Pictures from our first week in NZ

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25626&l=1f92a&id=813269869

Oops, I did it again!

Unfortunately, the day after Cathedral Cove turned out to be a 120 KMH wind storm. We were going to be stuck in our motel.

Butti and I decided to go for a drive in the midst of the storm, while Gin and Vatsa decided to be smart and stay indoors during the storm.

Butti and I drove for about half an hour and it was very gusty. We came across a nice lookout point where we pulled over and took some snaps. Butti forgot to turn off the lights of the car and the car wouldn't start. We tried several times, but no luck.

I was not at all nervous or worried because I was on my vacation and there was nothing that would've phased me. Had this happened in the states I would've been nervous and possibly stressed.

To our disadvantage, we had no cell phone reception, so we couldn't make any phone calls either. We left the car by the jetty and walked up to see if we can get any help. Luckily, there was a truck pulled over on the side because of the bad weather. Butti and I asked the driver, Himesh, for jump cables. Sadly, he didn't have any jump cables on him.

Himesh, the truck driver, had a different cell phone carrier so he had a reception. He called his buddy who called his buddy and got a guy to come over. While we were waiting for the other guy to come, I was wondering if this was a scam. Butti told me that it is common in New Zealand for people to just help other people out. This was a big surprise for me because in New York people go out of their way to make things difficult for you.

Anyways, a car pulled over by the truck and we directed the gentleman towards the jetty. I had my fingers crossed because if this didn't work then we were in big trouble. Fortunately, it just needed a jump start and wallah the car was on. We offered the guy some money and at first he wouldn't take it. Butti and I insisted that he took $50 we were offering him. He finally took it and we continued our adventure. Thanks to Himesh and the unnamed gentleman, we were able to get out of a pretty tight situation easily.

So we continued our journey towards the town of Coromendal. Meanwhile, I told Butti to call send a text message to Vatsa so they wouldn't worry for us. We had told the girls that we would be back in about an hour and it was already 2 hours we were gone. By the time we returned back to the motel, it was the end of the day. When we got back, Gin and I were about to kill us because they didn't know if we were okay. I thought it was a resonable reaction since we made no effort to inform them that we were alive. Anyways, it turned out to be a pretty awesome adventure even though we were admist a storm.

Whitianga

While in Auckland, we have been staying with Jigar's childhood friend, Butti (real name: Niral) and his wife, Vatsa. They took Thursday and Friday off of week so we could all go up to the Coromandel Peninsula for a few days.

Wednesday night we went to a midnight show of The Dark Knight. It was awesome! But we didn't exactly get an early start the next day. We left after lunch and drove up to Whitianga (pronounced "fitianga"), a couple of hours north of Auckland. It was a beautiful drive.

Friday was gorgeous! It was sunny and warm. The skies were blue. We went to Cathedral Cove. It was a bit of a hike, but it was worth it. In the new Chronicles of Narnia movie (Prince Caspian), the kids get pulled from a train station in London into Narnia. When they appear in Narnia, they are in a cave. That is Cathedral Cove. It was very majestic.

On Saturday, we got to see the worst storm that has hit New Zealand in 10 years. Vatsa and I stayed safely in the hotel. Our foolish husbands went out into the storm. But I'll let Jigar write a post about that.

Today we came back to Auckland. We stopped by a mall on the way back into the city. I think that the entire population of New Zealand (about 4 million) was there! We got some hot chocolate (it was so good!) and headed home. We had a lot of fun.

