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Twenty-Five Years After 9/11
It is hard to believe that this happened twenty-five years ago. I was 55 years old, and we were living in Great Falls, Virginia. In some ways it still seems like yesterday. I first heard the news that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings. The general feeling at the time was that it might have been a small plane, and that it was possibly an accident. Not long afterward, the speculation shifted to pilot error. It was only when the second jet struck the other building that everyone realized there was no accident involved. America was under attack. I recall that my wife, Mini,…
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Education in Colonial Kenya
I grew up in colonial Kenya, living there from 1949 to 1962 — from the age of three to sixteen. Kenya was then under British rule, one of the many colonies that made up the British Empire. At that age, I was far too young to understand the full impact of the colonial system on everyday life. I simply accepted the world around me as the way things were. Looking back now, I realize just how deeply segregation was woven into it. Education, housing, social interaction, and many other aspects of daily life were organized, to varying degrees, along racial lines. My focus here is on education. Some of…
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How I Ended Up in the US
I was living in Bombay, quite content with my life in that vibrant city. I had the good fortune to hold an enviable position at a multinational company, Hindustan Lever, and my career there was flourishing. And yet, beneath that contentment, there was a restlessness stirring somewhere at a subconscious level. That restlessness was fed, in part, by my then-wife Geeta’s growing fascination with the “American dream.” Her cousin lived in Delaware and had filled her ears with stories of the wonderful life to be had in the US, and Geeta wanted that for us. I resisted at first. Having absorbed a very British disdain for American life, I dismissed…
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I am back ………
Over three years after my last entry on this blog, I have decided to resume writing. So much has happened since then…….. For a start, I turned 80 last January and so I am now in the ninth decade of my life! My three children are also getting on—one is in her mid-50s, one in her early 40s and the youngest is in his late 30s. Who would have thunk that I would actually have middle-aged children, or close to it! Two months ago, we moved from Tampa to be close to our son, Amit, and his partner, Brett. Although we are still quite functional, we are at a stage…
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Our visit to Argentina: Buenos Aires
Oh, what an adventure it was! Two weeks in Argentina from March 23 to April 4, 2023, exploring its wonders and indulging in the finest experiences the country has to offer. Our journey began in the vibrant city of Buenos Aires, where we stayed in a cozy ABnB in the heart of the city. It was a great start to our visit to Argentina when we saw the accommodation that had been arranged by Amit. “Airbnb in Recoleta on Avenida Callao” was truly a gem of a find. The apartment was spacious, elegantly decorated, and had all the amenities we could possibly need. Located in the heart of Recoleta, one…
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Our visit to Argentina: Iguazu Falls
Onward to Iguazu from Buenos Aires : A beautiful and vibrant place, nestled in the lush greenery of the Misiones province in northern Argentina. It is the gateway to one of the world’s most breathtaking natural wonders, the Iguazu Falls. As we stepped out of our Airbnb, located in the same building as the Consulate of Paraguay, we were immediately struck by the beauty of the city. The streets were lined with colorful buildings, adorned with intricate murals and street art. The atmosphere was lively and bustling, with locals going about their day and tourists exploring the area. The scenery from the balcony of our Airbnb was spectacular.
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Our visit to Argentina: Mendoza
Our final destination was Mendoza, a picturesque city located in the heart of Argentina’s wine country, nestled in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. The city is known for its stunning natural beauty, rich history, and world-renowned wine industry.
