CHAPTER 20- THINGS I OVERLOOKED (GUEST WRITER WANTED)

CHAPTER 20- THINGS I OVERLOOKED (GUEST WRITER WANTED)

Initially, I planned to write in this post, all the stuff that I had missed writing about in my previous 19 posts and were pointed out to be by comments from people or stuff I remembered later. But, seeing how big the previous posts have been, it would be an onerous task for me to go through all the posts again and all its comments and write a huge post. And so I am chucking this post...
UNLESS.....
........
ONE OF THE GUYS WHO WERE WITH ME AND WENT THROUGH WHAT I WENT THROUGH (JB, MS, AZ 'n JD) WANT TO WRITE THIS POST.
So guys, if any of you are jobless enough to fill up this space, you re totally welcome. It would be good to have a guest writer in the final post in the series too.

SIGNING OFF,
AJAY

CHAPTER 18- AT THE RUSSELL PETERS SHOW

CHAPTER 18- AT THE RUSSELL PETERS SHOW

The other time I went to Sacramento was something I will remember all my life, as will the others who were with me. It was the Russell Peters show. Russell is quite an icon among today’s youth, especially Indian youth and it was no exception with me and the others. To get an opportunity to see him live in action would be a dream come true. He is quite easily the most popular stand-up comedian today. It helps that his main target audience are Indians and Chinese and so being popular among Indians and Chinese is like being popular among more than half the world.

You need to be broad minded to take his jokes in the right sense. Some people consider him racist, but the other way of looking at it is he is talks about what people brand “racism” as such a normal thing in life that it doesn’t become taboo anymore. Agreed…he does go overboard sometimes, but his general philosophies are so outrageously simple that you sometimes wonder if everyone in the world was like him, there would be no practices like racism. I have totally loved most of his jokes and his points of view and tolerated the very few I found offensive but I would like to assert that I hated the stuff he was babbling about physically-challenged people in his latest show “Red brown and white”. He went totally overboard there. Anyway… I wanted to make that point somehow, hence the deviation.

We were all really excited that he was coming to Sacramento for a show and got tickets at once. We all felt it would be a great experience if we could meet him and MS took the initiative of mailing Russell’s manager on the website that we were a bunch of loyal Russell fans, who had come all the way from India to get an opportunity to meet him and if it were possible to say a hi to him before the show. He got an instant reply, asking him for our details and asking us to come half an hour in advance to meet Russell. We were really surprised at how easy that was.

So we were really excited when it was D-day. It was almost all of the Blue flamez this time. Almost. Except AZ, who couldn’t make it (because he had to save to buy shoes? :D). [This gives me the opportunity to make an important point. All the 9 of us “Blue flamez” have never been at the same place at the same time. Ever. Due to one reason or the other, someone does not make it. Guys… pity we couldn’t do anything about it in India too, so it’s going to remain this way for quite some time I guess].

So it was JB, JD, MS, Varun, Dwarak, Mahesh, Sahithi and I who made it there finally. We arrived well on time and entered the place. It was actually a comedy club. And a very historic one where famous comedians like Chris Rock had made their first few shows. It was more of a restaurant-club place, where there were tables all around what looked to be a small stage. It wouldn’t accommodate more than 200 people at a time. The smaller the audience, the greater the probability of each one of us to be royally raped by Russell’s jokes on us. So we were even more excited.

Then Russell walked in coolly, dressed in casuals, his walk evident of his self-confidence. He went backstage and soon we were called by a few volunteers backstage. That was the moment we were waiting for. We walked into the room where he was perched on a table and on seeing the 8 of us enter the room, he smiled sarcastically and said “Wow… I see a bunch of malnutritioned people. You must be from…. India”. Hmm… I looked around and noticed MS especially and Varun didn’t exactly look malnutritioned but didn’t make the point. We talked with him for a minute or two and told him we are huge fans and have watched most of his shows. He was as friendly as a person who had known us all our lives. He then signed autographs for us with our names on it, and as he wrote each name, he found some way to make fun of it. I introduced myself as AJ (syllable), as I would to Americans who would find it easier to pronounce and he asked me “you must have an Indian name. Is it Ajay by any chance? :D “. He split up Jagadish's name as Jug-dish and said he was quite a dish. He showed mock surprise that a boy’s name started with Jeya when JB introduced himself. After all this, we took a priceless picture with him, arm in arm. I was totally overwhelmed to be standing with Russell Peter’s hands over my shoulder. Finally, it was time for the show to begin and we left to sit at our tables but I couldn’t resist telling him “We had a fun-tastic time” with a typical Indian accent (will make sense to those who have watched his “Red brown and white” show) and he seemed quite overwhelmed for the first time and smiled.

