Sunday, January 29, 2012

6 months old : Half a year already!

Well, my sweet cutie pie turned 6 months yesterday! Honestly though I was waiting for this day to come ASAP so that I can just have the pleasure of saying "my baby is half a year old"! huh! Now that she IS half a year old, suddenly I want time to really crawl, not walk or run. Just crawl at the slowest pace possible. And deep down I know that this is actually the start of time running even faster.

So since she turned 5 months, the updates are:

She had her first New Year's Eve! Nothing happened. Clock turned 12 a.m., and we heard noise of some fireworks and we took our first pics of 2012 wearing just whatever we were wearing, no dressing up. And just as clock hit 12, she decided to throw her first poop of the year in the diaper, it was mad hilarious. And of course, I had to say that in my FB status that the first thing I was doing to celebrate the New Year was clean up my daughter's shit. Literally. Beauty of motherhood. :))

Okay, now I'm trying to remember what else happened. This is what I get for not writing the draft as we go along (like one of my last posts on her)! We spent about 5 days at her grandparent's house (father's side). It was okay, mad boring for me. First day was fun though. She got to meet two of my husband's aunts and their children. They all adore her, really. And then she met one dreaded person. I will not name that dreaded person. Will just call her " the dreaded person:" . Anyway, it was okay while it lasted. And it's been more than a week we are back at my parent's house and time is soon approaching for another visit.


Well, my sis, her second mother if you will went back to New York and now the poor thing will watch her grow via Skype for the time being. :(

Ohhhhh, I took her to my niece's ped the other night to have her 6 months check up. I was very curious to find out how much she weigh of all things. It was an interesting experience in and itself and it really deserves a post of its own. Though here I will say this much that she has been growing, so, I guess no worries. She has gained about 3lb since her 4 months check up. I am SO HAPPY.


Well, on the 26th of January, 2 days shy of her 6 months birthday, she tasted her first ever solid food!! YAY! And drum roll please....!! It was papaya from my aunt's garden (or so I thought..anyway), and Eli baby's reaction was just priceless! That poor thing didn't really know what to do with it when I put the bowl in front of her with couple of pieces smashed with my fingers. Since she didn't know, I took a bit on my finger tips and put it in her mouth and she did.not.like.it! Relief. Really, in all seriousness I'm not in a rush to give her anything other than breast milk yet as I want to do Baby Led Weaning. So, when everyone in the family was making comments about how apparently I'm torturing her by not giving solid foods, I just had to give her something to shut them up. I will surely revisit this experience, but just not gonna happen until she actually tries to grab my food, which she hasn't done and looks like she is far from doing it.

Though she can sit up now without assistance, will topple sometimes fast and other time will stay seated. She definitely LOVES to sit, so, it's all good I guess. She is also talking up the storm. She can say words like "dada", "nana", "amma", "abba"...because well, these are the easiest sounds to make! We all enjoy her babbling though so very much.


Also, she does seem to start the "teething" process, or what others call it she is at  "pre-teething" stage. I did put the teething necklace that I brought from New York (bought online) and who knows, she seems to fuss lot less last couple days when the necklace was on her for longer period of time. I hope it works its wonder like people say it does!

All I can say is though last six months were really hard in some ways, but it was the most precious time of my life and I am eagerly waiting for lot more of these precious moments to enjoy and savor!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Photo A day Challange

Recently saw this on pinterest, and I'm really excited. I've been dying to do things, some thing relaxing and stress free other than taking care of my baby. It's a project of taking one picture every day and the person came up with this has chosen different topics for each day. I like the idea of topics for sure, however, I don't want to follow it strictly (and there is really no reason why shouldn't I?). For ex, today the topic is "heart", tomorrow it's "ice-cream", the way I want to do is if I can get a pic of an ice-cream today, will do it. Heart will be for another day. I will adhere to the topics for the entire month though, meaning will take pics of all 29 topics in February. That just not going to be in order she chose.

Courtesy of the original blog, the topics are as below:

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Why Children Should Witness Breastfeeding in Public ~ Nursing Freedom

Why Children Should Witness Breastfeeding in Public ~ Nursing Freedom

I've been breastfeeding my baby in front of my 2 years old niece since I came to Dhaka. My niece was never breastfed and didn't see anyone breastfeed before. And couple of weeks ago she was asking my mother to help her lift her top so she could breastfeed my baby as baby was crying! Love! 

