Heads Carolina

Hi Friends!

Hope you’re doing well. Do you know that awesome Jo Dee Messina country song Heads Carolina, Tails California, from 1996 or maybe the Cole Swindell 2022 version? "Heads Carolina, tails California; Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer; Up in the mountains, down by the ocean; Where it don't matter, long as we're goin'; Somewhere together, I've got a quarter; Heads Carolina, tails California." This past weekend, our quarter landed heads and we took a trip to North Carolina!

Our trip to Charlotte and Apex was a mix of playing chess at the nation’s most

active chess club, celebrating my grand uncle's 60th birthday (Shashtiabdapoorthi) with fam from around the world, tons of great conversation, food, and sports fun!

Collage cartooned with ChatGPT

We began in Charlotte after a 5-hour flight from Seattle, landing late at night. I really enjoyed the Charlotte Chess Center, where I played a tournament. There were many serious players, and it was a great environment overall. I drew a nice kid from the Elite squad coached by GM Bortnyk of Ukraine and played several others casually between rounds, and held my own. My dad and bro also played in the u1700 section, had fun and played well. As awesome as the chess scene is here in the 206, we can definitely learn some things about chess systems from the folks in the 704.

Some of the best food in Charlotte came from Cava, a popular chain that’s not in Seattle. It is definitely some of the best food I’ve ever had, from the dips to the pickled onions, the saffron rice and the warm pita. Definitely check it out when you are in one of the 30 states it’s available in; it’s like a Mediterranean version of Chipotle! It was awesome to just relax and enjoy a picnic lunch on a grassy hill in the sunshine with the fam.

On our drive to Apex post tourney (we took a half point bye the final round so we could get some sleep before the morning celebrations), we got to see some city views including Bank of America Stadium, home of the NFL’s Panthers! We had a nice dinner near downtown after, then continued to Apex, a western suburb of Raleigh that has been growing a lot lately. After breakfast, we headed to our grand uncle's place for the celebration!

The house was absolutely INSANE. They have a golf simulator in the garage, a beautiful kitchen, a giant outside yard where they had set up a couple tents for the puja, a couch with a nice TV, his own wood burnt paintings, a mini basketball hoop, and that’s just the first floor. The upstairs features a putting green, a pool table that can be converted into a table tennis table, and sports history on the walls!

First of all, the idli sambar from wherever they catered was really good and had a good amount of spice for "second breakfast" (Shoutout Pippin from LOTR, I had another breakfast at the hotel, and ngl, am pumped for Hobbiton in NZ, food included in late Feb '27 when my dad hits unc status (40)). Then, out of nowhere, we saw an enormous heron at the back of their yard!

Then we listened to the puja. The setup was really cool, they had some

Japanese-style Buddhist temple-looking thing, which was really cool! The best part was when my dad and mom dunked water all over grand unc (See what I did there? Unc = Uncle and UNC = University of North Carolina, let's goooo) and aunts' heads, a part of the blessing where those attending celebrate the couple! That was very fun to see. Indian celebrations used to trigger some sound sensitivity and crowd sensory issues for me, but this was awesome. We could do our own thing and take it in on our own terms a bit which was really cool.

Then we ate lunch which was the leftovers from catering so obviously so good, and then guess what time it was? 1PM Eastern. We played some pool and turned on NFL RedZone to watch the games with our cousins, well technically Dad's cousins, my uncles, but they're closer to my age than his. We also watched the final day of the President’s Cup (they’re into golf, can you not tell), where the USA won! Then, the temporary tents and everything got cleared out and the yard was open, so it was time for us to play 3v3 football, which was a lot of fun!

We chilled on the couches, did some singing, then had a nice home-cooked dosa dinner which was SO GOOD. I personally ate mine with some leftover sambar and ghee (clarified butter), and dahi (yogurt) after in case of any lingering spice in my mouth. We then went out for a second round of football, then headed back to our hotel to watch Sunday Night Football and get a good night’s sleep for the next day.

On Monday, after a nice hotel breakfast, we headed back to the house. First, we played some table tennis doubles, before heading down and chilling. Then we headed to their garage to their golf simulator where we learned how to play! I hit it about 55 yards with a sand wedge with carry + roll, so pretty good for a first try. Then we had more leftovers for lunch before heading upstairs to play on their putting green and chill upstairs!

Afterwards, we chilled some more downstairs before bidding farewell.

We headed to RDU airport, returned our Kia Sportage hybrid rental then headed in. After getting through security, we had a nice dinner stop at North Carolina local

Mexican food called Salsaritas, which was really good! I especially enjoyed their

famous queso. We got snacks for the flight, then continued on Alaska Airlines to

return to Seattle.

Honestly for a weekend trip, this one had it all! Amazing vibes, good fam time, new friendships, lots of sports, great food, quality chess, and a relaxed totally unstressed feeling through it all. Excited to get back to the NC sometime soon, though something tells me our next few coin flips may be tails, especially since Cali is so close to home!

That's all for today! See y'all next time! Sarang out.