The show began and what a show it was too. I went with very high expectations. That it was going to be really funny. But I was wrong. It was much more than that. It was totally hilarious. Two hours of continuous laughter. There wasn’t a dull moment. My throat and mouth was hoarse after having laughed that much at a stretch. I thought all stand up comedians always have a theme and a line of proceeding and they would deviate and improvise to make it look instantaneous. I expected it to be a show where he would crack some of his popular jokes like “Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad” and the stuff about how funny Indian names were etc, and had even refreshed my memory with the popular ones by watching this videos before the show so that I would be able to catch the joke in advance, but I was off cue. It was totally totally instantaneous. Not one joke was from his previous shows.

He started off pretty lamely by coming on stage and looking around and saying “Oh man. I just dunno where to start. I seem to have exhausted all my jokes in my previous shows. I have no clue what I am going to be speaking in the next couple of hours. So if I am without any ideas for most of the show, do excuse me”. After a minute of silent babbling he started off with “Hmm…why don’t I start off with that Indian guy sitting there with a turban?”, pointing to a sardar in the audience. From there he went table to table in random order and made sure everyone present that night was embarrassed in some way or the other. There is no way that the jokes could have been made up before the show as it was all improvised reactionary humor. And it was so good that there was never a dull moment.

His imitations of the Indian accent got the biggest applause though, as he sounded so funny doing it. He embarrassed a lot of people that night including a waitress in a low top who was serving a guy at the table something saying “Hey you….guy over there to whom the well-endowed blonde waitress is bending to give you a good view…tip her generously else she might not accompany you home tonight”. I didn’t know who turned redder…the guy at the table or the waitress. There were many such jokes through the night which kept the audience hooked. It is so amazing how this guy could talk instantaneous nonsense for two hours and it still seemed hilarious.

We wanted the show to go on forever but alas… all things come to an end…and so did this after a couple of hours of entertainment. We waved him goodbye and thanked him for having made our day and a lot more days ahead and took a taxi back to Davis.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

CHAPTER 17- WWE AND NBA LIVE IN SACRAMENTO

CHAPTER 17- WWE AND NBA LIVE IN SACRAMENTO

I also went to Sacramento a couple of times again that quarter, to watch some sporting and entertainment events. First was the WWE RAW event at the Arco arena. I haven’t really been a big WWE follower and I had always found the whole setup quite silly. But I was curious about it nonetheless. I was interested in seeing the event live, to understand why a lot of people were total WWE fanatics. Also we would all have a lot of fun.

A visibly excited MS and AZ, Dwarak, Jakki, JB and I set out that evening and got into the arena and found the atmosphere electric. There were about 10000 people there and each one was screaming on top of his/her voice. I also got into the mood and started screaming random stuff, though I didn’t even know all the wrestlers names and their ‘history’. Most of the superstars were there including Cena, Edge, Orton, Jericho, Kane, Mysterio.

To see them wrestle looked totally artificial, I must say. Some wrestlers started falling and reacting even before their opponent's punch landed on them. I noticed one such anomaly when Jericho hit Cena and chuckled, only to be greeted by a dirty stare from a couple of bouncer-like guys, who could’ve thrown me all the way into the ring from the stands, with one hand. They were Cena fans and probably thought I had chuckled to express my happiness seeing Cena get beaten. I decided to keep my thoughts to myself after that if I wanted to return home in one piece.

In another match, the self-proclaimed world’s strongest man, Mark Henry (he was huuuuge…must have been some 2000 kgs and about 7 feet tall) was beating up Mysterio and a pint size kid (he was one third my height) of about 10 sitting beside me, stood up on his seat and screamed “Henry…you bas****…you leave him alone or I ll come and throw you out of the ring”. I didn’t know how to react. Henry could’ve pushed him two rows back with his little finger. But from his voice, I could see he meant every word of it. That’s how passion transcends barriers like age and size. Though it was a good enjoyable one time experience, now that the curiosity is fulfilled, I wouldn’t pay to watch another WWE event again.

Another time, I went for an NBA match at the Arco arena. I badly wanted to watch the Lakers play in Sacramento as I am a lakers supporter but they weren’t to come until after I left for India. So I decided to watch the team where one of my favorite players, Lebron James plays- Cleveland Cavaliers. The cavaliers were to come to Sacramento to play against the Sacramento Kings, who are nowadays called only the Kings nowadays as they are an potential embarrassment to the capital city if they carry its name. They were last in the western conference, and by a large margin. The cavaliers were comfortably on top of the eastern conference table and if they got a win here, they would be through to the playoffs. It was also an important game for Lebron personally because he had been in the form of his life lately and had got 3 triple-doubles back to back. Were he to get one more, he would be the first player in the NBA ever to do that.

I had to go solo, as the others weren’t really interested in basketball. Without a second thought, I bravely took the yolobus and changed twice to get there to the Arco arena, having just directions from Google maps and with no idea how I was going to get back after the match as it would be late. It didn’t matter at that time. All that mattered was seeing Lebron in action.

