Valentine's day special

Valentine's day is celebrated worldwide on February 14. This year I and my friends wanted to celebrate valentines day. But in our gang, no one is committed. So we celebrated singles valentines week starting from February 7 to February 14. The next question will be how we celebrated that week?! We bought food each day ( we can say it was foodie's special week )

Day 1: February 7, 2023

Panipuri Day - We went to a panipuri shop near our office.

Day 2: February 8, 2023

Milkshake Day: On this day, I went to Tirupathi so I celebrated that day as milkshake day with my sister.

Day 3: February 9, 2023

Masala Pori Day: I was in Tirupathi so that day also celebrated with my sister by buying masala pori which was so good to taste.

Day 4: February 10, 2023

Chocolate Day:  I bought different chocolates on this day.

Day 5: February 11, 2023

Mushroom day: I and my friends went to a small shop and bought mushrooms. The roadside mushroom always has a special taste.

Day 6: February 12, 2023

Burger day: We tried burgers in a new shop.

Day 7: February 13, 2023

Briyani day: We all went to the restaurant and celebrated biryani day.

Valentine's day: February 14, 2023

We made this day special by gifting our friends. I bought a book for one of my friends and snacks for another friend. They bought me a book and a waffle for me since I am a book lover.

Thus our valentines week went well. Actually, we spent time together and explored new restaurants with new food.

Friends' love would be always special❤️💚

Govinda Govinda

Tirupathi is a special place that every Hindu people want to go to at least once in a lifetime. We planned a trip to Tirupathi in January. Actually, we used to visit here for two years once. After covid, we visited here on February 8, 2023, and stayed there for three days and two nights. Special note: Book the 300 rupees ticket for the darshan and also book the room for accommodation prior through online on the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam website. TTD will open the tickets for darshan and accommodation on particular dates so check the dates on booking the tickets or it will be so tough to see our Balaji. And also always plan to visit Tirupathi on working days except for Monday and Friday. Actually, we could not able to book the darshan and accommodation tickets prior due to server problems. We were disappointed but we decided to visit Tirupathi for sure whatever happens.

Day 1: February 8, 2023

       Already we booked the Tirupathi express train from Chennai Central (boarding time: 4.35 pm ). Appa, amma started from home by 7.30 am. Then they boarded the Chennai bus. After reaching Chennai they went to pick up my sister from college since her college needs her parents' permission to go out of the college during weekdays. I went to the office for half a day and then started from the office by 2 pm. I came to Thiruvanmiyur station by auto from the office. Then I boarded the local train and got down to the park station. Then reached the central station by crossing the road by subway.

I waited there in the station since the platform number for our train was not announced.

After the announcement of the platform number, I reached the 7th platform and waited for my sister and parents. They arrived by 4pm then the train started by 4.35 pm. We ate lunch on the train itself. Then we ate snacks and enjoyed the journey to Tirupathi. My sister and parents enjoyed playing with a child in our compartment. We reached Tirupathi by 8 pm.

 Then we went to Vishnu nivasam hotel for accommodation. We waited for 2 hours to book the room. We got our room and got settled in that room by 10 pm. Unfortunately, I didn't get the sleep that night. Anyway, the first day was successfully completed with the blessings of our tirupathi venki.

Day 2: February 9, 2023

        We woke up at 4 am and dressed up well. Then we checked out of the hotel by 5.30 am. After that, we went to a restaurant and finished our breakfast. Usually, we go to Tirumala by walking (through steps ). We hired an auto to go to the Alipiri where the Tirupathi steps were starting.

First, we locked our bags with a lock and handed over the luggage to the set of TTD people who were responsible for bringing the luggage to Tirumala. Because it was so tough to carry the luggage while walking.

 Then we started to walk through the steps. We climbed up slowly through the steps. There we had places for taking rest. We could sit there for some time whenever we felt tired. 

Many small shops were there for drinking coffee, and tea and also for eating snacks.

We would reach the below place after covering 2000 steps. 

We could know the steps from the board mentioning the steps covered and steps to be covered.

On the way, we would be able to see one Anjeneyar statue.

After that we would be walking by the side of the road for some time, then we would again have steps. While walking through the road we would be able to see the view from a viewpoint. 

After this, we would reach the final set of steps which would be steeper than all of the steps. Finally, we finished the steps and reached Tirumala after 5 hours.

