Not able to write the posts, one a day as planned as many other interesting things take precedence..
Our original plan was to be on an all evening tour of the city the day we landed. Given the weather, we moved to be a longer morning tour the following day and spent the early evening walking.
We still had the night and given Buenos Aires is 5 hours ahead of California, we were not going to sleep anytime soon. We did drop the little one at the hotel to sleep and myself, San and Jr. went to watch a Tango Show at the Placio Tango (Tango Palace). The original request from me was to take San to a Tango lesson. She passed on it and Jr. refused to be the backup. Guess I should have asked her first and maybe she would have signed up.. moot point now.
We were going to see an amazing show. Tango is close to my heart. It was a favorite during my dancing days. No other dance brings out emotion the way Tango does.. the Rumba is a close second. It was a 90 minute show that started late. The theater was amazing. We did not order food ( you can get tickets with drinks only.. if you don't drink alcohol you are paying a lot for lemonade and coke but the tables sell out fast!). It was a packed theater with no empty tables when the show started.
We did get a souvenir picture with some of the artists..
The performances were breathtaking. I was congratulated by both San and Jr. for picking a winner. However, we could not get a return Uber from the place to our hotel close to midnight and there were some unruly street urchins who were chasing us for money. Eventually we hailed a taxi and got to our hotel. The entire area near the theater district is beautiful.
Enough with the words.. just watch the video!
strongly recommend this show for a late evening entertainment. When in Buenos Aires, don't miss watching an Argentine Tango show.. or if you are lucky, go take a lesson!
Usually the family visits the happiest place on earth aka Disneyland during Thanksgiving and celebrate the parents birthdays. This year, we were not sure what was going to happen during thanksgiving.
Both the kids were new college bound.. the older one for a masters and the younger one starting undergrad.
At the end of summer we knew they were both going to be in Southern California 2 hours apart in two different UC's.
So we made a plan on the long weekend to go visit both schools, hunt for housing for the older one, look at the college for the younger one to see how she will fit in and as an added bonus, given we cross Disney, dedicate one day for Disney as well.
The college visits were not much.. they were empty and deserted as it was a long weekend and in hindsight it was a bad idea to show the kids deserted eerie large open spaces and collosal buildings. Does not help form a good first impression. Still that is where they ended up and have settled in. Both of them got hit with health issues and local hospital and ER visits within a quarter. All that seems to be behind us. This post is about our Disney visit.
Given we have almost been there every alternate year for the last 24 (this blog probably has enough entries to make a parade evolution video), this maybe just "yet another Disney post".
We did smile all day, have fun, go see the latest Star Wars show. You have to see it. It is just too amazing for words (there are small bits in the video.. but not giving anything away so you go see it for yourself)!
Enjoyed as many rides as possible in one day, but didn't sit in the cold for fireworks. We saw it on the way to the parking lot. We had dinner reservations for a mexican place right outside the gate but within the Disney walkway to the parking lot. So we rushed to have dinner, then watched the fireworks and walked back to the hotel.
Here are a few memories for later.
The kids wanted to go to Plant power, a burger chain which was apparently the place to be for Veggie burgers! So went with them and ate fries while they enjoyed the burgers as an early evening snack.
We also got to eat at a small Indian restaurant right next this place called Star of India. That place did not disappoint. It was very good snacks and amazing ginger chai!
We did some shopping including my first visit to a thrift store to buy things! The kids had made a reservation at a fancy place, Osteria La Buca (in Melrose) for dinner and we enjoyed that as well. The candle lights were a special touch!
We also got to eat at a place later in Santa Barbara called Masala Spice. That was also good. Finger licking good.
Have always failed at these pictures that they take.. so we never end up buying one. Someday, I will stare at that camera and smile. The family was mocking me for a good hour after this. "Even Disney is giving us something for free and you mess it up!"
and the parade.. we always love this parade of old and new Disney characters.. they make it so much fun!
Our visit to a sea of storm troopers! We were talking about the possibility of "storm trooping" being a minimum wage job, now that the kids are older and our conversations in Disney seem to be different every now and then.. then the kids hit me with some snarky comment to put me back in my place, so we can all be just kids again and enjoy the rides!
A picture with the main star of the place. We stood in line for more than an hour to get this picture!
and the final fireworks!
and a video as usual!
our smiling faces say it all..
There was a picture of the girls in a tea cup that brough back memories from a different tea cup ride in San Jose downtown.
Kids are all grown up.. but happy to see them still be kids in tea cups!
I am happiest when my girls are all smiles.
This place is priceless!
Given almost every trip has a bittersweet ending for me recently, this one also did. Here is a public service annoucement. Always wear sunglasses when driving back from LA back to the bay area. Yes, the sun is in your face when you drive back and your eyes are wide open after a few hectic days in theme parks or otherwise. The wind is almost always kicking up crap on 101 North when you are near the San Antonio de Padua mission exit. Something went into my eye. It took me a good week to get better after washing and treating it.
Wear those damn sunglasses..even if you think you don't look good in them. You can thank me later!
In 2005, I had posted this about Naadi Astrology and this unbelievable palm leaves that had poems that could accurately give all my details from my birth to the point those leaves were destined to be read.
It is now your destiny to be able to hear this !! There was no easy way to upload just an audio to a blog then. Now we have methods!
There was no google in 1997 and even then, getting details about someone including their Indian Horsocope which needs date of birth and place of birth with an accuracy of 4 minutes, time windows, family details, names etc.. all in poetry.. not possible with even today's AI and computing power to write those as recitable poems.
It was just amazing. A lot of folks reached out to me then and I did give them the contact to go find their palm leaves of destiny. However, not everyone who went there, could find their leaf. That is part of the deal.
Some folks went multiple times over a period of years and managed to find it later!
All that said, as part of digitizing audio tapes from years ago, found Naadi tapes from when my parents got my leaf and how years later San found her leaf on a visit to Vaideeswaran Kovil. She rushed it and was impatient as she had to come back to a hungry kid. Still you can see two data points..
Majority of what was said in detail was accurate. Then again, a lot of stuff was vague when it came to the future. We have two girls. In my reading, that was off. In San's reading it was right.
If you have the patience, you can listen to this.. pretty impressive actually for a palm leaf that is a few thousand years old and preserved for generations in a temple!
Maybe our destinies are all pre written.. or maybe there is some time travel involved here. In either case, the beauty of human existence is that we just go about our daily life with amazing selective memory loss. We all assume that we will wake up day after day and do things as we plan them. We put in for vacations 3 months from now, plan weddings, put 5 year FD's, etc.. forgetting that there is no guarantee for anyone for their very next breath! That is actually a good thing, so we can keep moving!
I usually forget this tape exists, except when someone brings up destiny in a conversation. Guess the readers of this blog can scratch their heads after listening..
Not sure if these places are still around and do the leaf readings. Have read articles that there are a lot of fake centers and copies floating around. Still not sure how any fake thing can guess this many details right and come up with limmerics in record time while the person is sitting in front of them.. that too in ancient Tamil script!
If any of you have had recent experiences with "meeting your leaf", do share in comments!
This was out of sight and hearing and out of mind for a good 16 or so years. So it was interesting to listen to after a long time.. especially with Jr. listening in on every word and asking questions.
She was laughing so loud hearing my dad keep interrupting the reader about my wedding plans!
