Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Inspirational Travel Quotes!




The joy of travel is learning to see the world through new eyes. Get inspired to head out on your next journey/holiday/pilgrimage/adventure with these inspirational travel quotes:
v “Some roads are not meant to be traveled alone.”
v “Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.” -Izaak Walton
v “Wherever you go, go with all your heart!” -Confucius
v “The gladdest moment in human life is a departure into unknown       lands.” – Sir Richard Burton
v “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy      in the world.” -Gustav Flaubert
v “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta
v “Let’s travel together and get lost in beautiful places.”
v “Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times.”
v “Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.”
v “Don’t listen to what they say. Go see.”
v “To Travel is to Live.” – Hans Christian Andersen
v “Life is a journey. Make the best of it.”
v “The journey not the arrival matters.” –T.S. Eliot
v ”Life is short and the world is wide.”
v “Blessed are the curious for they will have adventures.”
v “You can shake the sand from your shoes, but it will never leave your soul.”
v “With the right mindset and spirit, only the sky is the limit.”
v “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
v “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” – Anita Desai
v “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor
v “I travel not to cross countries off a list, but to ignite passionate affairs with destinations.” – Nyssa P. Chopra
v “The goal is to die with memories not dreams.”
v “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru
v “He who would travel happily must travel light.” -Antoine de St. Exupery
v “The most beautiful in the world is, of course, the world itself.” -Wallace Stevens
v “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”-Anaïs Nin
v “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” -Tim Cahill
v “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
v “Then I realized adventures are the best way to learn.”
v “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer”
v “Work, Travel, Save, Repeat.”
v “Dare to live the life you’ve always wanted.”
v “The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have.” – Anna Quindlen
v “All you need to know is that it’s possible.” -Wolf, an Appalachian Trail Hiker
v “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” – Jennifer Lee
v “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang
v “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” -Henry Miller
v “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” -Agustine of Hippo
v “Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse.” – Thomas Fuller
v “When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.”   -Susan Heller
v “Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret.” -Oscar Wilde
v “Veni, Vini, Amavi. We came, we saw, we loved.”
v “Not all those who wander are lost.” -J.R.R. Tolkien
v “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.” -James Michener
v “Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” -Lawrence Block
v “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” -Benjamin Disraeli
v “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”― Jack Kerouac
v  “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” – Randy Komisar
v “I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.”
v “Quit your job, buy a ticket, get a tan, fall in love, never return.”
v “Just go. It’s bad manners to keep your passport waiting.”
v “Of all the books in the world, the best stories are found between the pages of a passport.”
v “You can’t have a narrow mind and a thick passport.”
v “My passport is screaming to be stamped.”
v “A passport is the key that unlocks the world.”
v “My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.” – Steve McCurry
v “Every stamp embedded on her passport was a collection of stories she could never retell.”
v “I’d rather have a passport full of stamps than a house full of stuff.”
v “Wishlist: more pages in my passport than in my passbook.” – Sumathi Vilvaraj
v “Relationship status: In a relationship with my passport.”
v “All you need is love and a passport.”
v “Go, fly, roam, travel, voyage, explore, journey, discover, adventure.”
v “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” -Martin Buber
v “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” -Bill Bryson
v “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
v “Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.” -Irving Wallace
v “What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do — especially in other people’s minds.  When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then.  People don’t have your past to hold against you.  No yesterdays on the road.” -William Least Heat Moon
v “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” -Lao Tzu
v “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” -Roy M. Goodman
v “Don’t call it a dream…call it a plan.”
v “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” – Benjamin Disraeli
v “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”
v “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Dalai Lama
v “A great way to learn about your country is to leave it.” -Henry Rollins
v “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville
v “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” -Alan Keightley
v “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
v “It feels good to be in the right direction.”
v “Oh the places you’ll go.” -Dr. Seuss
v “I love the feeling of being anonymous in a city I’ve never been before.”
v “Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” – Paolo Coelho
v “There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” – Jack Kerouac
v “The goal is to die with memories not dreams”.
v “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle
v “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” -Robert Louis Stevenson
v “A ship in a harbour is safe, but it is not what ships are built for.” -John A. Shedd
v “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark
v “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” -Paul Theroux
v “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
v “I’ll look back on this and smile because it was life and I decided to live it.”


Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Nagoya Castle and Hommaru Palace, Nagoya, Japan.











