I guess by now everyone must be swinging in the festive mood. Well ideally Diwali for “most people” here in US is to celebrate by arranging delicious potlucks, lighting diyas and visiting temple. But for people in India Diwali means a blast, the festivities begin almost a week before cleaning the houses, buying crackers, kitchens filled with aroma of sumptuous snacks, new clothes, friends and relatives visiting. Surly kindling the fun in both children and elders alike, you get the drift!

Anyways, how are you celebrating your Diwali this year. Any ideas on joining the” go green” bandwagon this Diwali. Of late I made an interesting read in one of the news papers on the same account. Thought I would share it with you.
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With the Festival of Lights round the corner there is promise of fun and laughter. But in the midst of all that, do keep in mind the fragile state of the earth and also those less privileged than yourself.Traditionally, Diwali was celebrated by lighting earthen lamps signifying the triumph of good over evil.

The very mention of Diwali fills our mind with images of a night sky colorfully lit, an equally colorful variety of sweets, new clothes and not to forget the programmes on TV.

Be it marking the return of Lord Rama from a 14-year exile in the forest after defeating Ravana, or cheering the killing of the demon Narkasura by Krishna, everybody’s favorite ‘Festival of Lights’ has grown beyond its purpose to become a time for getting together with loved ones and celebrating happiness.
Get smart

Traditionally, Diwali was celebrated by lighting earthen lamps in houses signifying the triumph of good over evil by dispelling darkness with light, exchanging sweets and wishes, followed or preceded by Lakshmi pooja. It also involved, and it very much does today as well, waking up before the crack of dawn, having an oil bath and wearing new clothes. This ritual is followed by the much awaited bursting of firecrackers.

But with all the talk about saving the environment and going the eco-friendly way, Diwali can’t be left behind. Firecrackers are obvious contributors to noise and dust pollution, emitting hazardous chemicals. So why not think of ways to celebrate a green Diwali? Some suggestions would be to take to tradition and light clay lamps, maybe those bought from NGOs, with cotton wick and oil in our homes. Instead of bursting firecrackers try meeting up with friends and cousins, even the long-lost ones, exchanging sweets and inviting people over for lunch or dinner. You could also bring a smile and cheer to those less privileged by visiting orphanages or homes for the underprivileged and spending quality time with them.

So, think about this and have a fun, safe and green Diwali

Buying

Buy fireworks only from authorised manufacturers.

Check the box for declaration of no involvement of child labour.

For the green ones, do check out if your local market has stocked up on the latest green innovation – Eco Friendly Crackers.

Talking of noise, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board has banned the production of firecrackers with noise levels over 125 decibels, so watch what you are buying.

Pollution

The chemicals used in the fireworks like copper, cadmium, lead, magnesium, sodium, zinc, nitrate and nitrite may cause health and environmental hazards.

Even the smoke from lighting these fireworks may affect a person, especially those with respiratory problems.

The excessive exposure to the noise generated could lead to stress high blood pressure and sleep disturbances.

The paper and other wastes from these crackers and their packing, contribute to the litter in the neighbourhood.

The noise also causes extreme stress and fear in animals.
Safety tips

Always keep a first aid box and a bucket of water or sand nearby in case of emergencies.

Make sure you wear footwear when bursting crackers.

Always light them outdoors.

Avoid lighting fireworks like rockets when it is windy.

Watch what you are wearing. Avoid wearing loose clothes, and be careful when sporting scarves and dupattas.

Never bend over the firecracker while lighting it.

Always have an adult around to supervise.

Store firecrackers properly and away from the area where you are lighting them.

Also keep in mind that the government does not allow you to burst crackers between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Avoid doing so near hospitals and other noise-free zones.

Dispose used fireworks properly by either putting them in a bucket of water or sand.

Keep pets indoors during Diwali.

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Thats- that,

Have a safe and joyous Diwali folks!!

A reel of thoughts passed through my mind..about how it all started. How excited I was about entering  into this blogosphere and have my own space. But I know for all that excitement and just 18 posts isn’t a great mile stone, but I want to have my own pace of posting though.  Anyways starting another year with the same excitement but this time definitely coming back to write more posts and pamper my blog even more.

Before leaving I will leave you  with some beautiful pictures.

“Indianness”

Pictures and Collage by Priya

The next  morning i.e the Feb 2nd we went to Hollywood studios( This is one o f the 4 parks in the Disney world resorts the other 3 being EPCOT, magic Kingdom,Animal Kingdom). Reached the studios by around 10:00 A.M. This park again had a huge parking lot. Thank god they had a transportation from the parking lot  till the gate of the Holly wood studios. Again for you can book tickets online even for this park and its some thing around 10$ less on each ticket.

As soon as you enter the park you see this…

The Sorcerer’s Hat is the icon of the Disney Hollywood Studios

Can you see the cloudy skies in the picture already. Before I proceed let me give you the map of the Hollywood studios again . Map: The internet

Once we were done taking pictures near the Hat and also snow white

and Mickey ..

we went straight ahead to the animations court yard.. it has 4 different shows but we went only to the magic of Disney animation. It is a live show where you will be shown how to draw your favorite cartoons. People like myself who are crazy about cartoons will definitely enjoy it . And also you can find the real cartoons come to live and posing for a picture for you like this…

By the time we came out of the Animation courtyard it started raining ( And continued until late night that day).

