Day 1 of Dubai trip: Beachcombers and Souk Madinat

View of the Burj Al Arab from Beachcombers

We didn't do much on day 1, or on any day really. As it was a Saturday, I had planned to have a brunch at the beachcombers. Initially we wanted to go to Burj Al Arab for a lunch, and as we wanted a beach side restaurant with a view of the Burj choices were Majlis Al Bahar restaurant or Beachcombers at JBH. My sis was keen on BAA, but I was not. As the price we would pay for a single dish (the only thing I liked on BAA's menu a meat platter) is almost same as the price for the brunch per person at Beachcombers. But we knew that was the Burj Al Arab! I also asked on the TA forum on this issue and was recommended Beachcombers for the food and BAA for the view.  We were torn between these two places, and we know when all fails where to go to get the final decision. It was my  sweet 4 months old daughter who ultimately decided where we would have lunch. One afternoon I asked baby Beachcombers or Burj Al Arab? She stuck her tongue out when I said Beachcombers and didn't do a thing when I said Burj Al Arab. So, I sent an email to my sis who was at work, and told her Beachcomber it was!

I sent an email to them and reserved for 2 people a non-alcoholic brunch.

Beachcombers restaurant terrace side

Anyway, so we got up and helped our self with the Nescafe instant coffee provided by the hotel (meh). And then got ready and got out and about. We took a cab, which was conveniently waiting outside the hotel. Once at the hotel,we detoured to the beach side to take few pics. Oh dear God! It was so damn sunny and  a tad bit warm (I wouldn't call it hot) my daughter started to have a major hissy fit. The moment sun was right on her face poor thing started to cry. So, from playing hide and seek from the sun, we captured just as many pics as my baby would allow. It seemed like I was in some sort of water park as there were pools just about everywhere. LOL So, once in the restaurant we were seated outside on the terrace as requested.





Host showed us around, explained the buffet.

And there weren't that many customers really. It felt rather empty and then again we went exactly at 12.30! Our lunch took exactly 2 hours to finish. Not only caz we ate a lot but there were some pause in between our food intake as when I ate my sis held the baby, when she ate I held the baby. And we played this musical baby for a while and I needed to nurse her at one point. I asked one of the chefs if there was a room/space where I could nurser her she took me to the child playing area and told me I could nurse her there. So, I did. After we finished eating, that same chef ordered a buggy ride service for us as I was asking her how could we go to Souk Madinat from JBH. She didn't know if we could use the buggy service as we weren't guests of JBH, but she ordered one anyway.

Band playing at the Beachcombers rest, they were pretty good!

That buggy ride was one of my fav things in Dubai! Huh! Driver was really nice and he took a detour to a place that had the best view of the burj and took our pics even though we really didn't want to. He dropped us off near the stairs and told us to go up and we would be at the Souk. Since this was a free service, there was no charge but we just gave him a tip.

 Burj Al Arab from Souk Madinat near Meat & Co.

Once up the stairs we were close to Meat and Co. restaurant. We were able to take some pics with view of the BAA as baby was sleeping.















 We passed through the Meat and Co restaurant , up the stairs and started to roam. Well, Souk Madinat was nice. We liked it, and I knew it's really a tourist trap and still liked it. We didn't buy anything as it was not on our list of things to do. We did take pics.

 We walked and walked and walked and somehow ended up at the entrance of Souk, where we saw cabs waiting in line. By the point we were really tired and just hopped on the cab and back to hotel.


We planned to go to Souk Madinat at night again to see the night view and such after we take a nap. Well, that nap ended up in full blown few hours of sleep for all three of us. When we got up it was 9 p.m., too exhausted to go out. We decided to order room service for dinner, but before we did that wanted to check out the hotel pool on the rooftop. It was a good idea.


When we went there, only a couple was hanging out drinking something (not in the pool). It was so nice being outside when the weather was a bit more cold, and nice breeze and the pool area was really lovely. They had nice seating areas and all. We took few pics, got my baby's feet wet from the edge of the pool for the first time (and mine too..and yea for the first time too) and I really enjoyed it. And baby fell asleep on my shoulder...extra bonus caz she really liked it that much haha.

