"Test Pilot" by Neville Duke

Flying and flight is a heart-warming subject to me! I dug this novel out from Melville, 7th Lane (in Johannesburg CBD area) where you find these nice old and new book stores, one of which also sells used books at heavy discounts!! I mean where else can i find a Bernard Shaw at 13 Rand?!!! I mean i had to chuckle at that while buying it, and asked the shop-owner to "be rest assured" for seeing me come and buy again and again!!

Anyways, back to "Test Pilot" ....  it's an autobiography of a person who is a superb pilot and a great pioneer who tested the Hawker aircraft and broke sound barriers ( Mach levels) several times!! :) He had also played active role in testing many other new and modified supersonic fighters and dedicated his entire life to it!

He comes across as a reserved but jovial person heavily dedicated to his tasks, and an innate need to be in the pulse of things - rather than enjoying various accolades that came his way. I loved his potrayed persona!

The only thing that perhaps is a little weird, is the way the writer narrates everything - there is something very cold and impersonal about it. ( Atleast i felt so!) ... and he doesn't seem to be very overtly bothered about his parents and sister, neither they about him - although in all probability they might have been, but nothing of that emotional angle has been mentioned much.... I mean, the reason i even mentioned that kind of lack of feeling is because - if i were to imagine myself in his shoes... my mom and dad... along with my sis would have been breathing down my neck and asking me to "Be safe" a zillion times, until i am thoroughly bugged with their concerns! 

But what an awesomely informative read!!!... :) ( sigh!)

Hang-gliding in Johannesburg!

Flying and my first wee lill' introduction to it!! :D One fine day, i.e. 20th Feb 2011 to be exact, sufficient amounts of pestering paid-off ( :D ) and my husband surprised me with this wonderful activity that we did on a nice and sunny Sunday morning! ( For his sake, i should mention he loves adventure sports as well, ......thankfully!)

He had apparently spoken to a guy named Shaun ( surely it wasn't Sean but perhaps Shawn hmm...) from "Aviators' Paradise", this small flying club near the Magaliesberg mountain range - just about 40 minutes drive from Midrand - and arranged for us to do the glide when the weather was perfectly good for it. 

So it was the day we did, all happy and jumpy we reached the place  - this small stretch of tar visible just off the main road which had massive wild grass growing both sides of it. And drove past it at least twice as we couldn't locate any gliders or hangars .... and yea couldn't even see people! But eventually we did .... 2-3 fliers waved us in and finally we reached the place- 8:45 am when the first hang-glider was getting ready!

Shaun ( in black Tee) helping one of the first hang-gliders of the day

In this type of gliding, one does not jump-off a hill or a mountain. Rather a micro-light pulls the hang-glide off a runway and the glide starts to float behind the micro-light. Here, the micro-light keeps pulling till it has given sufficient height to the glide so that the latter can make use of the thermals and glide by the glider's maneuvering alone.

The micro-light at Aviator's Paradise

Well, the truth is, even if i would like to believe that i am a non-sensitive macho "i can handle all" kind of femme... i am well aware of the fact that i feel dizzy going up mountains and slight sensations of vertigo is something i have been noticing since the last few years, sadly. So deliberately we kept our tummies empty considering it was an early morning thing and surely we knew we would have our brunch say 10.00 am-ish??!

I got all ready wanting to hang-glide first and got hooked into the glide....

Me getting zipped-up into the gear

Literally "Hanging-around" and checking for any snags while doing so!

So, we moved to the runway to have a final check on the weather and conditions etc.

That's how you get set for a tandem...

But well, there was a slight wind from the east blowing - and Shaun said it was not good to have any kind of wind at all - as it kills the thermals ( using thermals you can reach amazing heights!) and more importantly the angle of raise for the glider wasn't good with wind and he didn't want to take chances with newbies gliding with him! So we waited.... and waited some more... sigh! Around 9:30 am everybody decided that it would be better to have breakfast and return by 10:45 or 11:am and then take the decision of flying or not.

The people at the club told us of this amazing pancakes' place which serves about the best in the area; considering Shaun mentioned that it was O.K. to eat and we were famished, we drove out to have an awesome breakfast.

Awesome place that!

And like idiots, we lost control and ate some yummilicious pancakes :D

cream, cinnamon and apple pancake

Banana, caramel pancake with ice-cream filling

Here's a funny pic on the menu card:

So, with a full tummy off we went, back to Aviator's Paradise and waited for the fliers to get back as well. And with the sun beating down on us, it was declared to be just the 'purrrfect' time to take-off and make the most of the thermals. I got hooked back again with the glider and held onto dear life (by clutching onto Shaun again), then off we went ..... :D

:D thats meeeeeeeeee!!!! ( and Shaun, of course)

The feeling as we took off was AWESOME!!! As later Shaun put it, he hadn't seen 1st timers able to enjoy so much thermal as we did! ( only coz we came back after the mornings' failed attempt maybe; many people don't actually return perhaps they run out of patience?!). Shaun maneuvered the glide round and round like a gyrating motion ( something i was not ready for)... and i could feel my internals starting to give me weird feeling ( thank you, stupid yummy pancake!)

