Nikhil had three more meets in the last couple of weeks. He had a meet last Sunday in Hawthorne (1500M and 800M), one yesterday (400M) and one today (800M and 400M).

At the Quiet Fire meet last weekend in Hawthorne, he improved on his times considerably and ran the 1500M in 5:50 and the 800M in 2:55. Both were PR’s.

Yesterday, he ran at the Long Beach Sprinters meet in Cerritos and ran a 76 second 400M, another PR.

Today, he ran in the SCMAF Orange County finals. The top four finishers in each age group move on to the state meet. Nikhil improved his 400M time to 75 sec and his 800M time to 2:52. Again both times were PR’s for him. The latter time qualified him to represent Orange County in the state championships in June!

Here he is at the start of the race.

And here he is with his 3rd place medal:

There are now four weeks remaining until the state meet in Downey on June 1. Looks like we’ll be doing a lot more practice between now and then!

Terry and Kriss came down from Seattle this weekend and hosted a fun evening at the Wine Cellar in Irvine. It is actually a wine storage building that we used for our private party. The Bordeaux was flowing from about 5pm until closing. Following are a couple of the “G” rated pictures from early in the evening.

Here are the 3 birthday girls: Joy, Kriss and Kim.

And here are the Real Housewives!

It was a very fun evening albeit a bit chilly in the 57 degree temperature controlled wine locker but a wonderful relief from the 90 plus degree temperatures in SoCal this weekend.

The boys had their 11th birthday this past week and we celebrated by taking them out to Champagne Bakery (their choice).  They ate strawberry crepes for dinner.

They also had a sleep over with their friends and had homemade chocolate fondue (again their choice).  Are you sensing a French theme here?

They then stayed up and played video games until two in the morning!

Nikhil is continuing with his track workouts during the week and has started participating in meets on the weekends. This is his first season of track and field.

Last weekend he participated at the Swift Invitational Track meet in Gardena. He ran his fastest 800M at 3:09 (in his second meet) and his first 1500M at 6:20.

On Friday, he ran at the Newport Beach City meet and ran a 400M and 800M. His 400M time was 86 seconds and his 800M was 3:12. He placed third in both of his heats and qualifies to run in the SCMAF (Southern California Championship meet) in June. Lots of time to practice until then!

So we are back to our daily routine. The boys had a campout this weekend for Boy Scouts and Annika had a softball game.

Anjali took the boys and I went with Annika.

I got a lucky picture of her hitting the ball!

On our last two days in Ecuador, we headed south of Quito on the Pan American highway to the village of Banos. It is known for its Tungurahua volcano which is an active 5000m high volcano site. It last erupted in Nov. 2006 and was said to have released steam on the days that we were there.

Fortunately, all we saw was a peaceful mountain and amazing views.

Here is a picture of the “spa” we stayed at in Banos at the base of the mountain. It is in a picturesque location underneath a waterfall.

The spa itself is a cheesy motel about the quality of a Motel 6 or worse but is was the best in town.

As you can see, the kids can have fun anywhere.

In the morning, we took a ride on the “terabithia” which is essentially a tram that goes across a gorge and ends in a waterfall. Banos is known for these “cascadas” that sit at the edge of the rainforest.

The one that we rode was 500m long and 100m above the ground. Check out the video of the ride. They stopped the tram about 2/3 of the ride and just before the waterfall.

After the ride, we headed back to Quito. On the way, we stopped off for some ice cream in the town of Salcedo which is known for its ice-cream. There must have been 100 ice cream vendors in the town.

After about a 4 hour ride back to Quito, we had a quick dinner at our favorite restaurant called the Magic Bean and were entertained by our little angel!

It was an amazing experience overall and one we will remember forever. Special thanks to Anjali for researching and arranging the whole trip!

On one of the few remaining days after the Amazon, we went to the equator, also known as the middle of the world.

Here are the kids on the equator line.

We visited a museum that had a water demonstration supposedly showing the coriolis effects. On the equator line, the water drained from the sink straight out. On either side of the equator line, the water drained out with a whirlpool effect. It was even clockwise on one side and counter clockwise on the other. Pretty cool demonstration, but I find it hard to believe how just a few feet on either side of the equator can make a difference.