Back to room, got out room service orders of Beef burgers and what can I say? It was absolutely nothing special. But I was glad that our day was just as I had hoped it to be, nice, relaxing and not too crazy!

Our Dubai Stopover Trip: Arrival

Our flight landed sometime around 8 p.m. Passing through passport control was a breeze. Once we got to luggage claim, I saw a baby care room and needed to use it while sis waited for the bags to arrive. It was nice that there was a chair in that room and was able to nurse my baby. I really liked this amenity of DXB. Once I got back to luggage claim area I noticed there were guys in Red (?) shirts and asked the information center what they were doing. Apparently they were porters. My face instantly lit up, caz I needed one badly. So, needless to say I hired two pronto as one wasn't enough. They got all our bags and took us to outside taxi area. Before I even knew it, our luggage was being loaded in the car, a people carrier. And then I noticed that next to our taxi line there was those Pink taxis lined up, and I was so distracted to see those women taxi driver's dress up! It was interesting to see them in tight pink color clothing and a hijab, which I don't think go together (tight fitting cloths and hijab). But I digress. Paid the porters their charge 20 AED each and a tip. Once in the car, I asked the driver to drive slow as I have a baby and he cheerfully replied, "oh don't worry, baby is sleeping". Huh! I told him I wasn't asking him to drive slow caz baby was sleeping, her getting up from sleep due to his fast/reckless driving was least of my worries, I was worried of accidents and the fact that baby was on my lap sans car seat! eek. Anyway, we got to hotel-Corp Executive Hotel Apartments  (link to my review on Trip Advisor)in time, checked in, no problem and the rest is history LOL..more posts later..

Five months: One of the best to date...lots of memories..Met her father is the highlight!

So, today on her 4th month bday she got second dose of vaccines. And she got fever now. My poor baby has been crying so much it was just sad. So I gave her first ever medicine Tylenol. Now she's sleeping and ate a little. I was really dreading this dose. Why did I have a feeling that this time she might get fever? And of course she did and we're going to fly in 2 days! Well praying that the medicine works pronto.

So, okay it wasn't too bad, her fever that was! Med worked pretty well and she recovered quickly, thanks God for that. She was just bit quiet that's all. Our flight to Dubai was very good. She was an way better than I ever could imagine or hoped for. Really. I got a seat in between two other men, which totally freaked me out! All I thought how on earth I can breastfeed this one as it was seat was so uncomfy (I mean seat wasn't uncomfy after all it was A380! but positioning a baby in that seat while sandwiched between two strange men was UNCOMFY for sure). So, I asked the one on the left side to switch seat with me. Initially he had a rather pussy fit, but later he changed before take off, thankfully. Later he apologized for his pussy fit and said he was really tired when he just got on the plane. WHATEVER. Since, the flight was around the time when baby usually goes to sleep, it was rather convenient. She did sleep in the bassinet, but of dear! That damn bassinet is not that big either. She fit for sure but just right. She did wake up few times but as soon as I took her on my lap and held her, rocked her she went back to sleep. At times, I just kept her on my lap and we both slept like that. Once Sonia came over and took her and walked with her. Over all, flight was good to Dubai. But on the flight from Dubai to Dhaka she was a bit of a hot mess, thanks to the seat belt that was provided for her. As soon as the air hostess put on the seat belt on her, she went ballistic. She cried and screamed. It wasn't too bad as there were other kids and they did the same. LOL Anyway, I tried to BF her but she wont do it. Then crew offered me to give her milk like formula, I thanked and said, thanks but no thanks. All I cared was she doesn't get that air pressure thing in her ears, which she didn't. Anyway, after the take off Sonia took her and walked her calmed her down and she fell asleep. Sonia took her to her seat, right behind me and she slept on her lap on the entire 4 hours flight! phew!

So, on Dec 6, 2011 Baby got to meet her father for the first time. Like I will never forget the day she was born, I won't forget this day either. It was nice. Not too much emotion shown on either side. haha

She met her grandparents from my side the same day as well. Couple of days later, she went to her father's house and met her grand parents from that side.