So, asking a lot of people on the way for directions and advice, I finally got to the arco arena and took my seat. It was a really exciting atmosphere, with a full house of about 15000 people. I talked to a few people before the match and everyone was just wondering by how many points the Kings would get thrashed and not about the result.

It was one hell of a game though. It started on totally unexpected lines, with the kings getting a 15 point lead at the end of the first quarter. At halftime, they managed to increase the lead further to about 25 points. Everyone was stunned, from the players of both teams, to every person in the crowd. The Kings were growing in confidence and the crowd was cheering louder too sensing something special here. After all it had been 7 games since the Kings had won a match and to win against the best team of the eastern conference with the best player in the world, it would be special indeed.

I was discussing the game with the girl beside me and said it looked like it’s going to be a comfortable win for the Kings, she looked at me with a twinkle in the eye and asked me if that was the first time to a kings game. I told her it was so and she said that explains why I do not know about the Kings. She told me “Mark my words. The kings can really perform miracles no other team can. Like losing from this position”. I was like “No way. 25 points is too much of a lead to make up”.

The game got underway again and the kings left off where they started. They were playing like they were possessed, banking on the now-excited crowd's backing and also the DJ’s music. Yes that’s one thing I noticed which was really unique about the NBA. They have a DJ and play with the music on. That also works to the advantage of the home team, as the DJ plays adrenaline pumping music when the home team has the ball and droning music when the away team does. I guess the sounds you hear affect your tempo and rhythm. So it’s better for the away players to wear earplugs while travelling.

Towards the end of the fourth quarter, the cavaliers went on a 12-2 run, thanks to a few three pointers by Lebron. So with the momentum with the cavaliers but a 15 point lead with the kings, the 3^rd quarter ended. I still thought it was way too much to make up in the second quarter, unless the kings play real real badly and go on something like a 0-15 streak.

And that’s exactly what happened. Suddenly, where there were ferocious warriors battling for the kings, there seemed to be clueless amateurs ball watching as Lebron and co started steamrolling their way to the basket. With 30 seconds to go, Lebron hit a 3 pointer to make his tally go to 40 and draw the cavaliers level. The kings messed up their final shot at the basket, with a bad pass which was intercepted and it was end of time. The score was tied 102-102.

I was shocked at how the kings had thrown it away and got a “see…I told you” look from the girl beside me. In the overtime, as expected, it was the cavaliers all the way and they won the game with a 10 point lead. To have been 25 up at halftime and lose a game by ten points, I have to say no other team could do that. Hail the kings for the miracles they can perform. Lebron ended with 56 points and some of the best three pointers and dribbles and tricks and dunks and alley-oops I have ever witnessed. I was lucky to have been there.

I looked down at my watch and it was 10 pm. I was totally panicked as the last yolobus to Davis would be at 1030 in downtown. I ran out of the stadium, pushing the already dejected Kings fans, hearing their trailing curses, but not registering in my state of panic. Thankfully, I got a cab as soon as I went outside and asked him to go as fast as he could to downtown. He told me we just might make it in time, if the traffic wasn’t too heavy. Luckily it wasn’t and we reached at 1020. I gave the driver a generous tip and got down relieved and waited at the deserted bus stop.

I remembered the last time I was in Sacramento and realized what a foolhardy thing it was to have come all the way here on my own relying only on public transport. I thanked my stars when the bus came and I got onto it and I was finally in known territory. I came home happy with my day’s adventure but knowing I shouldn’t act so brave and take such risks.

CHAPTER 16- LAKE TAHOE- SKIING AND SOME SCENERY GAZING

CHAPTER 16- LAKE TAHOE- SKIING AND SOME SCENERY GAZING

It was in the middle of the quarter that we decided we ought to the one other place we had been wanting to go every since we came to Davis- Lake Tahoe. It was a frozen lake just 80 miles north of Davis, which was very scenic and had ski resorts and the best time to see it was December to February and so we decided it was now or never. The 5 of us who were interested in going (JB, Dwarak, Varun, Jakki and I) rented a car and started very early in the morning, heavily dressed for the cold. I was really excited as it was the first time I was going to see and feel and even ski in snow.

We had driven for about an hour and there was still no sight of snow. We could feel the wind chilling a bit but considering we had another 30 miles only to our destination, which was to be snow covered mountains and a frozen lake, it was bizarre that we hadn’t caught sight of any snow. After double-checking if we were on the right track, we continued on and noticed that the wind had chilled suddenly and another two minutes of driving led us to our first sight of snow. It was beautiful to see white flakes on the black tar on the road ahead of us.

