April: Family Trip To Fujairah

Hi Everyone!

Guess what? Lil' blogger is back in action!  We have had a fun-filled month full of visitors and excitement and I can't wait to tell you about all of our April adventures!  Before we get into April, we rounded out March with Sanjana Foi and Kalpu Dadi (family on Da-da's side) visiting us for a night.  I only saw them briefly since it was my bedtime, but it was great to meet them finally.

The month of April started with a bang when Raina Mashi, Parag Masha, Nysa Didi, and Krisha Didi (family on Mumma's side) came to visit us during their spring break.  We had tons of fun showing them around.  We went to Old Dubai (Bastakiya), Dubai Marina, the Atlantis (well actually I missed that one since it was past my bedtime again), and all four parents went out on the town one night.  We also went on a big road trip adventure to Fujairah, another Emirate famous for diving (which is Masha and Mashi's favorite sport).  We even got to celebrate Nysa Didi's golden birthday (9th birthday on the 9th), though we missed Anar Mashi on her milestone bday. While it was a hectic few days (Raina Mashi even went to India to see Nana and Nani for a day), it was so great to spend time with the Gandhi clan in Dubai!


As the Gandhis left, Chiku Kaka, Da-da's cousin, arrived the next day for a few days.  He overlapped with Aunty Anne (like the pretzels :)) and Uncle Wei-Lin, Da-da's friends from business school, who came to visit us for the weekend on their around-the-world sabbatical.  They all went to Nassimi Beach for dinner and drinks on the Palm Atlantis and I joined them at Pier Chic the next day for lunch at Al Qasr.  The location of this restaurant is absolutely beautiful against the Arabian Gulf overlooking the Burj Al Arab.  That night the Wongs and Mumma and Da-da went to Barasti, a bar on the beach, where they met Tio Edu and Tia Ana as well.  On the last day with the Wongs we went to the JBR Beach in crazy heat (I had to be covered at all times) after which they went to Desert Safari and the three of us rested from entertaining all our visitors for 10 days straight! :)  We had so much fun with everyone that we needed to recover with a night at home!

The last two weekends have been much more low-key.  Mumma and Da-da went to dinner last Thurs with Akshay Uncle and Shailey Aunty (BCG friends) in JBR.  On Friday, Mumma, Da-da, and I went to Dubai Mall to get my crib bumpered up since I'm much more active these days and they were a bit nervous.  I finally got moved to my own room and as a result am sleeping more or less through the night without being disturbed by my party-animal-parents! HOORAY!  We also got swim gear for all three of us since we spent a lot of last weekend swimming laps in our building pool! On Saturday, we all went to Bur Dubai with Shweta Aunty and Vinit Uncle (General Mills friends) and ate at our favorite South Indian hole-in-the-wall restaurant - Venus.  Nana would LOVE the dosas there! :)  We also got our Indian groceries from there so that Myla could make some yummy bhinda and cauliflower shaaks during the week!  

This weekend Mumma and Da-da went out with their friends Ingrid and Nick  (whom Mommy met through Gramps Rob from work) to Indigo by Vineet at the Grovesner House.  It is the first Michelin-rated Indian restaurant they had ever eaten at and Da-da was very impressed!  You all should try it when you're in Dubai if you're into fancy Indian food (personally, I prefer Venus Idlis :)).  On Friday, the three of us headed to Bab Al Shams, a resort in the middle of the desert, 45km outside Dubai, to celebrate my 9-month birthday!  It was a beautiful place and I saw a camel up close (though he was STINKY!), but it was rainy so I couldn't swim for too long in the pools.  We eventually made our way back and today I had my doctor's appt.

According to Dr.Karle, my pediatrician in Dubai, I am doing well and meeting all the right milestones. I crawl, stand, clap, squeal in delight, giggle my head off, scream in excitement, and kiss Mumma and Da-da nonstop.  Oh, and every now and then, I throw my head back to test my boundaries, and then get in trouble so I'm still deciding if it's worth continuing that behavior.  All in all, life is busy but awesome!

Lucky for me, since Mumma's big work change this month has been that General Mills is moving from Jebel Ali to JLT (MUCH closer to our home), they are all currently in temporary offices.  This means Mumma gets to work from home a few days a week which is GREAT for me!  I get milk from the source instead of the bottle. :)  Ain't nothin' better than that!  As far as other work developments for Mumma, all I know is that I hear her from my room, driving projects with the US at night and listen to her when she tells Da-da about the challenges and exciting aspects of her brand positioning strategic projects and consumer research studies.

