Travel Logs - Atlanta

Ghayu and I outside The Hindu Temple in Riverdale, GA

ATLANTA

Chandru, I and Ghayu outside the CNN Studio

Believe it Atlanta is 2 hrs drive from Chattanooga, TN, although you enter Georgia in no time from Tennessee. You see wide roads - as many as 7 lanes. Wow! It was very different from driving in 2 lanes in I-40.

Surprisingly there are not many attractions (at least to my knowledge) if you are interested in site-seeing in Atlanta. CNN Center is in Atlanta downtown and is in a nice location. CNN Studio Tour is part of their operations and draws lot of visitors.

Ghayu outside the CNN Studio Tour

The tour was really good and lot informative unlike the other tour offered by NBC in New York. Here, at CNN, we could see see the actual program that goes on in air in all channels - Headlines, Regular, International and Web. Do you know why the news readers do not wear dress in blue - visit and check for yourself. :-) Do you know why weather reporters in TVs point to areas in map roughly and not pin-point? Do you know that white letters in black background is more readable? And lastly do you know how early a news caught is broadcasted? Good amount of information!

Another thing that was interesting was the competing channels displayed live in parallel. Know your enemy first?! :-)

Ghayu and I near the main entrance of the temple

The Hindu Temple in Riverdale was just awesome! The temple is not far off from downtown Atlanta. The temple may be as big or bigger than the temple in Pittsburgh! Lot of open space! Lot of people! Lot of food! And the food that was offered - Puliyodhare (Tamarind Rice), Sambar Sadham (Lentil Rice), Thayir Sadham (Yogurt Rice) and Ven Pongal (Mung Bean Rice) in the temple were very tasty. But of all Ghayu enjoyed most the Vada (hot doughnuts) offered as Anjaneya Prasadam. It really tasted well with Sambar (Hot lentil soup).

This food tasted much better than what we ate for lunch in Saravana Bhavan Restaurant in Decatur. The restaurant did not serve any authentic recipe that it is supposed to serve although 14 plate Idli (Cooked Rice Cakes) was not disappointing - especially Sambar tasted delicious. But other recipes were so so. Nothing special!

Overall the trip was very enjoyable.

Visit the official homepage of CNN Studio at: http://www.cnn.com/StudioTour/
Visit the official homepage of Hindu Temple at: http://www.hindutempleofatlanta.org/