Hou da Lu

My trekking experience

taranya — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:06:28 +0000

Day 1- We all fell asleep after 2 hrs of fun on the train!! Only because it was Holi and we all played a lot in the morning, we were really tired and longed for a nice sleep. Our eyes opened by the rays of sun falling in our cabin. We reached New Jhapaiguri Railway Station at around 6 AM. We were 18 in number. Utkarsh, Shivit, Ayush, Chavi, Teastha, Kartiki, Pintu, Surit, and me (8 kids) and 7 adults. From the station, Teastha’s uncle came to pick us up. We went to uncle’s house in a huge bus which was hired only for us, where we had breakfast and got a little time to freshen up. Rohan and Rishi (Teastha’s cousin) joined us in our journey from here. It took us 3 hrs from their place to reach our base camp called Chitre. We reached around 1 in the afternoon. The scenery along the bus ride was fascinating! We all had lunch, which was Naan and pickle for me. Then we friends went out exploring around base camp while all the kiddos went to sleep. There was amazing breeze going on and started feeling really cold (5 at evening). We went inside and all four of us jumped into bed!, with at least 3 blankets covering us (it was really really cold)! I skipped dinner because I was in deep sleep and nobody could wake me up!!

Day 2- Rise and Shine!!! The aunties woke us up at 4:30 am to see sunrise. We went up and down and up. It was our first trek so, it was a little tiring, but was worth watching. Amazing sunrise!!! while the sun was up, the moon was behind us going down. We went back to change and have breakfast and pack our bags. We were to leave at 8. We were told to leave all unnecessary thing in a plastic bag and leave it at the base camp. Most of my friends left their things. I left the previous set of cloths and a pair of slippers we were told to carry. We were at Chitre (base camp), we had to walk 7 km that day. It was tortuous path. Our destination was Tumbling in Nepal. It was hard! After one and a half hrs my buddy wanted to go to the bathroom. We were in the middle of nowhere, just a single path ahead of us!! On our right side were rocks and grass and on the left side we could see what all we left down. Anyways we finally found out a way and I gave her some tissue paper! We were to stop at some rest point for wai-wai (noodles) but it seemed like we would never reach it. But we got there, and i wasn’t hungry for some reason. We had to climb up and down 1 km only now! which was very near! The second half of walking and talking was not hard, in fact i reached pretty fast. We reached Tumbling around 2. We all had fun the rest of the day. Played antaksheri and then lights out!!

Day 3- Nobody was was interested in getting up, but such a news came to our ears that we were all up in a flash of thunder! Guess what! It was HOT CHOCOLATE! We all wanted something like this. Brushed up at the table by 7. None of us had taken bath from the last few days since it was very cold and we were told that we will only take a bath when we reach. I brushed my teeth and came into the room. We had to walk 12 km today. 6 km down, 2 km up and 3 km straight and up. We had cornflakes and a type of bread for breakfast. We left at 8. Our first half was easy and i covered the first 6 km with no difficulty. But going up was really really tiring. We stopped every 5 minutes! This was our way and we thought that its never Going to end. Finally I saw Kalapokhri lake, which was a very holy lake for the people living in Kalapokhri because the lake would not turn into ice even in winters! Amazing, isn’t it? 7 more minutes and I did it for the day! We had lunch and then later in the evening went to watch the sun set. It was really windy in the evenings. I had 3 layers of clothes on! It was Rohan birthday today, so we went back and cut the cake. Then all of us turn by turn danced on songs, we had good fun that evening. Then we went for dinner and got good hot dal with rice, salad, etc. Good Night!

Day 4- Today was the shortest distance and on hearing this we were all really happy, but Rishi told us that it was the most tough of all the rest (since he had done the same trek in December), but anyways. Today my bag felt heavier than ever for some reason, heavy means really heavy! I had breakfast, that was pancake with jam or honey. Did I mention that today was our last day of trekking! We started off, and I had a good start. Then later I got tired. Really this day, this trek was hard. This time it was really like, “Oh god! I’m never going to make it. ” There was on uncle, Devraj Uncle who reached 2 hrs before us and had come to take our bags when we were a little near. This was Sandakphu! I made it by 1 p.m. and we got Maggi as our success feast. That day we had a lot of time to play, etc. We went to an small hut a little far from where we were staying. It was us who found out this place. It was pretty warm in there. We spend a lot of time in there. Then I went to sleep till it was dark since my head was aching and I felt really cold. I got and we (me and my friend who also slept) found out that the aunties and kids were singing while the boys had gone to listen to the radio, that India’s match was going on. We went to the aunties and snuggled up in their beds, since it was warmer there. Heard some old songs they were sleeping. Then when it was time to sleep we both decided to sleep in one bed, since it was warmer like that. Like this, we emptied one room, because everyone was 2 in 1.

