i fell asleep in new jersey and woke up in new york

it's true, i did. it all started on saturday evening. i don't usually bring my handphone to work but this time i did. i was sitting in the booth when the phone started buzzing. papa, pravin and jeevan (they will be introduced in due time) were stuck in chicago due to some flight complications which i shall not attempt to explain now. all of a sudden, it seemed like they would be arriving in wildwood a day earlier instead. i got them to stay at the sea gypsy, a bed and breakfast joint i immediately fell in love with and which happened to be in my lane. so they arrive at 3 am and the next day, i'm running from church to meet them before going to work and end up walking home with a whole bag of yummy maggi mee and some other yummy things and a guitar (kai's). not enough time to hide them in a safe place because the next minute, i had turned into a speedy gonzales, paddling my bike to work as fast as i could. got the 3 boys passes which resulted in them visiting my booth every now and then, doing silly things or getting me food or both. it was nice. i was totally shagged though. but no way was i gonna miss out on the sea gypsy. so joy and i went over later that night as papa played host, serving us homemade lemonade and cake and providing us with a tour. here are some shots...

what's better than a nice glass of homemade lemonade?? oh i'm thirsty now!

(that's papa mahtani behind me, our gracious host for the evening)

we also met mr piggy who was dressed up for some black tie dinner we were probably not invited to since we were still in pyjamas.


we stole the sweeties from the sweetie jars...

next morning, i'm back at sea gypsy with my backpack and we're waiting for the limo. but the thing is, i didn't expect a full-blown limo to turn up at the doorstep of the little lane of my humble abode in this little ulu (where in the world??) town!!!

we took many photos, played with the lights and the divider, drank most of the drinks, finished most of the snacks and took more pictures.

so these are my brothers, jeevan and pravin. aren't they cute???? awwwwwwwwww!


introducing spj pte ltd


and well, i don't know how i managed it but i knocked out for almost the whole 3 hour drive! and when i woke up, i found myself looking at the new york skyline on my right and old victorian houses on my left and the mouth of the river to the ocean in the middle.

the view of these three apples above the television with only one channel lasted throughout the whole of our short stay in the big apple.


we walked alot and i think if we had chosen to, we could've covered the whole of manhattan by foot.

in the empire state building...


we lit a candle for ammamma (my grandma)in a beautiful church (st. patrick's i think). ammamma loves st. anthony. yep, that statue of the guy down there is of st. anthony.


took photos with flags...


laughed at funny road signs...


visited times square of course...


saw this cool chocolate building...


tried on hats...



took photos with bigger flags...


went to the WTC site...


visited the museum of the american indians...


boarded the staten island ferry...


where we got to see the famous blue (blueish-green?)lady and the new york skyline...U2's "the hands that built america" kept playing in my mind...


watched The Colour Purple at broadway. it was really good and by the end of it, i felt like i had entered a gospel church. watch it and you'll see why. it was fun!


took the lift up to the top of the rockafeller center(top of the rock)...


to watch new york drenched in lights...


but the next day, new york was drenched in rain and so were we. so we ended up in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). here are some sights...

pravin kneeling before the holy grail...

(but if you ask me, it was probably just the new york subway beneath...=$)

this one was a hit!

(you don't doubt me, do you?)

pravin bumped into his alter ego on one of the walls...


of course, there were the occasional pieces with just one or two lines drawn across or a whole canvas just painted in red with people gaping in awe at them. i gaped in awe for different reasons.

here are more works...



and some more...

