Beautiful Planet

TCS World 10K at Bangalore

noreply@blogger.com (Rumana Sushil Rawat) — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:12:00 +0000

27th May 2012 - TCS World 10K Marathon pics, In case you missed the event photos, here are few taken from my mobile camera

Trip to Masinagudi

noreply@blogger.com (Rumana Sushil Rawat) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:14:00 +0000

It was a Friday evening, roughly around 6 pm and still I was in office trying to wind up for the day by sending status reports and all. I always wonder why every time my plan to leave early from office fails irrespective of how early I reach office to start my day’s work.

Anyway at least this time it was not so bad Friday though I had to stretch a bit late because I knew that there are lot of adventure and fun planned in next 2 days. Yes, I am talking about our trip to Masinagudi, place near Ooty in Tamilnadu.

Let me share a bit of background about this trip. Venkat shall be given credit for seeding the idea of this trip and continuously pushing for it from last 2 months every weekend or alternate. It was a tough challenge to get the entire group ready at same time. But finally dates were set for 5/6 Nov with 4 people on board. To avoid any last minute excuses we had booked the resort also with advance payment (smart move by BlasiusJ )

Even after doing all this planning to make this trip happen, due to some unavoidable circumstances Suresh had to miss this time. Never mind next time J

So three married men started their journey for a hill station which is surrounded by forest and wild animals, in search of only God knows exactly what!!!

Masinagudi is a very nice place with a backdrop of Nilgiris hills, surrounded by lavish green forest (glad to see so many trees and greenery after a long time, otherwise living in urban concrete forest mostly we see these forests in Discovery/NGC channels only). Google shall be able to provide much more information about history of this hill station, in case if you are getting curious to know more J

We enjoyed the drive till there. For breakfast we had pit stop at Kamat (After Ramnagar). Road condition is good but don’t expect anything like driving on NH7 (Hosur -> Krishnagiri) which is superb.

Some statistics in case you are wondering about how to reach there and stay:

Destination: Masinagudi

Resort: Bear Mountain Jungle Resort (http://bearmountainjungleresort.com/)

Route Taken: (SH 17)

Bangalore->Mysore->Nanjangud->Gundlupet->Bandipur->Masinagudi town->Bokkapuram

Distance from Bangalore: 235km (Approx.) one way

Time taken (By Car):

Bangalore-> Masinagudi: Around 6hr with breakfast break of 45 min

Masinagudi -> Bangalore: Around 7 hrs due to rain and lunch break.

Activities we did: Trekking, Night Safari (Luckily we could spot few wild elephants)

Starting point from Bangalore(ISKON temple)

First pit stop for breakfast(Strange but met few old colleagues
of Philips. Really sometimes looks world is very small)

In the Bandipur forest territory

Couldn't have posed better than this!!!

How will it feel if someone comes and pokes into our night life!!!!!annoying, right?

Late night discussion hammock

Resort reception- Time to checkout

On the way back to Bangalore

Overall it was a quite good weekend break and we enjoyed our little late night discussions about modern life styles and culture.

Innovative Film City

noreply@blogger.com (Rumana Sushil Rawat) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:05:00 +0000

Quick getaway from hectic REAL life to pleasant REEL life!!!

It was a long time pending plan to visit Innovative film city which we could not complete because of one or other reasons. Few of my colleagues have visited this place with family and feedback was quite good, as they really enjoyed the time spent over there.

Friday night, while having dinner with my wife at Kobe Sizzlers @ Garuda Mall, we thought to visit Innovative film city next day morning. We called up some of our friends to check if they can join us and after few minutes we got one couple on board. So Saturday morning was all set for a drive to Innovative film city.

Saturday morning, we decided to meet up near the BEL Circle, Vidyaranyapura and reach the NICE road by 10:15am. As most of the time, plan didn’t work out and with some delay we could finally start from Vidyaranyapura at 11:15am.

We took the road next to Prestige apartments and reached the NICE road in about 15 minutes. Before i should write my experience of driving on NICE road, i must say it was AWESOME drive. We paid the toll of Rs.55 to enter the NICE road stretch and were told to take the left exit after 17km. In a small drive before we took exit turn, I guess after around 15 minutes, my Ford Figo touched the mark of 110Km/h without my notice. The scenery along on the sides of NICE road is so refreshing. All you could see if big green and open space, it was such a treat to eyes.

After taking exit from NICE road, we continued towards Bidadi, it’s just one straight road then and in no way you can get lost. After around 27km, we could see the big board of Innovative Film City on the left side of the road. From there you can find proper road directions to reach film city. With one small break on the way we reached there by 12:30pm and parked the car in a big open parking ground.

