Birmingham - Lord Balaji Temple ...

After slogging it out (read it as enjoying) during the weekdays in the office in sub-zero temperatures and just window-shopping in the Bullring whenever we could in the evenings, it was finally decided that we would have a darshan of Lord Balaji at the Tividale temple near here. The fact that it is inappropriate to go to Tirupathi now given the volatile situation in Andhra cos of the Telangana fiasco made the decision-making all the more easy. And so we headed straight to Tividale on a dark Sunday morning.

We took a bus from Bullring (we have a season ticket and so the travel was free!!) and after navigating through some pretty suburban areas of Birmingham, we reached the temple after about 40 mins. We made friends with a Telugu guy en route and he was our guide-designate.

The temple was completely covered in snow and we couldn't figure out anything. But for our guide, we would have been like kids lost in a carnival. The darshan was very good as there weren't any souls around. The hardest part was to remove the shoes and walk barefoot on the granite tiles spread across the temple with the temperature hovering around the -3degree mark.

After having some piping hot pongal as breakfast in the temple, we then indulged ourselves in a snow-fight for a good 20 minutes. It was fun playing in the snow and was enjoyable. It was once in a lifetime opportunity for someone like me who never even saw rain lasting for more than a few days at a stretch.

We then headed straight back to the apartment (including a quick bite at the Subway) after a thoroughly enjoyable day out. 
 
P.S: I would soon be uploading the photos and videos. So do watch out.