Be Still & Flow

BE STILL & FLOW

Music flowed

When I learnt

To stay still

On a note.

And life flowed

When mind learnt

To be still

When provoked.

© Paresh Mishra

Around the Great Smokey Mountains National Park (November, 2017)

Choose Wise

CHOOSE WISE

There are two tragedies in life:

People change

And people don't change.

Accept this truth and end all strife.

There are two blessings in life:

People change

And people don't change.

Be with them and feel all alive.

There are two big choices in life:

To change

Or not to change.

Choose wise, and you'll always thrive.

© Paresh Mishra

At the Natural Bridge State Resort Park, KY (November, 2017)

The Splendor of Vancouver

This summer has been a busy one for me. Immediately after the completion of the Spring semester, I took two weeks off for a backpacking trip in Europe, but after my return from that trip I have been busy writing. I completed and submitted three book chapters, and am near completion on another chapter and a journal article. These latter two should be leaving my table within the next 4-5 days. Given this busy summer, it was a delight to travel to Vancouver, Canada last week. The travel was work-related to present a research paper at the Academy of Management Conference. As a passionate academic, I spent most of this trip attending sessions at the conference. However, my travel plan was such that I reached Vancouver a day before the start of the conference and left a day after. This allowed me to do some sight seeing in and around Vancouver.

One of my colleagues from another university mentioned that this may have been the most Facebooked Academy of Management Conference in history, because the city is so beautiful. Vancouver is definitely a beautiful city. Within the city, I liked the Waterfront and Stanley Park, two areas that helped me stay connected to nature. The rest of the downtown area didn't excite me much, because it was just like any other major city, filled with high-rise buildings. But then I'm biased towards nature. Thankfully, the outskirts of North Vancouver is packed with beautiful mountains and excellent hiking trails. I got the opportunity to hike parts of these trails on my first and last day in Vancouver. Most of the pictures below are from those two hikes.

The Grouse Mountain (Picture taken while coming down on the Skyride)

The highest point of my Vancouver trip was both literally and figuratively the Grouse Mountain. The trail up the Grouse Mountain is called the Grouse Grind, which is only 2.9 kilometers in length. However, the trail is very steep with an elevation gain of 853 meters (2800 feet). And because it is so steep, they only allow hikers to climb up the trail. You are required to take the cable car on your way down.

Thinking 2.9 kilometers to be too short a distance for an endurance runner like me, I went up the trail without carrying any water with me. That was foolish of me, not just because it was a hot summer afternoon, but because I had been out of touch with climbing mountains. Also, with my overconfidence, I started my hike by running up the trail. By the time I covered the first quarter of the trail, I was completely exhausted. So I had to take several one-minute breaks to catch my breath. With a lot of difficulty I reached the halfway mark in 33 minutes and 30 seconds. It is that point that I determined that I have to complete this climb in under 1 hour, howsoever difficult it may be. So I pushed myself hard. I finally made it to the summit with only 7 seconds to spare at 59 minutes 53 seconds. If I had planned things well, I could have certainly done better, but it felt good that I achieved my goal. My time was by no means extraordinary--the trail record, I understand is below 30 minutes--but as I always say, endurance activities are not about beating someone else's record but about competing with my one's own self.

Waterfront, Vancouver

The mountains that you see in the background are in North Vancouver. You can take a regular bus to go from Vancouver to North Vancouver. However, I strongly recommend taking the ferry (called Seabus) to cross the sea between Vancouver and North Vancouver. It's fast, unique, and much more beautiful than traveling on a regular bus. The nice thing is that the day-passes in Vancouver allows you to travel on all forms of public transport--train, bus and even the ferry.

Float planes in Vancouver

At the International Village in Vancouver

Suspension Bridge at the Lynn Canyon Park

One of the major tourist attractions in Vancouver is the Capillano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. The entrance to the Capillano park is pretty expensive at $37.50. I didn't go inside the Capillano park, but I passed by it on my way to the Grouse Mountain. I found the place to be very crowded, probably because it is heavily advertised in the tourist guides. So if you are like me who prefers less crowded places, a cheaper alternative to the Capillano Suspension Bridge is the suspension bridge in the Lynn Canyon Park. Here the entrance is absolutely free and the place is much less crowded. The nice thing about this suspension bridge is that it is narrower than the Capillano Suspension Bridge (although shorter), and thus shakes more while walking, making it more exciting. 

