at Atlanta: September 2012

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Florida trip - Sep 1st to 8th 2012

Resort pool and journey back

The lazy river of the resort had seemed check-worthy.So we took the lazy-river ride in tubes. It was a nice slow ride but we were wanting it to go faster even when we had come in to take the lazy ride.Slow down folks - keep down the pace.
Niya proved how much of a brave girl she is once she again as she cried her heart out as showers on the way poured water over us in the route. It was a nice ride - we had to stop it as we had to drive back.
After the lazy river, we tried to relax in the hammocks but for whatever reason we had a hard time balancing ourselves - Divya tried first and fell quite a few times. I also fell once and struggled my way in and relaxed for some time.
The checkout was impressive as all we had to do was to call a number and record the apartment number and checkout time and drop the magnetic keys at a drop box at the gate.
I wanted to fit in one more place on the way.We had not had lunch yet - except Niya who had the cuban beef rice from yesterday. As hunger struck , we had a beef-philly foot-long at subway.It was very good.
As evening was setting in, dropped the thought of another place and just drove along.We could see one huge cloud and hardly any sky and decided that we are going to take a break when this cloud breaks as rain. So the rain came and we took the break but it was shorter than anticipated.As we continued,the car prompted with the warning - 'Check air pressure'. Indeed, one tire was at 24 PSI and I had 80+ old ladies advise me on how to check air pressure and how to make sure that the pressure is right.Thanks to their help, with the matter sorted, we drove on.
Then we drove on eventless , reached home , called home and friends.

Disney downtown

The evening before our journey back, we went to the disney downtown. I think Niya enjoyed the disney downtown much more than she enjoyed the disney parks.
We did window shopping of disney stuff , had some hagen-dass ice-cream and took in the nice sights around - the fountains , the lightings , the T-Rex restaurant with dinosaur-themed interiors, the extra-life sized disney character props against which we took snaps - Donald , Mickey , Winnie the pooh. We purchased one with toy with all the characters standing in front of the cinderella castle.
As part of our walking around, we reached a hanes make t-shirt yourself shop.We had to come up with lines that need to go on the T-Shirt. It is a tough job - so we sat outside on a bench and brainstormed the lines and came up with lines like NIYA - Nice In Yellow Attire with yellow colored t-shirt.That is what we had decided on but the trouble was there was no yellow t-shirt for her size.We had to do it impromptu now and put an image of mickey with her hand on his heart. I still think we did a good job coming up with the line - Niya , my dearest buddy - Mickey.
That was the finale for a great day for Niya and for us well. I still had the desire for having cuban food and we satisfied this at the bongos restaurant where we had cuban shredded beef which was great.We rushed back to the t-shirt shop to collect the t-shirt - we arrived 5 minutes late but the sales girl was waiting for her.
Sales personnel were talking about Niya - 'She is so cute' every now and then. Even earlier while she was playing in the clearwater beach , a lady came in and told Divya - 'She is so cute. I just had to come in and tell you that'. This day was completely for our cute Niya.
Disney downtown does not usually figure in must-visits at Orlando but for kids, it is a must visit.

