What makes you happy?

Writing a blog post can be tough if you haven’t done that in a while. The last time I wrote was almost 2 months back! A lot of things happened over the last two months.

First, I changed jobs! Yes – it took me a while to make a decision, but I was pretty firm about it. This new job is my third in 5 years. Who talks about too many switches ruining your career? I don’t think so. Have heard about it, but haven’t come across cases yet. As long as you are in the same domain, and doing better work than before, constantly learning and contributing more with time, there seems to be no problem! Touch-wood!

With the job change, came change of homes. Staying on the outer skirts of the city was not helping us, even though it was one of the best places to stay at. We moved closer to my workplace, actually we found a place midway between mine and hers. Banjara Hills. Fancy name, isn’t it? Yeah yeah. Ask me about it. It is fun living closer to the happening places in the city. Not that we have been making the most out of it, but it is still cooler on the liters of petrol you save every weekend!

We have been spending precious hours every evening after getting back home, searching the internet for cheap fares all around the world. Can you believe that we haven’t yet decided where we will travel this year, or when. By this time last year, we had already come back from the most amazing trip to Istanbul. I had also made a trip to frozen Europe just before that. This year seems dry. We just came back from a road trip to Suryalanka. Surya what? Yes, Suryalanka. It is a tiny little beach (long, but largely cordoned off due to the presence of Air Force Station) with just one pretty mediocre AP tourism resort (that charges you a bomb). Okay, it was relaxing, and the drive was a lot of fun, but a slightly cleaner beach and a slightly better resort would have made me immensely happier. We plan to do two more trips this year. One, preferably to north India in summer, and then one outside India, sometime in the last quarter of the year.

So what makes you happy? Long drives like we do? Sitting on a beach and watching the waves hit the shore endlessly till the sun goes down? Dancing your night away to loud beats? Talking to your friends? Or eating an ice-cream? Cats?

Remember my last post,  ‘People, Always’? It was about how people end up making you happy or sad, it was about how people end up teaching you something for life, whether you like it or not. But I recently came across a song, which emphasizes that it isn’t always people you can hold responsible to make or break your day, but you yourself! Go “watch” this video, don’t just listen to it. This video makes me happy for some reason. Just as I told you last time that good conversations make me happy, good music also makes me happy!

P.S.  To get a feel of the newly launched Google Play Books for Indian android users, I started reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Read about 100 odd pages during the days off at Suryalanka. The story seemed so engaging that I could not resist checking the synopsis and character outlines, online. That is when it dawned on me that the novel is almost 1500 pages long, with the abridged version itself running beyond 600 pages. Killing my curiosity, I moved over to YouTube to watch the 4 hour long epic 1958 movie, based page-to-page on the novel. It took me 3 sessions over a span of 3 days to finish watching the movie. It left me touched, and not really feeling miserable. I went back to the book and read the last 50 pages, in a fitting finish to my overwhelmed emotions! And this, I realized, is the best way to read a book and also watch a movie based on it!

Circa 2012

2012 was a surprisingly different, and a very exciting year for me. It turned out to be the year that defined ‘change’ and ‘happiness’. I got what I had wished for and I achieved what I had resolved to achieve. Here, as usual at the end of the year, I answer a few questions that define 2012 for me :)

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? Lost weight! I’ve talked enough about it in the previous posts… go read!

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next? I had a NY resolution for the first time ever. Yes I did manage to keep it! Not sure yet if I want to have a resolution for 2013.

3. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? The dates I remember from any year, are the ones on which I travel. March 2nd is the day we landed into Istanbul. The sight of the fully lit Bosphorus Bridge and monuments in Sultanahmet that I got from the descending aircraft, is not something I am going to forget for a very very long time to come.

4. What was your biggest achievement of the year? The biggest achievement of the year, and perhaps of the last 27 years, was of course losing those 16kg!

5. What was your biggest failure? That is a very good question! (Which means, I do not have an answer for it!)

6. Did you suffer illness? A little bit, but nothing like 2010!

7. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Idiots :) Always! (This answer is getting constant)

8. Where did most of your money go? Travel, travel, travel, travel!

9. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Oh, so many things! The trip to Istanbul, my upgraded DSLR and finally, staying in a forest lodge in the core forest zone at Kanha!

