Saturday, October 29, 2016

Kidney beans curry

Rajma chawl (Kidney bean gravy and rice) is a very famous North Indian dish. In my home though others love kidney beans, they love to eat kidney bean curry with roti (tortilla). Only my kiddie loves kidney beans with rice. He calls that big beans. i never try to find out actual recipe of kidney beans of particular “Rajma shawl”. I always cook kidney beans in my own way. However, that also very much delicious with rice.



Thursday, October 27, 2016

United Kingdom trip (part 7)-Greenwich


From the Tower of London we decided to go to Greenwich to visit the Royal Observatory. We took the train and reached the Greenwich station. The observatory was very near to the station. Located at the Southeast part of London, it was very quiet place unlike London. Greenwich means green village. It was very much green indeed.


Tuesday, October 25, 2016

United Kingdom trip (Part 7)-London

London Day 2


On second day of our London trip we three went to visit the rest of the parts of London. First we went directly to Kensington station, from where we walked to the Natural History Museum. My son had been constantly debating with us for going to Science Museum. The terra-cotta colored typical Victorian high ceiling building was situated very near to Kensington station. The huge building was built using terra-cotta to fight with the harsh climate of London, was proposed by Alfred Waterhouse who was the main in-charge of the building, after Captain Francis Fowke died.

Natural History Museum



The building very much look like castle. When we reached the museum, we stood behind a long waiting line.  Many school children as well as a bunch of tourists were coming to visit the famous museum. Just entering the museum we could see an enormous model of the dinosaurs skeleton was standing tall under a huge archway, partly covered with glass. With sun light coming through the glasses making the skeleton dazzling bright black. Various fine designs were created on all the pillars of the building. The museum had a vast range of exhibits from various segment of natural history.


 Again we just see few of them and came out, as we planed to visit the London bridge and Tower Bridge. Before that we decided to have lunch. To waste minimum time on lunch we went to a Starbucks. While walking towards the Starbuck, I saw the Victoria-Albert museum. I wanted to go inside , but, I knew that, if I went inside, I would spend the whole day there. 

Monument to the Great Fire of London 


Anyway, we started walking towards the London bridge. We tried to find out the route from mobile map, but searching the route on mobile was very difficult. Somehow we managed to walk on the right way. I had under the impression, that there was one bridge with two big tower was the London bridge. However, that was incorrect. We reached the London bridge, but I thought that was not the correct one, and we were about to walk to the other bridge with towers which was very near to that. Out of curiosity I walked down some steps along side of the bridge to see the bottom, where I found the name inscribed London bridge. Then I realized we were actually standing on the London Bridge facing to the tower bridge. This London bridge had a fascinating history. It was built by the Romans 2000 years ago. The nursery poem “London is falling down” actually tells  the history of the bridge. In  different time it was built with different material and it was destroyed under various circumstances, before the modern bridge was built in late 19th century.

London Bridge

 

After we started walking towards the Tower bridge. At that point of time we desperately wanted a map. Luckily I saw a lady was distributing London Map, and we took one map from her. She also suggested  the places we could visit. One of the place was Greenwich City.  Anyway, we reached the iconic Tower Bridge built in late 19th century , one of the prides of London City. The bridge is a combination of bascule and suspension bridge. We crossed the bridge and reached the Tower of London. 

Tower bridge

Tower of London

The colossal medieval stone structure staring on a vast area of land. It was first built by William the Conqueror, but during Tudor period it was used as a prison. I was very much fascinated with Tower of London. I read many historical fictions based on King Henry VIII, and Tower of London was played a vital part on those books.The enormous building is standing silently bearing so much history through the time. The black  stone building with small window like opening ,witnessed suffering of the captives inside.It gave chill in mine spine, specially because I read those historical novel , where I read many brutalities , which are occurred at that time. I wanted to go inside, but later decide not to. First of all the ticket price was very high, and we had very less time. I think it would take two to three days to see the dungeons inside the prison. Those enormously thick prison walls were the silent spectators of those bygone days. 

Old and new are co-existing

From there we took train and went to Greenwich City to see the Prime Meridian from where the world is divided into east and west. 



Sunday, October 23, 2016

United Kingdom Trip (Part 6) -London

London- Day 1


After visiting southwest part of England on the weekend with our friend and his family, we went to my brother-in-laws place, who eventually lives very near to London. We planned stay at his place so that ,we could travel around London easily. Monday evening we reached his place. We were fatigued, on the top of that we had no time to visit any places in that evening, we decided to have rest. However, we had enough time to chalk out our plan for visiting London. My sister-in-law knows every nooks and corners of London, even every unknown places. She is a very good planning person.She asked us, what actually we wanted to see. After knowing our desire, she chalked put the whole plan, we just put little brain in that, rather Mr. Man, not me. Mr. Man  told her about the English afternoon tea. Promptly she booked table at Wolsey in London, one of the upscale restaurant famous for afternoon tea. We were lucky enough to get table there, as most of the time it remains overbooked. 


Thursday, October 20, 2016

United Kingdom trip (Part 5)- Bibury village

Leaving behind the city hustle and the century old buildings we drove towards Cotswold to get some fresh air, see the rural beauty amid greens. Crossing the freeway, through the narrow lanes ,and by lanes with trees covered like umbrella from the top we reached Cotswold. The cerulean blue sky and chilly breeze invited us in the bright green nature where the Bibury village had been existing for years. As usual we faced parking problem. Like us, many tourist came there to take a glimpse of the beauty of the sandstone cottages with high roofs. After going up and down few times we parked our car  near The Sawn Hotel.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

United Kingdom trip (Part 4)-City of dreaming spires

After coming back home at 11:00 Saturday night, we readily went to bed. We needed to be fresh next morning, as we were going to visit the Oxford, the city with dreaming spires.

Carfax tower

Friday, October 14, 2016

United Kingdom trip (Part 3)- City of Bath

City of Bath- UNESCO World heritage site

“Do you want know about Roman history in England?” Asked my friend. “Yes, I do” was my answer. So, we included City of Bath in our itinerary. After visiting Salisbury we headed toward City of Bath. Again we faced problem with parking the car. We entered Bath Cricket Club. We saw plenty of parking. We were so overjoyed that we didn’t notice, that , that was a private parking space. That means only the club members can park cars there. 

Bath cricket club ground

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

United Kingdom (Part 2) - Salisbury, the medieval city

From Stonehenge we went to our next destination was Salisbury. In the mean time all of us became hungry. We debated about the place where to have lunch. Everything was unknown to us, so relied on our friend. First he suggested trying luck in the adjacent restaurant of Stonehenge. We checked, but no food item was promising to us. So, last decision was to have lunch after reaching Salisbury.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Egg curry

I’m very bad in cooking egg curry. Past 10 years I’m cooking regularly, still I yet to master the art of cooking egg curry. I cannot satisfy Mr. Man with my egg curry, who is a man very much choosy about food. If he tells some dish is tasty, means that dish is real tasty. Anyway, I tried many types of egg curry, but the simple curry with onion and tomato never turns out that much delicious. So, the other day, I decided to cook in a different way. It was not anything exceptional, may be may people cook in that way.However, I never cooked in that way. For the first time I tried, and it turned out good. Now onwards I will cook in that way.