There are 2 kinds of tickets available- Rs.499/- for full day and Rs.299/- from 3pm onwards (Credit cards are accepted). We took the full day combo tickets which included most of the rides and attractions which we could enjoy. For the camera and Handy cam, separate charges (Rs.100/-) are applicable.

We enjoyed our day over there and by the time we left the film city we were fully tired. It was really a much needed break and couldn’t have been better than this. It’s a place which gives you chance to bring out your creativity in photography with all such sets around the film city, so don‘t forget your camera.

Few of the things which we really enjoyed –

Mirror Maze – It was terrific. We got scared after going inside few steps as we could not find any way exit nor entry gate and were totally confused. But don’t worry, somebody will take you out so don’t afraid to be lost inside J

Ripley’s – Must watch. Watch out for one way mirror kept next to tongue rolling girl. From the other side we could not stop our laugh watching people trying to roll their tongues. I bet you could just sit there whole day watching people rolling their tongues and you will not stop laughing.

Wax Museum - Few statues are really worth watching.

Roller Coaster – Must try. Will keep your heart young.
Haunted Mansion – It was good. Luckily they didn't make it so haunted.
Roller Skates - Fun to try even if you don't know how to skate but just be careful ;)

Beach – After a tiring day, best place to relax and play in wave pool.

Food Court – Good option of foods. McDonald is also there.

After a wonderful day we left from there at 6:45pm and reached back to BEL circle by 8:30pm. You need to be careful while coming back to enter the NICE road as it’s on the right side of the road so need to take U-TURN to enter NICE road.

Sweet Memories of Seoul (South Korea)

noreply@blogger.com (Rumana Sushil Rawat) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:55:00 +0000

Submitted this entry in Incredible Stories contest by Mahindra on Indiblogger.
My stay in south korea was amazing, the climate was so good(not to forget lot of snow fall and often chilling wind) and the people around were ok not so good and not so bad.Most of the locals were not very comfortable in english and i knew just few korean words like kamsamida(thanks), annyohasiyo(hello)... The best part was my housekeeping over there, i use to explain her every thing using sign language :). Korea is a beautiful country, there are lot of places to see. what i like most was the Han River, It has 12 Entrance from different part of the river and lot of water sports activities, but we were not able to do any of those because it was winter at that time and water was freezing cold.

From my husband company, they had provided us the very beautiful service apartment called Frazer Place. It was very comfortable apartment, and there was one big shopping mall(LOTTE) near by to the apartment. I use to shop every week, shopping means not the ladies shopping but vegetable shopping hehehehe. There were many small small markets nearby but not much thing to buy, lot of streets food but my husband never allowed me to eat anything just because it use to smell. In the starting even i use to have a problem because of the smell but later i got use to it. we use to buy all our indian masalas and all from a place called Itewon. Itewon is very famous among foreigner with lot indian and Pakistani people around we use to get all the required thing there at little cheaper price than the super mall.

Even there were 6 more friends from india, my husband colleagues. we had a very good time together. In the weekends we use to cook together and then play Rummy.Even sometimes on week days after dinner we use to play rummy.

couple of times on weekends(mostly on friday) we started playing rummy in the evening after dinner and continue till early morning and directly go to breakfast table and then sleep :)

That was so fun i will never forget those days :)

Tourist Attraction in Seoul

Seoul Tower

Han River

Coex Aquarium

Ski Resort

Ice Skating

Cheonggye Stream

Seoul Palace's

Seoul Station and Lotte Mart

The 'Famous' Kimchi and Street Food

The Heaviest Snowfall in Seoul

Life In Seoul (South Korea) - I

noreply@blogger.com (Rumana Sushil Rawat) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 05:47:00 +0000

Finally after a long search we could find a local Korean market (often referred as wet market) in Seoul central place. Though this place is very near to Fraser Central Service Apartment but it was surprising that staff of the Fraser were not very much aware about it.
Mostly we use to go to Lotte or Itewon for grocery/vegetable shopping.
This is quite a lively place, full with lot of local vendors selling variety of products ranging from meat, fish, herbs, vegetable, fruits , kitchen utensils, cloths and so many more...
Vegetables and fruits looked very fresh compared to stored in refrigerator and then sold in big shopping malls like LOTTE etc..
In fact all the day today grocery items can be easily found here at the reasonable price.
How to reach there:
Reference point is Seoul Station. Take bus(#701,702B, 703..) going towards Seodaemun-gu. Get down at second stop. Market is on the left side of the road.

Google Map:

View Larger Map

Here are some of snaps which will be helpful to find the market and as well to know the variety of items sold in this market.