(the round things in that white sculpture are actually egg shells)

there were lots more. furniture, sculptures, structures, prints, photography, books, installations...and there was this room called between (or was it behind) darkness and light. and it was this big, dark, empty room with a screen in the middle. on one side, the exorcist was playing and on the other, a movie about the images of the lady of fatima...interesting...

and then, we had to rush back to the hotel after buying some "i (heart) NY" t-shirts to grab our stuff and get to the airport to catch the plane to north carolina, where we would be meeting up with aunty lata (papa's sister) and sumeet and roshan (our cousins, aunty lata's kiddies, hee).

the plane, of course, took off 1.5hrs late and it was pretty tiny. pravin said he felt like he was in a coffin. pravin has this knack of coming up with funny anecdotes like this.

it was nice meeting up with the three of them and eating some nice warm home-cooked food and having a nice big bathroom to bathe in and a comfortable bed to sleep in. ok, my house in wildwood isn't thaaaat bad, but you know what i mean...

so the next day, we embarked on a 6 hr (or so) journey to gatlinburg, a town amidst the smokey mountains. sumeet did a great job driving and navigating but he said something along the lines of how i was a lousy navigator when i was just one for a few minutes and the rest agreed! so this is the thanks i get for being their tour guide around the streets of manhattan! hmmmmph!

on the road to gatlinburg...

we forgot to bring music and had to keep scanning through all the radio channels continously because every channel we turned to seemed to be playing country music. even r kelly's "i believe i can fly" was suddenly heaven to our ears. haha. in the end, we settled for some hindi music from the cds we found lying around in the car.

at the border of north and south carolina was this funny little mexican town where we stopped for gas and to buy fireworks and i couln't resist taking a picture with this cute little (not so little) man...

we stopped for gas at a certain gas station somewhere and i was just dreamily gazing out of the window, looking at the caravan next to our car, which had also stopped for gas when behold, i saw not humans in the caravan but...horses!

and then, we went here..

yep, we went white water rafting! and it was really fun! and cold! and fun! you know, one of the things i've always wanted to do was whitewater rafting but really, i didn't expect the day to come so soon. we usually don't, do we?

our guide was really crazy and he even threw us into the water one by one. but i didn't mind cos the water was shiokedoo and i just floated down the river, a raft on my own. one of the highlights was papa getting thrown into the water not once, but twice, much to our shock, but more to our amusement i guess. sorry papa!

so here's us with our tour guide after the expedition...

so after refuelling (with food), we continued our journey to gatlinburg. it was a really snenic drive down the long winding roads, with luscious evergreens shading us and the clear blue sky as our canopy. and of course, i can't forget to mention the awesome views of the smokey mountains in the distance. we even stopped to take some pictures.

here's us trying to jump ala smu style...

though some of us need more practice, i say.

or maybe it's because some of us were just too focused on swatting flies...


then again, some of us have been practicing far too much (scroll to previous posts)...


and some of us were just born monkeys...teehee..

so after exhausting ourselves out with all that jumping and fly-swatting, we headed off to find a place to stay for the night. we ended up staying at an inn called microtel where poor pravin froze the night away sleeping on the window ledge.

the next morning, we embarked on another 6hr drive back to north carolina...

but not before stopping at a jungle to find a certain waterfall. on the way, we supposedly spotted a bear though the only bear i saw was papa. heehee. kidding! but we did stop to take a photo with some rocks while looking cool and nonchalant...

some of us looked like we were sleeping. somebody. i won't say who. but somebody!

so then, we finally reached the falls. the water was nice and cool but we didn't swim in it. we just drank it. and took photos with it. haha.

like this one...

and this one...

and here are the three boys...

and here's the falls without people...

and here's a distant cousin of sir edmund hillary...

so after that, we stopped at a different kind of jungle. the factory outlets where a half an hour stretched into a solid 2 hrs of shopping. i just bought a 99cents cap from nike though haha.

so then, finally we were on the way home and after a yummy meal cooked by aunty lata that night, we went out to the front lawn to set off fireworks. if you know me, you'll know how i love fireworks! and i felt so honoured. they named one after me, one of the prettier ones if you ask me. awww, thanks guys! i wish i had pictures and videos to post of them but jeevan has them and he's somewhere in chicago now and i've been working far too long on this post! too long! maybe i'll randomly post them some other time...

the next day found us at a beautiful sandy beach in wilmington...

