National Geographic Magazine - the bucket list generator!

In the late nineties, my cousin in the US gave a subscription to the National Geographic Magazine. The very first few issues that we got blew our minds. One was about the Serengeti National park. It is still being talked about in the house. The pictures, the occasional map that was packed inside the magazine, the posters, the big official looking certificate that stated that I was now an explorer.. not to mention the fact that the mail was actually addressed to me.. priceless!

That membership lasted two years and it was a window to the world for me and my brother! 

One of the things I learned in that magazine was that there was such a thing as a glasswing butterfly with transparent wings. It was to be found near a natural wonder of the world called Iguazu falls. 

Many years later I ended up in the US and got my own subscription to the bucket list generator magazine! There is a long list of places I told myself that would be visited in this lifetime. After getting married the wife was told about this long list of items. She was not aware of most these places. The kids would shake their head and go "no wonder you two are married.. there is nothing in common between you two! Appa raves about all these places and you have never heard of them!". Needless to say, when it came time to visit any of these places, the kids would give excuses to bail and it was my darling wife that would actually force them to come and also plan the entire thing.

She got tired of me mentioning Iguazu. She did her research, found that this was in the middle of the amazon jungle, part of this visit involved a boat tour that was dangerous, vegetarian food there was going to be a challenge and there were insect bites to deal with (which was a strict no no for the little one). In spite of all this, she did an amazing job booking everything. There were a few last minute twists but we handled them well as a collective, given our last day in Greece during Labor day!

This is going to be a series of blog posts on this trip to Iguazu.. as an added bonus, given we don't visit this part of the world that often, we decided to go to Rio to see "Christ the Redeemer" as well as the world famous beaches there. Then there was Buenos Aires, our first stop before flying into Iguazu at the Brazil Argentina border. 

Given my status as a frequent flyer is questionable, we had to go a week early. The kids were not thrilled with a 9 day international trip the day after they got back home from college. We had both taken the week off before Christmas to beat the crowds and it was a good move, except having to spend Christmas in the southern hemisphere where it is summer and it is not exactly festive like in the northern hemisphere. A summer Christmas is intersting! You start feeling bad for the mall Santa in 95 degree heat!

We made it back from South America in one piece and in good health. A new years party took some of us out. My throat is still recovering and I could not even speak for a few days last week. Thinks are just slowly getting back to normal. 

Word of caution to bay area peeps. Start wearing masks and sanitizing hands again! Did take the covid and flu shots in October. Know this is not COVID or flu but some other respiratory virus that takes aim at the throat. Trying to sing songs I like did not help either (given I sing them 50 times back to back till a version clicks). 

Right now all I can do is type.. hence the blogging to distract myself!

The travelogs follow..

Fun fact: We did not see the glasswing butterfly during this trip.. but we did see the falls in all its glory. Jr. and myself made it to the "Devil's throat" within the falls, which was the real core of that bucket list item!

A very different 60 day challenge

Most of you who know me, have seen this once a year post around the end of March about the 60 day yoga challenge. 

BYSJ organizes two of these challenges a year. The winter challenge where you sign up on any day between Jan 1st to 14th and do 60 classes in 60 days (ideally without missing a day, and if you do miss because of unavoidable reasons, do two classes on another day to make up for it). A similar challenge in Summer with same rules. 

This is my 13th year of doing Yoga and this was my 13th 60 day challenge. My family doesn't try to stop me from doing this challenge anymore. They know I somehow manage to finish it and I am usually happy doing the challenge.

Given my MIL has been a big part of my yoga journey, it was always sad to hear her say "want to try and finish this challenge at least once in this lifetime!". She is usually here only after Pongal which is Jan 14th and leaves for Seattle after two three weeks. I don't sign up in summer because of travel and other commitments.

This year, she came early just for the challenge. Had promised her that someone (me, San or the little one who is not so little anymore) will drive her to class for those 60 days if both me and San decide to skip yoga. Given that assurance, she signed up.

For the most part all three of us would go to class. The folks at the studio were very happy to see a car load of folks come to class. Then we went to Alaska on a whim to take care of my wife's bucket list item. One bucket was larger than the other bucket.. or whatever.. fortunately MIL managed to do a couple of Livestream classes when we were gone. Funny thing is that when we got back and I had to do three doubles over the weekends to make up, she joined me! It was not easy for her, but she did. 