And now, as it's really cold in Dhaka and just about everyone is sick with cold, baby got her first cold too. boo hoo... I didn't want to give her med, but one day it kind of felt bad her nose was so damn congested I took her to our regular family doc, who we used to see when we were little. He prescribed a cold med, a drop for nose and guess what? An antibiotic! WHAT? Anyway, I just used nasal drop to clear the nose, had no intention of giving the rest. But it seemed it wasn't working and after getting some scolding from my parents I ended up giving her just the cold med. I don't know whether it worked or not, she seems better today! I've my fingers crossed. Though I decided not to give her anymore, I think, I gave her about 5 days of dosage. Now, I wanna leave it at that. Still her nose gets congested, but hopefully, it's not gonna get too bad. It's the damn cold wind that makes things bad every time she gets a bit better!  Oh and how I regret not bringing more of her winter clothes!

So, she turned 5 months yesterday and we just happened to go to Khazana to eat! It was a pure coinsident, we didn't go there to specially celebrate!

Happy 5 months to my darling :))

p.s. hopefully it's obvious that I wrote this entry as I went along....

Four months old: things on track

So, just an hour or so ago baby turned four months old! Things for the past few days have definitely gotten better, especially in the sleeping department. Don't feel like jinxing it, but it seems baby is right on her way to establish good sleeping pattern. For the last few days she had been literally sleeping through the night!! I didn't expect that after hearing other's experiences! Baby just couple of days ago had her first Thanksgiving, which is really special to me as last Thanksgiving I found out she came to me!! So, on earth it was first Thanksgiving. To mark this special event I actually got her beautiful hand knitted dress, hat and booty set from Etsy. It's really beautiful. However, she didn't get to wear that on Thanksgiving. I did put that on her few weeks ago to see how it looked on her ( it looked positively gorgeous!!!) and snapped few pics. One of the pics came out really pretty and her father was eager to put that up on FB, which he ended up doing the other day and it seemed to be a big hit!! My sweet baby! Well, today she has doc appt, amd will get second dose of vaccines! Looking forward to a fun filled most memorable month yet for my sweety pie as she will God willing meet her father in about a week! And she will be off to her first ever oversees trip!

Rainbow cake trial #1

So, I've been planning baby's first bday for the last few weeks already! And it's going to be Rainbow theme. I am set on that. Since it's still a while away (she's not even 4 months yet!), and I've been itching to try out the rainbow cake I decided to take the opportunity on 11.11.11 as it was my niece's bday. Though my niece is in Dhaka and I am here, it doesn't matter. I can still have a cake for her! I really loved the way my cake had turned out. I used Americolor food gel color, and I liked how vibrant the colors had turned out!

So here are the pics....

Three months old: Light at the end of the tunnel?

Well, baby turned 3 months on 10/28. The day she turned three months we went to visit my friend N's house and met her baby M. My baby saw M for the first time that day. Though I had seen baby M before day after she was born, it was really for a brief moment at the hospital. Now, she is a grown lady too ;) On that day I felt like there was something going on and I couldn't quite figure what it was. I knew it was 10/28 and I knew Eliana was 3 months old that day. But all day 10/28 stood out to me. I had no idea why. Till of course I read mothering board the other day and someone was talking about how a certain date sounded so familiar but it wasn't anyone's bday...and then viola she knew what it was. That's exactly 10/28 was to me. My LMP!! OMG how could I forget this date as I had put this date on due date calculator numerous times over the 9 months period to see where I was in pregnancy!!!! 10/28/2010 last time I'd my period! Oh wow! Surely this has been the longest I'd gone without aunt flow showing up!

Anyway, from the time baby turned 2 months to she turned 3 months was also quite rough. First of all, she got her first dose of vaccines. It was very nerve wrecking for me. Watching her getting stabbed with needles wasn't fun at all. Considering her, she screamed but after that at home she didn't fuss much. Again, considering it was her! I was on pins and needels till the magic 48 hours. She didn't get any fever, thanks God.