Monday, January 23, 2012

Ajo Restaurant : My First stop in Dhaka eating

So, I've been reading about this restaurant Ajo for a while before I came here. And for the obvious reason I wanted to try it out. This little "restaurant/cafe" is hiding inside Dhaka Art Center. Honestly, if I didn't know already that this cafe exists here, there is no way of telling if one crosses the Art center. Not much of publicity from the street, but plenty online. It just seemed little different from looking at their pictures on their FB page. We went the other day to have some early evening snacks. It was my sis, my cousin, little niece and my baby. Food was okay, a little on the spicy side. Really. Even their pasta with white sauce was spicy! Anyway, we had two types of rolls-chicken and beef, I had pasta with white sauce, my cousin had paste with meat sauce, and milk shakes. Yea, I get it way too much for snacks. And since when pasta is considered snack? LOL I liked the food, and as for the ambiance....hmm, what can I say? It seemed like it's a place for couple to make out. yikes. And a place for bunch of teenagers/young adults to act "cool" by smoking  and conversing in Banglish (mixture of English and Bangla), and touching each other (opposite sex) for no apparent reason. huh!


Would I go back there? Yes, food is worthy of a second visit. But if you don't want to ruin your appetite from seeing couple doing PDA then don't go. Well, not great pics of food ever taken, here it is nonetheless,



Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Dhaka supermarkets :where I feel a bit of home.......

when nothing else is as charming in this city. Was bored out of my skull and then thought may be I should go out. In a city where traffic jams are abound, places of entertainment simply don't exists, supermarkets that are sort of self serving western style are THE place for me to hang out. So, decided to take a stroll in couple of those this afternoon. But this expedition wasn't easy one. First of all, I needed to make the most important call to my mom asking for their car. And this brings to another point that in a city of rickshaw ironically I don't feel safe on the streets if I am not riding a car. Riding rickshaw is simply out of the syllabus. It's way too damn scary as I often joke that people who think Great American ride at the Six Flags is scary, they surely need to ride a rickshaw in this crazy city and they'll totally change their minds and agree that a rickshaw ride in Dhaka city is indeed the scariest! Anyway, so once the car was here (where I'm at now) we proceeded to our outing. The other reason why this wasn't an easy expedition was also cause of me bebe. I had to decide which supermarket to go to (had to be the one/s relatively close by) in case baby starts to fuss and we can take an exit pronto and come home. And that's what happened! As I also made a point to go to my all time favorite store in Dhaka "Aarong" (thanks God for that!), baby started to fuss! If it wasn't for her I could have spent hours there roaming around and simply admiring their unique handy crafts products! Anyway, back to the main point of this post that it's only at couple of specific supermarkets is where find peace! Probably cause only places like that makes me feel like I'm at my home... New York (well, mini version) cause those are the only places that are neat and clean!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Pinterest Challanges

Now that I’ve plenty of time to kill, I’m thinking of doing some projects. Since I found out about Pinterest few months ago and was hooked on that site for a while, I’m thinking of getting some ideas from there and doing it, which I would call “challenges” cause to me simple craft is a challenge!

So far I did get some great recipes from Pinterest and actually tried those. Of which few were good and few can be forgotten. The ones I really liked was a Yellow cake, which apparently was a 100 years old recipe. It turned out really well. And it’ll be my “go to” recipe for Yellow cake. I also tried baking tomato with cheese, and made Funfetti batter fudge, which was yummy and very easy!

Now, I think, I am going to do some “crafts” and see how well I do on those. I have always admired crafts, but never got around to do one. I am just NOT crafty!

I recently bought a terra cotta vase (very small size) and planning to do something with it. May be I will paint it and then what? I mean painting only is not a craft, I got to do something more!

So now on my list of “challenges” – all ideas gotten from Pinterest

-         Doing something with that terra cotta pot (still looking for idea exactly what)
-         Make a buttoned letter in a picture frame
-         Making a memory frame
-         Scrap booking inside a CD case

Pictures courtesy of Pinterest:


Buttoned Letter


Memory Frame


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Bread and Yoga: Birth Stories Fair and Luncheon Review

(I started to write this post long time ago, but never felt the urge to finish it...in case someone ever looks for a review on that particular event here it is)

As mentioned here, I signed up for the Birth stories fair and luncheon that was hosted by my neighborhood yoga center, Bread and Yoga. It was very informative, interesting and the food was good. There were good number of people, a lot of them newly parents and told their baby's birth stories...what worked ..what didn't work..and the other half of the people there were expecting (for the first time or 100th times...)..and they were there to absorb as much info as they could get. My doula was there too as she was there to give a bit of a talk. For me it was nice to be there as I already knew a lot of the things that were discussed...for someone who has no idea about how "natural birth" thing works, what are the works that are involved, how to work the current medical community to get what you want, specially in the United States (natural birth and all that it entails)...they probably will find some of the things that were discussed earth shattering.

