Choosing the Travel Destination

All too often, we choose our travel destinations because it's the most popular travel destination of the month, or it's what everyone's talking about or it will add plus-points to our social status. We do this, in spite of the fact that you want to go somewhere else much more simple, more mundane probably, or less glamorous. I saw a video blog recently which encouraged everyone to “be who you are” as “you are your DNA”. Your likes and dislikes define who you are. Your travel choices makes you who you are, it doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks if you think this place is more romantic or that it offers a more authentic experience of the place and its history. What matters is what you think.

Real travel changes you and keeps you in touch with the real you. This is because the sense of place that you get from a locale and the authentic history and knowledge that you learn forges you into a better you. In the same manner, staying home, or working, or going to the other local attractions keeps you in touch with the real you.

There is a song that says it well, “be true to your heart”.

Alpine Experience in Helen, Georgia

Nestled in the mountains of Georgia, the town of Helen is a must-see for all Georgia visitors and those who head to the Southeast US. Being in Helen is like entering a totally different city, almost like being in Europe, except that you're in Helen, Georgia.

The architecture is European, creating an alpine look and feel that can make Oktoberfest a richer experience. When we went to Helen, it was more of a "tour" of the place so we didn't get to participate in the Oktoberfest festivities. I know what you might be thinking, but yes, we didn't even get to taste the sausages and the pretzels. We did get to go to a Wendy's, which still had the alpine-European architecture.

A few miles outside the town center, we stopped by the Habersham Winery. They hold free wine tastings and they have pretty good wines. My friends thought it was an opportunity, considering that they thought they missed the beer at Oktoberfest, so we all flashed our IDs and went swirling and sloshing and spitting our way through the collection.

Near Helen is also a great place to unwind, the active kind that is. You can hike your way through the really walker-friendly hiking trail to Ruby Falls. It's a great hike after a week of hard work, with all the greens and the little streams every now and then. Our friends from Kansas who were with us thought it was really cool (they thought they didn't have something like that in Kansas).

Below is a picture of a tree I found that I think grew up on rock.


There are many other experiences in store for everyone at Helen and in the surrounding areas. You can do mini-golf, kart racing, river rafting or floating on one of those tubes, hiking, swimming, and a lot of other things to do. Happy travels.

Landscapes: Westwood Village

Westwood Village in Los Angeles, California as seen from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Home to entertainment and technology industry companies, University of California - Los Angeles, budding filmmakers, Fox Theater at Westwood, Diddy Reese (cookies!), Noodle Planet and a lot of other restaurants and shops.

SMX Convention Center Pictures

Pictures at the SMX Convention Center taken recently during the Firm's anniversary dinner.

To Live Inside a Mall

When I found out that I was to stay at a hotel that is connected to a 200-plus-store mall, I was dumb-struck. No way. Er,sure!

Two and a half years ago, I was assigned to work at a client located in Birmingham/Hoover, Alabama. I was kind of excited to find out where I will be staying as I was to be there for several weeks. So when I found out that I was to virtually stay in a mall, the first word that came to mind was "dangerous".

I am actually not that into shopping. I am probably what might be called a "bursty shopper". I shop only when I feel like it and when I absolutely have to. But when I do shop, I really shop. :)

So there we were, we made our reservations to the Wynfrey Hotel at the Riverchase Galleria Mall. It's a 15-story hotel with around 330 rooms. It's literally attached to the Riverchase Galleria Mall and it's also one of the state's most popular tourist destinations.

During that first week in Birmingham, we faced a lot of work so I never really got to do some serious shopping. On the two days that I did go around the mall, I suddenly had this weird feeling that everything was expensive and ended up only buying a couple of DVDs. I got Batteries Not Included, a Syvester Stallone sports movies collection... stuff. My kuripot side prevailed.

Why is there so much hype on shopping malls, I wonder? It has become a park and a tourist attraction. Which is also good, in a way. The urban planners and the marketing people have gotten really good at this. It's not that they're bad, but there could be so much more places and activities to do out there. I guess it is the generation of the shoppaholic and the maller.

One associate went out running in the woods of Birmingham every night. So he discovered all these great running trails in the area. Birmingham is like that, it's urbanized, yet it has these pockets of woods here and there. He liked the urban-nature interplay of the city so much that when a career work-life balance issue came up, he eventually moved there.

The week after we came to Birmingham, we moved to another hotel 19 miles from the Galleria Mall. So after work, I had to do a little bit of driving to get to the hotel. That's when I started discovering places off-the-beaten track. For example, I discovered this park with a garden, a hiking trail and a running path that winds through woods and trees and a few inclines here and there for a little bit of challenge. There was also this scenic drive that I can't remember where anymore because I just happened to pass by there because I got lost.

After wandering around, I finally discovered where the rest of the young and hip crowd of Birmingham hang out - at The Summit, a huge mall complex, strip mall style, and has almost everything that you would ever need or want. Fun. That is where the real shopping began. That though, is another story for another day.