Miami/Everglades

After all the research done, Keywest was one place that I really wanted to go to. It was not very feasible with the 7 hours drive oneway. However, we decided to give it a try all the same and we started off at 3AM on the drive to Keywest.
I got even greedier and wanted to stop over at Miami. We did not want to miss Miami either and we hardly had two days left.Miami roads were very crowded and tough to navigate. I remember reading that the traffic to key west can get bad. Seven hours was the estimate without traffic considerations - so I decided to drop key west for a later visit.
The car meanwhile showed a change oil warning - for whatever reason, I decided to take care of it and had the oil change done. While we waited, Divya fed Niya her doughnut breakfast.
From there, we reached sobe(south beach).The color of the water was magical blue.We played for some time in the beach and then decided to try the art deco - the hotels of miami.The art deco welcome center host directed us to the lincoln mall to get a feel of the city.The city is what miami is about as per the fodor's guide as well.
So we walked through the lincoln avenue. Here again, a liking for slowness set in. We just walked around - it was a nice city. Miami needs to be stayed in - it is not a place to just come and see things and leave. Miami cuisine also had featured in the guide - we landed at Pasha's mediterranean restaurant and had excellent salmon and chicken kababs for lunch with basmati rice.
As we had started off with the ambitious key west project, I wanted to atleast cover everglades. So we went to everglades to be challenged by rain and traffic.It seemed very likely that by the time we reach the everglades national park, the park would get closed.As rain struck hard and the estimated arrival time kept gaining minutes,we called up Jacob and found out the phone numbers and closing times of the alligator parks.We had to drop the national park and went to the alligator farm instead.
We reached just as the last airboat ride was starting.It was a short nice ride through long green grass and marshes.Niya had a great time as well. The airboat is very noisy and hence we wore ear-cuffs to protect us from the noise.We also saw alligator skins and alligator babies.
We rushed back to Miami to play some more time at the beach.But by the time we reached and got quarters for parking, night had set in and there were no people around.We briefly went to the water but returned soon.
The ocean drive is where we had parked our car.All the hotels were well lit up and the live music and the recorded music were flowing into the streets, making it very lively. The ambience invites me to Miami right now.
We decided to end the miami trip at one of the fodor's recommended restaurants. That is how we drove to Hy Vong, vietnamese restaurant.
Looked like this was in the coconut grove area, which is an early cuban settlement.The restaurant was crowded and we had to wait outside.Then an elderly american lady ushered us in and that is the best service we have ever received from any restaurant anywhere.I had folded my arms as I sat at my table - the lady immediately brought the AC down. Brought soup and rice for Niya and told this is from her. I requested her to choose the menu for us - she started off with starters. I said - that is ok, we will just have the main course. She offered us beef/pork starters - again free! and said you guys just eat it - this was again excellent.We ordered duck and salmon with mango - both were excellent. By the time we were out of the restaurant, I was thick with sleep from the heavy food.
At around 11PM, we started our ride back to Orlando.Sleep set in bad and I could feel my eyes sink down uncontrollably.And we were driving by the dark seas on both sides and at night the ocean was somehow deeply menacing.And there were no rest areas to park the sleep.So we kept driving and finally we parked next to a petrol pump shop. The plan was to doze off for 10-15 minutes but we slept off for two hours or so and continued our drive.
I just wanted to reach home as fast as possible now and was driving as fast as I could.Cops brought us down. I was all ready to pay as much as needed as I was clear that I was at fault. The cop politely said : 'The reason we stopped you is that you are driving at 83 where the speed limit is 65.Is there any particular reason?'I said we were driving back to Orlando from Miami - had slept off at a shop and wanted to reach back as soon as possible.The cop took the driving license and came back later and said 'This time we will give you a verbal warning.But please try to drive a little slow'.Relieved and thankful, I drove at cruise at the speed limit all the way back and crashed the bed from around 6AM to 2PM.

Clearwater beach

Sleep came in the way of our dreams of covering as much of florida as possible. After a tiring long day at the magic kingdom yesterday, we had to sleep through till atleast 10 AM.
We chose a close destination - the clearwater beach - the initial plan had been to accommodate clearwater beach on the day of the return trip.
Clearwater beach had a very calm sea and you could walk through quite far.We had a very relaxed plan which was to play/hang around in the beach till sunset.
We reached around lunch time and started off with a sea-food pizza lunch at a nice small restaurant with live music.
There were almost no waves at all and that was probably the first striking thing. We walked in through the sea and saw the ground through the water to evaluate the clarity of the water.Regular beach sights - array of small fish ( size of curry leaves) , sea gulls , Niya played in the sand and water freely, I chased sea gulls failing to get good in-flight shots, there were five-six pelicans as well and there were some sights of these birds fishing together in certain sections.Very relaxed time in the beach.
Then, unfortunately we decided to go to the car that was parked on the road to change our wet clothes.By the time we were back, the sunset was over.
I hung around and watched the striking colors that the sun left behind.As dusk set in, there were very few people in the beach. Two cranes were fishing in one section of water that had seeped in inland from the beach.I could see one crane mouth in a medium sized fish.These did help with the disappointment as they were quite close to me and I could watch their behavior closely.
A local walked towards me and asked me : Are you waiting for the sunrise? I asked him whether sunset was there or was it hidden by the clouds. He said it was red and beautiful and I come here every two weeks. He had an apparatus on his shoulder with a long magnetic arm that he was moving along the coast searching for metal that sometimes come to the shore from the ships.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Orlando via St Augustine