Now we head straight to fill our stomach at a pizza place. Our stomach full and backs tired wanted to sit and relax for few minutes so we went to a Muppet Vision 3-D movie. Its a hilarious show for everyone. Kind of fun.  It was a 20 minute show totally..

(Enough of relaxation now!!)..let go for some adventure.  We now went to Starts tours..its a thrill ride which will take is through Universe. It was awesome.  There is a flight simulator and you make a journey onto into the stars, space and the universe.(With out actually travelling: P )

After the flight lands :p (After the show was over) the exit leads us to a shop where you have all the star  wars inventory. ( You can shop around and buy some stuff).

Now in the same pavilion we went to the Indiana Jones Epic stunt spectacular. It is basically a  live stunt show which shows features real stunts and some adventure. If you have seen the movie then you can enjoy it more. Its totally a 30 minute show. you can relax your legs for sometime and also a great treat for the eyes.

After finishing this part of the park we then proceeded to  the great movie ride. Basically it is a  slow moving ride. The main theme behind it is to showcase  the classic movie scenes and walk us through the history of Hollywood clips.  If you would have know the old English movies then  you will enjoy it better.You can see settings something like this at the starting of the ride..

remember the above pic the setting is from Wizard of OZ. After finishing  this 22 minutes tour our last and

pur final stop was at Toy story @ PIXAR PLACE..

we went there almost half drenched only to see that the wait time there is 80 MINUTES!!  Though we stand in the queue shivering  and moving along the every other minute we change our minds to go back. But then, we wanted to visit that place because the reviews were awesome.  Finally after almost 45 minutes of standing, shivering and back aches we did enter the playing area. Believe me it was worth all the wait..It is basically a 4-D midway style game with your favorite toy story characters. You are basically seated in a spinning shell shaped carousle and given a trigger which is used to target while playing the game And you score points for each game. And here are our scores..:P .

It was absolutely fun.We wanted to visit it again but the wait time was 60 minutes!! So, that was it.  Look out for my next post on Bush Gardens and sea world

Posted in Games, Personal, Travel Tagged: Hoolywood studios trip, vacation ]]> http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/a-visit-to-orlando-hollywood-studios/feed/ 0 awalkwithpriya dsc_0522 dsc_05551 mgm-map dsc_0559 dsc_05641 dsc_0579 dsc028601 dsc02925 dsc028793 dsc02888 dsc02919-copy dsc02915 http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/a-trip-to-orlando/ http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/a-trip-to-orlando/#comments Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:35:38 +0000 awalkwithpriya http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/?p=479 ]]>

The last week saw us in Orlando, Florida. We went there as part of our anniversary celebrations. It was a quick decision to fly there to Florida. It was totally a 4 day trip.

Started off to Orlando on Jan31st at around 8:45 P.M.( We booked our flight through Jet blue) . By the time we reached Orlando it was about  12:15 in the morning. After picking up the baggage we head straight to the rental car picking center near the airport  ( A hertz Compact car) and reached the hotel which we booked by 1:00 and totally tired and almost half sleepy we directly crashed on the bed.

Day1 @ EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow):

Had a continental breakfast provided by our hotel early in the morning and then started off to Epcot. Reached there  by around 10 in the morning. You have a huge parking space by huge I mean 141 acres dedicated to parking.

We had to park our car at one end of the gate and walk for about 5 minutes to reach the tickets counter. (We bought the tickets when we reached there but if you plan properly then you can buy on-line for 10$ less per ticket).

The first thing you see when you reach Epcot is this….

a huge round ball..Wondering whatz inside it. Simply The FUTURE  of earth:D. It is called the space ship Earth. It is at the the entrance of Epcot which attracts many people. It is a slow moving ride which walks us through the time line of inventions that took place in the field of communications and shows us how our future may look like. It was a wonderful experience. A must go for the first timers like us.

Let me clarify two thing before I go ahead. The Epcot is totally divided into two parts the Future world and the world show case. The Future world  deals with the  inventions , technology and fun rides related to them. And the World showcase show cases   around 11 countries.

And also, let me show you the map of Epcot so that the you will get a clear picture of what I am talking about.

Now we directly head towards the Future world. Starting with  the seas with Nemo and friends place. It is a slow moving ride picking up from the motion pictures finding th Nemo. It is believed to be the largest aquarium in the owrld which is setup with real coral reef and also which shows cses finding the Nemo movie.

After that in the same building you have the turtle talk with crush.( Seriously we thought it was just for kids but then we just wanted to have a glance. Believe me its worth a visit. You will just love that show. Its a live show where the turtle talks with us. Its really amazing to see how the things work.

Then we went to the next pavilion the  Land which has 1 show and 2 rides.  We missed the Soarin part because the wait time for that was about an hour then. But heard that it was cool. Given that we went to the Living with the land, it is a slow moving boat ride which takes us through the farms and the botanical gardens. How the technology is implemented in the field of agriculture. It was kind of Ok. Then after that we went to the the Circle of life show. It a movie which has three lion king characters focusing on how pollution is leading to the Global warming and eventually destruction of Earth. A good documentary understandable for Kids and carrying a message for all.

