AmreekanDesi » Travel

Travelogy – Disney World Magic Kingdom

amreekandesi — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:47:57 +0000

In Central Florida lies this little town called Orlando. Orlando’s claim to fame – Amusement Parks.

Walt Disney started the trend a few decades back with Disney World, and since then this city has become an entertainment hub with Disney, Universal studios, and myriad other amusement parks and other attractions.

Disney world is spread over some 27000 acres of land, roughly the size of San Fransisco. It comprises of four theme parks, two water parks, and, hold your breath, twenty three hotels. It is the largest single site employer in the US providing employment to some 65000 people.

Here’s an account of our recent trip to Disney World. Part 1 covers the most famous amusement park, known as Magic Kingdom. Part 2 coming up next will cover Epcot, Disney’s space themed park.

There’s us driving through the parking gates. The parking is huge, so be sure to remember where you parked your car or you could spend the night trying to find your lost car!

After you park the car, you get a tram to take you to the entry terminals. There you take either a ferry or a monorail to reach the actual park.

We chose the ferry.

The view from the ferry. The park is centered around Cinderella’s castle, which you would notice in the background.

There’s the castle.

The Magic Kingdom received some 17 million visitors in 2007 making it the most famous amusement park in the whole world. To put this in perspective, this number is a multiple of the total number of foreign tourist arrivals in all of India on an annual basis.

Another beautiful shot taken with my wonderful Canon S5 camera.

First ride of the day. Go Kart meets Disney. It turned out kinda lame in the end. Great fun for kids, which is the whole point of this theme park.

I never thought i’d live to see this day. That board over there says – Stroller Parking. There were strollers and kids all over the place. Luckily they all seemed happy. Imagine 20k kids crying in symphony.

That’s a little river through which runs a river boat. Not really a thrill ride, but good to rest your legs and take a short break. In the background is the Haunted House which was pretty cool.

The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This roller coaster is probably the park’s most action packed ride for adrenaline junkies.

This one is the coolest. Splash Mountain. Experience a free fall from five stories high. Doesnt sound like much till you actually do it. What they dont tell you is that before the big fall there are a couple of smaller, but very exciting similar falls.

We obviously didnt do much kid stuff, but there’s the usual merry go around rides.

A day at Magic Kingdom is full of walking and planning if you want to cover everything. If you dont plan well, you will be stuck waiting at all the rides. Wait times can be as high as an hour for the most popular ones such as the Splash Mountain.

To help reduce the wait, they let you get a Fast Pass at some of the attractions. These let you skip ahead of the line, like an MP driving on Delhi roads. The caveat is that you can only get one fast pass at a time. If you mix wait times and fast passes, you can manage everything.

I know we did.

Make sure you take along some comfortable shoes! There’s going to be a lot of walking at this place.

How good am i at photography! The blue skies, the setting sun, the reflection in the water, the bird soaring away. Wow!

Every evening there is a fancy parade in the park. There are a whole bunch of fancy colorful floats with all the famous Disney characters that i dont get, and kids seem to adore.

The day we went, it was jam packed. We watched the parade perched atop a lamppost.

The crowd reminded me of the 4th of July celebrations. Only, this happens there every day.

During the night the castle looks amazing. The lighting keeps changing illuminating the castle in different color schemes of blues, greens and other colors i cant name.

All this culminates in a grand fireworks show that might even be better than the one we saw in New york on Independence day! Pretty damn spectacular.

At the Magic Kingdom they certainly create some magic. Its like a different world far away from the hassles of life. Its an awe inspiring spectacle that drives the little kids crazy, as also the older ones.

This was it from Magic Kingdom. Epcot comes up soon. Stay tuned!

Travelogy – Miami

amreekandesi — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:23:37 +0000

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then number 99 is going to be my longest post yet.

Me and the missus decided to beat the retreat to that tropical heaven called Miami. Our anniversary week was spent in Florida in a bid to escape the New York chill. As luck would have it, New York got warm during that week, and Florida kinda cold. Life is so full of little mercies.

Here’s an account of our Miami trip, starting with an aerial shot of Miami from the airplane. Note the waters in hues of blue and green, the skyscrapers of downtown Miami, and the little islands southwards.

Spoiler alert: Miami is awesome. You may turn the color of the water after viewing these pictures.

The clear blue waters of the Atlantic ocean. The water was so clear you could see your feet underwater. Never saw that on our own Juhu Beach!

We didn’t waste much time getting to the beach. It was too cold to get in the water so the time was (well) spent taking these amazing pictures.

The streets of Miami – narrow and crowded. Parking is a pain, and sorta expensive. Our hotel charged $35 for one night for parking the car.

That’s a lifeguards station. You may have seen some of these on that famous TV show..what was its name

A lot of cruises operate from Miami, owing to its proximity to the Caribbean. This was a Royal Caribbean ship, all festive and huge.

Back to the beach on a sunnier day, and we finally got to hit the ocean.

Nighttime was spent on a cruise around the city’s coast. This shot at the marina, where all the millionaires park their yachts.

Yachts such as these. Readers may want to compliment me for the awesome photography skills displayed in this and the other pictures.

What can i say? Cranes take my breath away! (Long sigh…)

Fisher island is apparently one of the most elusive addresses in the US. It is only accessible by ferry or helicopter – there’s no road access to the island.

Picture perfect shot of some random buildings.

This yacht is worth over $50 million.

Back at the marina with an attempt to capture the lights reflecting in the water.

Florida travelogy continues next with an account of our Disney World trip.

Travelogy – Las Vegas (Part 2)

amreekandesi — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:20:54 +0000

One of the highlights of our Las Vegas vacation was a trip to the Grand Canyon. Special enough to get its own post.

