Skywatch Friday- Along the blue waters at Temple Bay

A little beep on my phone where it all began! A friend asked "How about we all go for a drive and a nice lunch on 12th jan, sunday?"  After a few debates on where else we can visit along the way, things we could do, time we leave the city it was decided! At 8.30 we were on our way to pick up 2 friends from Thiruvanmiyur and were on the ECR...  

After a leisurely stroll around Dakshin Chitra, we arrived at Radisson Temple Bay, Mahabalipuram and decided to dine at The Wharf, facing the ocean [only because the other 2 restaurants had only buffet and we dint think we could do justice to that] . Our table was just a few yards from the ocean, we could hear the waves and feel the breeze. Only thing left was to run to the water and have some fun!! 

The blue waters were chill and just perfect. We spent about half an hour soaking, laughing, taking pictures and having a great time when it dawned on us that we would have to leave, bid it all adieu!! 

But, we were not ready to say Bye yet! We went ahead, washed ourselves, dusted off as much sand as possible and sat near on the stone wall for a while, enjoying the silence and beauty of the place.

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Skywatch Friday... Astronomy and science- Jantar Mantar, Jaipur

And what a glorious morning it was. We woke up to see the gentle drizze through the window, the spotted deer grazing in the park nearby and pigeons all over the place, probably looking for shelter from the rain. We decided to go explore a few places near the Hawa mahal- maybe the City Palace and Janta Mantar. 

We hailed an auto and reached the entrance within 10mis and noticed a small queue already there. We waited near the entrance for the gates to open and then were told that we had to go around the corner to pick up tickets! D'oh! Hoping the gentle drizzle did not transform into a crazy shower, we went ahead bought the tickets and entered the complex. I have read about Jantar Mantar and knew it was all about science, but was not prepared for the massive interesting structures scattered through the space. 

The 1st plaque gave us a sneak peek into the story behind the name. The name is derived from jantar  which meant "instrument" and mantar  was referring to the "calculations". And so, Jantar Mantar literally translates to  'calculation instrument'. 

As we wandered through the vast open space, with the gentle drizzle constantly falling on our heads, we were feeling high and chirpy. The weather was beautiful, the place was majestic and overlooking the city palace. 

A guide was taking a group of spaniards giving them information in Spanish. I stood fascinated, trying to catch the words and see if I could remember what I had learnt. 

The previous day I had picked up a book about the places to see in Jaipur which had a bit of information about Jantar Mantar as well. It said Maharaja Jai Singh II, the king who founded the 'pink city' was a great scholar and an avid astrologer. He had studied philosophy, architecture,astrology and religion in various schools and was very familiar with universal mathematical concepts -Euclid's Clements, Ptolemy's Syntaxes and the Master works of Aryabhatta. 

In 1718 he decided to build an observatory which drove him to study astronomy. He then went on to build five different conservatories across North India. But, the 'Jantar Mantar' at Jaipur is the biggest one of them all and it houses several instruments that offer precise measurements of time, the azimuth, declination of the sun and the positions of constellations, along with several other astronomical phenomena.  

The observatory consists of 14 geometric devices that are used to measure time, track the constellations and, observe the orbits around the sun. Popular structures within the Jantar Mantar are the 'Samrat Yantra' (the world's largest sundial), the 'Jaiprakash Yantra' and the 'Hindu Chhatri'..  We were not too big on science and dint really understand much of what we saw, but we did enjoy the leisurely walk around the place... 

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Skywatch Friday- Walk amidst the trees

A text from a friend "Girl, we are planning a tree walk on saturday with a few of my friends and our kids, coming? It is from 4-5pm in the Tree park in Kotturpuram" I instantly replied "Yep, will be there"

Armed with a bottle of water, I headed out towards the park, only to find the lot of them already out and about. I spotted them near the water pump, and a small make shift shed of sorts. My friend asked me to pull out the buckets and pot from the shed, while she took charge of pumping water. 

The kids were all between 4-10 and some had a tiny bucket with them, which they insisted on using. It was quite amusing. The park is not huge, but has quite a few trees and young saplings, and a path between for people who like to walk. Amidst these trees, we also spotted an adult male spotted deer that soon disappeared into the wilderness. Wondered where he had wandered in from. 