Coromendal Peninsula with Butti & Vatsa

Butti and Vatsa had taken two days off which made it a four day weekend for us to go somewhere. We decided to head out to Coromendal Peninsula. By the time we got out of the house it was lunch time. Before we got out of Auckland, I had fallen asleep in the car. When I woke up, I saw beautiful landscape and couldn't believe I was still in the same country. This was real New Zealand. Miles and miles of beautiful landscape with lots of sheeps and cows grazing the grass. Luckily, the weather was beautiful and it was a pleasant drive. By the time we got to the town of Whitianga, it was sundown. After going around a few places to stay, we decided to stay at Backpackers On the Beach accomodations. It was a nice little two bedroom suite with kitchen. We ended up having dinner at an Indian restaurant (Sangam). It was really good food contrary to Butti's experience of eating Indian food in small town. Of course, as always the dish I had ordered sucked. It tasted like cow manure (not that I know what cow manure taste like, but I'm sure it was just as bad, looked the same). Everything else was awesome, even the desserts. We had a loki night.

Gin and I got up early to see the sunrise from our suite. Instead, we decided to put on our coats and walk down the beach which was literally across the street. I was glad we did that because it was a beautiful sunrise with my wife next to me.

The weather stayed awesome with clear blue skies and lots of sunshine. A few hours later we decided to head out to Cathedral Cove where the opening scene of the movie Narnia, Price Caspian was shot. I haven't seen the movie, but Gin gave pretty bad reviews of the movie. Anyhow, the place was amazing. The awesome part about being here during winter is that there are very few people around these magnificant places, but the downside is that it's cold and the weather is very spotty. Anyways, we were on a day when the weather was beautiful and there were very few people around which allowed for some awesome photographs.

We passed by the hot water beach where you're suppose to dig a hole and get in the hole where hot water from the ground combines with the cool water from the sea. Unfortunately, it wasn't the season to do it, so we skipped it. The success rate at the hot water beach is about 30%. Being a math teacher I figured the odds were against us. (math is all around us).

Pictures of Fiji!!!

Here are some pictures from our honeymoon week in Fiji.

Pictures from Jigar's hike to the highest peak on Waya Island:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25055&l=8b97e&id=813269869

Our pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24957&l=b4ea7&id=813269869


You can click on the pictures to see them in a bigger size. Enjoy!

First Couple of Days in New Zealand

Leaving Fiji was like saying good bye to good weather. Auckland weather started out to be wet and gloomy.

Vatsa (my friend's wife) came to pick us up at the airport in Auckland. Soon as we walked out of the airport to the parking lot it started pouring. Little did I know that this would continue for 3 days straight.

The first three days in Auckland all we did was eat and relax. First day in Auckland we got introduced to an ice cream parlor called Movenpick. Butti (my friend, real name Niral), Vatsa (his wife), Gin (my wife) and I (me, Jigar) all of us went there three nights in a row. My favorite flavor was Maple Walnut. Suprisingly maple walnut actually tasted like real maple syrup and that's why I liked it so much. My second favorite was Vanilla Brownie. Highly recommended if you go to Auckland and make sure you have it with the cone they have :)

Our second day in Auckland, Gin and I spent updating our blog and getting groceries at the supermarket. Once Butti was out of work, all of us went out for dinner, followed by Movenpick ice cream.

Finally on day three Gin and I took the bus downtown and explored the city. Little did we know that there wasn't much to do in downtown. We were done exploring downtown Auckland in a few hours. The most memorable thing in downtown Auckland for me was Britomart (train station). It was Auckland's take on Grand Central Terminal of New York City except that it was nothing exceptional, at least not like grand central. Again, the weather was pretty terrible. Rain all day. Gin and I decided to skip the sky tower and Kelly Carlton's underwater world. Again those two were like going to the empire state building and the sea world. If the weather was any better we might have gone up to sky tower, but with poor visibility we decided to stay on street level. Again, we went out for dinner followed by Movenpick ice cream :).

Still day three, we had opening night tickets to The Dark Knight at midnight. We went back to Butti and Vatsa's place and saw more Jeff Dunham's sparks of insanity comedy show. It was awesome. I laughted my ass off. Gin and Vatsa had decided to take a nap before going to the midnight show. The movie was awesome. It was, I felt, better than the first one (Batman Begins). It was 3am and we were all so wide awake from the movie and we decided to go home and hangout more before going to sleep. I knew we weren't going to wake up early for our trip, but it didn't matter because we had a lot of fun.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again!