The Grand Canyon is one of the great natural wonders on the planet. It was formed by the Colorado river cutting through the surrounding terrain, over the course of millions of years. Located at a short few hours drive from Las Vegas, this is a must see sight if you are traveling to that area.

One added bonus en route is the Hoover dam, one of the marvels of modern engineering. When completed in 1935, it was the largest concrete structure ever built. At its base, the dam is 200m thick. That’s two football fields of solid concrete.

Anyway, we decided to cut short the travel time. We took a helicopter trip offered by papilon helicopters. They would fly us to the canyon in about 45 minutes, land on the canyon floor(!), and get us back. We would get to see the Hoover dam as well, and all this would be done in about 4 hours. You could call it a time saver. You could also call it a wallet buster.

This was the Ecostar helicopter that flew us from Boulder city to the canyon.

First stop, Hoover dam. The dam is massive, the water is a gorgeous blue, and you can actually drive over the dam. I remember driving over the nagarjuna sagar dam near hyderabad some time back, and it was quite the impressive experience.

How’s that for a bird’s eye view?

Hoover dam resulted in creation of lake Mead, which extends 110 miles behind the dam and is the largest man made lake in the United States.

Grand canyon, here we come.

The skywalk platform completed at a cost of $31 million to allow people to gaze into the depths of the canyon.

And we landed on the canyon floor. As did the entire caravan of helicopters. All six of them. Here’s a video taken as we approached the landing site.

Here’s another video of the rest of the helicopters landing in the neighbourhood.

A very muddy Colorado river flowing through the canyon. It was interesting to see little patches of green along the river in the middle of the desert.

You can also go for rafting trips along the river.

We were given a sumptous meal of a turkey sandwich (we’re vegetarian), chips, soda, and champagne(!)

At this little shed specially constructed in the middle of nowhere. You are not allowed to leave any trash behind, so the pilot who also served us the food made sure all trash was handed back to him.

One last look, and we were off. Back to Vegas, baby.

Another video shot while flying along the grand canyon.

Travelogy – Las Vegas (Part 1)

amreekandesi — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:43:24 +0000

We took a trip three months back recently to a city called Las Vegas. Here’s my little travelogue.

Just in case you didn’t know, Las Vegas is a city famous for certain establishments called casinos, where innocent people empty their wallets in the belief that they can actually make money just playing games. Smarter people know that everybody loses to the casino.

Fun Fact #1: It’s estimated that every day Las Vegas casinos give away $3 million of freebies (more than $1 billion per year) just to get customers through their doors.Another matter that those billion dollar freebies result in many multiples of that in revenue.

Here’s a casino floor. I can’t recall which one, but they are all the same, so shouldn’t really matter.

Grand would be understating these casinos. They are huge. The nicer ones are pictures of opulence where the super rich gamble away their hardly earned dollars. Many of these casinos are based on elaborate themes to model famous cities such as New york, Paris, even Venice.

Here’s the Luxor which is built to look like an Egyptian pyramid.

A shot of Newyork. This hotel is a painstaking recreation of the city, complete with deli stores, walkup buildings with their fire escapes, and very importantly, new york style pizza.

Running along the exterior of the complex is a roller coaster. This is a feature of the resorts here. Most hotels offer some attraction(s) to pull in the crowds. Some simpler attractions are free. This roller coaster is not.

It comes with its own Statue of Liberty.

Even Brooklyn bridge.

Where else could you walk from New york to Paris in 10 minutes? Paris features a half scale replica of the Eiffel tower whose top provides an amazing view of the strip for some fifteen odd bucks.

Excalibur is themed like an old castle. It features its own moat that apparently also has a dragon that we never saw.

Bellagio is one of the grander casinos in Vegas. This BTW was the casino that George Clooney and his boys robbed in Ocean’s Eleven.

Fun Fact #2: The Bellagio hotel had a construction cost of over $1.6 billion. At current exchange rates, that is Rs 8000 crores. To put this amount in perspective, the Chandrayaan launching ISRO‘s annual budget is Rs 6500 crores.

Bellagio has this very famous musical fountain. It is one of the many spectacular attractions that abound on the strip. Here’s a video of a show that we caught.

Caeser’s Palace has a show called Atlantis. Take a look.

One interesting discovery was finding out how Vegas keeps its cool. Literally. Being in the middle of a desert, Las Vegas is HOT. And this is what brings respite from the heat when you are out in the open.

Its a fan with a water pipe running through it to blow water along with the air. Its a little portable air cooler right there. Very Innovative.

This was a ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ photo album i saw in a store. I’ll just say that this is yet another ironical proof of something that we already know and see all the time.

A cool Ganesh momento i saw at this swimsuit store.

Las Vegas is close to the Grand Canyon, and we took a helicopter trip to this awe-inspiring creation of the Colorado river. That’s coming next.

Little India

amreekandesi — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:05:48 +0000

Right here in Newyork’s backyard exists a quaint little neighbourhood called Jackson Heights. Sometimes also known as Little India. A visit there and you actually feel like you are in some Delhi market. Chandni Chowk anyone?

Here’s some pictures of this great Indian getaway.

Did you want to buy some Jewellery?

Some nice Indian clothes?

More Jewellery?

Sona appliances?

Awesome Indian food? Thats what i go there for…

Jackson diner is famous.

And you have to checkout a famous place.

We got some papri chaat (heavenly), pakoras (nice, but also oily), and of course, chai. The chutneys were gorgeous.

Jackson Heights also has a hindi movie theater called Eagle for you bollywood buffs. Be warned though, its no AMC.

How to get there: Take the 7,E,F,R,V to Jackson Heights.