Other than getting her first dose of vax I don't remember anything out of the ordinary happening. But on 10/28 she gave me a nice surprise. Right on her 3rd month bday she slept through the night. Now, in her case it meant from 11 p.m. till almost 6 a.m.!! When I woke up and was going to take a look at my iphone to check the time, I was sure I would see sometime from 2 to 3.30 a.m. on the clock, but when I ended up seeing 6 a.m., seriosuly I couldn't believe it! WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? She slept through the night literally! Then there was an hour and half of little fussiness...then slept from 7.30 a.m. to 11 a.m.!!!!! wowza!! It did seem like finally I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Since then she has been sleeping much better than she did before. Though there are still night waking, but now it doesn't take much to get her back to sleep. Lovely!

Welcome Baby Party

So, we had a small get together that can be called a "Welcome Baby party" on the 24th of September, 2011. I made an event invitation on FB and sent to those who were invited (of course!..duh) . Unfortunately, three of my very close friends couldn't make it due to various valid reasons. Friends from my ex-work place made it and I was so very happy about it. Baby's only family from her father's side made it and also that made me extremely happy.

My sis and I wanted to have a theme for the party besides the obvious welcome baby. We called it "Celebrating Eliana". I wanted to do "polka dot" theme but it just didn't work out, which was fine also! I had few colors in my mind that I chose to base the decorations. Purple, Green and Yellow. It worked out great. Sonia made all the decorations...the craze these days...personalized water bottle label, banner, cup cake topper etc. Besides these, she made the most pretty favor. All were based on those three colors that I chose.

We had so many plans and what not, but it was also very crunch time for Sonia at work and me at home dealing with Eliana. And unfortunately she happened to go through a very rough patch with regards to sleep and general fussiness. Despite the date for the party being fixed almost a month ago, days right before the party was pretty disastrous. We basically put everything together night before. I had oh so very little sleep!

And on the day of the party Eliana was totally not so on her good behaviour! She cried through out the day and by the end of the day she had a pretty major melt down. I was just happy that we were able to put up the decorations, food was on the table, guests enjoyed the time and we also get to see the other newbie. Major success.

For food we had- Zucchini patties and Beef Kofta as appetizers. For main course we had Beef curry, Goat meat Curry, Chicken tandoori, Vegetables with Coconut milk and of course plain ole polau. For dessert, mini cup cakes from the Whole Foods, a Chocolate ganache cake from WF (which we kind of custom ordered...with design and the writing...) and biscotti again from WF. Thanks God we decided to buy everything from WF (as initially I wanted to bake things)...caz otherwise there would have been no dessert at all. oh well, yes there was one more thing. A watermelon full with fruits. I curved the watermelon btw, nothing fancy just simple wavey types. I did want to curve a baby carriage, but couldn't find an approprite sized watermelon in the grocery (this was meant to happen since I waited last minute to get that!). Anyway, for something next time will do!

We had guests write a note for baby and we hanged it on some flower branches (Sonia's idea) and it looked really cute! And it's such a nice keepsake.

Here are some pics.



Lindt chocolate favors



Two months old: Rough time

I thought first month was tough! Boy oh boy, the next one was tougher! And no kidding. I should have written everything live caz now that I am sitting to right down the happenings from the day she turned a month old till she turned two, I have really forgotten the nitty bitty details.And I guess deep down I don't want to remember those.  All I remember the sleep deprivation was at its worst, her crying marathon was even crazier. The major event from that time was we had a party to show her off to friends and some family who live in New York. One of her very young grand mother, her uncle and his wife...and their newbie.

Will write about the details of her welcome party on a separate post, but for now that's about it I guess.

A month old : When day is night and night is day

Today, my baby has turned a month!! Time is flying. So far it has been super crazy busy! So many things that I learned in past four weeks and I thought I knew a lot before! I was so preoccupied with the whole pregnancy, labor and delivery that totally forgot how it would be post birth! Caring for a newborn is HARD work. And more so, if that newborn seems to be a fussy cry baby for most of the waking time. However, things seem to be improving now.

First two weeks were SUPER HARD. It's one thing to care for a baby and completely another to care for a baby AND deal with post birth recovery AND deal with unexpected issue such as problem with breasfeeding. She was fed formula for the first two weeks as a "supplement". Though truly first one and a half week breast milk was more like a supplement and not formula. She had hard time with latching. So, I was pumping and pumping and slowly but surely turned her from formula fed to "Exclusively breastfed" baby! It's a lot of work but worth it!