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Final thoughts, suggestions & observations about Japan
I have already summarized some initial impressions of Japan based on the initial three or four days we were there and those favorable impressions were borne out in spades during the additional time we spent there. But here are some additional thoughts or elaboration of what I have previously stated including some tips for anyone who is thinking of visiting Japan:
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“A Fantasia of Culinary Delights”
My brother, George, suggested the above title based on some WhatsApp postings that I shared with family while in Japan as I commented on the variety of cuisine we experimented with and, for the most part, enjoyed. A couple of the images shown below are stock photos mainly because we started eating what was served before taking pictures. First, we have sushi – surely no trip to Japan can be complete without sushi. Now I am not a great fan of sushi – and neither is Mini – but what we had was surprisingly good. Mini and Lekshmi who was with us were not overly adventurous but I pretty much…
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Kyoto
With the benefit of hindsight we should have spent about 4 days in Kyoto, made a day trip to Hiroshima and perhaps included a two day visit to Osaka which which was missing from our itinerary. As it worked out the itinerary we made in the US resulted in us spending only two days in Kyota which was really not sufficient to do justice to this magnificent city with its old world charm and lots to see. Anyway we arrived here from Hiroshima on an unreserved train which involved changing at Osaka. We left booking a reserved seat until too late and by the time we tried reserved seats were…
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Hiroshima
Hiroshima is worth visiting though it can be done in a day trip – we stayed here overnight but we could have spent the extra day in Kyoto instead. There are two things worth seeing in Hiroshima, as a tourist – the Peace Museum which brings out vividly the trauma and tragedy of the first ever atom bomb that was dropped on a city as part of a war. There are two places that I have visited over the decades that I found profoundly moving: one was the Dachau concentration camp near Munich where tens of thousands of Jews were exterminated and the other was Hiroshima. There are pictures of…
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Shibuya Crossing
Today was a rainy day but after being cooped up in the apartment through much of the morning, we decided to venture out even though there were occasional rain spells. We used the Tokyo Metro to go with Lekshmi and Brito to see the famous Shibuya Crossing – a remarkable experience by any definition. This is a famous crossing just outside Shibuya Station that is surrounded by shops and dining establishments. When the lights turn red at this busy junction, they all turn red at the same time in every direction – essentially crosswise and diagonally. Traffic stops completely and pedestrians surge into the intersection from all sides, in what…
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Tokyo City Tour – Part 2
We then proceeded to the Imperal Palace where the Emperor and his family live. Again, our timing was not optimal because much of the Palace grounds were closed since on the day following our tour – April 30th 2019 – the Emperor was going to abdicate and for three days thereafter there were events involving the abdication and the coronation of the new Emperor. What we learned is that although the Japanese follow the Gregorian calendar, they also have “eras” that are given a name – and each era starts with the coronation of a new emperor. For example the era associated with Hirohito who was the emperor during the…
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Tokyo City Tour – Part 1
We spent much of Monday – the 29th – on a city tour seeing some of the major tourist spots. Among the places we saw was a Shinto shrine: Shintoism is the major religion of Japan. It is a faith that has no religious scripture or founder. It is a difficult religion to describe – they don’t believe in proselytizing which is why it is not found outside of Japan. Here is a link that explains Shintoism: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2056.html
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Karaoke & Dining
We went from the sake festival to a karaoke bar – karaoke is a big thing in Japan and there are facilities offering karaoke all over the city. We went to one not far from where Lekshmi lives with Karina – Lekshmi’s friend who bought the Christian Louboutin shoes. What happens is that one ends up renting a private room which was assigned for our use for an hour. The price we paid – about $75 – includes the use of the room and an alcoholic drink for the five of us. We select what songs we want to sing and then whoever wishes can join in the singing. Several…
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Sake Festival
This was one of our major activities on Sunday – experiencing a wide variety of sake that was being served in the arena of a major shopping center nearby. It resembled a huge food fair but the emphasis was on different types of sake though there were some “upscale” food trucks serving different types of cuisine ranging from Japanese to German and Italian. Interestingly we did not see any Chinese which is a staple at such events in the US. There was something akin to burgers and hot dogs that we avoided.
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Initial Impressions of Tokyo
We have now been in Japan for three full days and I have to say that I am impressed with just about everything about the country – at least what I have seen and experienced. The people are non –interfering and somewhat reserved – in part because of limitations with English – but they are respectful, helpful to the extent they can be and have a strong civic sense. The city – to the extent that we have seen it has to be one of the cleanest cities I have seen. Brito, the day we arrived, said the Japanese strive for perfection and he is right. As I mentioned previously,…
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Our Visit to Japan – April/May 2019
Inspired by my brother Peter’s detailed narrative of his trip to the Holy Land, I decided to emulate his example and record our visit to Japan – our first time to this part of the world. As opposed to the daily account that Peter followed, I am going to record key highlights of our visit here which was from April 26th to May 8th when we will be returning to the USA. We were fortunate in being able to stay with our niece Lekshmi and her husband Brito. Lekshmi who works for the US State Department has been posted to the US Embassy in Tokyo and been provided with an…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 10