While she makes claims that it is not the same thing doing something at 50 vs 70, my take is that age has nothing to do with it. You do what you can and I think she actually gets more out of the yoga than I do and probably does a better job in most classes given the cards she has been dealt. 

Usually it is just a logistics challenge for me but as fate would have it, banged my knee twice on the same day. The last 10 days of the challenge were really tough with the injured knee. Still went ahead and did everything I posisbly could in the hot room every day.

Finished the challenge on March 1st and my MIL also finished it last week!  San did 54 classes in the 60 days but she refused to do any doubles on a matter of principle. She has done one challenge before and apparently that is enough for her. She was happy to cheer the two of us to finish. How she can let it go is where we see that she is a better yogi than me. 

The knee is not swelling anymore but I cannot do tree pose standing on my left leg and have difficulty doing suptavajrasana and the third part of awkward pose. These involve bending the knee inwards towards the other knee or folding it and rotating it out. Given it is better, my teachers still recomended I get an x-ray or get it checked out. So have an Ortho appointment this week. For almost all things that ail me mentally or physically, have used the yoga to recover over the last 12+ years.  Going to see what the diagonsis is. Just because you do yoga, doesn't mean you should bang your knee against car license plate holders and expect to come out okay!

We did celebrate after the challenge with a dinner at Chaat house! Got to share a few words at the Challenge party in hopes that if we can do it, others who are thinking of giving this a try, will actually go for it.

The one thing folks tell me all the time is this.. "Sundar, you do the same yoga everyday.. day after day, year after year.. you do this 60 day challenge every year.. and say you learn something new.. you must be really inattentive or dumb to learn something new in what you do all the time!" 

While it is true that the class is the same day after day, my body and mind are not. As different parts of my body get stronger or weaker, more or less rigid or flexible over time, and my mind gets better at listening to the instruction and internalizing it instead of being in zombie mode, there is new learning! All the time!

Going regularly back to back for long periods of time gives you a heightened sense of awareness of changes happening in your body and we get a chance to remember how we did what we did differently(better)!

My friend Arash summarized it beautifully. He said in the language of Buddists.. which we all learn as kids. Ther is Buddha, Dharma and Sanga. 

Buddham charanam gachchaami, sangam charanam gachchaami! 

Teachers are our gods here! The Dharma is the fact that they stay true to a hard 90 minute yoga practice and the community that is there at BYSJ is truly what makes us keep coming back.

We heard a lot of folks share their amazing journey and stories at the challenge party. You can check those out on the BYSJ website and other social media. A video of what we shared with folks..

As long as there are not major setbacks, will try to keep going to yoga, try 60 day challenge every year and try to keep this body and mind as optimized as possible to deal with everything the outside world throws at me.

Sangeetha says I am still a work in progress and even today she was trying to "knock some sense into me" with little success. For all that, there is progress. Slow but sure progress.

Strongly recommend you try yoga if you are on the fence. They say "do this for 30 days, it will change your body, do it 60 days in a row and it will change your mind". Can attest to it!

Here's to BYSJ for continuing to improve and transform people's lives, year after year, one challenge after another!

A big congrats to all who signed up and gave it their everything (finishing is a different story, signing up is the hard part!) and a special congrats to my MIL for being a great example and role model for yogis out there.

Very proud of her for finishing the challenge and showing up to class on day 61 !!!

Auroravukku aroogaraa!!!

It has been a little over 2 months since I turned 50. After my 35th birthday, a bunch of people reminded me of my "mid life" point. Basic math then suggested that they expected me to live to 70 or thereabouts. A few months ago, was told that it is time to start doing things on the "bucket list" as this is a mid life point. On the one hand was happy to see that the logic of midlife had extended the 70 to past 70, but was also sad to see this bucket business. 

I am just happy on a 6 feet by 2 feet yoga mat (with at least an extra 3 feet on either side where my hands are, just to do a few yoga asanas that require stretching my hands out like an airplane). The idea of trying to list just a few things to go see or do, within a time frame seems to extend the rat race to outside of work and on to retired life and that did not sit well with me. All that said, I love to travel and will gladly experience new places. 

