New York Trip

Last weekend, Ashish and I flew out to New York to celebrate Pappudada's wedding.

12th August, 2006

Anand dada and Raju dada came to the airport to pick us up and we were at Pappudada's apartment by 10:30. Aai had arrived the previous night from dinner and Neelu atya had lunch ready. After lunch and having freshened up, the baratis started off to Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, where the wedding was to take place.

Mahesh kaka and Mahendra kaka and family had also reached the ashram, and that completed our wedding party. In the evening, there was a small pooja at the temple, followed by dinner. After that there was a Bhajan program which lasted for about an hour. Later on, there was a small gift exchange ceremony between the two sides.

13th August, 2006

The wedding ceremony was held in one of the two tents that had been put up for the occassion. The venue was decorated in red, white and gold torans with brass murtis at the entrance of the pandal. The ceremony, which was done in the Kannada Brahmin style, started with separate pujas for the bride and the groom. This was followed by Kanya Dhan, exchange of garlands, tying the mangal sutra and the sapta padi.

The occassion was graced by the presence of Reverened Swamijis. The book ' Friendship : The Essence of Vedic Marriage' by Swami Dayananda Saraswati was realeased. Lunch was delicious with a spread of North Indian and South Indian dishes. After lunch, a small ceremony was arranged where the new bride was welcomed into the house as goddess Lakshmi.

The afternoon was spent chit chatting with relatives and friends. In the evening, all of us played some basketball.

14th August, 2006

After breakfast, Aai, Anand dada- Harshada Vahini and Ashish and I left for Niagara. It was 5:00 PM by the time we reached and it was raining very heavily. After checking into the room and freshening up, we took the Gray Line tour. It started with the Maid of the Mist boat ride that takes you up to the center of the Horse Shoe Falls. Then we went for 'The Legend of the Niagara' 4D movie. There was a quiz before the movie, which had questions about the Falls and we had fun playing it.

This was followed by a round of the goat island and then the Cave of the Winds tour. The rain had stopped by this time, but we were pretty wet. The stop on the hurricane deck, took us right beneath the Bridal Veil falls and we ended up being drenched. This was a lot of fun. We were exhausted by the time we were back and after a quick bite at Denny's we called it a night.

15ht August, 2006

We left by 8:00 AM to Sharon, Massachusettes and reached Aji's place at 4:00 PM. Sharon is a beautiful small residential town and Aji's home is a nice place with a view of the lake. After freshening up, we went to the Massapoag Lake. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing at home, with Sheelu aji and Tushar maama. At night, we went for ice cream to Cresent Ridge Dairy.

16th August, 2006

After a heavy brunch of omlette , sheera and fruits, Dada-Vahini and Ashish and I left for New York at 1:00 PM. It was 6:00 by the time we reached JFK. The flight was on time, and we were back home in Buena Park by midnight.

Though the trip was short, we covered a lot of states and had a lot of fun. We went through New York -> New Jersey -> Pensylvania -> New York-> Massachusettes -> Rhode Island -> Connecticut -> New York

We are looking forward to our next trip to the East coast, hopefully during Fall!