Hawaii, for the 5th time

After visiting Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Big Island, we decided to come back to Oahu for our 5th Hawaii trip! With 2 kids, this trip was going to be more of a relaxing trip than doing a bunch of activities. We went twice in the water every day, and Adi just had a blast on the beach!

We took the kids to the Dole Plantation where they had so much fun. First, we took the Pineapple Express to view the pineapple plantation. Then we fed the fishes at a nearby lake. Finally, we sat down for a great lunch at the plantation.

Adi loved the hot tub on top of the hotel. He did not still know how to swim. Overall, it was a great trip.

Work trip to New York

This was a quick work trip to New York, to meet the Apps Script team and go to SMX East. I spoke about AdWords Scripts at the conference to about 40 attendees. This was probably my first time giving a talk in such a conference. It went pretty smoothly I think. I also met up with Ankita in the evenings. Overall, it was a great trip.

Shekhar's marriage in India

After almost 6 weeks of being a bachelor in the USA, I went to India to attend Shekhar's marriage. The highlight of this trip was of course the marriage, but also all the great food. I went to Surat and met up with a bunch of relatives which was so much fun. Shekhar's marriage was fairly hectic but a lot of fun. The last few days, Anu and I ate at all the street corners I was crazy about as a kid.

Las Vegas

From London, I directly flew in to Las Vegas with my PM offsite. And boy, was it an activity filled offsite. In just 36 hours we managed the following:

Shooting in machine gun vegas
We shot 3 kinds of gun. A pistol, a rifle and a fully automatic rifle. I hardly shoot guns, and am very poor at it too. But it was still a lot of fun.

Dinner at Tao
It was a fancy dinner alright! Great vegetarian options too.

O
After dinner at Tao, we went to see O. This cirque du soleil show is definitely worth watching. The way the set turns into a swimming pool and then land is pretty amazing. So are all the acrobats.

Tao Nightclub
This is the fanciest nightclub I have seen in my life. The atmosphere was just electric out there.

Go Karting
The next morning, we went go karting. It was a lot of fun.

Tao Beach
Just before catching our flight back, we were at Tao beach. Its a nice pool area with all the amenities you would expect. There was even this girl who would clean your glasses after being in the pool!

London Trip

I was in London on a work trip. Google has very nice office, right in the heart of London. Traveling by bus or tube to office was great fun. I stayed right opposite Green Park in Hotel Athenaeum, great hotel with a great location.

I also spent a lot of quality time with Priti. Every evening and the weekend, we were together and had a lot of fun.

Evenings:
Every evening we would go do one thing. One day, we went to the London Eye. We saw the 4D show, did one round in the eye which was a lot of fun. Then we took the ferry on the Thames river which covered a bunch of landmarks around the river. One day we visited UEL. They did not allow us inside UEL which was disappointing. One day we did O2 arena and cable car. We also did London Bridge and Mayor's office. Buckingham Palace was walking distance from the hotel. These short sightseeing trips were really fun.

Weekend:
On Saturday, we went for the tour of Cotswolds, which takes you through beautiful quaint English towns, untouched architecturally by modern civilization. It was all very beautiful. Especially bourton-on-the-water was a beautiful place. Each town is so serene and its very easy to imagine the 1800s in the UK. The English countryside is beautiful. We also went to the Blenheim Palace which feels like a palace from the days long gone. It is very well preserved as well.

On Sunday, we went to Cambridge by train. Traveling by train makes you realize how British rail inspired Indian Rail. It had to, given the british started it. The two are very similar in the manner in which the tracks are laid, the electric poles and so on. The university itself feels like you are living in a part of history. Each and every college is just architecturally amazing and beautiful.

Overall, London has great public transport, much better than any place I have visited. Buses, tube, long distance rail just make everything convenient. The food was great as well. Indian food is much closer to India in taste. Especially Govindas is a great place to eat simple vegetarian food.

New York

Was in new york for work this time. Met up with Ankita and Gopal one of the evenings and had a blast. We had two dinners, one home-cooked and one outside. I have yet to eat better chaat in the US than Khasiyat.