Sleep. Where do I begin with sleep? I absolutely had no idea that newborn needs to be fed every two hours if breastfed or every three hours if formula fed. There were some nights when she was really following this schedule which meant very less sleep for me, if at all. I do feel just recently I came out of zombieland. And the ritual of feeding her was also very time consuming. Being new to motherhood and all there was one thing I didn't know how to do-breastfeed baby sidelaying in bed! I heard about it, I had seen it but I didn't know how to do it. I know, had I done that earlier my nightlife would have gotten much easier. But anyway. In the begining it was like...she would cry, I pick her up..get my boppy pillow (life saver!)..put her on that...spent time on getting her perfectly or at least in a workable position for feeding (when breastfed)...and then fed...she would drift to sleep..then pick her up in upright position for burping..(sometimes she wouldn't even burp!) and then put her down for more feeding and pick her up for burping and it went on till she finally would fall asleep. So whole thing could take from 45 mintutes to one and half hour. And when I would put her on bed, viola in 2 min would be up with eyes wide open and CRY! And do the whole shindig all over again, may be it would take a little less time than whole 45 min to one and half hour next round, but the ritual was performed as said manner all over again. Adding to that, when she was sleeping I would rush to pump milk for anywhere from 20 to 40 min...it was really BRUTAL. I was so happy when she was finally latching okay enough for me to not pump every.single.day.

And then of course the freaking pump had to go out of whack. It was really nerve wrecking for me. Whenever something happens related to breastfeeding, I freak out the most. Nothing else matter that much.

Anyway, so around three weeks she started to have night time fussy time, which lasted anywhere from 3 p.m. to 6 a.m. During this time she would continuously cry, whimper, fuss....and nothing seemed to console her. It was such a hard hard time.

Overall, first month went by pretty fast now that I think about it. But then it felt like each night was never ending. I know time will pass us by before we know it. So, despite the hardship I want to enjoy and am enjoying every moment of it because this time will never come again.

Looking forward to future!

First ever attempt at Watermelon carving!

I have been watching youtube videos on watermelon carving what seems like for ages now. And, finally the other day I carved one!! It wasn't an easy one either, like one of those baskets. It was a baby carriage!! Yoohoo..though I am pleased with my first try, clearly there were rooms for improvement. Here is what I carved..it doesn't look like much now, but once this is fully dressed up with fruits and a baby inside (!!) then it looks reallyyy good...that will be next time...

50 State Stereotypes

I just thought this was funny. I love what was said about New York..."world's 14th biggest city..1st biggest ego.".......

Milk Burfi: Indian Dessert

Recently, I'm going through another bout of youtube cooking videos addiction after a long time. Unlike previous times, however, this time I am determined to try out some recipes. Yesterday, I already made sheek kabab, since I followed that recipe almost to a T (well, almost except 1 ingredient that I didn't have handy), I didn't feel like writing about it or posting about it here.

Today, I made an Indian dessert that I never had before. It's called- Milk Burfi or in some places Kalakand. It's made of purely milk and sugar only.You just need varieties of milk..whole milk, skim milk, condensed milk, evaporated milk, cheese (freshly made out of milk of course)...well, you don't need all those types of milk in one recipe, but the variation of it.

I watched two videos on this, but I didn't like either fully. I liked some part of 1 and the other part of another recipe. For ex, in 1 recipe, they simply used store bought Ricotta cheese and used a cup of sweetened condensed milk and cooked it up in microwave..............yuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkk!!! I would never "cook" anything in a microwave, I reluctantly "warm" food in a microwave let alone cooking. However, I did like the idea of using condensed milk in the recipe.