Da-da's big development is that he is planning on going to Saudi Arabia for work soon!  I heard him weighing his options and discussing it with Mumma, ultimately deciding that it was best for his career to take the opportunity while here.  Mumma is going to make Da-da do some live consumer research in market for her (since she can't go to Saudi very easily as a woman)!  Mumma and I will miss him, but again, it will make our weekends that much more special. 

That's about it for April.  Next month we have some exciting trips planned to the Maldives and to India to see Nani and Nana so stay tuned!

March: Off to Oman

And we're back!

March has been busy, but fun-filled with visitors, our first regional trip, and further exploration of Dubai during our downtime. 

The month started with a bang when we finally received our shipments from the US (though 2 months later than expected)!  As a result, we have been enjoying every item shipped, especially Naaya's Jumper which Mana insisted we put together immediately before she got too old to play in it!

Our first friends from home arrived within week one of March!  Mana's NYU friend, Neha, and her husband Vinnie came to Dubai for a few days and we had a blast with them!  While they were sightseeing during the work week, we took full advantage of enjoying our weekend with them.  On our first night together, we had dinner at Mango Tree overlooking the Dubai Fountains, visited the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and experienced Dubai nightlife at Calabar in downtown Dubai.

During the next day, we took them around the Dubai Marina for lunch at Nandos, then walked over to Jetty Lounge, now a favorite spot of ours, for drinks on the beach.  From there, we were waiting to get on a boat across to 101 for more drinks and fun when we were stopped because "VIP" was coming through.  As it turned out, his highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, was strolling through with his posse.  Sahil was totally starstruck after having seen his images all over the government buildings when going through the process to sponsor Myla!  After the excitement settled, we got on the boat, had a blast on the Palm, and eventually made our way home in time for Neha and Vinnie to take a flight back to the US!

With only a few days to recover, we got right back to hosting when we had more visitors!  One of Mana's closest friends from Kellogg, Sarah (a.k.a. Clabby), came to Dubai for a work trip and extended it to spend time with us!  It turned out that the same time she was arriving at our place, Sahil's cousin Darpan was also in town dropping by, as were Mana's parents' very close friends from India, Darshana Aunty and Rashmi Uncle.  We had an impromptu happy hour on our balcony to kick off the weekend with all of them!

We then headed out to Jumeirah Beach Hotel where we had dinner at Villa Beach, a restaurant on the beach against the Burj Al Arab.  It was a beautiful dinner in terms of food, service, view, and most importantly, company!  We finished dinner by walking along the beach and then hitting a bar called 360 (similar to the 360 in Istanbul).

The next day, we hung out with Naaya, celebrated Kellogg spirit since the ladies were all sporting the same gear, and then went to Bubblicious Brunch at the Westin.  While we were hoping to explore the Petting Zoo, we were too caught up in eating to see the animals and in the end, just spent the day in the sun, with drinks and shisha at Le Meridien overlooking the water. 

We had a blast with Clabbs, bid her farewell, and look forward to seeing her and her boyfriend Ryan again soon enough!

After two weekends of fun with with friends from the US, we took a trip to Oman with our friends Edu and Ana.  Proceeding a 6 hour road trip to Muscat full of more security/immigration checkpoints than you could ever imagine, we finally made it to the Shangri-La Barr Al Jissah Resort & Spa.  The hotel was beautifully situated in the cliffs of the mountains over the water.  At the hotel we relaxed down the lazy river, took Naaya swimming for the first time (SHE LOVED IT!), and spent some time on the beach.  When Mana was pregnant with Naaya we had written Naaya in the sandy beaches of Hawaii, so we took the opportunity this time with Naaya to do it again with her outside Mana!

We explored the city of Muscat where we went to the Souk, walked around the Corniche, saw the Forts, and visited the beautiful Chedi hotel for drinks.  We fell in love with this gorgoeus, modern hotel and decided if we ever came back to Muscat, we would stay there next time! 

Overall we were very impressed with Oman between the beautiful layout of the city of Muscat and the friendliness of the Omani people! 

 With a jam-packed March for the most part, we were happy to slow down during this Easter weekend.  After seeing Side Effects in theatres at the beginning of our weekend, we spent Friday at the beach watching the helicopter take off and land on the Burj Al Arab.  A funny encounter we had that day was running into the Kellogg GIM trip in the middle east who stopped us because Mana happened to be wearing a Kellogg shirt.  Small world, and exciting to see fellow Kelloggians across the globe!

On Saturday, we went to Bur Dubai (little India) for lunch and then explored the Gold Souk, took a ferry across the creek, and enjoyed dinner at The Terrace of the Park Hyatt in Deira, overlooking the creek over sunset.