Day 5- Today was my BIRTHDAY!!..I got up and got many good wishes. Aunty gave me the 13 cards and another something from my parents. Chavi gave me a Deo spray. Today we were riding down in a roller coaster (as we called it), In actual words, the land rover. Before going we were to cut the cake and my friends took at least half an hour to make some surprise! But it was nice. I cut my cake in front of Mt. Everest, which we were told the previous night we could see in the morning. We reached chitre by Land Rover. Stopped there to have some amazing hilltop momo’s. Picked up our old stuff and left for teestha’s uncle’s house by the bus. Had yummy home lunch after so many days. We left for station at 6 PM. Huddled into our compartment & guess what! we had dominoe’s pizza for dinner. Yipeee!

Subway sandwich

taranya — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000

The great fight at mani square food court.guess who won?

The plane

taranya — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 15:40:21 +0000

It was raining very hard when I was hopped out of the kingfisher bus with my mom and sister. We all boarded the plane and took our seats and relaxed, after a long long and fun ‘n’ exciting vacation it was time to go home. All of a sudden something disturbed my thought, it was an announcement that had to tell us we will be departing after 45 minutes because of the storm. I got really irritated, URG!!! Then after some time it started getting really hott ’cause there was no electricity & that means the A.C. was not on. It was a very congested plane, a small one too and whole plane was full with people everywhere not even one seat was empty, it was totally booked!!

Some passengers complained (as was i overheard). The air-hostess announced once again that they have called for 2 busses and we can go sit there where the A.C. was working, I was so relieved that I jumped out of my seat and began to run when mom stopped me and we still were there sitting in the plane, hotttt and humid. (I kept thinking why dont they they just cancel the plane ’cause it was still raining and thundering.) Thereafter sometime we were informed to get out of the plane and into the buss to go to the arrival and get our new boarding pass into security check then into the same buss and back to the same plane where they had still not started the A.C. I was getting really irritated by now ‘n’ was looking forward to a peaceful plane ride. I saw another Kingfisher plane tale off to Delhi. Now it was our turn and we took off!!! …….

It was still raining when it took off. (I thought that after waiting for a long time the pilot would have taken the correct decision.) We went up in the air and it went smooth for 5 minutes then all of a sudden we went up and down up and down, it was for a minute though and we all relaxed when it stopped. There and then the pilot announced that he was seeing a very bad weather. UH OH!!!! What does this mean???? All of a sudden we started going up ‘n’ down, up ‘n’ down and this time it was really scary!!!! There was a person sitting next to me he was talking to me asking me questions like whats ur name?, where have u cum from?, and once he got to know me properly (I was reading a book while he was asking me all these questions). I handled the turbulence for some time then I started crying ’cause I was really scared. Even more scared ’cause I had heard that Air India flight crashing , and its all over news. I cry when i’m really scared, i cry and screamed ‘MAMA’ which makes my mom get even more nervous about the whole thing (I actually shouldn’t have done that). Suddenly the pilot announced again that the turbulence should be finished in 16 mins so I was relieved, but 16 minutes is a long time. When it didn’t get over I started crying a lot (which means a lot!!). The person next to me tried to distract me by asking me more questions, showing me photos of his daughters and all. I was not the girl who could get distracted at that point of time. It was really ONE big nice plane ride. TURBULENCE!!!!!!!!

When we finally landed, I was in a hurry to get off the plane. We went to the airport to collect our luggage. I took that person’s autograph in my book because he helped me through the whole flight ( helped a lot or else I would have gone out of control). While we were going out of the building I saw the pilot of our flight and thought to take his autograph too, for the wonderful ride. When I was in the car I fell asleep but before sleeping I said that I’ll never go in a plane again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kolkata book fair

taranya — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:19:56 +0000

went to see the book fair on the last day! walked down from home. amazing crowd like I had never seen before. lots dust but people old n young seemed to be enjoying themselves. some halls had long queues of people waiting to enter. overall a fun experience. bought some Archie comics for self and bed time story books for nimi.

26 jan

taranya — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:52:17 +0000

Went to Bbsr and cuttack for a national kathak competition. Great fun !

Children’s Day

taranya — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:50:29 +0000

Happy Children’s day to all the children out there. On14th November my school celebrated Children’s day. We could wear casuals (colored dress) to school, which was a huge thing for us since we had to wear uniform. In school we got to rule, got breakfast in our classrooms, and could play whatever we wanted till 11:30 because then we had to go to the auditorium for Children’s day special assembly. From 9:30 till 11:30 we as in our class played 2 games. 1, truth and dare where you have to spin a bottle choosing one side question and one side answer and whoever two opposite sitting people it lands on they play depending on Q/A. If question if facing me then I will ask the answering person truth or dare, if they choose dare then dare them to do something and if they choose truth then ask them a truth question. When the our whole class was playing all 31 of us it was awfully fun. The other game we played was lock and key which all of you must be knowing how to play. There is a denier and he has to catch the other people playing, when he catches on person he will have to say lock. For the person locked to get free one other person leaving the denier has to run, touch the person and say key. If a person is locked 3 times he is the denier. We played lock and key on the 4 flours (just our class). It was FUN. Then at 11:30 in small friend groups we went to the auditorium to having to walk in a line. In the special assembly it started of by the activity teacher playing different instruments, a combination of classical and western music. It sounded nice. Then mine sir did some awfully nice mine steps that nobody could do. Then Kathak sir danced Kathak a classical dance. Barathntium was also danced by the sir but it was impromptus dance. Then the class teachers and subject teacher did some dances and short skits. Then at the end the head girl, head boy, school captain girl and boy and some other students were called to judge the nominations for the Teachers award of different categories. After the assembly we went to the dinning hall for lunch where we had a buffet followed by candy floss, but to get even one candy floss it took us one hour to wait and stand in the hot lines. That was the end of Children’s day. Me and my friends walked to our buss stops together and said HAPPY CHILDREN DAY!