Final Day in Cairo, return to Kochi & sundry thoughts on the trip We were afforded the rare luxury of waking up at 8am, having a leisurely breakfast and then getting on the bus by 10am. By the time our luggage had been identified and loaded it was a bit after 10:30 in the morning and then got on the bus for our sightseeing experience before making the trip to Cairo International airport. The last of our sightseeing trips conducted was a Coptic Church, St.Sergius and Bacchus which was built on what was believed to be the hideout of the holy family when they had to flee to Egypt from…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 9
Cairo After a good breakfast which was a choice of continental and Middle Eastern food we got on the bus with Mehmood our guide explaining that our first stop is what any person who has heard of the Great Pyramids of Giza would look forward to visit with much anticipation, which summed up the feelings of our tour group. The Pyramids were very close to Le Meridien and we were among what seemed like hundreds of tourists flocking to see one of the great ancient wonders of the world. We started with the biggest one which is called Khufu or Cheops (as the Greeks called it) and if one were…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 8
Travel to Cairo/St Katherine Monastery/Suez Canal/Cairo We were told that the bus journey from South Sinai to Cairo was going to be a long one, and to be on the bus by 8am. So we started on October 25th, the route was along the coastline of the Red Sea and the last part would be the Gulf of Suez. We would then cross the Canal through the tunnel to enter into Cairo. Our only stop on the way was to be a place which is commonly known to Christians as St.Katherine where there is a monastery and a church built centuries ago over the burning bush that Moses had seen,…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 7
Transit to Egypt/Red Sea/Tabha Of the 10 days we were on the Holy Land trip, this day was one of the less productive ones as far as sightseeing was concerned. We were supposed to have been taken to the House of Bethany, home of the two women who took Christ in to their house and the famous recounting of Martha washing Christ’s feet after anointing it with expensive and sacred oil. This however had to be cancelled due to local strife between the Israeli authority and Palestinians, from what was recounted to us there was stone throwing and tear gas to dispel unruly crowds. Unfortunately this happened on the route…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 6
Mount of Olives/Church of the Ascension/River Jordan/Dead Sea At the crack of dawn we were up at the hotel that we were put up, not due to any time constraints as it was in the previous days but because we wanted to explore a bit of the Palestinian side, and with Shyni’s friend and coworker mentioning that she was from Ramallah we had limited time to step out and try to get the feel of the city. As any traveller can attest, to step into just one neighborhood in any city especially in a foreign country is not really a taste of what daily living is, it was a cool…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 5
Church of the Holy Sepulchre/Tomb of David/Last Supper/Western Wall As each day passed it became routine for us to start out early, as our two guides Bindu & Shehadi urged us to do so, after an early breakfast, usually by 6 or 6:30 in the morning. On this day in particular, we had a full itinerary starting with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As we combed our way through the old city of Jerusalem, with Shehadi explaining about the various quarters in the path of the Via Dolorosa (the way of suffering) where Jesus walked carrying the cross to the site of his crucifixion. One remembers that this is…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 4
Cana/Bethlehem/Church of the Nativity We started our day after breakfast early as usual, on the bus the morning prayers and devotional songs were sung and chanted. Our trip for the day according to the schedule sent out to us was going to be first to Shepherd’s Field – as the name suggests it is where the shepherds “watched their flocks by night” when the birth of Jesus occurred. Many of the songs, Christmas carols, passages from the bible and our memories are closely associated with these illusory figures, the shepherds. It was a short walk from where the bus was parked and we managed to see what must have been…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 3
Amman to Israel Again, an early start to our day after breakfast. Once settled in the bus, morning prayers songs were sung – our bus took us from Jordan to Israel and we started going through what would become routine on our travel security checkpoints, this one was at the Jordanian border into Israel. A TSA type of scan of all our luggage and our papers were scrutinized, with some questions thrown in to ensure that we were all part of the group. At this point we changed buses and guides, Talal the experienced guide was replaced by a younger man by the name of Shehadi a Palestinian who would…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 2
Amman, Jordan Our day started out early, we had been forewarned by Bindu that this will be the trend for most of the days, the idea being to keep to the itinerary with some of the places that we need to visit being far apart. After breakfast, which was opened by 6 or 6:30 am at the hotel restaurant, again, the menu would be repeated throughout the trip, with slight variations. There would be a choice of eggs, bread, fruit, maybe even some meat such as chicken or beef in the form of sandwich slices or sausages, of course never any pork. We were in a Muslim country and later…
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Guest Contribution: Visit to the Holy Land – Day 1
Introduction by Rana: In 2013, we went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and I included several posts on our trip. Since then I have told quite a few people – mostly Indian Christians – that it was one of the more fulfilling trips that we have undertaken. My brother, Peter (Eapen Joseph Panicker) went with his wife, Shiny, and several others and used the same tour operator that we did – Royal Omania Tours in Kochi. He kept a journal of his trip to the Holy Land and he recently shared it with family and friends. He did a far better job than I did in recording the…
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Remembering Marianne Ambrey
The image which appears below was contributed by Roxanne Loget and is a tribute to her best friend, Marianne Ambrey, who was a trainee flight attendant with Pan Am and was killed in the crash of Pan Am Flight 217. The main write up regarding that crash and those who lost their lives appears on this link. I am also adding Roxanne’s comment from last year when she shared some memories and thoughts about Marianne: “I will forever remember the first time we met In August 1967 or 68. I had JUST moved in…or maybe SHE had just moved in… to a shared room in The Lodge, a Victorian mansion…
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Our visit to the Holy Land – Cana and the Church of the Nativity
From Nazareth we traveled to Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle and turned water into wine at a wedding where the hosts had run short on wine. According to John 2:1-11: “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”…