Life in Beyond..Stay tuned

Now that I'm not in New York for the time being, I'll be posting lot more about my life in "beyond"...! Stay tuned. And if there is nothing interesting to write about most likely I will be writing about my previous trips that I'd written about. Just for passing time...and really I like to write about my trips, the one to Malaysia needs to be written pronto as I am forgetting lot of the details...

How expensive is Dubai?

As expensive as you want it to get.

When I told one of my friends about my trip to Dubai, her first question was "isn't hotel there VERY expensive?" My answer was "ummm yes and no. There are expensive ones and then there are the 2 or 3 stars ones"..I remember, whenever I talked about Dubai to my ex-coworkers the expression they had was as if Dubai was the most expensive place on earth. No. New York is way far more expensive than that. Trust me. Believe you me.

Anyway, so, now that we made our 4 nights and 3 days stopover trip..let me go over the damage :

Flight: Being a stopover makes all the difference. From New York to Dubai flight alone can cost up to $1100 give or take. So, that IS expensive. But. There are some other ways to get around that. This is something I figured out on my own and I also read it on bootsnall (a backpacker-RTW traveler's paradise) that you can pretty much get a free flight to an expensive destination if you make it a stopover trip. My flight costs me 1400USD from New York to Dhaka, and it seemed Dubai stopover came almost as free! There was basically no price difference from NY to DHK without the stopover if that makes sense.

But this is an exception. Not everyone who wants to see Dubai will make it a stopover trip, probably make a vacation out of it.

So, the expense sans flight for us was as follow : 2 adults and an infant...

Hotel at Al Barsha 1- 4 nights around $700 - with tax and service charge
Dinners-
4 dinners for 2- @ a local pizzeria (had sandwich and all), @ Hotel room service , @ Meat Co restuarant , @ Karam Beirut restaurant

1 Brunch - @ the Beachcombers- 460 AED ( roughly $130)-splurge category for me.

2 breakfasts- hotel room service (70 AED-roughly $20.00 total )

Round trip cab fares Airport to Hotel- 160 AED (roughly $45)
7 misc cab rides ( from hotel to JBH, from Souk Madinat to hotel-2 times; from hotel to MOE; from Ibn Battuta Mall to Souk Madinat; from hotel to Jumeirah beach; from JB to Dubai Mall; From Dubai Mall to hotel)- roughly $50.00 total

Metro tix for 2- from MOE to Al Ras and then Al Ras to Ibn Batuuta - $9.00

2 tickets to Top of the Burj Khalifa experience 
Misc- tips; bottled water. coffee etc..

So, total it was about $1100.00....for everything mentioned above.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Day 3 of Dubai Trip: Jumeirah Beach -highlight of the day!

Day 3 and our last full day started out slow again. Baby decided to sleep little more like yesterday. In the meantime, we ordered breakfast, same thing again. Today we were supposed to meet a cyber friend (which was almost a last minute thing) at the Jumeirah beach...and we had our tix for the observation deck at the Burj Khalifa for 4.30.p.m. slot. We decided to meet her around 12, initially I believe I told her 11.30...anyway, since baby was sleeping I made a quick call to her and told her we would meet at 12 p.m.

We ate and got ready. And then something funny happened. My sis was using the second toilet and I heard her trying to open the lock and but wasn't able to do it. Initially I thought that was funny and was laughing out loud. After a few secs we realized it wasn't funny. She was seriously locked in! OMG! I was MAD. First of all, baby made us little late and now this. I looked at the time and already it was 12 p.m.! I made a quick  frantic call to front desk and told the lady about the situation. She told me someone would be there shortly. While I hung up the phone...my sis was able to open the door! good heaven! Then basically we just bolted as we were really late. I wouldn't have mind if we were just going to the beach...but for God's sake we are meeting someone. I didn't bother to follow up on the issue.