One thing that both me and San have wanted to see together in this lifetime is the Northern lights (Aurora Borealis). Our past plans were fails. Our friend in Iceland sees this from her window and has been asking us to visit, but we couldn't make a plan to go yet given other things that keep coming up. So we jumped at a chance to do a weekend trip to Alaska to see the lights. 

Going to the arctic circle in Feb to see the lights and back over a weekend, especially where you get two chances over two days (in case day 1 was a dud) was a good plan. We just had to take a Friday afternoon and Monday off. So far so good..

For the second time within a year we heard this statement "there is no bad weather, only bad gear!" and this time it was even more apt. We booked tours through Viator and the Alaska Wildlife guide for the two days. 

The weather in Fairbanks when we landed was -4 F. We did dress up in layers using the "32 degrees" brand we get in Costco which goes for thermals in "Northern California Winter".. ha ha ha.. The joke was on us! Northern California Winter is an oxymoron. It isn't really winter. 32 degrees doesnt work in -4 degrees. Regular new balance shoes with double socks... what were we thinking?

We landed, were picked up by the Best Western in a taxi and shortly after reaching the hotel and putting things in our room, were picked up within an hour to go 45 minutes north to more desolation. There was a heated shack where all the folks on the tour had a chair and were huddled around tables. There was hot cocoa for everyone. A TV on the wall which showed the lights from a point 20 miles north (kind of a one minute heads up) and some very passionate locals who gave us tips on how to take photos, how be safe outside etc. 

Aurora Pointe lodge does not have any living space. It is a warm room with two doors to run out take pictures and come back to warm yourself before running out again. There was also a restroom there, which was a blessing. 

The outside temp by 11:30PM when we reached the point was -9 to -10 F. Once there, one of the folks who work at the place runs in and says "It's happening" and also tells us "look at parking lot side" or "back of cabin side".. and all the photographers and models run out in a straight line to try and find a vantage point on the snow to take a few pictures and run back. You are lucky if you get even a few pictures. Nothing to do with the aurora.. it does its thing. Your face, fingers all freeze once you are out for more than 4-5 minutes. At that point, cannot find the button to click the photo. Forget trying to change any shutter speed or ISO settings.. You have to set it up inside the room, run out, click, run back in. If you walked further into the snow with New balance walking shoes and double socks which are already wet, good luck to you!

We did maybe 10 such runs in and out between 11:45 and 2 AM and got a bunch of shots. Here is another thing. You can get great shots of the Aurora, as it is pitch dark outside. The timer is usually set to 4 to 6 seconds to get these shots. The lights keep dancing around. It gets interesting if you have to be in the picture also! We literally have to "light paint" ourselves. I did this for the most part by using my iphone flashlight and taking it out of my pocket and shining it in our face towards the end of the 4 seconds, or if lucky asking another photographer to shine it on us just in time. Depening on their experience and how much their hands are shaking, it becomes an interesting photograph where you can see others folks in the background getting lit up as well. 

All said and done, wear snow boots if you go. Then you can wade further in the snow. Have double gloves where the inner one can still be used to touch screen controls (capacitive gloves apparently). Wear the right puffy jackets. If you have a camera with touch screen controls, even better! My camera is 12 plus years old and it was a challenge to use the set button to go to different parameters to adjust! 

One day to fly in, see the lights. If no lights, see them second day. That was the plan! We got lucky and were treated to an amazing light show by mother nature, the same night we landed. Once the moon came up at 2PM the shack closed. 15 minutes before that the lights were almost too faint and the buses and vans started leaving one by one. We were the last ones out of the place and we got to see the moon rise over the Aurora Pointe.

The highlight pictures are here.. 

We did not see any kids on this trip! Some teens who worked at the hotel but that was it. Mostly bearded men.. and a few women! Interesting demographic in this place!

this was the view inside the Aurora Pointe.. photo of me and my valentine... grow a beard they said..it will come in useful in Alaska they said... my beard wasn't Alaska grade.. my face still froze!

This was what we drove through to get to Aurora pointe..it was a very black and white world we were driving through till we entered the room..

The rest of the pictures are in this slideshow gallery!

It was a long day for us and we were happy to reach the hotel room by 3AM and just crash.. we used hand and leg warmers but still couldn't feel our toes and fingers and we woke up at 9AM and the sun was not out yet!

Finally a short video of our experience...

Our next day was equally adventurous and will write about it soon..