Ten days back, a Saturday , at 4 AM, we set off on a one-week vacation to be based out of Orlando. To better use the 8 hours potentially boring drive, we decided to stop at St Augustine which figures in lonely planet's top five in Florida.
We took breakfast at Jacksonville,wanted to check out Jacksonville beach as per a colleague Rathees' suggestion but did not see any directions only to realize ten minutes after leaving Jacksonville that Jax beach refers to Jacksonville.We reached St Augustine around 10 AM.
Completely unplanned - the only information we had with us is that the beach is a nice quiet one and that St. Augustine is the oldest city. There is good scope for some history watching.However, I somehow wanted to still take things slow though there was hardly any time.
Beach : the beach was a clean neat uncrowded one.Niya played in the water and had a great time while Divya managed her and I recorded the time in photos.Then we had a nice walk along the beach.
Two images that had stood out from pre-trip research was a 15th century fort and a lighthouse.GPS took us to the lighthouse which looked like the Thikkoti lighthouse.
We did not climb on it as Divya had not been feeling very well. Also, we had to see the fort before we continue on to Orlando. The slowness took another bite as we had a relaxed sea-food lunch at the conch house restaurant. We had gator tail for starters and I imagined the picture of Niya having the gator nuggets as the diagonal to she meeting the real alligator in the everglades trip to be done later on in the week. The trip was meant to be a cuisine vacation as well, we had Anastasia shrimp pasta and Fish Tacos against the menu.http://www.conch-house.com/Lunch_Menu.pdf.We had a nice lunch but also ate a lot of precious time.
Fort : Next we went to the 15th century fort. I took out the camera and I just moved around where it led. Such camera encounters usually don't end with many good photographs but at the same time the involvement is very fulfilling. Good photos come from a more purposeful approach - the focus being on the result of the photography.
Next, we went to the oldest house museum but that was closed and we rode to kissimee Orlando to our resort.

Resort : The resort was a huge one with 1500+ villas spread across four villages - north,south,east and west. While we waited for check-in formalities, we were reminded of ticket queues in airports.As we drove to our assigned unit, the pale yellow houses in the property looked like government quarters - looked like old villas.Once we reached the unit, the unit struck us a very big one and a very old one at the same time - with 3 CTVs - one in hall and one in each of the two bedrooms. Niya was wonderstruck and she walked around wide-eyed "Endhoru veliya veeda .. ithu nammude puthiya veedano..eththra muriya - ividem muriyundu - nokkachcha(What a big house , how many room ! )" etc.
Divya was exploring the balcony area and shrieked suddenly that a frog jumped on her. Indeed there were frogs around - small green ones mostly. While these struck as a pain on the first day, later we had accepted these as part of the stay as everytime we come back from our day-trip we need to open the door slowly to prevent these frogs from jumping on you and once, one actually jumped on my face as well.
Hunger struck and we bought McChickens and stocked some for tomorrow's breakfast as well.Schedule was to meet Jacob and Minnie at the magic kingdom.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Animal Kingdom / Resort restaurant

