Where "magic" happens

When we go to Disney, Magic always happens. 

Irrespective of your age, be it 6 or 60,  7 1/2 or 75 the faces are lit up with a smile as some person in a costume comes along and hi fives you!

The next three are not good shots. Wish I could have gone to the parade a little earlier to position myself better to capture my parents and kids instead of staying too close to them. There is always the next trip where we can do that right..

Then of course there is the fireworks and a show that we have never seen in any of our past disney trips where they project directly on the castle while the fireworks goes on. Truly spectacular!

It was not an easy shot as I was carrying the little one on my left hip (she had dozed off as it was 10PM and she had literally walked miles that day) and the Canon 5D Mark ii which weighs at least 6 lbs with a 24-105 lens had to be hand held vertically on my right hand which is not yet as strong as it could be and it had to be held as steady as possible.

The projection lit up the castle and it helped. Truth be told there is more credit to the MK ii than to me for getting this shot with this kind of contrast and clarity.

Canon, I humbly bow before you!

This was our best Disney trip ever........ so far!

We are sure they will top this experience for us in another three years when we will visit for the little one's 10th birthday celebration.

New pictures of Fauna

Florida has enough native plant and animal vegetation to fill albums..

We got a glimpse of some local and imported animals thanks to the Disney conservation effort at the Animal Kingdom.

Even got to go on a safari through their jungles and plains. It was amazing!

Here are some pictures. 

and my favorite so far..

 

More to come..

A long trip..

The traveling Narayanan's visited Florida between 4th and 10th July. It was a bold and risky move taking three older people with health conditions and two little kids with only two able folks handling the other five through air travel, theme parks and adventures!

The good news is that we had our ups and downs but overall we had a great time and made it back in one piece. It has taken a few days to get back to the old routine and get settled...

There are 1600+ pictures out of which at least 250 hold promise and that means a lot of photo and video editing over the next few weeks whenever time and Sangeetha permit the process!

On tuesday we had got up at 6AM Florida time and reached here at 1 in the morning, which was 4AM florida time. That was one 22 hour day for everyone. So we came in, threw the suitcases in the living room floor and hit the bed and it was lights out for everyone in a few minutes. The next day Sangeetha had told me that she had a very important meeting and had to leave at 8 AM.

I was still getting visions of going in various rides and was a little dizzy and tired. So at 3AM, in the middle of a dream, I wake up thinking we are in a boat and the ride has ended and we have to get out.

The fact that the home exercise machine that used to be at our bedside was sold a day before we left on the trip and yours truly has not yet got used to the empty space and the green light from the smoke alarm on one side and the red light from the TV monitor on the other side made the dream realistic..

Frantically shook Sangeetha and said "we are the only ones left on the ride.. everyone has left. get down"

Sangeetha :We are in our bed. Go back to sleep

Me : We are on a boat. look, it is floating. we have to get out. I can't get out on this side. you have to step down from that side.

Sangeetha : (fully awake and totally pissed off by now) Ok. That's it. This is our bedroom, you are on our bed, that is our bathroom and I am go there right now. So wake up, go to the bathroom and let me sleep!

After following her out of the boat (er.. bed) and realizing that she was indeed right, apologized and went back to sleep.

When driving to work it was so weird. I kept looking to the passenger side and behind the van so frequently to check on non existant passengers! Six days of going everywhere on a 7 seater van loaded with 7 people and suddenly driving an empty van gave me a lonely feeling.

Now the dreams of the rides are not recurring but there are tons of happy memories from the six day trip.

That was just a sample of how wild things were..

More to come!

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