We took a cab, and as our luck would have it there was an accident on the road and things were a bit slow. We asked the driver what was up and he said in a funny accent..which basically sounded like this...ummm this road...ummm that road...this road...that road..this road..that road... My sis was like what the hell. I explained to her that he was saying, we are supposed to be on that road, due to accident we are taking this road and hence, the delay. aaaahhhhhhhhhh............ LOL

Once we reached Gate # 1 of the Jumeirah Beach and Park (as discussed), I looked at the time and it was almost close to 1 p.m.!!! oh no! We got out of the cab and saw no one. My friend told me that we would meet at gate # 1, however, that gate could very well be closed and #3 might be open. So, we decided to walk over to gate # 3, which we passed while in the car. In the middle of our way to #3, my friend came over and introduced her! I was glad she didn't leave but she understood sometimes it was not easy to be just on time when you have an infant on a trip and a massive jet lag to boot!

Jumeirah Beach
I really enjoyed Jumeirah Beach. It was Monday and  every Monday is Women and children's day at the beach. And that means no men allowed. Really lovely. My sis and I really enjoyed talking to J, new friend and her experience in Dubai. It seemed like both my sis and she had one thing in common, they both work at some sort of publishing business. Anyway, while they chatted away, I took baby close to water, as close as I could be since I didn't know swimming myself. It was really windy. I think, Eliana really enjoyed that time at the beach the most. And we took some pics slyly I must say as camera wasn't allowed at the beach. People still do take pics as long as it's their pics not others. KWIM.J had to go back around 3, and we also thought that was a good time for us to leave as well as we had a ticket for Burj Khalifa obs deck at 4.30, and we wanted to stroll through Dubai Mall as much as we could. There was a fast food restaurant right on the beach, and we looked through the menu but nothing stroke my fancy. Since I wanted to have Lebanese food, we only got a bottle of water and called a day. J mentioned a Lebanese restaurant, but honestly once in the Mall there was no time or energy to look for that particular restaurant, we needed to eat something pronto before heading to Burj Khalifa.

After saying bye to J, we took a cab to Dubai Mall. Once in the mall, I think first thing that catches anyone's attention is the GIGANTIC aquarium that can be seen from outside. It's HUGE. Anyway, next to the aquarium there is a restaurant called Rainforest or some thing like that. I wanted to get something from there, but the hostesses were busy chatting and when they asked me about if I wanted to sit and whatever...I lost it. I was like forget it and left that place. No time to wait for a table. And it wasn't the waiting that I had objection, I really disliked those hostesses for some odd weird reason. Anyway, took some pic in front of the Aquarium and then headed off to God knows where. We passed through a wonderful bakery and snapped some pics of those wonderfulness and walked ahead.
















We then went to the food court on the second floor I believe and happened to see Karam Beirut Express. Got some lamb chops, which was quite cheap considering well, lamb chop. Ate rather quickly and then I headed toward the baby care room, where I nursed baby. They had a nice diaper changing station and a nice chair for I guess nursing.


Burj Khalifa
Once done with that we proceeded to go the ground floor to go to the Burj Khalifa. It wasn't too crowded, pretty quick line, and got there around our time slot, or probably just a little after. I don't know where on earth on TA once I read there were no restrooms on the Observation deck floor, so I decided to use the rest room to before getting on the elevator. And later found restroom on the OB deck floor as well. Anyway, 124 floor up we went and it seemed rather pronto.










     
View from the Observation deck at the Burj Khalifa
 What can I say? It was nice seeing things from up there but nothing earth shattering. We saw the big sun in its full glory and was getting ready to go down later. Enjoyed looking around, taking pic and baby fell sleep while my sis carried her. People were sitting on the floor and counting the time toward sunset I guess. Once I wanted to stay for that but then I was feeling really tired and wanted to get the hell out of there ASAP.

Once out, we hang out outside where the Dubai Fountain was. We were told the first show would start at 7.30. Since there was basically nothing else to do decided to walk over to Souk Al Bahar and check that out. It's an interesting little mall, almost too ghostly..don't know why I found that mall to be a bit strange. On second floor basically it was empty and all I noticed was the entrance of a restaurant and a hostess standing near by (?)...and even that is questionable caz I was too tired to even notice exactly what that was...