Epcot was the second park in plan but as Jacob did not recommend it very much, we decided to choose Animal Kingdom as the second park.It was a correct decision. It was a very pleasant experience as the shaded green park protected us from the heat for a much more relaxing day.
Finding Nemo
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This was an excellent theatre musical performance of the story 'Finding Nemo' and this offers a lot of inspiration to anyone from the theatre industry.This would fit in independently and very well even outside the setting of the animal kingdom.The entire audience were all claps at the end of most of the scenes.At the end of the performance, I was clapping emphatically but even after I thought I had given enough emphasis, I could see that the claps of the crowd continued for a much longer time.If I were to single out one particular event from Magic Kingdom/Sea World/Animal Kingdom, I would choose this for the impact it had.
Tricera top spin
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This was another slow roller coaster that Niya could take and so we took the spin.
The Bone Yard
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This is a maze themed around dinosaur fossils where Niya freely ran about running mostly away from her parents who were trying to pull her off to other rides which they were keen on. Niya enjoyed the peril-less freedom of this section and cried loud as we pulled her out.

Festival of the lion king
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This was again excellent performance art.The animal costumes and the high energy dances were inspite second to the live singing from each of the artists.The singing was so impactful that I wanted to buy myself a CD of the performance.I believe there is a big difference between listening to a CD and listening live.However,it would be unfair to discount the active acrobatics that the dancers performed.
Kilimanjaro Safari
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Then we went for the kilimanjaro safari and did get the advantage of it being mid-week as we did not even have to take a fast pass for this popular safari through a constructed africa and real animals.The friendly and entertaining guide kept pointing us to various animals on either side of our vehicles all through the journey.
Street African music
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Street performers sung catchy african numbers to add to the festive feeling. Waka waka is indeed foot tapping.
Asia section
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Next we walked to the asia section and was happy to see tea shops with hindi boards and a general hindi presence.A bhangra DJ was unfortunately not putting as much life as his African counter parts or his Indian counterparts.

Maharajah jungle treks
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The name was very catchy and we had read this mentioned in various blogs but this was just a walk through a zoo more or less. We saw the tiger through the glass, walked and walked back.

Jamming the jungle parade
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As Maharajah did not capture our interest, we walked the other way to check the show ' Flights of fantasy'. That is how we chanced on jamming the jungle parade - though the costumes were animal like, the ambience was not close enough to the magic kingdom parades.
Kali River rapids
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We had to take a fast pass for the kali river rapids that had a waiting time of 50 mins on a day where Kilimanjaro had a 10 minute wait. There was promise right there and it was well met. The river raft plunges down 10-15 feet or so may be more in a section and we got all the splash.The plunge took enough time to allow me to protect the camera inside my shirt. Niya who had taken the twists and turns bravely could not take this sudden plunge and cried in fear but quickly recovered as everyone around were sill in good spirits.
It is tough to be a bug
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This was a 4D show set in the tree of life where tree of life is an artificial that is a striking one.It was a nice show.
Unlike the sea world day where we just wanted to reach home after the fatigue, today had been much cooler and we wanted to take in as much remaining as possible after the park closed at 5 PM. We generally did some photography in the green beautiful area. This should serve as a one-stop shop for all kind of natural settings for posed people photography.
Sunset celebrations at Breezes restaurant
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We reached back at the resort and decided to try one of the restaurants at the resort. We chose the breezes restaurant where every evening there is music and organized events for sunset celebrations.We enjoyed live music and I ordered 'All-you-can-eat-shrimp'. I had one round of prawn fries and one round of prawn peels. Cold prawn peels were very tasty.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Magic Kingdom