 With all this excitement on the personal front, work is going well! Sahil successfully completed a 4 week project in Abu Dhabi.  We're definitely excited to have him return home during the week for now!  Mana is busy immersing herself in consumer research focused on Arab housewives and their cooking habits in Saudi Arabia and Egypt during the day, and driving new product launches with the US team at night.  Naaya has evolved from downward dog yoga poses to crawling slowly but surely!  She also eats like a total champion, and stands on her own against the coffee table.  Her personality is shining brighter each day with increasing laughter and giggles as well as her continued habit that she started at five months of shouting "Mumma" whenever she gets frustrated! 

All in all, things are good!  Stay tuned for April when we venture out to Fujairah with our family visiting!

February: Naaya's First Trip to India

Hi guys, it's Naaya!

Mumma and Da-da made a deal with me that as long as I adapted to their crazy life in Dubai, they would let me write a blog entry every other month - so here it goes!

February was a busy month! We enjoyed lots of the sights of Dubai throughout the month.  One of the highlights was when Mumma surprised us by taking us to Bice Mare, a restaurant in Souk Al Bahar overlooking the Burj Khalifa Fountain.  Mumma had made the reservation such that our table was outside, and gave us a front row seat to the Fire & Fountain show.  The story about Bice, as my Da-da puts it, is that he took Mumma to the one in NYC on one of their first dates! Needless to say, we had a blast at the one in Dubai!

We also went to some cool other spots like Jetty Lounge on the beach at the One and Only Royal Mirage Hotel.  We went their to watch the sunset after Shweta Aunty, Mumma's friend at work, recommended it as a trendy and fun, baby-friendly lounge on the beach!  It was awesome!

In addition to getting to know our new home better, we made some cool new friends.  Da-da has a few Indian friends at BCG who all have kids and often get together outside of work.  We joined this diverse Indian family friends crew (despite all being Indian, we are from different parts of the world - e.g. Oman, UK, US, India, Saudi Arabia, etc.) and have gotten together a few times over the past month.  We've gotten to know the family friendly side of Dubai with them through play dates in the park, get-togethers for drinks and cards at night after us kids had to sleep, and a 5-year birthday party for my friend Ariya!

I also celebrated my first Valentine's Day outside of Mumma's belly this year!  Da-da and I surprised Mumma with the most beautiful flowers she has ever received, according to her!  Meanwhile, Mumma took us to Pai Thai for dinner in Madinat Jumeirah.  The restaurant was beautiful and on the water!  We watched the boats go by while a Thai Dancer came around, during our moonlit dinner.  It was so lovely!

To add to the cool experiences I've had in Dubai, the Dubai Marina area where we live just started a water taxi service between our home on the Marina Walk and the Marina Mall - so Mumma and Da-da took me on it!  I had so much fun, and it was my second boat ride in two months as last month we did the gondola ride in Abu Dhabi at the hotel.  I'm going to start demanding boat rides once a month. :)

Finally, the huge highlight of this month was surprising my Nana on his 70th birthday in India! I had never been to India so  my parents were very cautious and kept me protected from any possible mosquitos with a net Nani purchased in advance of our arrival, but I managed to enjoy my trip thoroughly despite their paranoia!  My Mota Mama came to pick us up in the middle of the night as always, and my Nana was SO surprised when we got to his and Nani's flat in Mumbai.  We had 5 days of fun family time, meeting my relatives on both Mumma and Da-da's side and spending some quality time with Nani and Nana.  Nani would sing to me and rock me to sleep just like my Mumma does!  I also went to Mahalakshmi and Babulnath, two mandirs that are a must-visit Bhatt family tradition that I continued this trip.  The pandit at Babulnath did a pooja for me so my parents were really happy!  All in all, my first trip to India was a success!

On the work front, Mumma and Da-da are getting more settled in and Da-da is finally staffed on a project in Abu Dhabi.  He will be traveling every week in March so I'll see him less, but I'll look forward to enjoying our weekends together that much more!  Mumma is continuing to progress on her assignment, but one cool work experience she had was a day of Junior Achievement (called Injaz here) at a local women's college, Zayed University.  She spent the day coaching women on an entrepreneurial case to sharpen their business acumen.  This was her first interaction with local Emirates so she had a really eye-opening experience.  If you ask her about it, I'm sure she'll tell you more! Lately, my work consists of  rolling, rolling, and more rolling.  I've also begun to sit on my own quite a bit now.  I'm very busy, you know, developing like crazy.  Mumma and Da-da think they work hard, but they've got it easy - consulting & marketing have nothing on baby brain development!

Anyways, it's time for my next nap so I'm off for now.  Talk to you guys in a month - by then I'll have made my first regional trip to Muscat, Oman!