Showing posts with label Charleston-SC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charleston-SC. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

July 4th Fireworks

This would be my last July 4th in US before returning to India. The fireworks as part of the Independence day in US is a marvelous occasion to be part of. This is held in all major towns and cities in US on the evening of July 4th.

I had been to this even few times in Charleston and once in Myrtle Beach, SC. We went to Mount Pleasant to witness this. I had taken my camera and tripod to capture some fireworks photos. I had never tried to capture one before and did do some homework on how to do this. There were lot of people assembled for the event. This is one of the few times you will see huge crowd in US. It is like a mela we have in India with all kind of bands, small food shops, entertainment events etc. A very colorful and entertaining event.

Sometimes I wonder, why we do not celebrate ours like this. US is independent for more than 300 years, but still you see the enthusiasm and public participation in the way July 4th is celebrated. I seldom see this in India and it is mostly a political event celebrated just as a duty than anything else.

I did take some good pictures of the fireworks and surprisingly they came out very well. So I can say I learned how to operate a camera now. Few tips and tricks. Thanks to the internet where as usual there were lot of resources on how to picture a fireworks.

See more photos here

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Strawberry farm visit

Last weekend we went to Boone Hall Plantation, a Strawberry farm near Charleston. It was nice to pickup your own strawberries and blackberries. We need to search between the sea of strawberry plants to find a good and ripe one. Blackberries were more generous and cleaner. Cost was also 50% compared to grocery stores.

This is a very good way of spending time and getting some fresh and healthy fruits. There are many strawberry farms around Charleston at a radius of 5-15 miles. Once you reach there, they have a set of baskets for the fixed price of $2, $5 etc. You can choose one and fill as many fruits as you want. The one where we went also had a nice garden with different types of flowers. We took some photos there. There is also a large sunflower farm. It was good to be in the middle of so many sunflowers.