This was indeed magical.Jacob and Mini had reached from New York and we had reached from Atlanta.Jacob led the expedition - starting from the cinderella castle and ending at the cinderella castle.
After Mini presented Niya her Minnie mouse hairband and we did some quick catching up, the magic began -with Philharmagic.
Philharmagic
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This was a 4D show, the 4th dimension being sprinkle of water from the seat in front, the whooshes of air etc which has to some extent become standard for 4D shows. As part of atlanta city pass, we had seen quite a few 4D shows but none had any story line. But philharmagic was good - there was humor and things fell in place well.
Mad Tea Party
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This is the typical cup shaped seats within which we say and did a merry go around but for the fearless Niya, this was the only kind of rides she would take.
Celebrate It Parade
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Jacob and Mini were pretty versed with the timings of various shows/parades etc. So we watched the celebrate it parade which added another ingredient to the experience. From what we had seen so far, it was clear that the magic kingdom is an excellent place to be in but at the same time the kind of perfection that can happen only in imagination was not there. I could definitely see admiration growing in me for Walt Disney.The parade is basically colorful floats,colorful dancers and colorful loud music.Added a lot of energy to the day.

Peter Pan

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This was the first unique experience offered.A rail car took us through into darkness and in various portions of the ride, one could see various characters below. It was nice and magical and we shared the feeling that it was a nice ride but it got over a little too soon.

The Barnstormer

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Divya wanted to take some sort of a rollercoaster ride. As the wait time was not much, we took the ride and got Niya crying.

Walt Disney World : Rail Road

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So far we were juggling around with fast passes and as none of us were exactly in the right age group to both be able to plan everything to perfection and also be perfectly aligned with Disney characters, we did do a lot of discussion trying to decide which one to take next.

This one was atypical and we just went ad-hoc for a ride around the park but was pretty pointless - it was just a shuttle kind of service.
Winnie the Pooh
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This was a different kind of ride as far as we were concerned. I had expressed an interest on this as Niya atleast knows this character. So we had taken fast passes for this one where as Jacob and Mini had taken fast passes for another no-Niya ride.Winnie the Pooh was closed temporarily and we went back later again to realize that it was up and down again.This and there were some fast pass imperfections which should have been avoided in the magic kingdom - welcome to the real world.
Sprinklers
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Then there was a section where giraffe spat, elephant sneezed spurts of water on to the kids. That is how Niya beat the sun fatigue and came to life for once. So far, unfortunately her participation was incomplete due to the fatigue.
Carousel ride
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As we missed the winnie the pooh show, we took a carousel ride - a simple ride that kept Niya smiling while we waited for Jacob and Mini to return from the water splash ride.
Tomorrowland speedway
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We had seen this while waiting for the barn stormer and it looked like a chance to drive a car which raised some interest.When we reached the ride,we realised that it is a car alright - but guided by tracks in the middle so that the car cant go further than that sideways.We took this opportunity to have Divya try some driving.It was a nice fun ride.
Celebrate a dream come true parade
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This was again a nice parade that kept the spirits high.
Pirates of the carribean
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Thanks to Jacob's and Mini's planning, we reached the pirates ride.This one was very good.The ride was through dark waters and pirates would attack you from the sides.Some of the tableus on the side were not convincing enough but the central idea/execution was excellent.That is one thing - most of the key rides were really good but fell just short of being perfect - unfortunately - a 95 where we wish for a 100.
Meet the princessses
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Niya was luckily in a great mood as she connected to cinderella,snow white and alice for a very fulfilling photo shoot.As Divya mentioned, in terms of memories, this section offered the most as Niya beat the princesses in cuteness with her minnie mouse hairband and her smiling charms.
Meet Mickey/Minnie
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Unlike the princesses who were very kind to Niya with hugs and smiles, the mickey and minnie dressed-ups cared just about enough to get a quick snap.
Space Mountain
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This was the best ride in magic kingdom. During my haphazard research before the trip, this one had struck me as interesting.Based on this, I was looking forward to a ride that gives you the feeling that you are going through space into the stars.The real experience was more or less like what I had expected.It was more so in that there were lot of twists and turns as it is essentially a roller coaster ride.But again,there were some flaws in lighting that exposed the structure of the ride and this interfered with the wholesomeness of the experience.Like I said, I was not looking at the excitement of a roller coaster ride but the novelty of a ride through space.However,this was a real great ride.