 After that, we went to take our luggage. Then we booked a room which was allocated only for those who came on a walk( Price: 100) Then we had our lunch. We tried for some other hotel rooms but we didn't get those hotel rooms. So we went to that hundred rupees room. Then we got ready to go to the temple. We went to the sarva darshan ( free ) which had a separate queue. By evening 6 they kept us in a separate room. We waited there for 6 hours. TTD provided us milk and dinner. They allowed us for the darshan by 11.30  and finally saw Tirupathi Venkatachalapathi by 1.00 midnight. After that, we went to the laddu counter and purchased laddus. We went to our room by 2.30 and had a good sleep.

Day 3: February 10, 2023

         We woke at 7 am. Then we got dressed and rented a car. We went to Alamelumangapuram from tirumala. It took one hour to reach down and we had our breakfast before entering Mangapuram temple. We locked our luggage in a cloakroom. Then we went to the temple and took special darshan tickets. The queue was very fast and we saw Padmavati ( God) within one hour. After that, we took our luggage from the cloakroom and reached the Tirupathi bus stand. We got into the Chennai bus as soon as we entered the bus stand. We had a good sleep on the bus until we reach Chennai. After reaching Chennai I came to my pg and my sister went to her college hostel and my parents went home from Chennai.

It was really a nice trip which had lots of sweet memories. ❤️

Miss you Tirupathi 🥺 and venkatachalapathi❤️

Three days fun days

My friends planned for a Kerala trip from August 13 to 15. But because of me, that trip was canceled. So my friends planned an alternative idea. They all came to Chennai and we enjoyed three days here.

Day 1: August 13, 2022

      

      On the first day, we went to our college, Anna university. There we went to our department to get our provisional certificate and semester mark sheets. After that we ordered lunch. All ordered nonveg items except me. We all had our lunch in the main gallery. After a long time, we had a good talk. Then we went to Viruman movie by 2.30 pm at Rohini theatre, koyembedu. We went to the movie together after 2 years so we enjoyed the movie by teasing the hero and heroine and also by discussing the scenes of the movie while watching it. After finishing the movie, we went to La Cabana hotel at Nungambakkam to have our dinner. Yes, it was expensive only but once in a lifetime we have to try new places. There we took a lot of photos together. But the food was served nearly after half an hour. They were taking a long time to prepare and serve the food. But the taste was really nice. Then we went to a small juice shop, we had juice and departed from Nungambakkam and reached the hostel by auto at 9 pm.

Day 2: August 14, 2022

        On the second day, we went to our friend's house. We decided to cook ourselves. So we bought all the necessary items through zepto. Then everyone separated the work and started working. Onions and tomatoes were chopped. Non-veg was cooked by two of my friends. Veg was cooked by me(Nothing big just rasam and potato) After finishing all sat together and had our lunch. It was really nice having lunch with friends. Then we started playing cards, UNO, and the Jenga game. After that, we started doing reels. We laughed a lot while doing that. By evening 6, we went to the shuttle court and played there for 2 hours. The second day came to end with these wonderful memories.

Day 3: August 15, 2022

       On the third day, we went to Go Extreme which was a games place. We played 5 games in total.

      1. Paintball: 

                  First, we played paintball. We split into two teams and changed our clothes. They gave black and red suits with helmets for our two teams. Then our game guide gave all of us our guns and trained us to use them properly. We went to the ground and stand in our suitable position. Each person had 14 paintball bullets. After that game started. We enjoyed it a lot but one of our friends got hurt because of the paintball hitting her hand forcefully. Note: Paintball bullets are very dangerous for our eyes. So we should be very careful.

  

      2. Human Foosball:

                 Second, we played foosball. It's like a regular foosball where humans replace the plastic players instead. The game aims to get the ball into your team's goal while holding onto the red rod.

      3. Body sorbing:

                     Third, we played body sorbing. Body Zorbing is a game in which participants encase themselves inside an inflatable zorb ball covering their entire upper body and leaving their legs free to run.

        4. Soap football :

                      Fourth we played soap football. Here also a normal football game but our football pitch would be soapy. Be careful while playing this game.

          5. Swimming :

                    Then we all went to the swimming pool and enjoyed ourselves there for some time.