Another two minutes of driving…and voila…we couldn’t see any color other than white all around us. All the greenery and earth had been covered with snow. It was a majestic sight to look around you and see only white. Soon the road began climbing and we realized we were on the snow capped mountains now. After sometime we could see the ground below, all covered in beautiful white.

We reached our first destination, the ski resort in a few minutes from then, and got down from the car and wore every layer of clothing we had brought with us. We needed it. I stepped into the snow for the first time in my life and it was initially a weird feeling. It was about 5 inches deep and it was pretty difficult to walk initially. It was similar to walking on sand on a beach, only this was a good 3 inches thicker. We went into the resort and collected our gear. It was a huge struggle to wear the snow boots. They were humungously heavy. Each boot must have weighed at least 5 kgs(whatever that is in lbs- I am still used to the SI system). It was such a struggle to walk with that. We were handicapped the whole way from the gear closet to the open, as our movement was restricted by these boots and we were also carrying other stuff like the skiing rods. After losing balance countless times and bumping into loads of people, we finally got out into the open and the sight dazzled us. Literally. Everything in front of us was vulgarly white. There was so much white light reflected by the snow all around us that we had to close our eyes and open them gradually to get accustomed to it. It was like waking up from sleep and the first thing you look at is the sun. No wonder serious skiers wear goggles.

Once our eyes got accustomed to the light, we looked around to see lots of snow covered hills of all heights and of all steepness around us. There were at least 500 people skiing in that resort at that time. We wore the skis on our boots and we realized we were even more paralyzed that before. It was impossible to lift our legs and walk. And it was impossible to move uphill with the skis which dug into the snow. And we were too scared to go downhill, as we didn’t know how to control it. And so we stayed put, watching other people, including kids as young as 6-7 years ski down the steepest slopes. We felt retarded.

Finally the ski instructor came down to us and our crash course in skiing started. There is so much technique involved in skiing, some quite difficult to master. Your legs need to be bent at the right angle to have proper control when you ski downhill. And your feet should be relaxed. When you want to stop, you have to do what is called the pizza formation with your legs, where you join the thumbs of both your toes and maintain a 30 degree angle. Not more, not less. You do one of these things wrong, and you ll end up falling, as we realized the hard way. When you want to turn right while skiing, you need to wiggle the toes of your right foot and for turning left, your left foot. There was so much concentration necessary.

The initial lessons were quite easy but when we went to do the real thing, we realized how hard it was. Concentration and relaxation is preceded by instinct when you are racing downhill and so you often end up doing one thing wrong and that is enough to make you do a somersault and fall a few yards away, head down and feet up. The worst thing was not the fall. It was the recovery from it. It was really hard to get back up on your feet, with such heavy boots and skis which give you no control. And once you get back up, if you don’t get your feet into the pizza formation, you are likely to plummet downhill again and fall.

I must have fallen at least a hundred times (no juxaggeration) and it is a wonder that I had no bones broken. Each fall propelled me to try more and fall again, after attaining a greater velocity. The longest I managed to stay on my feet was for about 20 seconds down a 60 degree inclined hill and I remember that achievement not for the good amount of time I managed to maintain balance but for the fall I had at a 40 kmph speed I must have attained. I tried to steer right, for which I had to wiggle the toes of my right foot alone and being the symmetry freak (guys who know me will understand this), I couldnt get myself to do that and so I wiggled the toes of both my feet simultaneously and as they say, the rest is history. I must have been at least 5 seconds in the air (which is a long time) and landed at least 20 metres from the point I started flying. Ouch. It sure hurt! It is funny how snow flakes, which are on its own so soft, combine to form a lump of snow which is as hard as stone (and seems harder as your body is numb in the cold). It is analogous to how, in a situation where one individual may be ineffective in performing a task, a team of individuals can accomplish the same task. In that way, the snow teamed up to give amateur skiers like me a ‘hard’ time. Pun intended.

But finally after 4-5 hrs of skiing, I think I got the hang of it and I could keep myself on my feet over a whole downhill path. Dwarak got really good at it though, almost looked like a pro towards the end. Varun didn’t really take to the snow as he would to a guitar and hence was branded ‘grandma’ by the ski instructor (:P). Knowing that our bodies would be aching all over but not even able to feel it because of the numbness due to the cold, we called it a day and returned our gear and warmed ourselves. Only then we started feeling the pain from all the bones which had taken a beating. It was like coming back from a dentist after a tooth extraction and feeling the pain after the anesthetic wears off.

We then drove to the lake, which was about 20 miles from there. I got down from the car and I was greeted by what was the most beautiful sight I have ever taken into my eyes. This was what would be justifiable usage of the often overused expression ‘picture-perfect’. Imagine this scenery. You are standing on snow. Right in front of you is a vast expanse of a frozen lake, where the ice forms a single sheet which reflects light at you like a mirror. In front of the lake which seems to stretch forever are mountains. Snow capped ones, where the snow on their peaks makes them look like a vanilla cream garnished dessert. Behind them, you can see the sky, in its purest blue. And behind that, the sun peaking out of the mountains completes the picture. It was breathtakingly beautiful. You could stare at that one scenery all day. It was so hypnotizing.