(it's funny that moby's porcelain just started playing on my com. you know, the beach?)

after which, we took a walk along a(nother) boardwalk...


where i couldn't help looking at the sun(set(ting))...

others looked good with the sun(set(ting))...

spj pte ltd and mr sumeet chugani

(i should stop falling asleep in photos. turning into some sort of melt here. who by the way has been sleeping for the past 2 months since we can no doubt here no sound from her. hmmmph!)

on the way back, we stopped for an urgent pee break at this supermarket place. and while waiting for the others, sumeet and i were looking at this stuffed toy machine...you know the one with the claw thingy? and then sumeet asked which one i wanted and i really couldn't find anything mildly cute even except maybe for the whale. next thing i know, sumeet slots in 2 quarters and actually manages to catch something! i was like..WHOA! especially after recalling the amount of coins joy, melt and i had thrown away one afternoon trying, to no avail, to catch at least one of those things!

so after catching this funny-looking toy, sumeet grabs it and runs like a raving lunatic into the carpark raising it high in the air for all to see. that was a pretty funny sight. and so, the pretty funny-looking bulldog is with me now. decided to call it sumeet. no surprises.

the next day, poor sumeet drove like a madman (actually more like some sort of schumacher) trying to work some sort of miracle to get pravin and me to the airport on time. good job, mister! and suddenly, i was on the way back to wildwood. as suddenly as i had left it.

i had to take a plane to philadelphia first. then a train to 30th street in philly. then a train from 30th street to atlantic city. then at atlantic city, i had to find the bus terminal and take a bus back to wildwood. and from wildwood, i had to walk home from the busstop which wasn't that near. the whole thing felt like some sort of amazing race, only without instructions. i pretty much had to ask my way home from philly.

on the train from philly to atlantic city

i liked it though...not knowing what was next but knowing you would get there definitely, for sure. funny thing is, i was determined to make it for mass and kept thinking mass was at 6pm. i reach magnolia ave and look at the church signboard. the last mass is at 5pm. i look at my watch. 515pm. there and then, i had to make a decision. so instead of walking back home, i walked straight into church, with my backpack, the paper bag full of frozen food aunty lata had packed for me and my handbag. i don't know what i must have looked like to the others who were already listening to the sermon but it felt like i had finally reached home after that long gruelling interesting journey.

and you would think that i would have gone home and slept till noon the next day. but nooooo, we ended up going to the amusement park instead of what should have been dinner. and next thing i know, i'm getting spinned around silly on the gravitron, allowing the atmosfear to play some sick joke on my stomach and getting drenched TWICE on the zoom phloom. and oh yes, riding two big roller coasters as well. what can i say? story of my life this week. as sumeet and i were discussing about what makes us love spontaneity. and i think that perhaps it's because every wonderful thing that happens is like a pleasant surprise. and every bad thing that happens doesn't disappoint cos you don't expect anything in the first place. you're just living life with your arms and eyes wide open and everything is a gift. and i guess that is probably why i can love this ugly old green bulldog with purple eyebrows...

and yesterday, i decided to just take it easy and spend the day by myself resting and relaxing. so after doing the laundry, i paddled off on my bike to the beach and fell in love. i didn't expect that the wildwood beaches would get that much more beautiful. but they did! as i paddled, the long grass separated me from the beach and as i peeked over, the glimpses of the empty sandy beaches and the vast ocean and the pink-hued sky made my heart flutter. and the occasional rabbits along the way with their little eyes stopped me in my tracks literally. i finally settled down near some rocks and watched the waves crashing against them for a while...


as random as those waves may be and the way they break into random droplets after crashing against those rocks, they eventually go back to the ocean, somehow...and likewise, my palms are wide open, and in the spontaneity of life, every person, every moment, every drop of life, is a gift indeed. i don't know what comes next, but i know i'll get there somehow...i just know.

=)

(phew, now i can breathe!)