NY Christmas..

I am back to the blogging world after the holiday season. I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas. I had a lovely one with friends, food and travel.

We had an unplanned last minute trip to New York over the weekend. Got our new camera just before christmas to take some pretty good snaps. Though this was my second and Mr. K's third trip to NY, christmas fever has adorned the city and has given it a pretty different look.

The only thing in common was the crowd. We revelled in joining them to explore this most beautiful city in the world.

Walking through the buzzing streets hand in hand, exploring the upscale shops, we reached our main reason behind our trip, the 90 feet tall christmas tree infront of the Rockefeller center..

The top of the tree was embellished with the Swaroski crystal star.

The mammoth Rockefeller building has subdued the christmas tree in this picture..

The ice rink infront of the Rockefeller center. The fear of falling down prevented us from getting a hang of ice skating..
Another attraction was the dancing snowflakes infront of Saks and company building.
We actually forgot to take a video of the light show. But I managed to dig one from youtube that I am uploading below. The music is very sweet and lingers for long..

That was pretty much the day one of our trip. The day ended with the dinner at a steak house near the Times square. I had to be content with the salad as the steak was barely cooked.

I will be back with more of our day two adventures and photos.

Snow..

Without doubt, its gonna be a white christmas for us.

The weekend passed by with perpetual snow. The whole place is now covered in a white blanket.

Eventhough there were some unwelcomed guests over the weekend -"sore throat and running nose", I managed to sneak out and take some snaps.

Our car dunk in snow.

The white crystal flakes had its fair share of disadvantages as well. It precluded our weekend trips. We were stuck at the house the whole weekend.

By sunday evening we had hit the ultimate boredom that we decided to crash on to our friends place.

Now the much delayed task..Digging the car out of the snow abyss. Couple of hours of slogging with the shovel and scraper and "Mission Pontiac" turned out successful. By that time we were all wet and frozen. Time for me to get a new leather glove!

At the pit stop..

Apparently, the snow shower hadn't stopped and throughout the drive, our visibility was reduced by the falling flakes on the rear.

Christmas is all around me..

"I feel it in my fingers,

I feel it in my toes,
Christmas is all around me,
And so the feeling grows"

What do you like most about christmas? For me, its the christmas tree. I have a great liking for christmas trees. You can attribute this fascination to my growing up in India. There, christmas trees were not among the must have items for christmas. Christmas stars and cribs have snatched the number one positions. Moreover, evergreen trees are rare in our part.

We used to have flower arrangement competitions in school during Onam (a festival of Kerala). But never ever we had a christmas tree decoration contest at the time of christmas. Now i wonder, being a convent school, why they didnt have that! That would have been fun. I would have loved to participate. The story was almost the same at work place.

This year, by sheer luck, i got the opportunity to decorate our friend's christmas tree. I was very excited, i revelled in adorning the tree with the gleaming ornaments and the tinkling bells.

It was one of a glittering moment for me. Some of the snaps below.

I digress. See the weather forecast for our place tommorrow.

Waiting for a chilly friday and hoping to have a white christmas.

xoxo,
Yours truly

Panthera Leo..

Yesterday, at the gym, i happened to watch a program where they were trying to feed the lions in Africa. The lions were ferociously jumping after the meat tied to a tree branch. That wouldnt have caught my interest a week back.

Last week i saw the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness", another movie which Mr. K can take the credit for picking. It was adventurous, thrilling and all the more based on the true story of two man eating lions in africa that killed around 130 people.

In the movie, Val Kilmer plays the role of Colonel Patterson who is sent to Kenya with the job of completing the construction of a bridge. Patterson, who has been hankering to visit africa, on the other hand, were greeted by the man eating lions which the natives call as 'The Ghost' and 'The Darkness'. Numerous attempts by the colonel to trap them goes in vain. He then gets the help of the famous hunter Remington played by Michael Douglas. The story takes a new turn when they discover that the lions were doing this for pleasure.

My probing into this took me to this picture of the man-eaters kept on display in the Field museum of Natural history in Chicago.. The actual man eaters were the maneless variety where as for the movie they have used less ferocious ones with mane.

Weekend update..

Yet another weekend passed by. This one was supposed to be a socializing weekend for us. It was the christmas celebration of the malayalee association. We met lots of Keralites but hardly made any new acquaintances. Or are we tad too cautious after the temple incident? The person whom we met, had a nice chat and exchanged phone numbers at the temple finally turned out to be someone canvassing for network marketing.. Too late to escape. But we managed.

The attraction of the show was the "Akkarakazchakal" fame George achayan and Girigiri. For those who are unfamiliar with this show, Akkarakazchakal is a sitcom based on american malayalees which is extremely farcical and funny and is a popular pick in youtube. You can watch the episodes from here.

The other events of the evening included skits, nativity plays, dance, music and finally a sumptuous dinner. Some snaps posted below.

Other major happenings of the weekend were, sunday Mr. K was on a spending spree. He splurged on a new camera, ordered the Canon powershot SX10IS. Hoping it to arrive in time to take some christmas snaps.

The Da Vinci code re-visited

My "once lost" reader instinct pushed me to take the DVD from the library last week. I was thrilled to watch it again. Dan Brown is one of my fav authors and this is one of my favourite books.

In fact, i didnt quite like the movie the first time. It was the first movie i watched, adapted from a novel i have read. I was so familiar with the book that my waiting of the subsequent scene from the book was greeted by some other scenes. I know it is difficult to wad all the scenes in the book into a two and a half hour movie. My expectations were rather high i suppose. It wasnt very exhillarating to watch the movie, with the unveiled plot, all the cracked codes and clues lying infront of me.

