Glance Digitally - Travel the world with me virtually !

It's just pure magic experiencing snowfall for the first time this season, a moment I’ll treasure my whole life. What a gift from mother nature ! 💙 Perfect way to say " Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow! " ❅❅ I am found sitting on a chair with elbows pressed on the window sills, watching the beautiful snow fall and often writing here (on my laptop) thinking about the previous winter memories and experiences. I feel even when it's freezing outside, our Memories keep us warm... Living in a mild climate for almost two decades in past and with our recent move to colder place was quite a huge change for us especially during winter. We faced our first winter last year with lots and lots of snowfall. Hoping to see the similar situation this winter too.  There is always something magical about winter especially indulging with Christmas followed by N

California with almost year-round sunshine entices tourists to explore the great outdoors, sightseeing and gourmet food in dazzling multicultural cities like San Francisco Bay area, Los Angeles, San Diego and many more.  Visitors love to explore the historic neighborhoods, sophisticated cities with top restaurants offering local and global ethnic cuisine, universities towns, rural communities with organic farms, sandy beaches, iconic sights of Hollywood, world-class museums, Silicon Valley's technology, authentic themed gardens, kid-friendly attractions, mountain resorts, national parks with biological diversity of many different species of animals and birds in an expansive meadows and huge tree groves along with free-flowing waterfalls for hiking and mountain biking, mesmerizing lakes near snow-capped mountains with brilliant turquoise water for fishing and water sports, world-class and family-friendly ski resorts and many more never-ending fun to describe the beauty

  When Harry Potter and ‎the Philosopher's Stone (or Sorcerer's Stone) released in 2001, I was fascinated 😍 with the fictional Witchcraft school i.e.., Hogwarts and kids beings Wizards🧙 with amazing visual effects in a movie. I remember to this day, as soon as I watched the first movie in 2001, I immediately bought the Initial Harry Potter book series 📗📘📙 written by J. K. Rowling ( Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets ) and when the later books released I went to Borders bookstore and bought them esp. Order of the Phoenix (2003), Half-Blood Prince (2005) and Deathly Hallows (2007).  When Universal Studios California introduced Harry Potter themed area, I was so excited since we lived in pacific region and the child in me had always wanted to experience the magical Wizarding World after seeing the movies. So, we booked the tickets and went to Universal California again and this time to visit "Harry Potter" themed area only and we

As you all know by now that whenever I'm idle or free, I go thru my travel photo albums for my blog to write some interesting travel experiences. So, I came across an album of Universal Studios at Orlando when we visited Florida. As I wrote in my previous article, we had a 10 days vacation @ Florida when we visited during Christmas 7 years ago.  Please visit the link for more details about our  10 days vacation @ Florida     https://sk-digilance.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-sunshine-state-florida.html So I will be writing more about my Florida Travels in my upcoming posts. So, please watch out for new posts in my Blog.  Living in pacific coast for almost 2 decades, I have been visiting Universal Studios in California for years and it is always plenty of fun! But when we went to  Universal Studios @   Florida for the first time, it was an incredibly memorable experience and definitely worth the money we spend. And mind you, taking 10 days vacation with whole fa

We visited many places in US including Theme parks, beaches, lakes, waterfalls, mountain ranges, valleys and some unique places which were definitely worth seeing at least once.  Was going thru my photo album and came across our 10 days vacation @ Florida when we visited 7 years ago during Christmas holidays and I believe Florida is one the best place to visit although do not underestimate the Florida's high temperatures and the humidity throughout the year. The weather forecast would always be warm even during winter. Since we had 10 days vacation, we first landed in Orlando airport and we picked the following places/ itinerary on a road trip till east coast of Florida including many stops at various beaches, a day trip to Kennedy Space Center and few more detailed below.  I am still working on writing about each place in detail and will upload the article in the blog whenever possible . So, watch out for my latest updates regularly!!!😎 Orlando: • Universal Studio

  It’s Diwali time !!!🎆🎆 I am enthusiastically waiting for Diwali, who doesn't? Time for all kinds of shopping and eating till our heart desires.    Whether we are heading out on a shopping spree to buy colorful clothes for entire family with lots of sales and discounts offered by various boutiques 👔👗 or eating huge variety of homemade/ store bought lip smacking sweets and savories 🍛🍚where at least for few days we have no restrictions on our diet and the food we eat. We could make healthy festive snacks but it definitely wouldn't have the same taste as traditional one (You know adding lots of Ghee/Butter and sugar while making sweets). Hope you all agree with me....😀 Some of my favorite Diwali sweets are - 1. "yummy" Jalebies  😋 ( Did you know "Jalebi" is the National sweet of India? It is prepared in every state and corner in India. ) 2. Kaju Katli (Made with Cashews - My kid calls it "Diamond" ♢ sweet due to its

Yay, Its official Halloween Season !!!!! Halloween for us includes a wide range of possibilities like kids wearing " boo-tiful " costumes, " Boo-Bash " party, hilarious " ghoulish " foods, spine-tingling " scary " movies (especially Halloween kid/teen movies lol, we have to be careful of what we are watching in presence of kids ) and so on...... Halloween or All Hallows' Eve is a celebration as a festival of Samhain observed in many countries on 31 October every year.   Pre-Covid, we would host Halloween parties at our place and from our place all the kids along with some parents would go looking or rather " hunting " for spooky treats 🍬 every " Trick or Treat " 🍭 one house to another wearing Halloween costumes and face paints/makeup which obviously was kids’ favorite part of the day … We along with some parents would create tidbits of fun food menu like "little" pumpkin cakes, caramel apple "

 I've been to Shri Jagannath Temple twice so far and its about 2,500 sq. yards beautiful and very well maintained temple located on Road 12 -Banjara Hills, @ Hyderabad , Telangana State in India built  in 2009  by the Kalinga Cultural Trust, a charitable trust established promoting Odisha culture and local Odia community. Jagan meaning "Universe or World". Nath meaning "Lord, Protector, Master". Jagannath means " Lord/ Master/ Protector of the Universe/World". Jagannath is an abstract representation of Shri Krishna and an avatar or incarnation of Lord Vishnu also known as Narayana is one of the principal deities of Hinduism.  Jagannatha is worshipped in Hinduism in India and neighboring countries as part of a trinity along with his older brother Balabhadra (also known as Balarama) and their younger sister Devi Subhadra which are  carved out of Neem wood . There are other shrines inside the temple dedicated to Devi Lakshmi, Lord Shiva,