Kamna's Blog

1997 Sipping directly from a gigantic orange while in the backseat of the Jeep on the way to Abidjan 2000 Salivating over a box of mulberries in the Opel Corsa through the ghats on the way to Panchgani 2004 Stuffing myself with fresh Rabdi from a clay pot in the 2nd class sleeper train at Mount Abu station 2005 Snarfing down a quintessential NYC hot dog while admiring the Lady of Liberty on the Staten Island Ferry 2006 Sitting, mind simmering with steaming plastic containers of Gushtaba on my lap in the Shikara on Dal lake 2010 Sampling my first ever Starbucks gazing out of Star Ferry on the way to Tsim Sha Tsui 2011 Sharing a pack of Haldiram's Aloo Bhujiya on the bus to Mysore Palace 2013 Snacking on a Princessa candybar on the Polskibus to Krakow 2013 Satiating my appetite with some Boots meal deal sandwiches on the London Tube to Camden Town  2015 Scooping greedy bites of strawberry cheesecake icecream on a Ferry in Sydney's Circular Quay  2016 Snarfing down a magazine ...

My STA s seem to have taken a backseat for wonderful sibling bonding trips instead. And I'm not complaining! 😊 This post is going to be super long and unlike Japan's post , this one's actually co-written by both Harshita and I. It's long overdue! I was back home in July, but never had the motivation to bring my laptop home from work to actually write until today. This is from Harshita's daywise + citywise journal followed by mine (she stopped notetaking in Houston) and of course with plenty tiny photos :) Day 1 Arrived LA airport after a long 12 hour flight on Cathay Pacific from HKG. Food and service on the flight was crap, but what more can you expect in economy. It was a long wait at customs. Got my bags out and one of my wine bottles broke. Met Kamna,  got a shuttle bus to Hertz, hired a Nissan Illinois plated red vehicle there and drove to Westfield mall to get a SIM. Drove to Calabasas down the I-405 and had Thai takeaway dinner with the family...

It's been a few days since I returned from my holiday with my sister in Japan and I'm still happily recovering from the sights, sounds and smells of that literally fantastic country. 1) Amazing sanitation systems Japanese cleanliness is simply unbeatable. Their toilets are the most elaborate you'll ever see. Self flushing? Check. Self cleaning? Yes. Self opening?! YUP . They even have toilets where you can turn on recorded water flowing sounds for those who are self conscious about having too noisy a pee. My mind is most blown by the sheer options of ways your poop taking experience can be enriched. I'm so tempted to start a retail business of Toto/Panasonic washlets! 2) Stations, JR Lines, Subways & Shinkansen To a tourist, the public transport systems in Japan can be quite challenging to figure out just because of the complexity of various service providers and lines. Compared to the London Underground, which I found to be large, Japan's railwa...

Call me a creature of habit, but I have this complacent, almost romantic idea about travelling the world. I indulge myself in consistent, predictable travel quite unlike a adventure junkie with eyes pouring with wanderlust. Two weeks ago though, I felt a change in this attitude when, ditching the usual Uber called 45 minutes in advance, I stepped out of my house and hitched a rickshaw ride to the airport. While the aircraft was taxiing the runway, my fingers refused to search for my take-off song ("Bed" by Jahzzar). Instead, I surprised myself by just listening to whatever the iPod god decided I should hear then. 15 days later I'm sat at the boarding gate for a flight that will take me home just overwhelmed and grateful for all I've had the opportunity to enjoy in the Land of the Rising Sun.  Harshita, my sister who lives in Australia, was my companion for this wonderful holiday and thanks to her diligent notekeeping, I've decided to do compile it all to...