Anyway, got out of that mall and just waited outside near the fountain again. Got bit tired of the waiting and decided to have dinner. As I had a thing for Lebanese that day decided to go to Karam Beirut restaurant (The mistake of the entire trip)! I won't go into details here, as long as I am sane I can NEVER recommend this restaurant to any living soul on this planet earth. That's all I've to say about that. The whole experience there was a big joke. My sis hated it. So did I. And then I guess it was time to go back to hotel. We felt little bad that our such nice little trip sort of ended with a bad taste in our mouth (literally and figuratively)...so, got a Tiramisu from Starbucks and tried to make it up. And I think, it did a little!

And that's how our trip came to an end. Next morning we left the hotel and around 1.30ish we left Dubai!

Will I go back to Dubai?

I will never plan a vacation to Dubai only. That's for sure. Since I'm more a budget traveler and like to see/experience more of local life, culture etc Dubai doesn't fit that bill at all. I will however, definitely go back to Dubai on stopover for a day or two to break my usual long journey (from JFK to DHK) a break and breath a little.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Day 2 of Dubai Trip: Souk'd and Mall'd out

On day 2 plan was to go to Dubai Museum early. My intention was to leave the hotel by 10 a.m. and get there and roam around, get lunch at the Basta Art cafe. And then go to other side to Gold and Spice souks.

But. My baby had another plan. After getting up early in the morning and playing for a little while she decided to take a nap. So I thought. As she was sleeping, I thought okay, so may be after she gets up then will go out and on our way get something to eat. I waited and waited and waited...that nap seemed to turn into a full blown long sleep. When the clock hit 10, and she was still in deep sleep...and I was mad hungry I lost it! I asked my sis to order breakfast and just be done with it caz I couldn't take the hunger anymore. So, she ordered breakfast, which was meant for one person apparently(on the menu). It was a continental breakfast that had bread basket (had breads and pastries), a gigantic omelet, tea/coffee/ and orange juice and something else. When we got the food and started to eat (we shared) I kept asking my sis how on earth one person can eat all of these??? Seriously! She said, may be they eat this and skip lunch? Well, guess what? We both ate that and skipped lunch. So, her assumption wasn't right. Unless, that person didn't eat for days or saves stuffs to eat later. Anyway, after we were done analyzing how one person can eat all of these while eating, we waited some more for baby to get up. Then I used my trick to get her up, which was to change her diaper. And I knew she would be up in no time. She was up, and well, cranky. And then she got quiet.

Ski Dubai

We left the hotel probably around 11.30. We took a cab to MOE. And took some pics in front of Ski Dubai and proceeded to look for a floppy hat for baby, one important thing that I forgot to pack for baby. Saw my love H&M, and of course had to go there, but didn't see any summer floppy hat! boo.. but saw one cute little dress and knew had to have this for my sweet girl. Then off we went to Metro and  got the tix from vending machine. Btw, didn't get the credit card charge receipt!











I was very happy to see the Women and Children car. It just made me happy, that's all. We went to Al Ras station and asked someone where on earth was Gold souk. He showed us the direction rather hesitantly. And I learned my lessons from previous experiences that when asking someone for direction..thank that person and move a bit further and ask someone else. Chances are 1st person gave the worng direction (not intentionally to lead me to the wrong way, sometimes I felt they fell so bad that they didn't know the direction and ended up making up one!). On our way there did some window shopping LOL...that was one expensive window shopping by the way! And walked and walked and walked and finally turned right as told and saw the "souk". I have to say that it was kind of disappointing. After walking that much and coming all the way from Al Barsha..okay from New York..it seemed that it wasn't much of what I expected. I really thought there would be hundreds of stores all with ditzy bling bling showing on the store front. It wasn't such. Anyway, then we looked for spice souk and much to our dismay seemed like no one had any idea! WHAT? Then finally a guy showed us the way and we proceeded. I have to say "Spice Souk" was even greater disappointment...what's that? A mere two alleys of spices and herbs? Good grief! I had seen better and my sis was royally pissed. And my baby wasn't feeling it either. She was so damn quiet I started to wonder if she was feeling sick or what! She isn't this well behaved to be this quiet. I felt rather bad seeing my sister's disappointment and she kept saying how she loved Souk Madinat. :) I explained to her this is the real thing, and she said, well that real this is not working for me, I liked  Souk Madinat. OK then. But we both agreed to one thing that if we didn't come here and saw it we would have always wonder (till our next visit that is ;) ) what we have missed! It's a good thing it's done and over with.