We made it to Auckland! It was another close one at the airport. We had talked to a lot of people and even checked online and it seemed that the rule for getting into New Zealand is to have an onward plane ticket or have sufficient funds to leave the country. Needless to say, Air Pacific doesn't honor the sufficient funds part. No onward ticket, no getting on the flight to NZ. We had about an hour until our flight took off. We talked to Qantas, which is the only airline in the airport that flies out of NZ. Air Pacific flies in but not. Qantas' ticket counter didn't open until 8 and a "fully refundable" ticket is only 80% refundable. At this point it is about 7:40. Then we ran around the airport looking for internet access. Most of the computers didn't work and those that did didn't have a printer. The only option left was for Jigar to go into town and find an open internet cafe to buy the plane tickets. He took a cab into town while I waited at the airport with the luggage. Luckily, the internet cafe is only 5 minutes from the airport. He got there, but they didn't open until 8. He and the cab driver went around the corner to a hotel, but they couldn't let him use the internet. The only computer was in the manager's office which was locked. He had left to drop his family off at the airport for their flight to Auckland. Our flight! Jigar went back to the internet cafe and banged on the door. The guy was inside, but wouldn't let him in until 8. He finally got into the internet cafe, bought the tickets, and made a mad dash for the airport. He got back at 8:15. Our flight was at 8:45. We quickly checked in (luckily it wasn't too late). We made it through security and walked onto the plane right at 8:45. Phew! It was a close one. Every time we are at the airport it feels like we are on the Amazing Race. The weather here in Auckland is cold and wet. It certainly isn't Fiji. But we are having a great time with our friends, Butti and Vatsa.

Last Day in Fiji

Our last day in Fiji, we started out the day with a walk to the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. The hotel told us that it was a "half hour walk". Well, an hour and a half and 5 or so kilometers later, we arrived there. It was a nice walk, but it did get a little hot at the end. The garden was closing in half an hour, but we quickly got to enjoy it. Oddly, it was started by Raymond Burr as a home for his orchid collection. It was lovely.

As we were leaving, we ran into some other guests from our hotel, an English man (who reminded us of Hannibal the Cannibal Lecter) and two Philippino sisters, Raquel and Lisa. We hopped into their cab for a ride back to the hotel. We grabbed our bags and went into town with Raquel and Lisa. We all went to the Hindu temple together. Jigar and I had gone the day before and they told us to come back for the wedding the next day. We missed the wedding but we had an amazing lunch! It was neat to see the bride and groom with their garlands still on and we saw the mandap. It reminded us of our wedding day, just a couple of weeks ago. We made an offering at the temple and spent some time there. It is so tranquil.

We ended the day by watching our last day Fijian sunset from the beach near our new hotel. It wasn't the same as the sunsets on Waya Island, but it was beautiful nonetheless. This was an amazing first week. Fiji was so relaxing that one week here feels like months. We couldn't have asked for a more wonderful honeymoon week!

Life After Octopus

We had an amazing week at the Octopus Resort on Waya Island in Fiji. It was so relaxing! It was exactly what we needed. We met some really cool people, but Jigar already told you all about them. The food was really good and having the private beach was like a dream come true. Do we lay on the beach chairs? Or the hammock? Or sit on the porch? Those were the kinds of difficult dillemas we faced daily.

We left Octopus yesterday afternoon. It seems like so long ago now. Last night we stayed at Tropic of Capricorn in the New Town Beach area of Nadi (pronounced "Nandi"). It was fine. Clean, safe, and cheap but nothing to write home about. That part of town is definitely the backpackers area. Lako (a gentleman who works at the hotel) did recommend a good Indian restaurant, Maharaja's (well, Indian & Chinese it seemed like). We took a cab there. There is a really big Indian population here (somewhere around 40% it seems). The cab driver was Indian and he told Jigar that 80% of the land is owned by the native Fijians and by law they can't sell it. Only "free hold" land can be owned by non-native Fijians (including Indians who have been here for generations). The resorts are actually on land leased to them by nearby villages. Since it is almost impossible to own land, a lot of Indians are leaving Fiji.

