Tynemouth Castle - Happy Independence Day

I woke up slowly and enjoyed relaxing at home in the morning with a hot cup of coffee. My cousin's wife, Gagan made some fantastic aloo parantha for breakfast and I had more than I probably should have.

We then walked across the street to Jesmond Dene (a spectacular park area right outside their home) and took in the sights despite an occasional drizzle.

My cousin dropped me off at Tynemouth Castle, right on the North Sea for our pre-walk walk. Our starting point for the walk tomorrow is Wallsend (yes, Wall's End) station. A few of the folks had the bright idea that if we walked about 5 miles on Sunday from Tynemouth castle to the Wallsend metro station, we will truly be able to claim that we walked from coast to coast across England. So, at about 3 PM, I dipped my hand into the North Sea at Tynemouth castle and we headed off on our walk a little before 4 PM. The walk itself was along city streets and had no particularly interesting views. We made it to the Metro station at about 5:30 PM. I was none worse for the wear after this relatively short walk (even though I didn't carry my backpack with me) and was ready for "Stage 1" on Monday by the time we reached our pre-walk destination.

For dinner, Srini took me to a Teppan-Yaki Japanese restaurant where I enjoyed another specatcular meal. Teppan yaki is a style of Japanese cooking done on an extremely hot griddle. The restaurant patrons sit around the large stainless steel griddle and the chef comes to the table and whips up a meal right at your table with some spectacular theatrics. He juggles eggs, taps his utensils on the steel grill that makes it seem like he's performing a concert for the hungry patrons. We all took turns trying to flip up an egg off the griddle and catch it in our chef hats. Both mine went splat - on on the griddle in front and one on the griddle behind us. No one was injured. The food was delicious. We got back around 11 PM and I will head to bed after typing up this short note at around 12:30 AM. Photos will all be added later.