In the other video, cook used regular whole milk and made fresh cheese out of it. And then used more whole milk and white sugar to complete the process. I didn't like the use of sugar here...so, then I combined the two recipes and add one extra thing in mine and came up with below and it tasted GREAT!! Veryyy sweet...but that's how I like my dessert....sweet.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

To make cheese:
3 cups of whole milk
3 tbs vinegar

1/2 cup of evaporated milk
1 cup of whole milk
1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk
Pistachio-grated about 2 tbs


Method:

Make Cheese:

Add 3 cups of whole milk into a pot and let it boil

Once it comes to a boil, add 3 table spoons of vinegar and give a stir

Turn off the heat and let the milk separate

Once milk is completely separated, drain the curled up milk/cheese and discard the water

Drain the cheese using a cheesecloth or paper towel very well, it should be dry.

Proceed:

Pour 1/2 cup of evaporated milk, 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup of whole milk to a pot on a medium heat

Start stirring and keep stirring for about 1 min

Add cheese to the mixture and keep stirring

Let it boil and let the liquid completely dry up (continue stirring on and off)

Once the milk-cheese mixture is all dried, keep stirring so it doesn't burn and turn off the heat.

Pour the cheese mixture into a serving plate or any square/rectangular shaped bowl

While hot press the mixture with spoon and try to make the surface as even as possible and sprinkle pistachio

Let it cool for few minutes and then put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes so it's completely cools and hardens up

Take it out from the fridge, and cut it up in square pieces and enjoy!

Now, the pictures:

Add 3 cups of whole milk into a pot and let it boil

Add 3 table spoons of vinegar  and turn off the heat and let the milk separate

Drain the curled up milk/cheese

Once it's drained using a cheesecloth or paper towel squeeze out all water it should look like this

Pour 1/2 cup of evaporated milk, 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup of whole milk into a pot on a medium heat and stir for a minute

Add cheese to the mixture and keep stirring

Let it boil and let the liquid completely dry up (continue stirring on and off)

In the meantime have the pistachios ready..grated

Once the milk-cheese mixture is all dried, keep stirring so it doesn't burn and turn off the heat

Pour the cheese mixture into a serving plate or any square/rectangular shaped bowl

While hot press the mixture with spoon and try to make the surface as even as possible and sprinkle pistachio;
Let it cool for few minutes and then put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes so it's completely cools and hardens up

Take it out from the fridge, and cut it up in square pieces

Enjoy!!

Vienna 1900 : Neue Galerie New York

The other day while coming home from the Met, I saw Neue Galerie on the 5th avenue, 86 street. It's a museum for the German and Austrian Art. What caught my eyes was the banner on street post that says currently at the Galerie there is an exhibition called "Vienna 1900: Style and Identity". I would love to see that only caz when I was visiting Vienna two years ago, I actually didn't get to visit any museum!!!!! How pathetic and sad that was despite staying there for about 10 days. Won't get into too much details on why...but I was really looking forward to seeing "The Kiss" art by Gustav Klimt, which didn't happen. I know, this is not gonna be like being in Vienna and actually enjoying a museum there....but I will be happy with what we got here. This exhibition does have works by Gustav, so I guess that's good!

So, I did look into their website and I see, the admission price is 15.00!!! yawzaaaa!! But good news is, this museum participates in some museum mile thing and thanks to Bloomberg (I'm guessing the financial Bloomberg not the mayor ;) ) they have First Friday of Every month free from 6-8 p.m., at least for the rest of the year. So, of course I want to visit then...which will be on June 3rd! I hope I will have nothing else going on and can get to see the exhibition.

And they have cafes that sell Sacher Torte!! Another thing that I missed in Vienna...being in actually Viennese cafe and pretending to be one of those intelectual who sip coffee all day long and talk nonsense about politics and such! I did have Sacher Torte...not a fan of it however! And the price of the Sacher Torte at this cafe is whopping $8.00.........nooooooo!!!! Needless to say, I won't be having that!

This is an article I found on the net regarding this exhibition, which explains things a bit more:

Article

Pic from the website of Neue Galerie:

Sakura Matsuri 2011

So, last weekend on Saturday my sis and I made a trip out to Brooklyn Botanical Garden all the way from Inwood, Manhattan to experience the Cherry blossoms and Japanese cultural festival. It was a long ride from home, but not too rigid. Our ride involved two quick subway train changes, and all went well. Considering it was weekend I was glad that there were no service changes or delays on the train line that we had to take!