Here we all are posing for the Tustin News. We had our picture taken for the “Where in the World” section of the paper.

Another interesting feature of the equator is that one can balance an egg on a nail head. Supposedly, the gravitational forces at the equator are neutral allowing one to balance the egg. Once again, I’m not sure I buy the logic, but sure enough, it did work and it sure impressed the kids! We should now try it at home to disprove this theory. Any physicists in the house with a hypothesis as to why this works?

Vikram got to shoot a blow gun. See the arrow in the cactus.

After the equatorial museum, we headed off to the Otovalo market. On the way, we stopped off for lunch at a restaurant at Lake San Pablo with a wonderful view of the Imbabura volcano in the background at 8000 feet.

Otavalo is about two hours north of Quito on the Pan American highway (also known as the Avenue of the Volcanoes) . Otavalo is one of the oldest and most famous markets in the world. The Indians make and sell their handicrafts at the market.

This is a real hagglers paradise. Be warned though, as I bought two large size T-shirts that both shrunk to a youth size!

We have two more days left in Ecuador and tomorrow, I’ll post some more pictures from our trip to Banos and a different rainforest.

Each day, we went on a canoe ride and did some hiking. Here is a video of one of the canoe rides. Listen to the sounds of the jungle and see the amazing variety of plant and animal life.

On one of the days, we climbed up to the top of a 135 foot (40 meter) kapok tree and viewing platform. It sits just above the rainforest canopy and provides the opportunity to view the birds and monkeys from a different vantage point.

Here are the boys looking thru the telescope at the birds.

Here is a picture Nikhil took of a toucan thru the telescope.

The next day, we went to the top of a 90 foot (30 meter) suspension bridge. Here is a video of the walk across the bridge.

At the top, we saw more toucans just sitting on the bridge. Six in all.

Here is a picture from back down at the bottom, looking up at the suspension bridge. It looks scarier than it is.

Ont the way back to the lodge, we saw a fungus called a champagne cup.

Here is a school of squirrel monkeys. They traveled in packs. If you look closely, you can see 3 of them. We saw several of them up close and personal.

And here is me and my better half taking a break.

On the ride back to the lodge, we were surprised by a fast approaching thunder and lightning storm.

We made it safely back to the lodge and enjoyed another wonderful meal.

The Amazon is a truly awesome experience and Sacha Lodge was a great place to see all that it has to offer.

I still have a couple more posts of the equator trip and a trip we took to a volcano in Banos. Stay tuned!

All of our hikes and tours were led by 2 guides. One was a native Indian guide (on the left below - named Segundo) and the other was a high school professor by training that acted as translator and story teller (named Oscar).

The kids really took a liking to Segundo. Even though he spoke no English, he showed them special jungle trees, birds and bugs and cleared the path for them on all our hikes with his super machette.

Here is Vikram with a millipede on his hand.

Here is Nikhil with some of the butterflies that seemed to be attracted to him.

And here is Annika by the nut trees.

Here is Annika in front of one of the millions of odd looking trees. It is said that 10 acres of Amazon jungle have more species of wildlife than the entire United States. This picture is in the middle of the day, but because the jungle is so dense it seems almost dark and requires the use of a flash.

One of the kids’ favorite trees was Sangre de Drago or dragon’s blood tree. When pierced by a knife, the tree oozes a red sap that is medicinal in it properties and is said to treat everything from cuts and bites to cancer. It is one of the magical herbs in the jungle. Our guide also showed us the trees used to make everything from pitocin (from the cecropia tree), jungle viagra, the rubber plant (used to make chewing gum), jungle peanuts, and all kinds of magic mushrooms.

Here is Vikram looking inside a bat hole.

The bats are hiding inside the tree trunk (this picture again uses a flash). One of the evenings, we did a night-time canoe ride and saw (and felt) whole flocks of bats flying around.

One of the hundreds of unique spiders.

Here is a picture of a termite nest. There were thousands of these huge nests along the trails.

