Me, My environment

Everything outside my professional life

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Kotturpuram Park in 2013

Jul 3

Posted by Uma Ilango in Uncategorized | No Comments 12,853 views

This park was opened approx. 2 years back. We visited this park twice in 2011. The park was in very good condition. All kids playing equipments were in very good condition. After 2 years, we visited this park again last week. The park has been expanded and there are fresh plants and trees planted. But kids playing equipments are in very BAD condition. There are atleast 50 children coming here every day. I don’t understand why no parent is complaining about this bad condition to government authorities.

Here are some photos from the park

My daughter – first school uniform

Jul 3

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In India, all students should wear uniform (all students in a similar dress). During this vacation, she will be attending a school. Her first school is “Aalpha Nursery & Primary School”. This school is located close to my parents home. So, it is easy for me to drop & pick her up. Like all children, she cries every day in the morning & gives me 1001 reasons to skip school 🙂

This is her uniform

Our son – Shakti

Jul 3

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Mauritius – Day 9 – Sub Scooter under the sea

Jul 18

Posted by Uma Ilango in Mauritius, My Family, Uncategorized, Vacation | No Comments 3,700 views

Mauritius – Day 7 – Botanical Garden, Aquarium, SuperU Shopping Center

Jul 18

Posted by Uma Ilango in Mauritius, My Family, Uncategorized, Vacation | No Comments 33,393 views

Botanical Garden

This garden was very very green with big big trees all around. We found 4 guides (who were looking like Indians). We asked one of them to be our guide. But they denied to come. They prefer to be guides for white people only. We did not like this attitude. These people still live in those old age where white people were considered to have money and dark people to be slaves. Well, these guides were also old people. But still, we did not like it. We just continued exploring the garden ourselves.

At Berlin, we live at a place which is just 2 kms away from Berlin’s Botanical Garden and we have never visited it so far. Berlin Botanical Garden is also very big like this one and has very rare flowers and plants. During summer, there would also be musical events performed at Berlin Botanical Garden. We decided to visit Berlin Botanical Garden after we go back to Berlin.

Mauritius Aquarium

This aquarium was opened in 2005. I have never seen a aquarium so clean and tidy which is free from stinking water smell. They have almost all the rare fishes found in their sea, giant tortoises, small whales too. Worth the visit. Our driver told us that he brings his son frequently here and they feel happy to sit and watch these under water species.

Super U Shopping Center

A big shopping center with open parking space like in U.S.  There are similar shopping center also in India, but with underground parking of course. Super U has a big super market. This is like Walmart at U.S. Chennai would also need one like this in the future..

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Mauritius – Day 6 – Submarine Trip

Jul 18

Posted by Uma Ilango in Mauritius, My Family, Uncategorized, Vacation | No Comments 44,887 views

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Mauritius – Day 5 – South West Tour (Alexandra falls, Black River Gorges, Chamarel(7 coloured earth)

Jul 14

Posted by Uma Ilango in Mauritius, My Family, Uncategorized, Vacation | No Comments 5,592 views

Our daughter does not want to come with us anymore. She only wants to spend her time in the Mini club which has lot of activities for the children.

Today we did south west tour, planned as a full day tour but since we did not go into Casela Park, we came back to the hotel early at around 2:30 PM.

Alexandra Falls:

A huge falls very far away from the viewpoint. From this viewpoint, we could also see 23 colored earth.

Black River Gorges:

It is called Black River becoz the sand is black. Volcanic eruptions had changed the color of sand permanently to black.

Chamarel:

This is the highlight of the day. 7 colored earth. Very beautiful. Everyone should definitely visit this place. Much like 23 colored earth actually. There are different views available and you can also get panorama view of the south here.

We then went to Casela Park.. but the next safari drive was at 3:30 PM. Since our daughter was at Mini Club and that she had to be picked up at 5:00, we had to leave Casela Park. Here you have walking with lions (addl charge) and watching animals closer than ever. By walk you could see the birds, monkeys, turtles etc. Since we already had a similar experience in another park day before yesterday, we didn’t want to do that.

On the way back, we stopped at a local shop selling tender coconut and we took one for each. We have also brought 2 back to hotel to take it tomorrow. The coconut is so much tender that she cut it with normal knife.

 

Photos will be posted after we are back in Berlin.

How I reached Mauritius???

Jul 10

Posted by Uma Ilango in Mauritius, Uncategorized, Vacation | No Comments 18,420 views

I prepared package list 1 week before, packed all suitcases 2 days before, but still I had to face challenges during our journey to Mauritius.

First Shock: I checkin at Berlin-Tegel airport & BA personnel asked me “Do you have a transit visa for UK since you need to change airports?” Oh man.. Do I need a visa? I am an Indian yes.. but I am EU-Spouse and have permanent residence at Germany. She called her boss and he said that my permanent residence is good enough for me to get into UK. We were cleared at Tegel and boarded finally to Heathrow Airport

Second Shock: You could have guessed already. Yes. It was at Heathrow Airport. I previously had work permit at UK and it was never ended in their system. But I left to Germany in 2006 itself. I was detained. I waited for about 15 mins to get the clearance. Every second was like 1 hr. Ilango was so angry that I did not take care of it before. Wipro (my employer for whom I worked in UK) already informed that my work permit should be ended. This was at least recorded in their system. Since I have a permanent residence visa for Germany, I was given 1 day transit visa.

Third Shock: I booked transfer taxi between Heathrow to Gatwick. The journey would take min 1 hr to max 4 hrs depending upon traffic. The time was 6:00 PM and we had the next flight at Gatwick at 9:05PM. The driver went missing. I called emergency call centre and they told me that the driver should be there anytime. We were waiting until 6:40 PM for the driver to finally reach us. Again fighting with Ilango that I did not take proper care. How do I predict such a thing!!! This is the first time I booked transfer taxi. Ok. Now the driver has come. The next question is will he bring us to Gatwick in proper time??? Ilango was so angry with the driver. But he couldn’t express his emotions. The driver was casually talking to Ilango. But we were not in the mood to listen to him. I was all the time looking at navi (which shows approx reaching time) and Ilango had his hands tied and just kept quiet. Only answered to driver’s questions. I don’t understand something with these drivers.. If they know that we are from Germany.. they ask so many questions to us.. they are so much interested to know about Germany. That’s nice.. but do they also do the same for other countries too !!!

Ok. Now back to the point. Yes. This driver brought us to Gatwick airport at 8:00 PM. We had enough time to checkin and finally boarded successfully to Mauritius. 11 hrs journey. Very tiring. My daughter kept her head on me, legs on her dad and slept peacefully for 9 hrs. We both were struggling a lot to get some sleep. Finally we landed at Mauritius. Food was ok with BA.

From Mauritius SSR Airport, we had to travel 1hr in taxi to reach the hotel. The hotel is worth this travel. We are so happy that we booked here.. Now enjoying a fruit cocktail at Beach restaurant in the hotel.

Photos will follow this post.