As we had bought our tickets earlier from BBG's website, we didn't have to stand in line to get it. It was muy simple! As we walked through our very first sight of "fun" was this: I am not sure what this person tried to be...as in what kind of costume this was ...



Someone in weird costume!

This festival was truly a Japanese cultural festival and hence represented tons of things/activities that were Japanese. This was an area for Manga....I had no idea what that was....all I could figured was something to do with comic, may be?

A fun J-Lounge for kiddies...and adults a like...and yea, those chairs were quite comfy..I sat on one of those..it was gooodddd...

A walk past the above ground known as Osborne garden, we came upon the Cherry Esplanade, where lots of main performances took place on below stage

The whole shindig started with some introductions by Brooklyn Borough's President, BBG's President, a rep from Queens, and here shown below the Japanese Ambassador to Japanese Consulate in New York:

Japanese Ambassador to the Consulate of Japan, New York

First performance was Taiko Drumming. My first time experience this, it was good...enjoyed it!

Taiko Drumming

Later there were series of traditional dances from Okinawa...

Dance # 1

Dance # 2

Dance # 3

Dance # 4

After enjoying above mentioned performances we decided it was time to take a walk, and check out other stuffs that were happening. And besides, we needed to use the restroom...I needed to use it BADLY! It was a bit of walk from the Cherry Esplanade to Visitor Center, where the restrooms were...but good thing we made it! We then decided to check out the Ikebana exhibition that was going on the 2nd floor of the visitor center...

Ikebana (Japanese art of Flower arrangement) : The very first time I heard of Ikebana was probably when I was either in 2nd or 3rd grade. It was in an article in our text book...the topic of that article was "Japanese Children" or something to that effect. Though I don't quite remember the content of the entire article, but I think, the point of the article was to tell us how well mannered Japanese Children were! It was to clue us in! Anyway, in that article it was mentioned that some female children learn the art of Ikebana as part of the grooming process....though there was no picture of Ikebana in that article, it was portrayed being very different from just any regular flower arrangement. I could tell it was probably very artisty...and it actually is!

Some Ikabana on exhibit: My very first time seeing Ikebana in person

And I am going to safely guess any Japanese event wouldn't be complete if there are no strange stuffs going on...the sighting of the strange people in strange costume...They actually have a parade going on starting from the Cherry Esplanade to Osborne Garden....but we missed it...and then again we really didn't miss it...caz they were all over the park...showing off their costumes...posing for people...and just I guess were having a good time!

Needless to say, any trip report of BBG and Cherry blossoms  would be totally incomplete without the mention of beautiful Japanese Hill & Pond Garden and of course those gorgeous Cherries!

Japanese Hill and Pond Garden

And the beautiful...Cherri blossoms...and the amazing colors!!!!

Besides the things that we saw, there were so many other activities going on for kids, and then there was a tea-ceremony demonstration (which we made it...but for the lack of seating we ended up leaving..it was crowded and we weren't gonna stand for God knows how long and watch two people drink tea in front of us!), and also there were some guided tours of the various parts of the park, there was also J-Pop cultural performances.. (we got to see one)...

While we were watching the Samurai Drama (comedy based and one of the last performances for the day at Cherry Esplanade stage)...in the middle of it, I had it from seating so long on grass...on bare butt (well..almost) and was having way too much pain...so we decided to leave (hint to self : next time take a blanket or something to put underneath like other normal people did). It was all in all a very good 6 hours of good time (sans the butt pain)...!! I would definitely recommend this event for just about anyone to experience at least once! And of course this is an annual event, which means it's not going to happen again until sometime in late April-early May 2012! As for dining, people did take food from home, there were designated area for food consumption...and they also had stalls around that sold Japanese bento box to snacks to drinks....and BBG also has a cafe. And to save the day, Hagen Daz was there to sell ice-cream! There was also a stall set up to sell some Japanese souvenirs, which included from fans to candles, to Japanese coloring books for kids and post cards...! There was also some cute infant Kimono style onsies, and at $22.00 a piece, I passed!  It's okay! :) I did buy post cards (how can I not? specially $0.50 each and a coloring book for my lovely soon to be toddler niece! :)