Tonight we moved to Stoney Creek in Sabeto (pronounced "Sambeto"). We wanted to come inland a bit because after being on the beaches of Octopus, the beaches of the mainland are a bit disappointing. Basically, if you come all the way to Fiji and you stay in Nadi the whole time, you have wasted your money - at least as far as beaches are concerned. Now we are in the foothills of the Sabeto mountains and it is breathtaking. A totally different side of Fiji. We took the bus out here today and after we checked in, we took the bus back to town. It is really interesting riding the bus. You get to see the people and the countryside. It is a much realer side of Fiji than what we have seen up to now. It is an open air bus and you can smell the sugar cane burning in the fields as you ride through the hills.

We didn't have a lot of time in town. The last bus back to Sabeto was at 5:15 and we got to town around 3. We did some quick souvenir shopping and then we headed to the Hindu temple. I have wanted to go to a Hindu temple for the last couple of years so it was really exciting to go there. When we got there, we took off our shoes and left them at the entrance (Jigar said not to ever do that in India) and then we went to talk to the guy who worked there. Everyone was very excited to meet Jigar. The manager told us that his daughter works in the Malayasian embassy in Wellington and she would show us around when we got there! The temple was really beautiful. It was bright and colorful and had images of Lord Shiva around the outside. We walked around the temple 3 times carrying the offering to the gods, as directed by the priest. It was very calming. The temple had an aura of serenity around it. We went inside and made our offering. The priest blessed it and then gave it back to us (you are supposed to bring it back to the manager who gave it to us to begin with). Jigar and the priest had a long talk. It was in Hindi so I didn't understand it, but he was telling Jigar about the Bula festival going on in town and recommending some good places to stay that are owned by Indians so they would give us a good deal. We went down to bring the offering back to the manager (you are supposed to take half and give half back). He put all the fruit (the offering had been 2 bananas, a coconut, and the priest had added an apple to out plate) into a bag with about ten extra bananas. We told him not to give them to us, but he said they were just going to rot at the temple and we could give them to the villagers. Then he told us there is a wedding at the temple tomorrow at 10am and that we should come. We are going to move to a hotel back in town tomorrow so that we can go (the buses don't run on Sunday).

On the way back to the bus station, we got some Indian snacks and Coca Lights. It was delicious! We were eating greasy, fried samosas, bhajiyas, and bataka vadas. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

Meet the Friends

Sunday morning Gin and I decided to opt out of going to the village for the Sunday mass. We did our usual morning thing. Did nothing! We laid in bed, ate breakfast, laid on beach chairs.

Gin and I decided to walk around the beach from end-to-end. When we reach one end of the beach, we started chatting with a British couple Ben and Louise. They were the first friends we made at the Octopus resort. They were both from England and were traveling for 8 months. They both worked at a travel agency in England where they met and now we're hoping to get a wedding invitation from them in the future. Contrary to my usual experience of the brits, this lot was very sweet. Instantly, we made friends with them and we started chatting with them about their travels and our travel plans. We made such good friends with them that we had all meals together everyday until they left for the Coral Coast in Viti Levu (main island).

Since eating was a communal affair, Sunday evening another couple joined our table, Jamie and Poppy. They were both from Wellington, New Zealand. Another wonderful couple we made instant friends with. They were so sweet, they invited Gin and I to stay with them in Wellington, NZ. We both are really looking forward to hanging out with them once we get to Wellington. Jamie is a banker whereas Poppy is a high school teacher. Poppy said she would take us to her high school. Gin and I are very excited to spend a day at her high school. Unfortunately, Jamie and Poppy left on the same day as Ben and Louise did. I was really sad because I was having a wonderful time with these guys. I felt like I would have been happy if we had left the resort with them as well, but we still had 4 days to go.