Then we changed our dress took a group picture and departed from that place by 5 pm. Then we went to OMR food street. There we had our dinner then I reached the hostel by 9 pm. All of our friends went to their native places by boarding a train or bus that night.

Finally, it was a successful plan and we enjoyed ourselves a lot in that 3 days. 

Random thoughts #1 (Christmas evening)

Watching Chennai during night time is a kind of fun which I like the most. But today (Christmas evening ) I just put my phone on charge and went to the veranda of our hostel, from there we can see the road and some other neighboring houses. I saw two friends eating snacks and drinking tea in a tea shop near my hostel, one lady taking clothes from the terrace, and one middle-aged man selling bananas in a vehicle. I saw people busy with their work, in those two incidents were so close to my heart.

First, One small girl playing with her father and mother happily. The little girl was very happy, spending time with her parents. At that time, I had thought of being a child again, I wanted to go to school so that I could be with my parents all the time. Now I wanted to be with my parents all the time which is not possible because of work. From this, one thing I understood, we should cherish the time when we are with our parents. 

Second, one grandma who would be in her 80s, can't even able to stand straight. She was walking half-bend (her backbone was not straight like the old lady in the picture). She walked slowly and suddenly she stopped and saw two medium-sized stones on her way. She slowly bend fully, took the stones from the road, and threw them to a corner so that they would not harm others who were walking and driving on the road. At her age and not even able to stand straight, she could just pass those stones how others were doing so far. But she removed those stones from the path which shocked me a lot.

Without the phone, I spent my time watching people which was really good and peaceful for the mind. 

Tada

Tada falls which is located 92 km from Chennai, is also called ubbalamadugu falls. We visited this falls on June 4th, 2022.  We started from Chennai by 5.30 am and reached there by 9 am. On the way to the falls, we had our breakfast. Since it was a weekend many people visited the falls. It was actually crowded that day. Before entering the falls, security men checked our bags for plastic bags and counted the number and also we paid 100 rupees to take those plastic bags inside. They told us that if we showed the same number of plastic bags after returning from falls, they would refund the amount to us. It was a good way to prevent plastics to be thrown into the falls. Then we entered the gate. 

We walked some distance and we could see many canals of water on the way to the falls

Then we reached a pool which we enjoyed a lot. 

Actually, this was not the fall. After enjoying here we went climbing the rocks to visit the falls. We climbed the hard rocks. But my shoes were worn out suddenly and I could not climb. So I stayed in a particular place and my friends climbed up and saw the falls. Since it was June month, the falls were thin. Then again we climbed down the falls by 3pm. We reached down and changed our clothes ( note: Dress changing places were not clean ) Then we started to Chennai by 4pm. We had our dinner in thalapakkatti in Guindy by 9 pm. We reached our hostel by 11 pm. 

One day trip to Pondicherry

It all got started when I and my two friends were sitting and talking during our lunch break. We were talking about pondicherry on seeing the pictures posted on Instagram. We got tempted and planned a one-day trip to Pondicherry. And we invited many of our office friends to the trip. One of our friends suggested hiring a van so that places could be covered easily in one day and he himself arranged an ac van for the trip. We were so excited since it was our first one-day trip with all of our office friends. We collected many songs and stored them in a pen drive so that we could play that in the van during our travel from Chennai to pondicherry.  One of my two friends wanted to go for shopping to purchase some t-shirts for the trip. So we went to T-Nagar and she purchased some t-shirts. Suddenly we all three got attracted to one set of jeans tops and we purchased three sets of the same top for us so that we all could wear that jean top for the trip. One day before the trip, we purchased many snacks. The next day we started in the early morning at 5 'o clock from Chennai on April 3, 2022. The van picked up us from our PG. After everyone got into the van we took the last seat and got settled. Then we asked our van driver to play songs that we had in our pen drive. We had our breakfast in Tindivanam. Then we reached pondicherry by 9 am. First, we went to Auroville in Pondicherry. 

There we took many pics together. We walked nearly 10 to 15 mins from parking to this place. After this, we went to Pogo land. 

Here the entry fee was 500 per person. There were three slides and two swimming pools for adults. But this pogo land was a little bored for us. Then after changing our clothes we went to a restaurant and had our lunch. Next, we went to Rock beach by 4 pm. There some of our friends went shopping. Then we went for a walk near the beach. 

