Day 3-4

These two days had been quite a hectic one. I was unable to manage some time to post anything yesterday, so I thought let's merge the happenings of both these days in this blog.

Day 3:
Yesterday's morning had been one of the best mornings I ever had in my life! I bet this goes equally with both Dipanjan and Udayan as well. We woke up, freshened ourselves and took to our breakfast, and it was already time to register ourselves and collect the whole lot of goodies that this event had to offer us! We registered ourselves in the event, and as we went to claim our Codechef T-shirts (how I wanted this t-shirt!), we were told that first we have to click ourselves in a specific theme! We proceeded.....

We did a little paperwork, collected the goodies and it was already time for lunch! (Remember the timings? :D) I kept on hoping that the lunch will be a mixed blend of sweet and sour... and I was quite disheartened as it was almost all sour until.....

Payesh! (Can you see it?)

While we were counting hours for the competition to start, we planned to have a practice session that would help in increasing our chances in the event. And there's no better place to think and code than sitting in a quite greenery with peace all around.

After having a good time practicing, we thought to stroll in the fields. The field had some special members as well.....

                                                                                     

                                   

                                        

Baidya and Dipanjan were upto their creative skills again ...

We went on to attend the welcome ceremony in the evening. Again, I must repeat the words. Mesmerizing! Hypnotizing! Don't believe me? Have a look.

And then there were some stellar performances...

                                       
                               Last but not the least...not forgetting the BANQUET

Day 4:

                                           Today was the ultimate showdown.

We had some light breakfast and went on to march towards the event hall. The contest was scheduled to start at 9:00, but anyway, it started from 9:30 and continued till 3 pm!

To be honest here, we could have performed better. We got a great start in the beginning, but slowly our progress got decelerated. We overlooked a simple trick in one problem that kept us bugging for long, and slowly our confidence went down as well. We tried our best, but maybe it just wasn't our day.

We had our lunch after the contest ended and went on towards the discussion arena. There were some discussions over the problems posed in the contest followed up by the awards ceremony.

That's it for today. Although it had been not at all the way I wanted the contest to go for us, but never mind, we all had a good exposure of the real contest scenario. We would take this great experience with us as we leave Coimbatore in a day or two.....and I am sure that would really benefit us in our coming future.

Tomorrow is Excursion day. A lot of teams are going to visit several interesting places of Coimbatore, and we are going as well. The next blog would update the excursion. Stay tuned!

Day 2

                    We reached Coimbatore today. It was almost 5 in the morning.

Coimbatore Railway Station

We barely reached to the entrance gate where we saw Baidya, suited up in a completely formal attire. With three of us united, the only thing left for us was to spot the bus that would take us to our destination "Amrita University", where the event is going to take place the day after tomorrow.
With a bit of exploration we eventually found the yellow bus, parked at the rear entrance of the station. No wonder, thanks to our excitement, we were the first team to reach the bus.
But soon enough we could spot teams from various colleges boarding the bus, and when the clock struck 7, we all were ready to go!

Amrita Campus:
Mesmerizing! Hypnotizing!'
What a wonderful campus! It is vast, with large buildings all around. And then there are long roads that are surrounded by green patches of land. It's so neat that you won't even dare to throw trash here and there, and with the placement of statues of Hindu Gods like Shiva, Saraswati  before almost every building, it's definitely the best campus I have seen so far. Before I continue to the next part do have a look in the beauties that this campus has to offer!

And then.....a small glimpse of the beautiful garden...

Soon enough, we got our room as well.....

We left the room once we got our belongings settled inside the room and looked forward to explore the campus further, but wait..... our stomachs had something else to say.

BREAKFAST TIME! :D

The canteen is quite good. It's large, with dozens of tables and lots of well-equipped chefs! Hygiene 10/10. As we kept on scrolling the menu, we soon had all of our eyes fixed in a specific item that appeared to be delicious, and thankfully, was really delicious. It was "Poori Aloomasala", and along with it a cup of soda satisfied our tummies quite easily!

Bas, we were ready! We planned to take a bath and start exploring the other parts of the campus...when something happened.

After I finished my bath I returned to my room, only to find the door locked. Initially I thought that I was being the victim of a prank played by these two monkeys, but well, when I kept on banging the door for 15 mins and nothing happened, I started to worry a bit. My phone was also inside the room, and I was left outside with nothing but my dresses and a towel :P

I assumed them to be in a deep sleep, which is quite natural after the long tiresome journey we all had the previous day. So I roamed the campus to kill sometime, came back, and fortunately they were awake by now. Great save for me!

It was already lunch time, and being completely honest, this was a terrible lunch.We took a bit of all the items but when we started tasting them each and everyone turned out to be sour. Too sour, I mean. I finally took to rice, dal, papad and nimbu paani, and came back to our dal, papad and nimbu paani, and came back to room, with dissapointment.

It was evening and we planned to start exploring again! Moreover, we all geared up ourselves with Polemon Go! , and provided the fact that I got quite a few pokemons here (We three had already started collecting them from the moment we reached the campus!), we all had high hopes!

And we stumbled upon BumbleBee.....

And some few more pics.....

                      

It was time for grasses to get some water, so the sprinklers were activated. And there were a LOT of them.

And then the game began- "Escape the Sprinklers :P "

Not to get wet...and waiting for the right moment.....until

RUN!!  RUN!!  RUN!!  RUN!!  RUN!!  