The Noble family we came with on the boat was very cute. Mr. Noble, Mrs. Noble and their 2 daughters. Their entire family moved to Auckland, NZ in search for a better life. They found that place to be Auckland, NZ. They moved there from England. Mr. Noble always told me what a shame it was not to be doing anything at the beach and just laying around. He had no qualms about saying it straight to my face and that made it very funny. He always had such an English aura about him and a very gentlemanish way of carrying himself. He was a wonderful companion I had when I decided to go for a full half day hike :). Gin got a massage instead on that day.

Linda from Holland was also fun to hangout with. We made fun of her when she said that hives.com was a very popular social networking website in Holland and she had absolutely no idea what hives meant. Ben, Louise, Gin and I had a great time teasing her about it for the rest of the stay. She was a good sport about it.

Therese from Ireland was on a 2 month journey through the beautiful islands of Fiji. She was also an incredible reader. She had finished a 1000 page book in a day. Of course, needless to say, she had finished the last Harry Potter book in a day and here I was still on page 207 after reading it for 2 months. I always use the excuse that I speak 4 languages and normally that spares me weird stares from people.

Thanks to Linda and Therese who kept us company through our communal meals until we came across Neil and Rosie. Neil and Rosie weren't a couple. They were just traveling together for a year. Unlike Ben and Louise, they were much more uptight and British. Anyhow we had fun time with them as team Walu (name of our team) did extremely well on the quiz night at Octopus Resort. Out of 5 rounds team Walu won 3 rounds which involved 2 champagne bottles and 2 rounds of some shots I had never had before. It was the most fun night of activity we had during our stay at Octopus.

Lastly, we met another wonderful couple. Jacinta and Alex were from Melbourne, Australia. Jacinta insisted that we let her know when we would be in Melbourne because she wanted to take us around in Melbourne. Gin and I thought that was very sweet of her. Alex was very nice to offer us drinks when they won $40 in bar tap when their hermit crabs won during international crab racing tournament (at least that's what the resort called it). We couldn't believe that out of about 40 crabs, their crabs Gertrude and Nigel were 1st and 3rd after 3 rounds of the tournament. Our hermit crab Herbert was out of the tournament after the 2nd round. We were excited that at least Jacinta and Alex won.

All in all, I couldn't believe how many awesome people we met at Octopus. Even if some of these people we'll never meet again, they hold a special place in our hearts. We look forward to hanging out with a few of these new friends somewhere along our journey.

First Morning in Paradise

Gin and I woke up early the following morning to the sounds of the waves and birds singing. It was already soothing my tired body. It was miles from waking up in brooklyn with police sirens or the sirens of the fire truck. It was pure bliss.

We simply laid in the bed with the doors to our bure open and we let the sound of the waves fill our bure. It was the best view I ever had from my bed. We would lay there on our bed every morning before breakfast and enjoy the music the ocean and the birds created. It was our version of paradise. Bula Fiji!

Paradise Found

After waiting for hours on standby, we got lucky and got seats on the plane. The flight got delayed by an hour because we were waiting for a group of 40 people.

Gin and I were so tired that we fell asleep before the plane took off. By the time I woke up there was only 2 hours of flight time left. I had slept about 8 hours of the flight time.

We landed at the airport in Nadi at 5:30am. Octopus resort was going to pick us up between 8:30 and 9:00am, so we had planety of time to kill at the airport. After changing into a fresh pair of clothes, Gin and I felt like a million bucks. It was 8:45am and I was getting concerned if the resort people would come pick us up. Every little car/van that passed by, I thought it was there for us. Once a car came to pick up someone and I was so sure that it was for us that I was about to ask the guy, but the car looked so run down, I didn't have the nerves to ask the guy. Anyhow, after nervous anticipation of the pickup, finally, the octopus resort van came to pick us up. It was actually a nice van with the name of the resort around it and all. Finally, I was able to relax!