The adults in the group carried the big buckets, pouring into the smaller ones and guiding the kids towards the plants. It was amusing listening to them advice each other, get playful only to be pulled back by their parent. The best was when my friend's son P wanted to water the wild weeds and I told him they were wild plants that needn't be watered. He turned around and said 'but those plants also need water no, why you saying no put water on it?" I realized explaining this was going to be tricky..

Here we are teaching kids to water and take care of plants, and then we tell them certain plants dont need water.. Quite an awkward situation.. I decided to leave these tricky things to the parents  and distracted him to the spider on the lamp post. Kids being kids, got distracted and all swarmed around trying to catch a glimpse of the spider. One kid announced "let us pour water on the spider and see what happens"... Jeez, what is up with kids of today!!scary... lol... 

As we walked around, there were a few regulars who asked us if we maintain the place, or who takes care of the weeding and so on. Some came from a few kms away to walk, and said the park seemed run down over the past few weeks and wanted us to do something about it .


Sure felt good to have done this activity, and we hope to continue it for as long as possible and rope in more hands.


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 About the park- Source: TOI 
The transformation of this area, which was once overrun by tonnes of waste and thick vegetation, was initially carried out in 2008 by the Public Works Department with support from Nizhal, a non-government organisation.Nizhal sourced and planted 240 saplings of over 100 different species of tropical dry evergreen forests/indigenous, naturalized trees/shrubs. Students and volunteers have been helping the greening process by pumping water from the lone hand pump to water the plants and adding manure.

[Skywatch Friday] The show is on

 "The Tsunami point, that is where you can watch the sunset" guided our driver.... No sooner did we put one foot out and the skies began their act...

What drama.. What emotions.... Amazing sight!!

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[Skywatch Friday] The Sailor rests

Everytime i visit the Elliots beach, Besant Nagar, am drawn to the Karl Schmidt Memorial that stands alone near the ocean... The memorial seems to tell a different story at different times of the day... Curiosity got the better of me and i started digging, asking people on what this memorial was.... 

Discovered that the Schmidt Memorial at Elliots Beach is a memorial for Karl Schmidt, a Dutch Sailor who lost his life while rescuing a drowning swimmer.... 

 

Beautiful and majestic

Alone and forlorn

The memorial stands strong....

A shelter for many

A hideout for some

Perfect spot to watch the sunrise

Get a glimpse of the sunset

From across miles, 

The memorial catches my eye...

Check out this beautiful shot of the Schmidt memorial on wiki.... 

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Have a lovely weekend all!! :-)

Hebbal - The lake beckons

As the day wore on, my cousin, Lakshmi suggested we go to Hebbal lake post the meeting.. Always game for a bit of exploring and photography, i umped at the suggestion, we packed our gear and as we were to leave home, the client called saying his daughter was unwell and he had to take her to the doctor... What this meant was more time to spend at the lake and we could leave earlier... :)

Knapsack- check

Cameras-my cybershot and her DSLR-check
Binoculars-check
Some cash-check
Our mobiles and housekey and we were off by 4.30... -checkcheck

Paid entrance fee and walked into the park, spotted a few birds on the ground -- the love birds..couples hidden behind bushes and a coracle left alone...

Our feet took us towards the water and there we spotted a few guys fishing.. one guy would reel the fish in dropping it onto the ground where another guy sat cleaning it up... A few yards away, we spotted 2-3 Brahminy kites, and in a few seconds they were in air, circling right above these guys and in a flash swooped down grabbed a fish and off it went into the sky.. Wow moment...!! 

Pulling out the binocs, we spotted a few Grey heron, Pond heron and a pretty looking Purple Swamphen. 

Why not go to the other side we thought and began exploring the park some more.. It was my 1st visit, and i found it calm n quiet .... Took shots of a few intersting flowers, the setting sun, the buildings beyond the lake and as we were beginning to settle in, a deep shrill whistle came floating in the air..It was time to leave..... 

As we rode back home in the auto, the sun was beginning to set, and we could see the lovely colours against the city scapes... Short yet sweet was what the visit was....!! :)

Could stare at them for hours as they went home... together!!! in sync.. what a sight...

Trivia from wiki: Hebbal Lake is located in the north of Bangalore at the mouth of National Highway 7, along the junction of Bellary Road and the Outer Ring Road (ORR). It was one of the three lakes created in 1537 by Kempe Gowda.