But still, i opted to watch it a second time. The book did make a significant mark on me.

To be frank, i really enjoyed the movie this time around. I lived over the thrilling adventurous tryst i had with the book two years back. I had almost forgotten the plot. As you know, for a person who hasnt read the book, the movie is like solving a jigsaw puzzle of an unknown image. But for me, I had the "once read but forgotten" advantage. Each scene in the movie made me recollect and connect with other events in the book and everything fell into place. On the whole, it was indeed a great experience. I am eagerly waiting for the movie adaptation of his other novel "Angels and demons" which is due for release next year.

A beautiful song..

I wanted to share another song with you. Once upon a time I used to hear this song 24/7. Either from youtube or from Mr. K's mouth. I tried giving subtle implications of how much he aberrates from the actual music. That didnt work.

On the contrary it favoured in arousing his interest furthermore. But I guess my comments piqued him. Otherwise why did he dare to learn guitar and play the same song just the way that guy sings and that too in a year. Is that a warning! a warning not to banter him in future..

Meanwhile the unexpected happened. I developed a penchant for the same song which made me to ponder and grab the lyrics and learn that. I started humming the song around the house. After that it seems like Mr. K has shunned that song altogether. I havnt heard him singing or listening to that song. Hes afraid that i might sing along!! haha.. the counter attack worked.

I am not sure of whether he still holds that challenge. Or has my cacophony worked his magic on that as well..

Now about the song. Its "Hey there delilah.." by Plain White T's. Its posted below. Lyrics on the sidebar..

How do i look?

My blog looks different.. isnt it? Yesterday afternoon i was indulged in embellishing my blog. I made it a three column template, more use of the real estate available, though i had to edit the HTML code. Thanks to Mr. K for his HTML tips. But it may seem to you that other than the 3 columns, everything else remains almost the same the images, colour, font and all.

I tried many permutations and combinations of colors and fonts. But nothing seemed perfect to my eyes or the apt way to say is that my eyes were glued to the blog's previous look. So is the case for me with all other stuffs even the silliest, one example being changing the furniture arrangements in our room. I was quite against it when Mr. K put forward the idea.

All of these prove one thing. I am very much resistant to changes. Long time back i happened to read the book "Who moved my cheese" by Spencer Johnson. The book describes about the changes that can happen in life and work and how we need to embrace and enjoy it. He conveys the message through the story of two mice and two people and their hunt for cheese. I read it twice. But i guess i wasnt permeable to the message in that. Or maybe i was.. Though I fret over the changes, there is a point at which i get used to and start loving it.

Love your comments on the nouveau look. Suggestions always welcome.

Thanksgiving eve..

The holiday season have begun with the Thanksgiving day last thursday. I wanted to have a proper thanksgiving meal with turkey roast, mashed potatoes, sweet pies and apple cider. No luck this time! I just had the apple cider for this thanksgiving.

We intially had grandiose plans of baking a turkey or atleast a chicken on thanksgiving. But Mr. K's exam fever made us stuck at home the days before thanksgiving thus impeding our poultry shopping. More over his exam was on the thanksgiving eve. But we took advantage of that by spending the thanksgiving eve in Boston. Good that the exam center was close to boston. Gosh!!I love these exams especially when im not the one who is writing.

After the exam we all went for a stroll in the nearby Davis square. It was a busy square with lots of shops, cafes and restaurants. It had my favourite food joint Chipotle as well. One of the many things i liked here was that there were statues of people placed at different points in the square. Their postures were unbelievably real that at times we mistook them for real people.

Then we headed off to Boston downtown..

It was our third trip to Boston, the previous ones being in July when our family visited. This time we decided to climb the Prudential tower to view the stunning skyline of Boston. It has got an observation deck on its 50th floor which is open to the public. The building has got a total of 52 floors and 52th was i guess for dining.

Eventhough we crossed the same bridge in different directions several times, our GPS finally managed to take us to the Prudential tower. But to my disappointment the observation deck was roofed and completely covered with glass not even a window or an opening very unlike the experience i had at the empire state building at NY. So no good pictures of the boston skyline to post here. We then traipsed through the upscale shops in the base floor. The whole place was basking in christmas spirits.

By this time everone was hungry and so we decided to hit an Ethiopian restaurant. That was my idea! But unfortunately our poor GPS with an old map, took us to an empty space by the street and claimed in its familiar voice "You have reached the destination". Luckily across the street there was a TGIF, we had dinner from there and called it a night.

Pianist in me..

Don't you think the title is somewhat misleading. Yes totally!! I dont know to play piano. But i have a strong desire to learn how to play this exquisite musical instrument. I know bits and pieces of violin. After studying violin for a little more than 2 years shouldnt i know more than that. I used to but now its almost 3 or 4 years since i have played my violin.

Coming back to piano... Lately i happened to hear a song or to be more precise Mr. K introduced me to this song which rekindled my passion for this musical instrument. It is titled "She is always a women to me" by the artist Billy Joel. I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it. The music is awesome and so are the lyrics. I am not a lyrics-centric person. What facinates me is the "A majors" and "B minors" of the song. This one i happened to hear the "sing along" version in youtube and the lyrics kind of impressed me. Its a love song. But what makes this one different is that unlike the usual ones which is right from the heart, this one is so true and blatant, right from the brain. I am posting the video below. It is one of Mr. K's favourites as well.

Feel free to comment on how you felt about this song..