We played around on the banks making a snowman and taking pictures and then decided it was time to leave.

Rather reluctantly, we went to our car and drove back home. It had been one hell of a day. The aftermath was also hell, but in a different way. The next three days, we couldn’t move a muscle as an effect of all the beating our bones had taken while skiing. But it was worth every bit of that pain.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

MY EXPERIENCES IN CALIFORNIA : Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11- SAN DIEGO BEACH ADVENTURE AND ZOO

We slept for 12 hrs that night and got up the next morning and had a late breakfast and headed to San Diego on the car. It was only a couple of hours drive but it was one helluva drive, as it was totally along the coast. We could smell the sea and feel the moisture when we opened our windows and could almost hear the thumping of the waves on the rocks and the beach amidst the quiet roar (a quiet roar is oxymoronic while describing anything except good cars, which is a complement to them) of our Chrysler 300 engine.

We found our hotel, Holiday Inn and checked in and it was awsome hotel, right by the harbor. We could see the sea right from our room window and it was one hell of a sight. We felt relaxed mentally. We decided the best way to sight see San Diego was to laze around, as it was a city meant for that. We had some places on our list to go to and we would go with the plan but at a relaxed pace, unlike LA.

We lounged around for a couple of hrs in the afternoon and then started for the nearest beach at about 6 pm. It was getting dark by the time we got to that area. As we drove towards the beach, the lights from the shops seemed dimmer and dimmer, and the roads got narrower and narrower, and the people seemed shadier and shadier. We hesitated a bit to go further but then we thought… what the hell…lets see what this side of the US is all about. We parked the car at what seemed to be a car park, only that it seemed more like all the cars there seemed out of some dump yard. We headed towards the beach, noticing that all the shops were shady salons and bars where almost everyone seemed to have a ruffled look and sneer on their faces and the sneer seemed pronounced when they took in the sight of 5 nervous Indian tourists walking their streets. We could see a few shabbily dressed whores on the street winking at passers-by. We could see some people, just lounging on the road, who looked to be drug sellers, talking in low voices to people.

We went past all these people to get a sight of the beach. It was dark at that time but we could make out enough to see that it was quite deserted. Or was it? There was a gang of about 10 well-built people we could see, who would fit the definition of the gangsta typically described in Hollywood movies. And they had with them…..on a leash….a dog. We were first perplexed by this. Anyone, who just saw 10 of the scariest looking men, taking a dog on a stroll by the beach would be perplexed. After sometime we realized, they were waiting for someone. We put two and two together and concluded there was going to be a ferocious dog fight here between two gangs that night. The gang whose dog kills the other dog is granted some favor by the other gang.

Some of us were (including me) excited by this and thought it would be a good spectacle to watch, especially considering there was a good chance someone may take a gun out of his jacket and just shoot us dead for nothing. But then sense prevailed and we decided to scram from there. We just turned around and walked towards the car, when a giant of a guy stopped us. We thought the game was up and he was gonna set his gang upon us or rob us or worse, but then he asked us if we wanted some weed. We refused his offer and walked away, as he mouthed some expletives at us. We breathed a sigh of relief to find our car intact and just drove out of that area as quickly as we could. We could relax only after we went to the more secure parts of the city.

Disappointed at not having been able to set foot on the beach but more than content with our adventure that night, we had dinner and went to our rooms. This side of the US is not seen unless you go to the right places and we were really happy to have experienced that. Now AZ’s birthday was also that night and so to give him a “surprise”, JD ‘n I kept him out of the room trying to distract him by playing soccer with the ball we had brought, in the lawns of the hotel and forcing a couple of toilet breaks, just to ensure he wouldn’t go to the room where MS and JB would smuggle a b’day cake after buying it and hide it so that we could surprise him at midnight. It looked really retarded for JD and me to play our parts, dragging AZ along with us to satisfy our sudden “desire” to play football in the night outside. He would’ve guessed something was up for sure, nonetheless we did our part. We “surprised” him at midnight, though we all knew he was wide awake and knew what was going on. Still… we were all sports. So we had a nice little celebration, feasting on a delicious cake and some b’day bumps. We had some badushah (curse you JB :x for having disclosed the meaning of the codeword on your blog) too for the sweetness ;) . So we all went to sleep quite late.