By 8 pm we departed from Pondicherry to Chennai. We finished our dinner again in Tindivanam. We reached our hostel by 11.30 pm. As a whole, we had a good experience and we enjoyed ourselves a lot together. 

Scuba Diving

There was a saying that "Sometimes the best moments are the ones you didn't plan at all." Likewise, scuba diving we went was just a sudden plan, but it created lots of good memories. Scuba diving is offered by VGP Marine kingdom at Injambakkam, Chennai. Marine Kingdom is an underwater tunnel and a walk through aquarium. First, when we entered into the marine kingdom, our instructor asked us to fill the questionnaire about our physical fitness. After filling the questionnaire, we walked through the tunnel and enjoyed watching the variety of species there.

After finishing this, we watched a live fish feeding show.

Then our instructor took us for scuba diving. Many of us would have the doubt whether we should know swimming for scuba diving. But no need to know swimming for this. First we had a briefing session lasted for 15 to 20 minutes. That session provided  the explanation and procedures of scuba diving plus dos and don'ts of scuba diving. 

I came to know that Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus was the full form of scuba, which shocked me a lot during the session. I really don't know that scuba is an acronym. Explanation about the diving suits was also given during the session. The diving suits consisted of long semi dry suit, cylinder, pressure gauge, fin socks and mask. 

After completion of the  session, we were taken to the pool. There, each one of us were assigned with a well-trained diver. Divers would help us to put on our diving cylinder, mask and fin socks. The first main thing, divers told us that we should not try to swim, and also we should not try to touch the fishes there, only the divers would take us through the water by holding our cylinder at the back. 

Then they taught us about the breathing techniques inside the water. We should breathe only through our mouth and also there were some problems to be handled inside the water like water entering through the mask and ear pain during diving. The divers taught us how to handle those situations. 

Since the tank was deep, we got ear pain during the diving. It was caused due to the change of pressure in water. To stop the pain in our ear, we did one method called equalizing. Press the nose, inhale the air through  the mouth and try to exhale the air through the nose. Inside the water we could not able to talk, so divers taught us some hand symbols to communicate inside the water. 

After the successful completion of our training, we were taken inside the tank. I had the fear at the beginning, but after seeing the fishes and the  scenery of the sea, I really enjoyed it. Viewers at the marine kingdom were amazed on seeing us, especially children. 

To keep the fishes alive, the water inside the tank was directly from the sea. We were allowed to be inside the water for 45 minutes (15 minutes training and 30 minutes diving). Last 5 minutes I got shivering since the water was very cold. 

The most common problem faced by all would be that ear pain during the diving. That too could be solved by the equalizing method. But for us, mild ear pain lasted for 2 days after scuba diving. As a whole, it was a nice experience. 😀😀😀😀

The Joy of Gifting the Best

Giving gifts make me happier than receiving them. I was planning a gift for my sister for her birthday. Then I decided to gift an Explosion box which is a handmade gift.

First, I listed the things needed to make an explosion box. Following things are needed for the box.

1. Black, Blue and White chart paper
2. Blank card
3. Fevicol
4. White or red ribbon
5. Color stick pens
6. Scissor
7. A4 paper
8. Heart-shaped color sticker
9. Smiley sticker
10. 6 passport size photos

Then I purchased all the things needed. Following are the steps I followed to make this explosion box.

Step 1:  Take the black chart paper of size 30*30cm and fold at 10cm all sides. Take a 10 *10cm card and cut the card in the shape of heart. Using that heart shaped card cut all the corners in the form heart shape on the black chart paper.

Step 2: Take two blue charts of size 18*9 cm and fold at 4.5cm from both ends. Then stick both cards on two sides of the chart as shown below.

Step 3: Take the white chart of size 18*18 cm and fold it equally from both the sides. After that, fold the chart diagonally front and back. 

Step 4 : Then paste that on remaining two parts along with pink ribbon.

Step 5: After that paste the blue card on to the white chart paper.

Step 6 :  Paste photos and fill all the empty cards with quotes or wishes.

Step 7: Decorate it with some stickers.Here I used heart shaped stickers. 

Step 8: Take a black thick sheet of size 16.5*16.5 cm and fold it at 3cm from all sides. Then cut the corner and paste it to the other side of the sheet to make the lid for this explosion box.

Step 9: Decorate the lid using some stickers. Then close the explosion box using it.

Step 10 : Wrap the box using gift paper.