Nagoya Castle is one of Japan's most prominent castles and is designated a National Historic Site, considered the equivalent of being a National Treasure.
Nagoya Castle was Japan’s first castle to be designated a National Treasure. Even after wartime air raid destruction, it was deemed historically important enough to be designated a National Historic Site. Restoration work was carried out and the Nagoya Castle was brought back to its original condition. The attached photographs show me at this historic Castle and Hommaru Palace.
Nagoya is the third-largest city in Japan; it is located at a distance of 350 km by road from Tokyo.
Nagoya Castle was completed in 1615 by the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Topped with golden shachihoko, votive tiger-fish roof devices, and boasting the largest floor-space of any tower keep, Nagoya Castle and its magnificent Hommaru Palace were operated as a military facility. Tokugawa Ieyasu emerged victorious from the decisive Battle of Sekigahara, which had split Japan into East and West factions, and upon his investment as Shogun, established his government in Edo. In 1610, he called upon former enemy daimyo to commence construction of his new castle to be built at Nagoya.
The great tower keep was topped with golden shachihoko tiger-fish ornaments and boasted the greatest floor-space of any keep ever. The Hommaru Palace, the finest of all palaces and the vast Ni-no-maru Garden further emphasized the power and might of the Tokugawa clan. Its beauty was surrounded by high, strong walls of stone, a reminder of its basic function as a superior military facility.
For the next 260 years of the Edo Period (1603-1867), it thrived as the castle of the Owari Tokugawa clan. The populace from the nearby castle town of Kiyosu had been ordered to move to the new castle site, and the current city of Nagoya was formed.
















Saturday, July 27, 2019

Birthday wishes for Nikith, my grandnephew.



DEAR NIKITH,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
You are lucky,
To have two birthdays!
Born on 27th July,
In the USA,
You and we,
Get to celebrate,
Your birthday twice,
Today,
27th July of India,
And tomorrow,
27th July of USA!
So here is another greeting!
For your birthday tomorrow,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
DEAR NIKITH.
- Raghu Thaatha.

Saturday, July 20, 2019

At the replica of the Titanic Bow!



A Bow similar to that of the Titanic,
A grand view as from the Titanic,
And the environs equally romantic,
This is engineered to give a kick!
I am happy to be here,
Overlooking the Ocean,
And the horizon,
Stationed high, on firm ground,
On the edge of the Ocean,
With no fear of anything,
Of the Bow shattering,
And the Titanic sinking.
However when I am reminded,
Of the Titanic tragedy,
A sorrowful story is unfolded,
Of dreams and lives shattered.
- N. Lalitha Raghu.

Friday, July 19, 2019

About my father’s ‘Vardhanthi’, amongst orphan children.









Today, 19th July is my father’s ‘Vardhanthi’ (death anniversary) according to the Telugu almanac. We started the day by sponsoring breakfast for 110 orphan children at ‘THARA’ – A home for children found on the streets.
It was a heartwarming experience for us, and the children, some of them very young. The children were obviously happy to see us; hopefully, they may have imagined their parents in us, their real parents whom they have never known. They prayed for my father and us and the society in general before the commencement of breakfast. They were served Upma, Paratha and Dal and we personally handed over Biscuits to all children. After breakfast, we stayed back and waited until some children left for their schools. In the attached video you can see how happy we and the children are as they were bidding goodbye.
May God bless these children richly with a very happy and healthy life now and in future and bless them with good careers, families and peace and prosperity. And may they be caring and responsible for the downtrodden in society.
And may God bless Father Jose Mathew SJ, Director of THARA, a very kind and soft-spoken person who established this institution in 2002 and is operating it successfully.  We are very grateful to him for giving us this opportunity to observe my father’s Vardhanthi amidst so many children.
VIDEO:





Wednesday, July 17, 2019

However much one may love the Seas…



However much one may love the Seas,
And playing with the waves,
And the lovely sand on the beaches,
And the rejuvenating walks,
Amidst the refreshing Sea breeze,
One will have to return to a shelter,
But how much better,
If it is on the beach,
Overlooking the Sea!
- N. Lalitha Raghu.

Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Temple Stamps Table Top/Wall Hanging Souvenir from INDIA POST!

This is a unique addition to our family’s Stamp Collection (starting from the 1930s!), a FRAMED Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Temple Stamps  Table Top...