Can you spot some of the sprinklers?

We finally arrived to our room. It was around 6.30 pm, but dinner was about to be provided from 7 to 8 (how can someone take his dinner at this time of the day?), so we took some rest and made our way to the hall where dinner was being served. 

And it was not at all like lunch. We enjoyed it and were quite happy!

That's all that sums up our "today". Tomorrow is an important day. There would be registration followed up by practice sessions for the upcoming main event to be held on the day after tomorrrow!

We would try to give our best! Let's see what happens. Wish us luck!

Day 1

I reached Chennai yesterday by 10 pm. And Dipanjan's flight would arrive at 2 am!

After a long, lonely journey to Chennai, the only thing left to make my life more miserable was waiting for more four hours sitting inside the airport. I looked in my phone. It was 10.10 pm, and my battery was a run short to make a half-century. I started to watch the movie "Dishoom", and thanks to the battery of ASUS Max, I could watch it fully!

It was around 1.50 am, and Dipanjan came.

We spent the whole night inside the airport, planning all the things that are to be done the next day (today!). We eventually booked a hotel and at around sunrise we checked into it. We needed a small nap before we could start exploring.....CHENNAI!

We woke up in the afternoon. Our plans for Mahabalipuram got spoiled, as it's quite far and we had a train to catch at night. If only we woke up earlier.....

Once we got ourselves freshened, we searched for bong restaurants, but nay, it was in vain. At the end we made our way to a North-Indian cuisine.

After the eating has been done, it was time to start our Chennai-darshan. :D

We started with the Ispahani Centre. A decent sized building, hosting a variety of shops. But what we were interested in was it's Game Center. We found it's location and proceeded to venture into the unknown game.

It was named "Nuclear Countdown". In brief, some naughty scientist has planted a bomb, and you need to defuse it. Sounds easy, right? It was not...
We were taken inside a room. It had lots of components and monitors and a 45-minute timer as well. We had to find clues and decipher codes ( trust me, they were quite tricky! ) and defuse the bomb within the alotted time. Else, you know.....

We played well. Actually we could find all clues but when it comes to deciphering codes, one of the ciphers took it's toll and we were almost nearing a defeat... when suddenly things got better, we kept on solving and finally could defuse the bomb 8 mins before it would blast :P

I am extremely amazed by the game. There were many other games as well of the same genre, and they were costly, but totally worth it.

We proceeded to games of another genre. Virtual Reality.

In one game we were in an open airbaloon, and things were going right until an eagle came and bursted our baloon. In this situation we were provided a small plank leading to another baloon and we had to walk on it without falling down.

It was a thrilling experience! I struggled a lot but couldn't finish the game. Dipanjan came like a boss and aced it!

We played two other games as well, in one we were in a spaceship in alienspace, fighting with other spaceships, and in another we had to ride a dragon and collect eggs placed in several places while maneuvering the dragon. It was mesmerising! I performed excellently in these games and levelled the score with Dipanjan. :D

Next we went to St. Teresa's Church. It was huge, boasting a nice ambience as well.

We continued towards Marina Beach, but everytime we took an entrance it directed us only to some other place. The beach was in plain sight though.

We visited the Anna Memorial. A great weather, a friend beside, we felt good! After the hot and harsh weather out here the whole day, this provided some relief!

And finally! We found the right entrance to the beach! The waves were definitely not gentle, but I felt so good as they kept on arriving, periodically striking my feet.

We spent some more time there, playing shooting games and checking out the surroundings.

And finally, it was time to say Goodbye to Chennai. We have already boarded the Nilgiri Express that will take us to Coimbatore, and it has already started soaring while I am writing these things here.

It was a great experiece here. The next time I would come to Chennai I would make sure that I have plenty of days at my disposal!

Tomorrow awaits a new day. Udayan is joining us tomorow morning.

Coimbatore, here we come.

Day 0

Finally. The time has come.
Today we embark on our 10-day trip, and everyday I would try to post something of the cherry-merry moments that we spend around here!

What to do in long plane journeys? This question has been something that I was pondering over for sometime, and here it is! Now I myself have a journey from Guwahati to Chennai and although the travel time is just 3 hours, well, sitting tucked up in a small aisle seat is not at all how I would like to spend any "3 hours" of my life! The plane has already started drifting towards it's destination and I was wondering, looking out through the elliptical window trying to figure out what to do in the meantime. I plugged on my earphones, and as Tochi Raina's "Kabira" made it's way through my ears, I suddenly felt a drizzle of nostalgia all over. And that's when I made up my mind. Let's blog the trip and note into it the memories that we make here.


Guwahati:
This vacation has till been quite a handfull for me! First of all, I got to meet my family after a whopping 15 months! And now, I am leaving again. Time runs fast, doesn't it?
I was already looking forward to the upcoming ICPC competition in Coimbatore, and was quite happy regarding that, and to put the cherry in the cake, my semester results ended up to be quite good (Unexpectedly!).
Guwahati has also some places to offer, and the hillside view is amazing! I didn't get to spend a good no of days here, but I will definitely like to spend sometime here in the near future!

Although the crest of a wave
doesn't last long enough, but who cares!? I am quite happy in the moment and that's what finally brings up an upward smile in my face as I jot these down sitting inside the plane.

Three CSEians, left by themselves in a thrilling journey before them. Want to know what happens next? Janne ke liye padhte rahiye.....