10. What song will always remind you of 2012? I heard a lot of awesome new songs this year. But if I have to choose one song that will always remind me of 2012, it would be ‘Maroon 5′s Payphone’.

11. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder? I was quite happy last year this time. I think I am equally happy right now. :)

12. What do you wish you’d done more of? Cooking!

13. What do you wish you’d done less of? Nothing, really!

14. Did you fall in love in 2012? Yes, yes. With all those pretty places I visited!

15. What/Who was your greatest musical discovery? Lenka!

16. What did you want and get? Don’t you remember I had asked for some traveling in my summary last year? And I have no clue who all read my blog, but travelling is what I did all round the year! For work, for family, for recreation, and for adventure!

17. What did you want and not get? Nothing really, let me think...

18. What was your favourite film of this year? I saw some really awesome films this year, but if I have to choose one, it would be “Life of Pi”.

19. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I think I went for a nice dinner… I turned 27 in 2012.

20. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Had I lost a few more kilos, I would have been immeasurably more satisfied! But, nevermind!

21. What kept you sane? Some cooking, lots of cooking actually! All those sad weight loss diets forced me to take control of the kitchen :) and it was fun!

22. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. Stop wasting time with people who do not matter! (This has been reinforced in 2012)

23. Which new places did you visit in 2012? Oh so many! Copenhagen, Malmo, Munich, Salzburg, Milan, Prague, Istanbul – That makes it 7 countries. And also Bidar, Bangalore, Kochi, Jabalpur within India! And we have already started planning our 2013 vacations!

24. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year – This song by Gary Sachman/Alicia Lemke used by Matt Harding in his 2012 Where the Hell is Matt video:

Remember we’re lost together, Remember we’re the same;
We hold the burning rhythm in our hearts, We hold the flame;

We’re gonna trip the light, We’re gonna break the night;
And we’ll see with new eyes, When we trip the light!

25. Tag some bloggers you would love to read these answers from: I do tags very rarely. Honestly, I do not remember who tagged me to this post, but ever since (2007), I’ve done it for each year. I am tagging ‘some’ of the awesome new bloggers I came across this year :) DI, Deepa, R’s Mom, Puneet, O

Want to read the summaries for the last 3 years?
Click here to read circa 2011…
2010…
2009…

Feel alive bathing at the Strawberry Park Hot Springs in Colorado

So here I am continuing to write on the adventure bathing experiences I’ve had in the last few years. I know a few people who do not enjoy bathing, but for me it is a complete joy. Even at home I try to create varying bathing experiences each day to distance myself from the monotony. I alternate between bathing from the bucket, and using the shower. Along with that I also alternate between using a shower gel and a soap bar. That gives me almost 4 combinations to work with. What do you do to make your bath more exciting?

Coming back to adventure bathing, some of the experiences I’ve had are really unique! Those are times that are close to my heart and those that I cannot forget, ever! A not so recent experience was visiting the Strawberry Park Hot Springs, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains in the US. That road trip from Denver to Steamboat Springs, and Vail and back, was one of the most beautiful and memorable trips ever! Patrik Da, are you reading?

So what was unique and so exciting about it? Well to start with, the outside temperature was well below 0 C. Now who takes a bath in a freezing weather? Would you even remove your thermals in such? At Strawberry Hot Springs, you would not be able to resist the temptation of skinny dipping! Strawberry Hot Springs are natural mineral hot springs at an altitude of 14,000 ft above sea level. They way the whole complex is designed is that boiling water emerges from the top most rocks of the spring, and flows 7 levels down into a stream of naturally frozen river. So the stepped pools provide you a gradient of temperatures varying from sub zero at the bottom to about 80-100C at the top. You can go jumping around the pools of varying temperatures or just choose one that fits you the best and relax for hours.

But here are the best things about the springs >
There are no lights out there, and you can stay in the springs all day and all night
and you do not need to wear clothes :) so basically you may skinny dip!

I’ve never seen a more beautiful night sky ever, than from the hot springs. There was no city light to block the shiny stars. The night was dark enough to show the Milky Way too!

