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Published: December 1st 2006
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November 23rd 2006 The purpose of this trip was two-fold. One it was thanksgiving break and we wanted to go somewhere close and convenient and two we wanted to eat good food. So the choice was automatic. We went to
Atlanta 😊.
At barely 3 and a half hours away..it was a comfortable drive and offered interesting enough things to see. I had been to Atlanta two times already, but we were planning to see the new Georgia Aquarium and the Balaji-Siva Temple which I had not seen before.
We left about 8 am on Thanksgiving day so we could avoid traffic and reached there at 12:30 p.m. ( we lost an hour- due to change from Central to Eastern Time). Our first stop was
Chat Patti. Karthik, Anitha and I were all hungry and waiting to eat. I had been to this place 3 years ago and really enjoyed it. It was a chat place where you had a good variety for a reasonable price. We were ravenous and started with the following: bhel puri, pani puri and samosa chat. We really enjoyed it and since it had only kindled our appetite we also
ordered.. karachi chat, stuffed paratha and a veg thali ( 3 pooris, chole, aloo and dahi). That was really filling and we could barely move😊.
From there we started for the
Georgia Aquarium and reached there about 1:45 p.m ET. Since I had already purchased tickets through AAA, we did not have to wait and moved in quite quickly. There was barely a crowd as it was thanksgiving day. The aquarium just had 4 big rooms and was quite a disappointment for all the hype it had gotten. The things we enjoyed the most were probably the beluga whales (they had four of them and they kept pooping all the time 😱), and the touch zone where we got to touch sea anemones, star fishes and bat rays. The rest of the aquarium did not have anything unique and I felt the entry fee was quite exorbitant for what they had. ($24 without any discount, $18 after AAA). We also went for a 4D show (an extra $5 per head)- a musical about the sea creatures which probably a 4 year old would have enjoyed 😊.
From there, we started to the Balaji Temple. The temple had two gopurams
one for the Balaji sanidhi and the other for Shiva. Again there was no one at the temple and we had a peaceful darshan. Since Nasvhille has a beautiful Ganesha temple here... I was able to compare the two. The
Atlanta Hindu Temple was definitely bigger but I think the Nashville temple is more beautiful. We were way ahead of our itinerary and our lunch was still heavy in our stomachs so we decided to go to our hotel before we headed out to
Zykas, the restaurant we had picked for dinner.
Not to mention, we thoroughly enjoyed the food there too. We started out with gobi manchurian, paneer butter masala, malai kofta, vegetable biriyani, muthi paratha ( a really soft layered naan) and regular naan. The dishes were really spicy and we added to that raita, baingan bartha and finished with rabadi. All around us people were hogging on chicken 65, tandoori chicken and what not 😊. After we finished our meal...we left to our hotel Days Inn to retire for the day.
Our itinerary was extremely loose the next day..all we had to do was the
Global mall and the
World of Coca Cola . Since Anitha claimed it was her desire to
Two of them..
They were extremely playful and it was hard to capture them together. There were 4-5 in total. visit the Coke Museum even before she came to the US, we were thrilled to fulfill it. We reached the mall at 10:30 a.m. only to find none of the stores opened till 12, despite my calling earlier to check what time they open and confidently telling me they would be at 10 😞. We were the first to order lunch at Chinese Rasoi, an Indo chinese restaurant. We ate chilly panner fry, hakka noodles, veg fried rice and veg coins in manchurian sauce. You see, we wanted to keep lunch light so that we could have space to drink Coke at the World of Coke 😊.
Next and last stop for the day was the Coke Museum. It had quite a long line but one that moved quickly enough. This was my third visit to this place. The beauty about this World of Coca Cola is that you get to sample all the different products that the company manufactures throughout the world. The samples are unlimited. Now you see why this was on Anitha's wishlist. Anyway, the self-guided tour starts with the 3rd floor where there is a setup of the old bottling plant, and you learn about
the history of coke. Like all famous inventions, coke was invented by accident. It was first manufactured in Atlanta. From the 3rd floor , we move to the second where you learn about who patronized coke, where we get to watch ads from around the world. Finally on the 1st floor is the sampling room where there are about 40 different kinds of aerated drinks. The entry fee for this attraction is $9, I forgot to mention. We had a lot of fun drinking coke products from Africa and China. Some tasted exactly like benadryl. I was disappointed as some of my favorite products like gold spot and lychee coke were missing 😞. The new world of coke is under construction and I hope they have it there.
After a much needed stop at the restroom we started back to good old Nashville.
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malabika
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great pics!!!
the pictures are awesome! I've been there 3ce; but missed aquarium each time. your pics have brought back the tempation! Also indian food in Atlanta is goooooooood....