All the children out there don’t waste this one precious day of the year and have fun.

Boring, at the moment

taranya — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:41:07 +0000

I have moved back to India our home country. Before we moved I spent got to spent a lot of time with my friends and PARTY! It was tough leaving the place where I practically grew up. Life is boring at the moment in India. When my parents have to go out to see houses I have to go with them, but in Shanghai if my parents went out to search for a new house I could stay with my friends if I didn’t want to go. On the 6th of January I went to Calcutta International School to take my test for admission, they will tell us if I can join the school after a week. I am really excited to go to school because at home there is nothing to do since none of our stuff has come ( it’s coming through shipment by sea.) All I do is sit at home watching television,reading a book or going whereever my mom goes since she can’t leave me alone at home. I really miss you guys and all the stories, fun and activities that Mr. Hanlin does and shares.

Santa’s Letter

taranya — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:40:14 +0000

Shanghai American School

258 Jin Feng Lu
Zhudi Town Minhang District
December 16, 2008

Dear Santa,
I will earn a mobile phone because I have done many good things this year and I will use it in an excellent way. I know I deserve a gift this year. I want a brand new mobile for Christmas. I will not just throw away after I admire it. I will use it in many different ways.
I think I deserve a gift because I have done many good things this year. I got good grades this year in my report card, that too in the first quarter. I got one 2, one 4 and all the rest 3s. I also helped my mom baby sit my sister when mom had to go out to some party when kids weren’t aloud. My mom was impressed when I helped her clean out the shelves and drawers since we are leaving. I personally think that I took a risk staying at home for more than one hour. Maybe some kids stay at home alone for two or more hours but I think it’s hard for me especially during the nighttime. I have made a bunch of friends this year. One of my friend is leaving too. She was a friend since 3rd grade but we got separated in 4rth grade because me and another girl fought over my best friend so I left her that year. I made two new friends that year but the other girl who I fought over with and my two friends left to their home country forever. I sure miss my two friends but not the one who I fought with. Talking about friends I think fifth grade is a great place to make friends and go above & beyond.
I want a brand new mobile phone for Christmas. It’s color should be black, whit, silver or blue. It was a hard time making a decision what color my phone should be even though my favorite color is purple I think my mobile should be matching to all the cloths I wear. I would also like the mobile’s company to b from Nokia or any other good company. The phone should be a slide up phone that is slim, not broad and thin, not thick. Plus, please make sure that the mobile does not coast so much money. I don’t want you to pay so much money just for my gift.
I will use my gift in these types of ways. Whenever I go out without my mom in our car, I need to call my mom if something suddenly happens. For example, one day I was on a bus and an accident happened on the road so we gad to wait for an hour or so, that to at the exact same spot. My mom was really worried. (She told me when I reached home.) The kids on the bus don’t even let me borrow their mobile phone. Even though one of the boy’s is my mom’s friend’s son, he is really rude to me. Sometimes I get really mad him.
I have rated a mobile this year, and I know I will get a beautiful gift. I will use it in many ways. My mom will not find it always lying on the beds, grounds, sofa and desks. I have done many things to warrant this gift.

Merry Christmas,
Taranya

Pearl TV Tower

taranya — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:39:05 +0000

I went to pearl TV tower the other day with earl and we had some great fun!

Shakuntala Devi

taranya — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:37:58 +0000

Shakuntala Devi is known as a human calculator in India. Many other country knows her as the human calculator. On December 7th, 2008 I went to her workshop a restaurant called Bukhara. It was a very interesting learning math process. At the very beginning of the workshop she said this “whatever there is in all three worlds which are posed of moving and non moving beings, can’t exist as apart from ” Mathematics (Gaunita)”

Why do you think that this person is Known as a human calculator? She has memorized many tricks in her head to remember all these you need to have good memory. She gave us 5 keys to good memory.

1. Self Confident- You must trust in yourself and memory.

2. Repeat to remember or memorize

3. Remembering names/ meanings of name / connection/ associate

4. Pneumatic -

May I have a large container of coffee = pie

3 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 = pie

5. Link