A store front at Gold Souk

Mosque on way to Spice Souk


Since we decided to go back to Souk Madinat at night, we needed something to do in between. I can't remember fully, but I would say by the time we were done with old souks it was probably around 3 p.m. So, there was no point in hauling all the way to hotel and then get out again, specially with a baby as it's tough. And as we left late, we knew we wanted to do everything and then go back to hotel. So, we hopped on the Metro again. I told my sis that may be we should go to Marina. She was okay with that. Then I told her (as I told her previously once if we could we would go to Ibn Battuta Mall) may be we could go to the Ibn B Mall. She was okay with that too. But I was a bit torn. Do I want to see Marina or yet another Mall? Since the train ride was a long one luckily I got to ponder over this very serious issue for a bit more. After going back and forth in my head I told sis that no, let's go to the Mall. She agreed. And since she asked me what exactly there was to see at the Marina and I didn't really quite answer her it was pretty clear where we would go from that point on. Well, now my baby decided it was time to get over this quietness and start some noise. She was crying bonkers in the train and some lovely strange ladies tried to make her smile by whistling and saying things. But. She won't have it. She wanted me. So, as my sis was holding her and I was seating a bit further from them I saw she was getting exasperated. Anyone would. I decided to get off the next stop and use one of those baby changing room to feed her. I signaled her to get off and we did. After calming her down with food, we hopped on again.

Ibn Battuta Mall
Ibn Battuta station seemed like middle of freaking nowhere. There were constructions going on. I could see a structure similar to the shape of the Atlantis (still don't know what that was!). There were tons of buses and ppl waiting to get on. Those buses to me seemed like "tour" buses, but it could be just regular ones. Anyway, crossed the street we walked all the way to Egypt!


Watch your clothing hohohohahahahehehe
It was fun reading some of the rules of the mall, particularly this one- "inappropriate clothing not allowed"! Heh!



Persian Starbucks ;)
Well, I felt like I needed to drink something...coffee..or water perhaps. Or both. So my sis went over to order coffee and a piece of cake. While she was getting the food, my baby decided it was time for another storm. She basically went bonkers again and screamed her lungs out. Right then and there I started to feel wonky myself. I told my sis may be we should go back to hotel if she was going to keep this up. And forget about Souk Madinat. But then she took the baby and walked her and quickly she fell asleep. Then the deal was we would stay here as long as she will sleep. That's all. We started to roam around and took pics. Then I looked for the hat for baby and thankfully found couple! And she was up! She was up and she didn't make any noise. So, we continued walking. We saw lovely Egypt, Persia, India and China. After that we decided it was time to go to leave. Honestly, I still don't know if they had any more countries there or not. China was the end for us.

We took a cab to Souk Madinat. We walked the same path again till we came to the Meat and Co. And I notice someone saying something about the Burj lighting to go on about so and so. I asked this one lady I guess, she takes professional pics...what time the lighting is scheduled? She replied I believe 7. It was about 6.15ish then. So, we decided to sit on one of the benches there and wait. When it was 6.30, we felt like we should be eating. So, we went to the Meat and Co. restaurant and hostess showed us the way to terrace seating area. I pointed her a table and asked her if we could sit, but she said that was reserved. Then I pointed her the next table and she said, sure! Oh My! That was a easy one. I think, we had the best table with the view of the Burj! No lie. We got our food, saw the lighting (honestly nothing special!), saw ppl riding the Abra and what not. We had a pretty decent meal there. With my sis's Beef Salad, my Shrimp dish and a Tiramisu and pretty pricey Water the bill was exactly 106AED. I think, we paid mainly for the view and ambiance and little for the food. It was expected. Would I go back there? Yes. Only at night. And would eat the same thing. Caz that was the least expensive. LOL

Beef Salad Nicoise

RedChilli Prawns

Tiramisu


After our lovely dinner we took a cab again and went back to hotel. That cab ride was quite funny as the driver was a young guy who announced he was new into this business and didn't know where our hotel was. He asked if we could show him the way after we hit Mall of the Emirates. I said, yes. He said, Pls get on the car if you can show me, I'm telling you I don't know where it is, but don't complain to my company caz I took some extra time (therefore fare being high) to get to the hotel". I said, sure! When we reached our hotel, and my sis gave him tip, he asked her, why she was giving him money did he give her more change by mistake?!! LOL She said, no it's a tip!

Uh well....it was a good day I guess since the ending was quite fun.