Monsters Inc
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Next, Divya and myself went to a comedy show - monsters - the wait time was too long and exasperating. The humor as such was quite interesting as the monster puppets singled out the audience and passed comments and asked questions.It is not something I am used to but it was a nice show in good spirit.
Wait for the fireworks
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It was yet another wait for the fireworks as we sat in front of the cinderella castle for the don't-miss fireworks.
Electrical parade
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When we regrouped in front of the cinderella castle, the electrical parade began. With a very catchy tune, in the night , the parade floats came in all lighted - it was great fun to watch.
Memories show
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This was a great lighting show as the castle served as the screen and got painted various colors.Then,photos got displayed on the castle.
Fireworks
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This was great.The theme was wishes and their fulfilment.It was pretty well integrated with the displays and by this time the sarcastic comments that I had passed off in the morning in regards to some of the simple rides had to die off completely. The satisfaction meter had hit 90s by now with all the energy and festive atmosphere.By now, it was 10 PM.
It was like at the end of a college festival, you don't want to go back to your room anyway. You just want to hang around. That is what we did and took another round of the electrical parade.
We had just driven from Atlanta the previous day and today was a long day as well - my system started feeling tired and we went back to the parking, dropped Jacob and crashed home.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Seaworld Orlando / disney downtown

We had good fun in Seaworld today with the killer whales , the dolphins , the otters , the dogs , the cats , the parakeets , the sea turtle etc.
Started off after completing yesterday's sleep. A vacation is a run away from alarm clocks and schedules - so we started off quite late and reached the park around 11 AM for the Otter show.
Clyde and Seamore Take Pirate Island
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That is the name of the show when I still have the brochure handy. It has some good humor - the good thing was the otters had the main role to play - nodding their heads , grunting etc - the kind of stuff that kids would love.
One Ocean
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Next we went to the killer whale show - we sat in the front rows , the splash zone. This was the most anticipated one and this is the most memorable one. We arrived a little early for the show to make sure we got good seats and we took the ambitious front row seats risking drenching ourselves , risking the camera. Before the show began, there were presentations on ocean species and the attempt to instill in the viewers a love and concern for one ocean.For example,one did you know was that cuttlefish can look in front with one eye and behind with the other.I fell for it.
Then the show began, Shamu waved fins to the cheers of the audience.He and his group does somersaults , splashes water on the audience, lifts tail to invite claps, slides into a podium and does a rotation.

Blue Horizons
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I may not have had been able to enjoy the one ocean completely because I was too busy photographing. So I decided not to photograph the blue horizons which was supposedly the best show as per our friends Jacob and Minnie who had visited the sea world last saturday.It was a great experience too.Dolphins did much more acrobatics than the whales did I guess.The show also featured some pretty good theme-based acrobatics from men and women attired in bird-colored costumes and the birds themselves flying off through to culminate the acrobatics.
Pets Ahoy
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This was a sweet good humored show with cats,rats,dogs,doves etc. This was the one that Niya enjoyed the most. A killer whale doing the same somersault over and over again does not hold her attention as the varied scripted sequences that was presented in the Pets Ahoy show.
TurtleTrek
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In a dome shaped 3D theatre, the journey of a sea turtle into the world starting from within a egg is shown. Interestingly, if we heard it right - the name of the sea turtle was Niya. This was essentially similar to the experience in the world of coca-cola,Atlanta but unlike one, this had some truth to it, some content to it.It is about how a sea turtle was rescued by the sea-world team 20 years back.
Inspite of taking no rides, the walk through the sun was tiring and we returned half an hour before the park closed at 6 PM.

Disney downtown
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We had to have dinner and we wanted to make the day a little more eventful - so we drove to disney downtown.
Passage to India
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On the way, we saw an Indian restaurant - 'Passage to India' where we had 'Fish Balti' and basmati rice.Divya ranked this as the best food ever had in the US. It was made spicy as per our request and was indeed great.
We continued on to the disney downtown and bought one lego set. The shops started closing off at 11 PM and we drove back.