Puff..It was around 1:00 by the time we finished watching all the shows. Our stomach’s were crying for some food. We stopped at a food court in “The Land” and grabbed ourselves some sandwiches and a drink.

Once we are done with our peth pooja we went to “Imaginations”. It had 3 shows totally 2 rides and a 3-D show. We first went to the “Journey into the imagination with Figment( small purple dragon, as a character)” it was a slow moving ride for a journey into the imaginations. You can find more information here.

After that  we went to the ” Honey I shrunk the audience “  film. Its a 3-D film its  full of science and experiments, fun, laughter and shrinking. Yes we shrink meaning the characters in the movie become giants. It is a must go for every one. We really enjoyed going there.

Ta da.. Now entering the second part of EPCOT the Word showcase pavilion…

This is the world show case entrance night view.

The world showcase pavilion showcases around 11 countries .Namely,

Mexico
Norway
China
Germany
Italy
The American Adventure
Japan
Morocco
France
United Kingdom
Canada

They represent each of the country with their major architectures, food, culture etc.. Its good  to find everything at on place.

Presenting some of the countries. Not in any particular order.

Photo of Canada..

China

View of a part of the world show case .

Now you can see the most of the Epcot from the long shot.

Not only you get to see the building but also take a picture with your favorite Disney toon characters live… like this :p

And finally the day ended with a spectacular fire works  named ” illuminations – reflections of earth” . Yippee..I captured our India in the show.

Dazzling right ??

Finally the fire works made our day truly splendid.  Never saw such an amazing fireworks. So that was the last event for the day. We quickly went back to our hotel and catched up some good night sleep.

If you have come this far then watch out for my next post on Holly wood studios (Day 2) continuing the travelogue.

 Design: Priya

Turn around and face it !

Once at Varanasi, as Swamiji was coming out of the temple of Mother Durga, he was surrounded by a large number of chattering monkeys. They seemed to  be threatening him. Swamiji did not want them to catch hold of him, so he started to run away. But the monkeys chased him. An old sannyasin was there, watching those monkeys. He called out to Swamiji, ‘Stop! Face the brutes!’ Swamiji stopped. He turned round and faced the monkeys. At once, they ran away. Many years later, Swamiji said: ‘If you ever feel afraid of anything, always turn round and face it. Never think of running away.’

You can find a collection of anecdotes of Vivekananda  here

I am writing all this because, today is the 146th Birthday of Swami Vivekananda.  Let me leave you with some of his wonderful, motivating and inspirational sayings.

Photo: The Internet

Quotes of Swami vivekananda :

1.“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.”

2. “We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”

3.“Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.”

4.“The goal of mankind is knowledge … Now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man ‘knows’, should, in strict psychological language, be what he ‘discovers’ or ‘unveils’; what man ‘learns’ is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.”

5.“Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.” 

Photo:The internet

~ Enjoy!

I am writing about him today because its his Birthday  (the 15th of December).  I greatly admire Mr. Bapu. He is a person with many unique traits. Some of them being –  painting , writing  ( he introduced cursive writing in Telugu language for the first time ever), and cartooning . His works vividly captures the Telugu culture, characters from epics, and every day happenings of a normal person. His painting style is very simple, and his bold of use of colors without clutters in the background makes all the difference to the painting. Let me show you some of his works

This is one from the epics..the famous devote of lord Venkateshwara..Annamaya in different moods. 

Now this the Bapu Bomma I have been talking about.

Ahem! Now I want to show some of my replications of  Bapus Art..(not a great work of art though!)

This is  Lord Venkateshwara Swami sketch. Which I started and finished the same day. It took me around 7 hours to finish it.

Bapu Bomma welcoming

Bapu bomma in a happy mood.

For more  info and paintings of  Bapu ..You can visit here

Posted in Books, cartoons, crafts, festivals, Games, India, Nostalgia, Paintings, Personal Tagged: andhra bapu bomma, bapu bomma, bapu bommalu, my paintings ]]> http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/bapu-bommalu/feed/ 0 awalkwithpriya bapu-photo 029_annamayya1 3442 cimg2894 dsc01285-copy dsc01326-copy http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/snow/ http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/snow/#comments Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:26:03 +0000 awalkwithpriya http://awalkwithpriya.wordpress.com/?p=403 ]]> I got up this morning..opened the windows..and saw this..

Pic:Priya

Snow!!!! Yeah its the first snow of the season.

Before coming to US,  I used to dream about playing in the snow, go skiing and do things like that.  Two years back when I came to this country(US), I was very excited to see the ambiance turn white with  snow. For the first couple of days I was very excited but then gradually I started to get bored (Because it snows here for almost 3-4 solid months). You pretty much cannot think of any other fun activity except go skiing, watch TV and  movies, meeting friends.

Nonetheless, every time I see snow for the first time in the season I find myself very excited. Hope this winter goes on smooth.