Bathing for hours, literally, rejuvenated me! Watching the stars up above the world so high and wondering what they are, made me feel one with the vast universe. It made me come alive. Being Alive Is Awesome and this bathing experience only affirmed that belief!

This photograph of the Strawberry Springs, Colorado has been taken from their Facebook Page and you may not use it further.

This post is written for Cinthol’s new Alive is Awesome marketing campaign.

Getting back to life, with an awesome experience

In the last few days, I’ve blurted a lot of not-so-happy messages out, especially on Twitter. And the posts on my blog have only talked about food, cooking being my latest pastime. Has it been too long that I talked about travel? I guess not. Has it been too long that I took a vacation for myself? May be yes!

The point is, I need a break! :) A long day leaves you tired, mentally drained and physically exhausted… Imagine what months of such would do to you! What you need in such times is an escape, a mode to get back to life, a mode to feel alive! All I need in times like these is a trip, away from home and into the wild. Wondering when was the last time I took a trip to relax, the first thing that comes to my mind is the 2010 trip to Phi Phi Island in Thailand.

We stayed at the Phi Phi Island Village Resort in complete luxury, but the highlight of the trip was the endless hours I spent in the water. Swimming is something I really love. Floating in the water relaxes me completely, making me devoid of all the worldly troubles. Phi Phi island has some pretty corals and awesome marine life. Take a snorkel, put on your fins, and splash you go!

Swimming in turquoise blue waters of the Indian Ocean with these very pretty other forms of life made me come back to life, made me feel alive! Being alive is awesome and that is what bathing in Phi Phi made me feel.

If you even plan a honeymoon, or a second honeymoon or just a relaxing week off from work, head off to the Phi Phi Islands near Phuket in Thailand and feel alive :)

This post is written for Cinthol’s new Alive is Awesome marketing campaign.

To Milan, with love!

Milan, is one of the largest cities in the EU and one of the most celebrated cities of the world. Being a prominent international center of performing arts, Milan is also an important destination for tourists on the European circuit. Milan is identified (along with New York and London) as the Fashion Capital of the world. The rest of the good things about Milan are in general common with most of the rest of Italy – great art, great food, great language, great people, and all in all, a great place to be!

I was lucky to have got a chance to visit Milan, although it was a short trip lasting only 2 nights and 3 days (no weekends in that). Of the tons of photographs I did click while walking the streets of Milan, here are a few that may highlight some awesome places in the city!

The Milan Cathedral, or the Duomo di Milano, is the 4th largest cathedral in the world and constructed in the Gothic style. The exterior is made of what seemed to me brilliant marble. In front of it is a huge public square, and beside it is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a huge 150 year old shopping arcade.

The interior of the cathedral is huge, almost reminded me of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. Whereas the exterior shows some excellent detailed carvings on some sort of a metal. I do not know much about Christianity, unfortunately, to have understood the depictions (though I do identify Christ in the picture below).

Streets in the downtown area of Milan are peculiar and quite different from some of the other Western European cities I have been to. They are cobbled with paver blocks, and also extremely tiny. Some streets are only wide enough for one bicycle to pass through at a time.

Trams are everywhere in Milan. I think Milan has one of the oldest tram systems in the whole world, and boy do the trams look pretty! Another interesting perspective of the city can be had from the top of the Milan Cathedral walking between the pinnacles and spires.

Unfortunately, and partly due to my own choices, I have not watched an opera in Europe. Something that I promise not to miss on my next trip (whenever it is). I should have done that in Copenhagen, or Munich, or Salzburg, or at least Prague, but I did not. Did not happen in Milan either. Milan is dotted with museums, art galleries and operas all over. One of the most famous paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, is preserved inside a church in Milan. However you need to book a slot on the internet in advance to be able to go and see it. It is in a fragile state even after multiple restoration attempts, and its sight comes at a premium. I was not fortunate enough to know about this before traveling to Milan. That did not stop me from seeing some of the other brilliant paintings in various churches and museums in the city, and also catch a glimpse of a lovely street play!

This clearly does not complete the picture of Milan, more so because I have not covered anything about wine, pizza, or fashion! Oh did I say fashion? Well, one of the most fashionable ways to go around in Milan is driving in a super cool Fiat 500 (yes I did it)!!!!