As soon as my friend Dr. Hatha told me about his Full bright (MSU) trip to USA from CUSAT,
I was envisioning to spend quality time with him on all ends - professional, recreational and personal - during Thanksgiving week, 2012.
The day came and Hatha was with our family. I got the true feeling of friendship when I received him. That's when I actually experienced the following-
Even though friends are apart from each other, when they meet, it will be the same as before.
Bharathiar University Days
Next day I drove Hatha and my family to Everglades, a sub tropical wetland - an important ecosystem.
As we both are Environmental Scientists and nature loving people, we had wonderful time at Everglades. During boat ride to Coot bay from Flamingo center, we were watching Mangroves, beautiful birds and alligators and walking in the Anhinga Trail was excellent. As usual, I stopped at "Robert is Here" and had a tasty mango shake.
Evening after visiting a family friend stayed at another friend's house at South Florida near the
NOAA center Atlantic Oceanographic& Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) - National Oceanic & AtmosphericAdministration - NOAA) - , where Hatha had to give two presentations. Thanks to my other great Environmental Scientist friend - Dr. Yuncong Li.
Both were very well delivered and relevant people, who attended got what they wanted from the seminars. Hope and pray these teams will work together and co-ordinate in future for the betterment of various environments (esp. the Ocean Environments - they are concentrating on) and people. I will do my part on that also.
After the seminars, stayed at friend's house close to Lion Country Safari (LCS). Again with my family and Hatha, I visited LCS. So many varieties of animals are there - Lion, rhinos, several varieties of deer, birds, zebras, giraffes, monkeys and camels. Every animal roams freely, has vast areas to roam and we ride in our cars to see the animals and birds. Wonderful Safari.
Next day we were at SeaWorld. Another fun place for watching sea animals especially for scientists who work in Oceans. Killer whale (Shamu) show, Dolphin show, Manatees, Polar bears, Beluga whales, Otters, Sea lions, Humongous Walrus, birds, sharks and thousands of varieties of fishes and sea animals - all at one place. It was great to be at Sea World with a Marine Scientist.
Next day at Disney World - EPCOT center - Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow - at Siemens's Earth Space ship, we designed our future workplace and home. Of course it was completely green living and environmentally friendly. Visited the 'LAND' area and twice road the boat through Disney's green house. We soared in SOARIN across the great state of CALIFORNIA.
Also, we experienced Mexico, China, Norway, Japan, France, Italy and Canada in the EPCOT country pavilion and finally finished the day seeing the EPCOT laser show with wonderful fireworks.
Final day of tour was at NASA - Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Those Imax movies take you to the out of world experiences. We spent quality time in the Rocket gardens, KSC Bus tours, Apollo Rocket experiences, Nature and Technology areas and space history pavilions. Driving back we saw the excellent views of Florida (Sunshine state) sunset.
On the day we all relaxed, Hatha was kind enough to give the Arctic Expedition and his scientific research experience presentation (That he gave in NOAA - AOML) to our family. Again it was well taken and I envision that one day my daughter would be a scientific person.
Dr. Hatha is also the ORGANISING CONVENER the MARICON, 2019
Makesh Karuppiah, Ph.D
Environmental Scientist