The next morning, we got up very late (at about 9 am), considering what we had planned for the day. Well, we actually woke up early but then our laziness didn’t make us get up. My alarm rang at 7 am and I woke up and silenced it. I turned towards JB, who was sleeping next to me and I could see him shut his eyes quickly as I looked at him. I then closed my eyes thinking a couple more minutes of sleep won’t make a difference. I lay awake for the next 5 minutes and though it was high time we all woke up, but didn’t want to take the initiative. I opened my eyes and lay on the bed when I sensed JB also open his and look towards me. I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to be sleeping. Had two of us seen each other awake, we would be weighted by logic and would take the initiative to get up, which means I couldn’t lounge longer on the bed. So I didn’t want to be among the first ones to take the initiative to get up and wake the others. I later discovered that was exactly on JB’s mind too. And AZ’s too. And probably the other two too. So we basically had been all awake on the bed, pretending to the others to be asleep so that we could laze around on the bed longer. A couple of hours passed like this and finally at about 9 am, JB, AZ and I (un)fortunately opened our eyes at the same time and there was no excuse this time. So we got up in a jiffy and woke the other two.

We knew we were running really late, as we had planned to step out of the hotel at 8 am max. After all, we needed one whole day to visit the largest zoo in the world and the national park and take its numerous safaris. As we had just one bathroom, it took us about 11 am to step out of the hotel and so we had to modify our plans as the national park was 20 miles from the zoo in the other direction. So we had to choose between them. That was a tricky choice but we finally choose to see the zoo because it was really famous and had some animals no other zoo in the world would have and it was closer by about 15 miles to the hotel and we knew the way.

In the now pouring rain, we reached the zoo in half an hour and decided there was no point in waiting for the rain to stop and so walked into the zoo in the rain. It was pretty deserted because of the weather. We looked at the map of the zoo, and it was huuuge. We decided to take the motorized tour of the zoo and it took an hour for the van to go all around the zoo, that’s how massive it was. By the time we got down from the van, we had an idea of the layout of the zoo. So, with zoo maps in hand, braving the rain, we went to visit the animals we had picked out. We must have walked about 10 miles in the zoo in the next 3-4 hours, during which we covered about 50 percent of the zoo.

The stand-out animals, which might not be seen anywhere else were the panda and the polar bear. Yeah that’s right. A real polar bear. The name polar bear itself suggests that it lives only in the poles. But hey… this zoo had one. It was housed in a huge 1 acre glass enclosure, in which the polar habitat had been simulated with caves ad polar vegetation and optimum temperatures. It was really exciting to see an animal, which only the explorers who explored the poles would generally see, right in front of us. It looked so majestic- so large and ferocious but it looked friendly too. I guess it was the white color of its fur that gave a friendly harmless look. Our mind always associates mild colors like white to be non-violent and peaceful unlike brown or black which are associated with violence. It seemed to me that if there were no glass enclosure, it would run to me and hug me. A bear-hug it would be too. Good thing I couldn’t try it… cos it might have had other ideas….

We then went to the part of the zoo when another attraction was housed. That was the panda. It was sooo cute. Cute is a term often overused and misused by most girls, but this is one time I would totally agree with any girl who might have called this cute. It was black with white patches in its body. There has never been a time after that where I felt it would be amazing to have one as a pet. Alas… they are protected animals and I was lucky to have had the opportunity to see one at least.

Due to the lousy weather, it grew dark as early as 5 pm and the zoo was closing down. We did some souvenir shopping, where I got a stuffed panda, which was so soft and fluffy that I even toyed with the idea of hugging it in bed(:D), much to the disgust of AZ, who was barbarous to the poor thing all the time (:x).

We went back to the hotel and made some rice, with the rice cooker we had brought from Davis (lol…look how planned we were), because we realized we had spending a lot and we could save up on this at least and so we had some curd rice. I then hit the hay, with regret on my mind for the first time in that trip, because after having come this far, we couldn’t get to see the wildlife sanctuary, due to purely our laziness and stubbornness in not getting up that morning. That is the only thing which I would want to change if given the opportunity in the otherwise perfect trip. But I guess that was one of those times our physical fatigue won over our mental willingness to make the maximum of the trip.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

MY EXPERIENCES IN CALIFORNIA : Chapter 10

SPOILER ALERT: If you ever plan to visit Universal studios in the near future, you would be advised to skip reading this post because I have described a few of its rides. It would spoil the suspense if you knew about the rides before you embarked on them.

CHAPTER 10: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

We were really tired after the last two grueling days, where we would’ve walked at least 15 miles in total, but then we were really excited to go to the parts of LA that everyone knows about- Hollywood. We breakfasted in the hotel and drove into LA in its heavy morning rush hour traffic, further compounded by the rain pouring down.

We got to Universal studios in an hour and entered inside. The weather was pretty gloomy and that cheerfulness of Disneyland wasn’t quite there in Universal studious but there was plenty to look forward to.