After an hour and half boat ride to the resort, we got to the most
beautiful beach/island I had ever seen in my life called the Waya island part of the Yasawa island group. It was absolutely stunning. Gin and I couldn't believe it was actually real. I've seen pictures of places like that, but had never seen a place like that before in real life. It was all real!

With a nice welcome song with a nice welcome drink, we were introduced to the staff and given our "bure" (hut) keys. Once Gin and I were escorted to our bure, we were just so astonished at how cute the little bure was. It was a perfect little beachfront bure for our honeymoon with our private little beach, beach chairs and a hammock. It was secluded and away from the crowd.

Cody's blackhole

While waiting on line to checkin the plane to our first destination, Cody an 8 year old boy asked Gin and I if we knew what blackhole was. Cody explained blackhole as something that makes something disappear. Gin and I joked about losing thursday as the blackhole effect. We were going to board the plane on a wednesday and we were suppose to land on a friday, which means thursday didn't exist for us.

Well turns out that Cody was right about the blackhole effect. We couldn't board the plane to Fiji because my passport had been washed out and the airline refused to let me board the plane. Gin was devastated by this. I don't think neither Gin nor I were ready to start tackling this kind of hurdle so early. But we're treating thursday as a blackhole day. A day that doesn't exist which basically means that everything that happened today doesn't really count.

Anyhow, Gin and I ended up staying at motel 8 a few blocks away from the airport after the whole fiasco of boarding the plane. I could hear every single plane landing or taking off, but thanks to earplugs I was fast asleep. In the morning, Gin and I went to the passport office and applied for my new passport. While we were waiting for the passport to get ready, Gin and I started going around town and started checking small shops and cafes. Soon, we realized that it didn't really matter where we were as long as we had eachother and were having fun. Upon further investigation, we found out that we were in the neighborhood of westwood, Los Angeles. Gin and I fell in love with the neighborhood. We spent a few hours in the area before heading back to the passport office to pickup my passport.

The entire day was a day of anticipation because the passport office told us that they don't guarantee that I will get a new passport. Fortunately, we walked out the passport office as one of the last few people with their passport in their hands. That was overcoming the first obstacle. The second big obstacle was that since we missed out flight last night, we're on stand by for tonight. We're the first ones to be on standby for a plane that holds 450 people. The plane is overbooked by 20 people, but the staff seems optimistic that we will get on board. We keep our fingers crossed while we wait 'til 10 pm to hear if we can get on board or not. The staff here at Air Pacific know us now and the manager decided to waive the fee for change of date. The last but not least of the obstacles is the resort in Fiji. I hope that they come pick us up in Nadi, Fiji to get to the resort which takes about an hour and a half boat ride to get to.

We wait patiencely while remembering Mary's late text message that read, "the beaches of Fiji awaits you."

Reminiscence of the wedding

We are on our way to San Diego to see my sister and my brother-in-law. In 36 hours we will be on our way to Fiji. Gin and I can't wait to relax on the beach and just enjoy not doing anything.

The wedding and the reception was amazing. We thought it was the best wedding we had been to, but obviously we're a little biased. Honestly, some people did say that it was the best wedding they had been to. I was really happy to hear that.

