North of Cartagena de Indias, there is a 15m high Clay Volcano - The Volcan de Totumo - Yes, the volcano spits out mud/clay from within rather than lava.

Every Valentine's day, there's a Pillow Fight Flash Mob in San Francisco. Many hundreds of people gather at a public space and pillow fight each other !! Today, yet again, another valentine's day, another pillow fight !!

Read more about the SF Pillow fight here.

http://www.pillowfight.info/

Here's a video I took of the event

Christmas day - I decided to invite a few friendsover for dinner at my place. While a lot of people were out or had other xmas dinner plans, there were still quite a few friends who were able to make it and we had the most wonderful time. Initially I was thinking to do a potluck, but then I decided to cook it all and feed them and rather ask each of them to bring in the drinks and deserts. We started off with chinese dumplings. Chopsticks were pretty handy to eat the communal dumplings. After dumplings, I had a freshly baked quiche with spinach. Following the appetizers, we went on the salad course - we had a nice red leaf lettuce salad made by Kendra. The main courses consisted of Roast Beef and Scalloped potatoes in parmesan and butter made by my housemate and I had cooked Basmati rice with peas and carrots, massaman thai chicken curry with dried peanuts, vegetarian thai red curry and stir fried chayotte. Then the desert course consisted of Upside down pineapple cake cooked by both Priscille and Deepti, Brownies by Brian and Chocolate bark by Deepti again,

After dinner, we had a white elephant gift exchange. It was real fun. We all had brought in a gift that were waiting under the Christmas tree. We took in numbers which determined the order which we picked an unopened gifts. We had a great nice variety of gifts, but I think the best gift though is the one Deepti brought - a yodelling pickle !!! That brought some good laughs :) Then we played lots of nice fun games - lies and truths... Had a great time in the great company of my great friends !

This is my fourth and last series of pictures from Burning Man 2009.

In the last 3 pictures, you can see the extremely packed van that Kimo had packed with a lot of patience and effort (Van was packed the the max with all our gear and bicycles and Kimo had come to the city from Dublin to pick our stuff the day before and packed it all on his own so that we could leave promptly on Tuesday afternoon). In the next picture, you can see where I stayed. I stayed in the little yellow tent and next to it, we had the shade structure that Tony and Therese had graciously welcomed me to. The shade structure was a parachute that was set on top of PVC pipes. Tony and Therese had it set up like a home away from home. Under the shade structure, we had carpets, couches, coffee tables, decorations, plants. It was a really nice setup. We spent most of the hottest times of the day in there. Then the last picture is a picture of Phoenix, Kimo, Me, David and Melanie - with whom i came.

Check out part 1 of my burning man 2009 pictures

Check out part 2 of my burning man 2009 pictures

Check out part 3 of my burning man 2009 pictures

The first picture and last picture portrayed in this set is from the Temple at Burning Man. Each year they build a different temple. As read from another blog -- "The temple, which is a giant, elaborate, wooden structure designed to inspire/nudge you towards a solemn/prayerful/meditative/ transformative/grateful/introspective mindset. People leave burnable offerings at the temple, and in a quiet and mindful gathering on Sunday night of the event, the temple (and its offerings) are burned.

Offerings can represent things for which you'd like to give thanks, things you'd like to have burned away, hopes, wishes, ideas, bad habits, good habits, get-well wishes, shout-outs to those who have passed on, inspirational things, questions, requests, whatever."

Upon entering the temple, it's one of these places, that you immediately feel the spirituality and intense atmosphere.Many people are there meditating, reflecting on the people they have loved and lost.

They burn the temple on the night after the burning of the man .i.e Sunday. Unlike the burn of the man, where everybody is partying, celebrating the burn, the Temple burn is very silent and spiritual. With the few ten thousands people gathered for the temple burn, it's just amazing to feel that silence and unity in the air as we watch the temple burn and spirits flying away from it.

Check out part 1 of my burning man 2009 pictures

Check out part 2 of my burning man 2009 pictures

 

This year, I used/enjoyed a lot of the services that Black Rock City had to offer.

As in any city, Black Rock City has all the services a city should have - Post Office, Hardware Store, Flea Market, Ice Cream Man, Bike Repair Store, Tea House, Diner, Movie Theatre, barber Shop, Massage Place, Waffle Place, Snow Cone Man, Discotheque, Fashion Boutique, Breakfast place, Bars, Pubs, Real Estate etc.. All these services are available within the city and I used quite a few of them this year.

On the second day, I had a flat in my bicycle tire. It was a bummer as without a bicycle, it's pretty hard to do much (there are community bicycles, supposedly 1000 of them, which we should use only one way and then leave it for others to use, but it's very hard to come by). I looked around the city for a bike repair shop and found one at 3:00 and I. They were very nice and they fixed my tire - They replaced the tube with a brand new tube and asked me to spread the good and go and do something good for somebody else, rather than wanting to take anything from me.

