewasset river and the best way to experience this is to trek down to the Flume from the Visitor Centre. There is a Shuttle which takes you from the centre to the Flume, but you will just pass through the bridge before you know it.
The bridges have a certain charm and beauty that is easy to understand, and quaint and colourfull at the same time. I just adored them and am waiting to see more of them .. there are around 50 such bridges in NH alone!! and some more in Maine and Vermont.

Directions:
From Boston, take the I93 North and keep driving .. take Exit 34A to the Flume Gorge where the featured bridge can be reached.

Foggy Boston

Fog in Boston is rare indeed, its more of a case of Low altitude clouds descending here .. but as a side effect of Ophelia, the tropical storm in this remarkable storm season, Boston did see Fog .. dont ask me how but.
I was to leave for Denver on Friday and was hurrying on my way to a Book reading session from Terry Pratchett.
As I neared the South Station Subway, saw this eerie and haunting scene,
the old fashioned South station architecture stark next to the sky scraper of the Boston Bank, half obscured by Fog.



Just had the time to catch a couple of snaps here before I hurried to my book reading session, which will be part of another blog !
As an aside, was researching how the storms are named, and they are alphabetically named, alternating between the Female Gender and Male gender.
Also, that if a certain hurricane causes exceptional damage, then the name is rested and cannot be used for the next 4 years .. going by that .. dont think we will see another hurricane by the name of Katrina for the next 4 years at least .. Actually lets hope there is none as bad as that ever.

PS: Terry Pratchett :-)

what if

you went through life, not knowing .. its kinda difficult to express,
Let me give an example ..
when we were Kids, Lazy summer afternoons .. u lie down and stare at the clouds .. and not really focussing on anything .. and you see these uni cellular things floating on you eye balls . . they are so very difficult to focus on .. as soon as u try an see them they swim away .. I never gave it much thought and when I did, never thought that everyone sees them and realises them to be what they are ..
that our Eye acts as a Microscope .. a combination the focal lenght of our lens and the eyeball on which these organisms float ..
I happened to read about them and realised that its the same with everyone else .. what if I had not come across that piece of writing? what if I had gone through the rest of my life thinking I was the only one seeing them?
Are there other things that I am not aware of ? This is not common sense .. or even General Knowledge .. How do I know that when I see the colour Red .. others are seeing the same colour ?
what about the voices in my head? Just because I hear them, and I have not read that others dont, does that mean I am all on my own ?
What is I spent my entire life knowing things, thinking that that's how everyone knows it to be .. and be wrong ? and that others see it in an entirely different way .. and each of the others actually sees it in a unique way .. not knowing that the others dont share it at all ..
am not coherant .. and dont think I have been able to put forth what I wanted to .. but then again .. I dont think I can ....

Sunset at Castle Island
Copyright Vikas

The weekend was almost completely wasted, Saturday turned out to be useful in term of getting the Laundry done, and finished some odd jobs .. wanted to replace my shoe lace .. and did so .. only to realise that it was too long for my formal shoes ..
When they say that mental patients and prisoners alike are deprived of the laces lest they hang themselves with them .. now I know what they are talkin about ... I would have had to make a double strand with mine to prevent touchin the ground on hangin myself !!
Anyways .. the savin grace of this weekend was a short trip to Castle Island .. its near South Boston and had to take the T and a Bus and an invigorating walk to reach this place .. it has one and only one eatery and has the old world charm .. you know .. like they dont accept cards .. Cash Only .. 3 of us ... hungry as .. well ... the proverbial appetite for a horse sized meal .. and we had around $ 6-8 between us .. and we also needed to pay for the Bus cum Train fare on our way back ..
so decided it was goin to be Upavasa Sathyagraha .. it was befitting ... it was Gandhi Jayanthi ..
Castle Island was nice .. a bit of History , a couple of memorials for soldiers and a Pentagonal Castle which we saw from out .. it has a beautiful close up view of the Logan Airfields .. you can actually see the smoke raising off the tarmac as Flights Land ...


We were leaving as the Sun set .. and I got this beautiful shot !!
Wont say I was lucky to get a shot with the silhoutte of the plane ... rather that I was lucky that I got a single Plane in my frame .. !! the frequency of the flights was that High ..
Hence this Postcard in my series .. is from Castle Island, Boston.
For Bostonians .. take the T to Broadway station and from there take the Bus route 9, 10, 11 (I think) and you can reach to within walking distance of Castle island.

PS: Have tried my hand at a bit of Post Processing in this snap and feeling guilty as hell .. but the Post processing is more to do with removin apparent blemishes, ie, flares resulting from pointin the camera directly at the Sun.