We first went to the horror house, which we realized we would find silly if we don’t act scared and get into it, which is the mistake we did in Disneyland and so found it lame. Sometimes, when you convince your mind something is going to be a particular way, then however it actually is, your mind would look at it from angles to make it appear the way you convinced yourself it would look. And this strategy worked, and we enjoyed it a lot as we found quite a few things scary. Mummies, and ghouls, and ghosts, and banshees, and Frankensteins and so many other creatures tried to scare us all and the way the five of us ran from them and pushed and jumped into each other, reminded me of Scooby doo and his pals.

Then we went to the Jurassic park ride. It was a rollercoaster through Jurassic with many dinosaurs popping up at the sides. They were quite realistic and their roars were quite scary. But nothing could have prepared us for the final part where the cart went to a height and we were going to plummet into water and as we were going down with full speed, a tyrannosaurus appeared out of the water and opened its mouth wide and we just went scraping the dinosaur. That was pretty thrilling.

Then we went to the Mummy ride, which was a 4D ride in some ways. It was again a rollercoaster ride, where we travelled through many a dark cave and seeing mummies and sphinxes popping up. Finally the cart stopped abruptly at one point and when our eyes got adjusted to the darkness, we saw that we were confronted by a cave wall in front. Then suddenly the wall opened and we could see a lot of rats scram out (a la Mummy movie). Just at the point where they should’ve been under our carts, we could suddenly get a ticklish feeling on our feet as if rats were really going past us. It was an eerie feeling, and being the reptile-phobic person that I am, I almost squealed and tried to force their legs upwards. Then suddenly the wall closed and our cart went backwards full speed, retracing the path it had taken to get there. That was really unique, as it was the first rollercoaster that I had been on which went backwards. After a lot of screaming, we got out of the cart dizzy.

Then we went to the ride, which when I think about still gives me the goose bumps. Those 5 minutes on that ride would undoubtedly be the best 5 minutes in my life. That was the Simpsons ride! I wasn’t looking to the ride as much because I was not exactly the biggest Simpsons fan around. That would be JB. He was a huge Simpsons freak, who has been following the series for over 10 years (I guess he started watching it when he was about 10 before which he used to watch only BAYWATCH as a kid… what an innocent kid!!!). He was as thrilled at seeing the ride as I would be if I were at Old Trafford watching Manchester United play. So we went in and sat on a small cart, which accommodated 8 people in two rows. Suddenly everything around us became dark and what happened after that cannot be described by words. You have to be there to know the feeling. I’ll try to put it into words though. Suddenly the world around us transformed into Krustyland. We could see tracks on which our cart stood and there were so many Simpsons characters around us in 3D. I was sure if I jumped out of the cart I could touch them but when I peeped out of the cart, I could see that the tracks our cart was on was high above the ground. I sat back into my seat securely, not knowing how long I would be plummeting if I fell. Suddenly the cart started moving, and it took us through Krustyland, where many characters like Bart, Homer, Apu interacted with us at different junctures. Suddenly Krusty came to the track ahead of us and blew up a part of it and our cart plummeted to the ground for a few seconds before another track caught us and we continued. It was so realistic that I really felt like a character in Krustyland. Our cart stopped and it became dark again and only when the lights were switched on, I realized we were actually on a ride in Universal studios.

I studied the surroundings and the cart and realization dawned upon us that we had actually been sitting on a stable cart which could just rotate 360 degrees. The walls, floor, ceiling were actually massive screens on which images of Krustyland would be projected. Tracks would be projected to the floor to make it appear to us as if our cart was on the track and the whole picture was moving backward to make it appear as if we are moving forward. When we plummeted down, our cart would have rotated 90 degrees towards the floor. The whole thing was so well coordinated that we totally fell for it. I knew about tears of joy and tears of sorrow but at that moment what tears of disbelief meant when it formed in my eyes. I was goose-pimpled from head to toe. It was such cutting-edge virtual reality that the name virtual reality is demeaning to describe it- it was REAL.

It took us a few minutes to recover from the shock of having experienced such a wonderful ride. We then went outside and posed for pictures with the whole Simpsons family. JB was almost in tears at the end of all this. I was quite overwhelmed too, not being a big follower of the show, so I don’t blame him.

Then we grabbed some lunch and went to the terminator 4D show. It was a reenactment of terminator scenes, with an Arnold-lookalike riding a huge bike and carrying guns and blowing up the bad guys et al. It was rather disappointing. Then we went to the Shrek 4D show, which was really cool. We were given 3D glasses and we followed the 3D Shrek and his comrades on their adventures on screen, only that when it rained on the screen, water fell on us etc. That’s why it was called 4D.

We also went for a guided tour of Universal studios where we were taken through lots of sets used in real Hollywood films. We were shown a real film simulation of car explosions, of artificial floods etc. It was a great experience.