Picture of the river from the suspension bridge in Lynn Canyon Park

A small waterfall (picture taken from the suspension bridge in Lynn Canyon Park)

Crossed the river while hiking part of the Baden-Powell Trail

Sat in meditation here for about 15 minutes. It's so much easier to meditate when everything around you is so tranquil.

A rusted part of a wheel I noticed on the river bed while hiking

While hiking on the Baden-Powell Trail

At one of the sessions on Emotions and Relationships at the AOM conference

To some it may be boring to sit through full days of conference presentations, but to me learning about the latest developments in my field is one of the most exciting things in life. Not surprisingly, I ended up attending sessions from 8 in the morning to 6 or 8 in the evening.

The famous totem poles in Stanley Park of Vancouver

One unique thing about Stanley Park is that unlike most city-based parks, it has a lot of hiking trails that go through wooded areas. These hiking trails are easy, but like me if you prefer quietness and spending time in woods, you should explore to the Western section of the Stanley Park and not restrict yourself to the popular Eastern section of the park. The picture above is from the Eastern section of Stanley Park.

Sunset from my hotel window in Vancouver. The picture doesn't do justice to how beautiful the sunset was.

I'm not particularly fond of fancy hotels, but the nice thing about staying on the top floors of a high-rise hotel was that I got to experience this ethereally beautiful sunset one evening.

Dusk from my hotel window in Vancouver

While hiking up the Grouse Mountain

Hiking trip to the Grouse Mountain

The most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen from a flight

On my flight from Vancouver to Toronto, I experienced the most beautiful sunrise I have ever experienced from a flight. The above picture that I took on my cellphone doesn't do justice to how beautiful the sunrise actually was. With most of the passengers asleep on the flight, this was another nice and quiet moment to connect with the beauty of mother nature.

To BE...

To BE... Well there's no question of "not to be" when you are in BE, i.e., Belgium.

***

There are many benefits of traveling. The first and the most obvious is, of course, that you get to see new places. You get to admire true beauty. To me, true beauty is always nature, but it also means art and architecture. You get to experience and appreciate foreign cultures. You get challenged in new ways, unless your idea of travel is visiting Disney Land. Last but not the least, you get to meet some very fascinating people. During my current backpacking trip in Europe also I have had the opportunity to interact with some such people. Here's a few who stood out:

The friendly appraiser

There used to be a time when you spoke a lot with your co-passengers on a journey. These days though people are almost always buried in their devices, and conversations, if any, seem to get restricted to exchange of pleasantries. So it was a pleasant surprise to start my journey from Fort Wayne with an affable co-passenger. We both were carrying books to read on the flight, but as we exchanged pleasantries, we both realized that it may perhaps be more fun and educative to chat with each other, My co-passenger was an appraiser traveling to Atlanta for a conference. We spoke for the entire one and half hours that we were on the flight. The nice thing was that our conversation didn't seem forced, and we enjoyed learning the nitty-gritties of each other's profession and philosophies.


The woman who showed me the missing man

I met her while I was taking pictures around the Brussels Grand Palace. She must have been standing next to me, but I didn't notice her until she asked me, "Did you notice the missing man?" 

"No," I responded, a little puzzled what missing man she was talking about. Was I supposed to notice the absence of some man among the crowd of tourists? Sure. I was missing my childhood friend, Sandeep, who was supposed to accompany me on this trip, but had to cancel his travel plans at the last minute due to some personal exigencies. However, a stranger could not be referring to my missing friend in action.

Then she pointed up towards the array of statues on the wall of the monument in front of us. Lo and behold, there was one statue missing.

"Wow! How did I miss that? I was looking just there and still..." I wondered aloud.

"Oh, I missed it too. My husband pointed it out to me. He notices things well." Her husband nodded in acknowledgment.

"What do you think that man must have done?" she then asked me with a mischievous smile. 

The serious me responded, "I think the statue must have just fallen off."

"No, I think that man must have done something bad, something really really baaad," she replied broadening her mischievous smile.

"What do you think he must have done?" And our light-hearted conversation continued...

There is perhaps no point sharing our entire conversation, but the lesson I learnt from my conversation with this beautiful woman was the importance of always being playful and jovial.

"Don't take life too seriously, Paresh!"

"Well, I'm trying. That's why I am traveling, ain't I?"

The serious travelers

The "serious" travelers I am talking about here are not necessarily temperamentally serious, but they were definitely serious about their need to travel.