470 meters... 500 meters.... 650 meters... read the altimeter stuck to the glide on our right-hand side! We reached about 850 meters and i could see the whole city, the near-by farm areas, the club, the roads,a dam, a small river and it was an awesome experience. Slowly.... and surely i started feeling puke-ish ( :/)... that damn pancake!!!! And even though i have to mention it grudgingly ... i HAD to ask Shaun to start descending... i just wasn't feeling O.K. anymore!! And when we were down around 600 meters again ... O disgust of ALL disgusts... i PUKED .....right from the sky.... eeeeesh ( i was soo sorrry :/).... :D i can only hope there was nobody on the road or area right under us :P..... i was sooo soooo soooo embarrassed!!!!

well, i am not going to describe that more than i have... my only 'moral-of-the-story' for anybody who thinks this worth reading - DONT EAT much or AT ALL!!! It kills the pleasure of the whole experience for sure!

Anyway, after getting down fine and cleaning up and all.. it was the turn of my dearest hubby to take-off.. :)

Murali bucklin' up!

My husband also loved the take-off and felt queasy later at greater heights ( again, thanks to that breakfast) but didn't puke like i did! 

Oh yea, some details before i forget mentioning them - It costed us 1000 Rand per head for this. You also have to sign some papers for the club ( which essentially mentions that you don't have any heart problems and generally in good medical health and any mishap is basically your own mistake and you can't sue the club! :D) 

All in all, it was one of the best things i have done till date!!!

A swollen ankle and "looks like" another a weekend at home :/

Well just about a week ago i.e. Friday the 25th of March whilst in Ben's aerobics class at Virgin Active Vodaworld, Midrand i rather stupidly twisted my ankle. :( The stupidity narrates as follows...

Ben, after some usual aerobic moves went onto making us do rigorous 'stepper' based moves. Now usually, he instructs without tandem usage of dumb-bells; but this time, he wanted accompanied movements on the yoga-mat using these as well. So we sort-of semi snatched/grabbed our required dumb-bells and kept 'em safe (lest everybody picks up one and one ends up with nothing)! Almost everybody kept one on the yoga-mat and one near or under the stepper. I kept mine under the damn stepper. Caught up in the moment of following steps on the stepper, i didn't notice my darned stepper move or perhaps slip front or back and subsequently my dumb-bell peeked its neck out. :/ And then, as one could expect i misjudged a step and my foot fell on the dumb-bell and i twisted my ankle...... Sigh!!!...... where are ones brains at times like these???!!!!!!!! WHY did i have to place them there when such a thing was bound to happen sooner or later?!

Thankfully i atleast knew i hadn't broken a bone, which is a very very plausible occurrence! Sprained the left ankle bad enough to be stuck at home for almost a week now huh! 

So, moral of the story - please use common sense in the gym... those equipments can hurt and lead to some severe damage as well if one is not careful!!!

"Going Dutch in Beijing" by Mark McCrum

My latest read is this non-fiction by Mark McCrum ( an author whom i haven't read much about - but thats hardly a criteria considering i don't stick to specific authors often enough...) called "Going Dutch in Beijing", which is an information overload on cultures across the world  -The faux pas one should avoid and basic essentials to know about people from various countries. Considering its one of my first reads on a global-travel non-fiction series, i don't know how to compare it with some other author or some other novel. But i immensely enjoyed reading this!

Well, but if you have any interests in traveling around the world or if perhaps your work takes you to places, i recommend reading at least a few books on various cultural practices; goes without saying it will help you bridge borders and more importantly get business deals! 

N5 certified!

Considering the long gap after which i am typing in, goes without saying i need to bring my blog up-to-date!! First up, i happen to have cleared my Japanese language exam (JLPT), level N5 yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! :D cleared it with a good score as well!!

The evaluation is across basically 4 sections, 2 of these are clubbed for lower levels i.e. N5 and N4. So overall i had 3 sectional scores to clear and an overall score as well. Essentially, if you flunk in sectionals but get through the overall, you are still considered to have failed!! So, you have grammar/vocab, listening and comprehension. And thankfully i got through all of them. Last year i didn't do as well, having flunked by 1 mark :/... so now, all's well that ends well - and you get a relatively happy blogger there!! Now i am preparing for level N3 ( skipping N4 as it is something that i am well versed with - evaluated and stamped so by my Jap teacher) :D

N3 is challenging, you have a truck load of Kanji's ( those graphic strokes you see on Chinese and Japanese manuals, text, shops etc.) to handle, memorize and reproduce time and again. And a lot more conceptual understanding of grammar. Johannesburg amazingly and rather sadly does not conduct these JLPT examinations. I find that immensely amusing coz this specific exam is conducted world-wide! Surely South Africa is significant enough to have it here! But, its not so.. and that's that. Also, i have to travel all the way either to India or Egypt, Kenya or Morocco to appear for the next level. I still have some time to decide on my centre so that's fine i guess...  :/ .... :) let's see what happens!