Every night, on my way back to my tent from the Esplanade (where all the party were), I'd pass the Black Rock City Diner.. yes a Diner. We'd get in line and they'd seat us in at assigned tables and all and then they'd serve us hot grilled cheese !! Nothing better at 3 o'olock in the morning ! These grill cheese sandwiches are the best ever. Not too far from them, there is the Skinny Kitty TeaHouse. They have a great lounge with live piano performances that you can listen to, while sipping your tea. Usually after the diner, I'd stop by there, have a tea or a home brew and listen to piano laying on their couches before heading home to sleep.

For breakfast, there are quite a few places. There was the shady waffle camp very close to where I stayed that'd serve pancakes everyday, the Cereal Killers, that'd serve cereals all day and then there was a KFC -- they had decorated their booth in KFC colors and all and they served Fried Bologna on a sandwich bread with a shot of Bourbon (From Kentucky :))

For Snacks during the day, I got invited to many camps for food - I had PBJ sandwiches, Vegan Chocolate Coconut Icecream (yeah.. ice cream in the desert.. someone had brought a freezer with a generator), Snow Cones, Fresh Water Melons, Hot Dogs, Laddoos (I somehow found a hippie couple that was serving Indian Laddoos), and of course, all kinds of drinks.

This one evening, while I was walking back , someone invited me to their noodle house. They were serving Japanese Soba Noodles and Sake in a japanese themed camp, with chefs dressed in japanese attire and we were even served in nice bowls with chopsticks and all.

They also have a post office which I did not get to use. The post office would deliver mail to anyone living at an address in Black Rock City.

I heard they also had a shower camp.. where they'd let you take a shower, but I could not find that one and they have a barber shop that specializes in Mohawks.

Another service I used was the Fashion Boutique. Their motto was to dress you in something more questionable :) I did have time to prepare for costumes and all. So I went to the boutique and got all geared up in some costumes. Everything was free, but the catch is after you're dressed, you have to come out of the boutique on their catwalk :)

Check out the part 1 of my burning man 2009 pictures.

This year was my second year to Burning Man. Unlike last year where I decided overnight to just go and went unprepared, this year, I knew from before that I wanted to go I got my ticket for a pretty decent price after I posted on my facebook status that I wanted a ticket. For the ride, I had posted an ad on Craigslist looking for a ride, and I was very lucky to have found a veteran burner - Kimo.

Kimo had been quite a few times and was going again this year with his daughter Kaley and graciously offered to share his ride with me and two other persons (David and Melanie) he found on CL as well. He had a huge truck in which he was able to fit 5 bicycles and all our camping gear and food for the week. We left on Tuesday evening and reached Black Rock City at night.

We met up with Therese and Tony (Kimo's friends from the last Burn) there who had come earlier and had already set up shade structure (an actual parachute supported by PVC pipes) at 4;30 and H. Under the parachute, they had couches, coffee table, plants, carpet, great set up for the playa.

They graciously offered to camp with them. We unloaded the truck and all set up our tents in the dark around the parachute. 4:30 and H was a perfect street location. We were only 1 block from the toilets and we had the PapaLegbar camp set up on the other side of the street which had set up a cellphone tower to offer cell service and internet on the Playa (but which I only found out on the last day), the Shady Waffle camp one block away which was serving pancakes (hence shady) every morning, the free phone camp which allowed us to make calls to the outside world not far away as well. Then there was Camp New Jersey next door, which had allowed us to use their shower tub (if we brought our own water) and use their evaporation system as well.

I've added some pictures in Random Order to this entry. I'll be adding more pictures later in other entries.

Blog and Pictures from last year's burning Man.

http://nileshd.posterous.com/burning-man-2008-part-1

http://nileshd.posterous.com/burning-man-2008-part-2-pics

http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/

Every last Friday of the month, there's a critical mass event in San Francisco. Many cyclists gather by and we just mass cycle throughout the city.  Lots of fun and good exercise (but many angry motorists) at the blocked traffic and all.

Every month, the city of San Francisco organizes Sunday Streets (http://sundaystreetssf.com/)  in one neighborhood, where they close off the streets and people can just enjoy walking, biking on the streets in 'safer' environment (intro from website :: Sunday Streets creates a safe, fun, car-free place for people to get out and get active in San Francisco neighborhoods.) They also have many activities planned on the streets by different group, free bike rentals, roller skates rentals etc.. pretty fun. This week they had it in the mission district (http://sundaystreetssf.com/?page_id=474). It was awesome. Enjoyed it a lot and disovered many new places in the mission, in places i rarely ventured. After SF streets, we went to Dolores park to a huge crowd, where the SF symphony orchestra was playing for free. Annie had planned a potluck picnic where it was great to meet up and spend the sunday afternoon in great company and great food !

Yesterday evening, I went to the Fire Arts Festival at the Crucible in Oakland. Lots of fire arts on display, huge structures and sculptures built out of scrap metal. Apart from the sculptures and fire arts, they also had a main stage with various shows with fire and shadows. The main show was an opera - the rootabago opera.

Unfortunately, I did not bring a lot of warm clothes and was very very cold and shivering and had to leave early and missed out on the last few shows.

It's still on till Saturday if you wish to go. Tickets etc.. here ->>http://thecrucible.org/events/fire-arts-festival/157