The day before the wedding, my brother-in-law (Kaushal) and Nikhil went to Abhishek Decorators to pick up the Mandap, chair covers, overlays, garlands, etc for decoration. I can't thank them enough for doing that because without their help this wedding wouldn't have looked that beautiful. Anyhow the night before the wedding, my sister (Dharti), put henna on Gin's hands and feet. It came out beautiful. While Dharti was putting Henna on Gin, pappa (my dad), dad (Gin's dad), Nikhil, Kaushal, my brother Rajen, and I were setting up the Mandap. It took us about an hour to set everything up and it was beautiful. The Mandap was the perfect size and didn't need too much decoration because it was simply beautiful (you can see it from the pictures). All of us were hanging out after the mandap was setup. It was awesome. Dharti, Gin, Nikhil, Kaushal, and I were awake until almost 3am. We were just having so much fun. Mrs. Hamilton, mom's friend (Gin's mom) and Mary (Gin's sister) hungout with us for a while before they went to bed. It was fun feeding Gin because she had Henna all over her hands. Of course, I fed myself more than I fed her :)

The day of the wedding we woke up late because we went to bed late the night before. I thought everything was done and I had so much time that I was calling to cancel my cellphone service and doing other nonsense things until I realized I had no time to get ready. Then I started running around crazy like chicken with no head. Surprisingly, the wedding ceremony only started about 10 minutes late. The pundit (priest), Kaushik Shastry started the ceremony with welcoming me to the Mandap. The ceremony was utterly beautiful because the pundit explained everything along the way. Most of us didn't speak Sanskrit (ancient language of India like Latin) and since all the verses were in Sanskrit, they needed to be translated. The pundit did such an incredible job and an hour and fourty minutes passed and I didn't even realize it. Surprisingly, most of the people felt the same way and they also thought that it was just a beautiful ceremony. Honestly, I didn't know much of the things in the ceremony until the pundit explained everything, the real meaning behind the verses. I have been to a lot of Indian weddings before, but the pundits never explained anything about the ceremony, simply recite the verses in Sanskrit and that's it. No wonder why people in India can never sit through an hour and half long ceremony because they have no idea what is going on (well at least most of the people don't).

After the ceremony, the DJ came up to me to ask me where he was going to setup his equipment and I told him I had no idea. At some point you have to let go and hope for the best. Gin and I did exactly that. I told someone to take care of it. Anyhow, I was nervous about the how the arrangement was going to be.

After Gin and I changed our clothes from the wedding ceremony and went to the reception, I was shocked at how transformed the place looked (in an excellent way). Aparently, while we were changing, Kaushal and Nikhil single-handedly dismantled the Mandap to make room for the dance floor and the entire room looked transformed. Gin and I were thoroughly pleased with the way the arrangement looked.

After we had a grand entrance in the reception, dad and Rajen gave excellent speeches. Their words meant a lot to both Gin and I. The food was buffet style so peole started going up to the buffet area and we had one table after another get the food. Gin and I were starving considering we hadn't eaten much the entire day. After a few minutes we couldn't wait any longer and we got food. The food was delicious. I think I went up 3 times and I still wanted more. I think Gin was quite embarrased by that time because she had stopped eating after our first round. Soon after we had the cake cutting ceremony. Thanks to Chris Naselli (Gin's hair stylist) and Joseph Ortiz (Chris's boyfriend), we had the cheesecake as our wedding cake from Junior's Brooklyn. You can't go wrong with Junior's cheesecake and it lived upto it's reputation. We enjoyed it very much.

After some time the DJ opened up the dance floor and everyone started getting into the music. We had all kinds of music. We had Desi (Indian) and American music. All of us had an awesome time at the dance floor. Gin and I danced all the way until the end. Somewhere along the way we forgot to eat our wedding cake, wait they never brought it to our table :). I was so happy to see pappa & mummy (my mom) dance. I've never seen my mom dance and her dancing all night was very special to me. Matter of fact she request some music of her own.

Before the reception had started, I had mentioned to Gin about cleaning up our room because we wouldn't want to deal with it at the end of the night. To our surprise, Molly, Shae, and Spencer got into our room before we did and put flowers in our jacuzzi bathtub. They also put garlands on our bed (the same garlands that Gin and I had exchanged in the ceremony). They also put votive candles around the entire jazucci and cleaned up our room. It was very speical. Gin and I absolutely loved it. What happened after that is TMI :)

The following morning Gin and I woke up early and got ready for the brunch with friends and family. It was nice to see everyone before they went back to their destinations. We had a long day ahead of us with packing all our stuff and getting organized for the trip.

