Of crabs and clams and labor day

This was a good weekend during the past couple of them, when it was boring sitting at home. Rather it was a long weekend and at the end of it I am delighted not to be regretting on the days gone by. Now I'm slowly finding me on the course and what is interesting is I'm not feeling lonely and neither I'm bored. Saturday was a tipical day and I spend it in some learning. My friend from Hyderabad is leaving to India next week and he wanted to do some shopping. Unlike me he is a good navigator and has a very good sense of direction. So I feel confident if he is with me while I'm driving. This I believe is also an opportunity to make my driving rather perfect. Still somehow I dont like driving a car, rather I would like my Motor Bike. You know, the Harley's when they move around, the "Alero" I'm having seems to tremble. The sheer power of the machine is something that can really give you a kick. I have been thinking about this kick, which is the main "thing" that people long for, and the kick comes for different people in different ways. So it is rather amusing and un surprising that kick for one person might be sheer indifference for another person. Else, why do you think there are humans, who cross the entire distance of "Palo Alto" to "Boston" on their bi cycle?????? Thats also for "kick". Is it just the pumping of adrenaline, or is it the human notion of conquer&victory that gives you satisfaction is a great question. So saturday ended in a 5 hour long shopping around so many huge warehouses (malls) around Palo alto, the indifferent visit to Fry's where you can find Televisions that are of the size of a huge wall, and people going for 2 of them in one visit. The dinner at Udupi Palace with a "Kothu parata" was rather heavy. We dont get this item in B'lore or Kerala (I havent ever had it in my life). This is a mixture of slices of our Malabar parata (name for "Porota" here) and a choice of vegetables, chicken or egg.

The next day or sunday was the planned trip to SFO. The last time I went there was for a customary visit to the Golden gate bridge to anybody who visits the silicon valley. This time we went to the Fisherman's wharf, and the Pier "x" (this x are various numbers associated with the so many Piers here). As soon as we parked our car my friend got hungry. We went to one of the crab stands there. This place is almost like a tipical market in India. There were huge pacific ocean crabs here which they just boil in water and they slice it and you can eat it to the full. The friendly smell of fish and the aroma of getting them cooked started watering my taste buds. (Being a mallu, I have a real appetite for fish) We ordered a huge crab for 2 of us, (its costly here comes to around 20 dollars for a medium (American ) sized one. The way they hammer is also an art. They seem to enjoy it. They keep a vessel near to the place where they are hammering on the legs of the crab and occasionaly beat on that to create the noise (rather music). The crab was really awesome and we justified the 20 dollar price of it to "The crab is an american and its not from Arabian sea, its from the pacific". The other friend with us had something called a "clam" and I tasted it from him. It was good. I ordered a "Clam bowl". This comes around 5 dollars and is a thick soup of lobsters, shrimp and crab along with vegetables, filled in a kind of bun. The bun is rather hard and they clean the internal loaf from it. After this the whole stomach was full. Then we started walking through the street. we did lot of shop hopping, the tipical exercise you do if you go to "Brigad road" in B'lore. This place is a huge Brigade road. There were wonders like the World famous Bush man, then guys painted in silver color and who can stand like statues, along this road. It was quite interesting to note that people were enjoying it. Then we saw the "Ripley's believe it or not" museum and also a wax museum from outside. We didnt go inside since my friend had already been there and according to him it wasnt worth the money at all. So we just roamed around here and there and it was coming to the end of the trip. Any trip to this place should not end without an end to the "world famous ice cream shop". This is a shop called "Ghiradelly ice cream and chocolate shop" seems to have founded in 1850's. There was really a 1/4 mile queue (I'm not exaggerating) and people were standing in that long queue to get the ice creams. But the ice cream here was really good. This was far better than the corner house ice cream. You never get these ice creams in B'lore. With that we were about to return back. After the heavy ice cream I wasnt in the mood to drive back. I gave that task to my friend who was also feeling sleepy after the heavy intake of calories. I was feeling lucky to have the next day as a holiday here also. This is labor day.

Also its my friend's wedding day. I would like to wish them on this great day "GP and Sreenu -- Have a happy & prosperous married life"

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"Somewhere a village in Texas is missing an idiot" --> A poster of Democrats seen in fisherman's wharf with photo of their president.
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