The next stop on our 2015 year end trip was to Suresh mama's house. Let posterity note that we stayed with them for days and did not make a flying visit!
As soon as we reached Suresh Mama's (uncles) house, the first thing Jr. saw was the nice Veena sitting in their family room. His mom plays the Veena and she let Jr. try it and was giving her a quick lesson.
Jr. loved it so much that she asked to say there and play while we wanted to keep traveling. We had to pull her off the Veena.
By day 2, she got the hang of it and with more coaching from Amala paati she was able to play "Vara Veena"
Now she wants us to buy her a Veena.
Guess nothing beats a Tanjavoor Veenai, to get a kid hooked to Carnatic music!
- we did not have to chase after them or worry about them getting lost as they had cell phones with them
- they eat faster and by themselves
- they don't need to be accompanied to the rest rooms
- and they were bold enough to go on "single rider" passes to bypass the long lines.
Granted, going as single riders kind of defets the "family" aspect of it, but hey.. we stay in the same line till the ride point.. then we split up into differnt cars and we are usually within one or two cars in each ride. Once inside the ride, it is all dark and dingy for the most part and you are screaming your head off.. except for the little one, who missed squeezing daddy's hand during the rides we were okay.
We started off the day with the usual pictures at the entrance..
moved through the park and did as many rides as we could. We did stand in line for 40 minutes to go "as a family" in Space Mountain .. so we could buy the photograph they click at the end. We are so familiar now that we pose for the camera on Space Mountain.
We ran back and forths, got fast passes where we could, split up to do different things every now and then.. basically let the kids decide.
we watched two parades and parallel processed one parade while standing in line for "it's a small world"!
Then the kids decided to wait in line for 60 minutes in Toon town for a 60 second ride while San decided to stand in line for a little over an hour to get a picture with Mickey... for old times sake!
I was torn between the two and did neither. Just sat at the fountain and took pictures for passers by..
Selfie sticks are banned in Disney.. and it is so sad to watch 8 people try to fit into a selfie. Did my bit of social service while watching the kids inch their way to the top of the line for their ride. Lot of good karma in that one hour in Toon town!
The kids knew I was mad after their ride because the sun had set and daddy had told them that toontown looks amazing just before sunset as the colors come alive! after receiving a little lecture and promptly forgetting that lecture, we moved fast to exit the park.. at 6PM.. that was a first!
Good Karma sometimes doesn't come back right away. I took the picture above of the kids, then went stood there and asked this lady to take a picture.. we got this back. For some reason, she decided to do her own thing.. we are happy that the family was in the frame!
then came the best part. As part of the package ticket, my darling wife had got us this pass for "dining with characters" at Goofy's kitchen in the Disney resort. The kids took a short break to dress up and we went for dinner..
we had the time of our life watching them be so happy!
You can see from the video that the highlight was Goofy's kitchen..
We had shared iPhone photos from Disney on FB.. Had to come home to get this one from the Canon.. This one is going to be framed.
Next time, we should just skip the park and stay at the resort (we have never done that) and just have breakfast, lunch and dinner with the characters.. more fun.. more smiles!
One weird thing on this trip.. There were no desis in sight in the park. We were joking that someone must have sent a memo to all desis telling them that 30th was a no Disney day or something and we missed the memo! We saw maybe 3 or 4 desi families in the park all day.
Stop four on our road trip was the Ventura beach and Harbor Village. The beach was very cold and given I like heat more than cold, we decided to walk along the beach facing the sun to see if that would help.
It did to a limited extent.. Hope that my Vitamin D blood test due next week will pass with flying colors after all the sun we got last week.
The waves were tall and rough and there were not that many people around at noon.
we saw these baby Plowers on the beach.. they were moving so fast and well camouflaged in the sands and shadows.. it took me a lot of clicks to get this little guy.
Then from nowhere this eagle comes down and takes some of these birds! Amazing how nature works!
The kids had fun running around and climbing the little dunes.
Then we went to the Channel Island visitor center. We have always wanted to go to Channel Islands park, but they require a lot of planning as the boat tours get booked months in advance. This time we stayed within walking distance of the starting point, but again, same result. No tours available.
The visitor center is much hyped in the Ventura city website, but it did not live up to that hype. Compared to other visitor centers we have seen in National parks, this one is "okay".
We proceeded to go to the Harbor Village. This was the real deal! Had lunch at a nice Italian place called Milano's. The food was great! After lunch we walked around the Harbor and took pictures.. the kids went on a paddle boat ride for an hour and that gave us a nice break for a high tea!
This family portrait was taken outside Milano's.
They had the entire walkway nicely decorated with these lamps. We watched two guys patiently change the decoration for each lamp from Christmas greeting to New Year greeting.
The paddle boat ride was starting to be a disaster. We watched another family struggle to even get out of the narrow path. The kids somehow managed to navigate through, and once they were out, they had a great time.
They were very tired after the one hour paddling in the sun.
We stopped by for some last minute pictures in front of the murals on the way out.
and it was time to say bye to Ventura and head towards Anaheim, as we had a date with Mickey the next morning!
All of us loved the Harbor Village. It is a quieter less cluttered version of Sausalito and the people were sooo nice! Maybe it was the holiday spirit. Maybe the people in the Ventura harbor village are nice by default. Either way, we loved it!
They say it is 5 PM somewhere, for me it is 9 AM somewhere! So the blog takes a break!