1) At Brussels, one my roommates was an Argentinian guy. It was his second day in Brussels, so I thought of taking some advice from him about the places I should visit. As we conversed, I learnt that he walked everywhere on his trips within cities.

"That's my kind of guy!" I thought. I love walking too, and avoid public transport unless a place is really far. What is really far, of course, varies, but so far in a day I have walked upto 15 miles (25 kilometers) in cities and 30 miles (close to 50 kilometers) in nature. My problem is that I had often felt apologetic about my walking, especially in cities, as if I was doing it just to save some money. Sure, I saved some money by walking, but I didn't need to feel apologetic about my walking. Rather I ought to feel proud of my ability and will to walk. My Argentinian roommate taught me that.

2) At Brussels, one my other roommates was an Indian. He was a doctoral student who had just completed his first year at Vanderbilt University, and decided to take three weeks off to travel across Europe before getting busy again in his doctoral program. I thought, "Smart guy! Why didn't I do that on my summer vacations as a doctoral student?"

Instead of traveling around the world, I always traveled across half-the-world to India to spend time with my parents. Not that I was a home-sick. I never was. In fact, I wasn't even home-sick when I left home for the first time after finishing my high school. However, I always saw it my responsibility to visit my parents during my vacations. Of course, I enjoyed my time at home, but now I think I could have also engaged in some backpacking during my earlier years. But then as they say, "Better late than never."

3) At Bruges, my roommate was a young Korean who had been traveling continuously for the last two years. Now here was a man I envied! He shared that the most expensive part of his travel was in USA, and that's because he splurged by watching two NBA games live. I asked him, if he ever felt unsafe during his two years of travel around the world. He said it was in Nepal. He was in Nepal during the recent earthquake that killed about 10,000 people. That he said was the scariest thing he had ever experienced in life. He also added, "Leaving the earthquake aside, Nepal is the most beautiful country I have visited so far in my life." There was no reason to not believe him, but the scientist in me also wondered if recency bias and the Von Restorff effect were at play here.

But what I wondered most about was how did this young man finance his travels. So I asked. He said that he worked in Australia for 8 months, and that gave him the money to travel around the world. I wasn't sure how just 8 months of working helped him cover his travel expenses over the last two years, but I decided to not probe further. "If he says so, it must be true," I thought. One just needs to have the will to travel. I remembered once reading in the news about an old couple from India who were just owners of a small tea-stall in Kerela, and still succeeded to save enough money to travel around the world, primarily because of their determination to do so.

Did you notice the missing man?

The Atomium, Brussels

The Atomium from Mini Europe

I had seen this picture before somewhere on the internet. Glad I found it.

City Center, Brussels

Belgium without Tintin, no way!

The famous statue of the peeing kid. A very small statue though. I couldn't understand why it was so famous. I had seen a much larger statue of a naked kid in Prague last year.

Comics on the wall to celebrate pride in LGBT 

This is now becoming a common sight in most European cities, and I love it.

"The Concrete Truck" by the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye

More comics on the wall

Looks like the Belgians sure love their comics

Brave rabbits in Bruges who let me take their picture from a close distance 

Loved the color combination

Race can't divide us: Love in the air!

The locals are smart!

Reached Bruges, Belgium

One of the several wooden windmills in Bruges

Look what I noticed in Bruges!

Can't disagree with that!
My friends know that well about me.

A walk to the city center of Bruges again in the night.

Choosing bikes over cars

This weekend has been a little busy and hectic for me as I made an urgent trip from my parents' place in Odisha to Hubli, Karnataka to be next to my niece who would be undergoing a tonsillectomy tomorrow. Consequently, I haven't had much time to write anything for this weekend's post. So instead of posting a long article this weekend, I am deciding on just posting a few pictures from my Europe trip early this Summer. These pictures are to highlight how bike- and rickshaw-friendly European cities are becoming. In contrast to India, where cities are getting clogged up with millions of new cars and motorbikes every day, people in Europe are increasingly choosing the bicycle for their daily commute. I wish people in India, US and countries across the world move to this simple, healthy and environment-friendly mode of personal transport. I still fondly remember from my childhood days how the majority of the middle class population in smaller Indian cities commuted through bicycle. No wonder the majority of people then were healthy and the cities had cleaner air. Sadly now there is an epidemic of lifestyle diseases in the same small towns of India. We can regain a large part of the health that people enjoyed just a couple of decades back by consciously choosing bicycles over cars and motorbikes. The revolution of bicycle wheels is the revolution we truly need in India and everywhere in this world.