Sets from the movie "Psycho"

A car used in the movie "Animal House" "Psycho" moving with his dagger

SETS FROM "THE FAST AND FURIOUS"

SIMULATION OF AN EXPLOSION IN THE MOVIE

SETS FROM "JAWS"

SIMULATION OF A RAIN AND A FLOOD

A BOEING CRASH SET

After that, JD and I got our caricatures made by a couple of artists there. It came out pretty well, though it wasn’t as exaggerated as a caricature should be. It was more of a portrait, but then I am not complaining as it was something to remember the place by. At about 4 o clock, we left Universal studios thoroughly satisfied. We had more places to visit that night.

We then drove along the streets of the part of LA that the whole world knows about- Beverly Hills and Hollywood. We drove to Sunset blvd, the LA traffic nicely negotiated by MS who had was driving with as much ease as a guy who would have been driving there for years and parked our car in the car park of a big shopping mall. We had to note down every detail of where we had parked it, lest we can’t locate where we put it amidst the thousands of cars parked there. We walked out of the mall, which was easily the largest I had been to, and it was one of the average sized malls there apparently. We walked onto the streets and it was drizzling.

We walked on the street for sometime before reaching sunset blvd, where we walked on the famous starred path, where the name of a celebrity was engraved on each star-shaped stone on the pavement. We saw the names of most of the famous Hollywood actors, actresses, producers, directors, and any other famous person in their tinsel town.

LMAO!!!!!!!!!! Of all the celebs!!!

There was also another thing we realized- how different and unrepresentative Davis was to the US cities. In Davis, pedestrians are given first priority and even if a car is speeding at 80 mph, if they see a pedestrian standing on a crossroad, they’ll brake to a halt and ask the pedestrian to cross. Only when the pedestrian is safely across the road, will the car take off. I guess the people who are in minority are often considered maybe even respected in any society and that was the case here as a guy in a car wouldn’t see and thereby have to stop for more than a few pedestrians every day, most of who would be Indian students like us, with a negative income (L), who couldn’t afford a car. It wasn’t like in India where most of the people are pedestrians and if cars stopped to let them cross, there would be no moving traffic at all at any crossroad. Having been this “elite” class of pedestrians the past 4 months in Davis, we were used to the respect and expecting that in LA too, we just tried to cross a road even when a car was speeding towards us in the distance expecting him to give us the respect and apply his brakes. But alas… he might have accelerated harder even but he never slowed down, and so we jumped back to the safety of the pavement as he sped past us at 60 mph, adding insult to injury by honking, thereby getting us dirty looks from our fellow pedestrians. We realized not to take things for granted from then on, as this was alien territory for us.

We then found the famous Hollywood wax museum and went in. There were many amazing wax statues of so many of our favorite Hollywood stars. After lots of pictures, including one with Marilyn Monroe in her most famous pose, revealing the mystery as to where the wind which blew her skirts came from (J), one with Hugh Hefner paying tribute to him for what he was, and many more with our favorites, we came out of there.

PROPOSING TO ANGELINA JEDI KARTHIK

It was already about 9 pm and we realized we had hardly had any food the whole day and being really far from our hotel, not knowing if we could find our way back through the complicated streets of LA, we started from there after getting some souvenirs, giving other places like Ripley’s believe it or not and Guinness records studios a skip. We found our car and made a couple of wrong turns on the streets and found ourselves lost a couple of times. It is not like India where you could stop our car on the main road and get down and ask some pedestrians how to go. There are basically 3 problems with that. One: you cannot simply pull over on the side of the main road as cars would be using all the lanes and if we pull over, someone is bound to ram into us at 60 mph, especially considering how rash LA drivers were. Two: even if you manage to pull over and get down and go to the pavement, you cannot ask pedestrians for the simple reason that there won’t be any. All the people who venture out have cars. You could drive for hours and you wouldn’t come across more than a handful of pedestrians if you were lucky. After all cars are dirt cheap there, why wouldn’t everyone have a car. A second hand good-condition Toyota corolla could be bought for about 5k $. Add to that the cheap gasoline rates. And the US transport system encourages you to have a car, because without one you simply can’t get anywhere as there aren’t too many buses or trains connecting places. Well…anyway… Third: even if you do miraculously manage to find a pedestrian, he would in all probability be an Indian tourist and he would be as lost as you. Even if it were someone who had lived in the city for long, he would run at the sight of a car pulling up by his side or he may even take a gun out of his jacket and gun you down, fearing attack as such sights are quite common in some parts of a rough city like LA. So logic told us not to pull up even if meant we had to drive for hours finding our way. Fortunately, thanks to the GPS we had, and the maps we had printed out and our cartography skills, we found our way after sometime and got back to the hotel and had dinner there and went to bed thoroughly satisfied with our trip of LA, knowing we would have to go the next day to San Diego. We were tired, really tired after 4 days of 6 hrs sleep a night and continuous touring. We decided to make the second leg of the trip a relaxed one.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)