After we said good bye to my brother and his family, we went go-karting with Mary and Joe (Gin's nephew). It was my first time go-karting and we had a lot of fun. Mary and Joe went back up to Soho and we returned back to the hotel. Later in the evening we went out for dinner with Gin's family to a Thai restaurant. Surprisingly, good thai food for a suburb.

On monday Nikhil and I went up to the decorators to return all the decorating stuff we had gotten and Nikhil went catch his flight back to Wisconsin. Unfortunately, his flight got canceled and had to miss another day of work without compensation and had to pay for staying an addition night because the next flight out was tuesday morning. I will miss him very much. He is like a brother to me.

I cannot believe that I am here sitting in the airplane right now on my way to San Diego and we're leaving everything behind. It isn't easy doing that, but Gin and I think if we don't do it now, then it wouldn't happen later in the future. We are very thankful and thanking isn't even enough to say how much our family and friends did this weekend to make our wedding and reception unforgetable for us and for other people. To sum it up in a nutshell, I am going to quote my brother "events like this don't mean anything if you cannot share it with friends and family." Love you guys and I will miss you.

3 days to the wedding!

I got the bluetooth wireless keyboard set on my PDA. Today has been a crazy day so far. It's July 2nd, 2008 and today we got my suit for the wedding. Finally, it is done. After the disaster about the suite from yesterday, I am glad it is done with. Banana Republic has been good to me, so I got a suit from there. Gin, Diane (Gin’s mom), and I love it. My parents weren't too thrilled about the suit, but oh well, we love it. Besides we don't have too much time or too many options here in Poconos, PA.

My mom left her purse after having lunch at Au Bon Pain. It was tremendously stressful for all of us because my parents had their passports in there. Thank goodness we're here in Poconos, PA and not in Brooklyn, NY because someone had turned in her purse to the main counter when we went back to pick it up. My mom was in tears and my dad was frantic, but I am glad that we found it.

Gin and I were ready to go pick up the wedding stuff at Abhishek Decorators and we found out that the minivan wasn't enough to go pick up the stuff because there was too many things. I had to call U-Hhaul, which turned out to be too expensive, but Enterprise car rental had a good deal on cargo van. I book the cargo van with Enterprise and we were ready to go until Abhishek Decorators gave us specific instructions that if we weren't there before 5:30pm, they'd leave and we'd have to turn around without the stuff. So after thinking this through, we decided to ask Kaushal (my brother-in-law) to go and pick up the stuff from Abhhishek Decorators on July 4th. BTW, I had already reserved a cargo van in the mean time under his name without asking him if he'd be ok with it J. I called him afterwards and he said he'd gladly do it for us. I knew I could count on him! So now Nikhil and Kaushal will go and pick up the decoration stuff from Abhishek Decorators on Friday, July 4th.

I had suggested Gin's father, Doug, to have Webbie (Gin’s sister’s fiancée) to come up to Edison, NJ to pick up the car for their convenience and somehow getting the car to Webbie became our responsibility. Anyhow, moral of the story, don't meddle with things you're not suppose to meddle with. I think I'd stay out of those situations in the future. Gin's mom and dad will drive up to Hobokean, NJ tomorrow and deliver the car to Webbie at work (Webbie's got a sweet deal there).

So far today has been quite an eventful day, but everything seems to have been working out fine. This has been the craziest week of my entire life between planning for the wedding, packing for the trip, moving out of the apartment, and playing a host for my parents.

One would think that I can't wait for this to be over, but on the contrary, I think I'd miss not having friends and family around even though they tend to make my life more complicated. Besides, when will there be another moment when everyone will get together. I will miss them once Gin & I leave the country and will be wishing we had more of them.