Here is a picture of a couple of vultures hanging out at the top of a tree.

We saw so many birds that the guides pointed out including euphonias, macaws, toucans, herons, crested owls, tanagers, woodpeckers, hawks and hummingbirds.

We also saw many different types of monkeys including the tiny pygmy marmoset, night monkey, squirrel monkeys, capuchins and howler monkeys. The monkeys were particularly fun to watch as they traveled in packs and were extremely loud and disruptive.

One of the afternoons, the boys went fishing in the lake for live piranha. They were extremely aggressive and devoured the bait as soon as it went in the water. Our Indian guide with lots of skill caught one and showed off the piranha’s razor sharp teeth. There were dozens of these red bellied and white bellied piranhas swimming in the lake.

The boys then went swimming in the same lake! It is said that although the piranha are vicious, they only attack if there are open wounds and they can smell blood. In the same lake at night, we saw a caiman. Again, the guide said they only come out at night. In fact, the last evening we were there, there was a group of kids still swimming at the dock and the guide ushered them to come out of the water.

I will add one more post with some additional videos and pictures from the suspension bridge and the tree house in the kapok tree. These were some of the best features of the lodge.

The middle part of our trip was spent in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador.

We started off with an early morning plane ride from Quito airport to a small town called Coca about a 1/2 hour east of Quito.

From there it is a short “chiva” bus ride to our safe house where the staff pack our bags into sealed waterproof containers for the boat ride thru the jungle.

At the safe house we have a quick lunch and then board a small power boat for the 70km ride down the Napo River.

Here are Nikhil and Vikram fast asleep during the two and a half hour ride.

Along the way, we see the pristine old growth rain forests being carved up by big bad American oil concerns like Chevron and Texaco.

The river is dotted by the tell tale signs of tanker boats, oil rigs and the flames of burning oil.

The only way to get the oil out is by river boat. There are no roads in and out of the jungle. It is tragic to see the rain forest disappearing for the sake of big oil profits.

Once we get to the dropoff point on the Napo River, it is a 1/2 hour hike on a boardwalk and mud trail followed by a 20 minute canoe ride.

And finally, we arrive at Sacha Lodge to begin our adventure. The lodge has running water, 24 hour electricity and even made special accomodations for vegetarian meals.

The huts are comfortable and spacious and as posh as one can imagine in a jungle this remote.

After a short night hike and a briefing dinner, we got into the daily routine of a 5:30AM wakeup call, a 3-4 hour morning hike, an afternoon swim in the lake and a night time canoe ride or another hike. On my next post, I’ll highlight some of the rare birds, butterflies, monkeys, trees, bugs and other wildlife we were able to see.

We are back from our Ecuador trip over Spring Break. It was awesome.

I’ll start posting pictures but we did soooo much in the 10 days so it may take several posts.

We arrived at our hotel room on Thursday night. I had packed some bananas that we purchased from Trader Joe’s (in California) that were originally shipped from Ecuador. When we got to our hotel at night, the restaurant was closed, so we all ate our Ecuadorian bananas! The Chiquita bananas were happy to be back home in Ecuador (if only for a brief moment).

The next day, we took a tram ride called the Teleferico that starts at 2950m (9700ft) and elevates to 4100m (13,500). There are a couple of hundred more feet of climbing at the top! Quito, the capital of Ecuador is the second highest capital city in the world (the highest being La Paz). It takes a few days to get used to the altitude which causes shortness of breath, a headache and a bit of nausea. At the top, there was a medical clinic as it was common for people to get altitude sickness. We were all spared, aside from the headaches and overall sluggishness.

Here is a view as we climb the mountain in our tram - a ride that takes just 8 minutes.

The view from the top is incredible. The city is quite large with a population of about 2 million and is in a valley surrounded by volcano formed mountains all around it.

Last night, Anjali and I attended a black tie charity dinner for the Roosters Foundation. This is a non-profit serving the needs of children’s charities in Orange County.

Our good friend Mohan sponsored a table and we all got to enjoy a night out and a fabulous dinner cooked specially for our table from the master chef at Tabu Grill in Laguna Beach.

Here are some pictures from the evening.

Here we are in our front yard before heading out for the evening.

Here are Mohan and Prachee.

This is the master chef with his sous chef preparing the meal at our table. We were treated to a sumptuous 5 course meal complete with a full complement of wine, cheese, and dessert.

Last week Annika received an award for her 1st grade class for creative writing.

Here are some pictures.

Last week while I was out of town, the boys graduated from being Cub Scouts to full fledged Boy Scouts. As part of their graduation requirement, they earned the Arrow of Light award.

Here they are receiving their honor.

The ceremony is a “crossing over” and at the end of it, they become Boy Scouts.

Here is Vikram “crossing over” and his new troop members welcoming him to the troop. Note the new hat and bandana!

Here is a picture of their whole cub scout pack that graduated to the new Troop 1518 at Pioneer Middle School. You can read more about the activities they will do in the coming years. In two weeks, we will be going on a camping trip to the desert and try our hand at sandboarding. More on that later.

Finally, here is their proud mom with Vikram!

I am sitting in the BA lounge waiting for my flight to London so I thought I’d post about a great travel website called Seatguru.com  One of our travel managers recommended it and I have been using it ever since to check out my seat before checking in online.  On this site, you can look up any seat on most airplanes and get the straight scoop on legroom, storage, noise and more.  Check it out.

Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world, producing the most films with the largest audiences. It makes up to 800 films a year - twice as many as Hollywood and about 14 million Indian people go to the cinema each day!

Last Saturday night, we went to see Ayushee perform at the Bollywood dance contest sponsored by UCLA but with all the major colleges in the Pacific competing. This included USC, Berkeley, Stanford, UC Irvine, UCSD and USF to name a few.

All in all, I was impressed by the creativeness of the students in coming up with the story line, costumes, music and set design. A pretty complete presentation.

The winner was UC Berkeley with UCSD coming in a close second.

Here is a cut from Ayushee’s performance.

Note to Ayushee:  It was a tremendous effort and clearly a lot of hard work went into the preparation and practice. On the funny side, I thought the American Idol spoof at the beginning was pretty good.

As a novice observer, I have several recommendations for next year’s contest.

First, it was clear to me that the winning teams had some big time support for costume design, set design and construction and choreography. As a USC student, you should leverage the outstanding talents of the USC School of Cinematic Arts which is one of the leading (if not the top - behind UCLA) schools in the country for film. Seek out a prof and some film students to help you.

Second, your costumes need to “pop”. The winners all had brightly colored costumes with sequins and sparkle. Costumes cost money, so see if you can get some rich USC alums to help sponsor you. Let them know you lost to UCLA and you should have money flowing in!

Finally, get some more students to participate. The winners had big numbers and that helped make a grander impression on the large stage. Eighteen to twenty dancers seemed to be the magic number.  But get quality over quantity (no bellies hanging out - you know what I’m talking about)!

Congratulations on a job well done. Anjali and I had a great time watching all of the dance productions. We’re coming again next year!

Annika invited her friends to Scooters Jungle for her birthday party.

Here are some pictures of her friends.

Here is her “homemade chocolate chip brownie cake” since she doesn’t like regular cake with frosting.

Here’s the little princess making another funny face!

The other day when we went up to Los Angeles and passed by the Blessed Sacrament Catholic School, we saw just how aggressive their recruitment tactics are.

Here is a picture of the school on Sunset Boulevard.  It is a charming old 1930’s era stone building.

But look closer behind the SUV and you’ll see their recruitment tactic!

This should be on  Jay Leno’s Headlines show!

Anjali took Annika and Emma out to Macaroni Grill for Annika’s birthday. She could not get a smiling face. This was the best of the night!

What a pair of cuties!

Last weekend, we went to see the Harlem Globetrotters at the Honda Center in Anaheim with our cub scout den. Anjali and I had seen them 16(?) years ago in Long Beach and they were up to the same old antics - water in the stands, confetti, and playing with the kids and the fans.

Here is Annika enjoying the antics.

Here is Vikram with his friend Michael.

It was a fun evening!