Since Assad was on a official tour to Turkey last week..me and Celmi had our day spent with my friend Madhura..Super cheerful, super happy loud and so cool!..Madhura and Pankaj are the most sincere and happy couple i have met...They are full of positive energy committed to each other and most of all the joy and understanding between each other..i truly believe they are soul mates ...may your love a devotion to each other may last forever...

Atlantis Aquaventure

we celebrated celmira's birthday in Aquaventure, Atlantis..Assad had taken leave from office...We arrived there on tuesday morning, which was a good timing since there weren't too many people so we didn't have to queue too long for the first few rides...The first ride was a lazy river, river with several tides here and there. We took water baloon to sit... The hole in the baloon was a bit too big for me so my back bumped onto the bottom of the slides all the time.Assad convinced me up to take the slide called leap of faith - 27.5-m straight line slide. I felt shiver just thinking about that, so I wasn't sure at first.. but when we came to the queuing line, there were bunch of kids, just half of my height and they seemed enjoying and having fun! One of them told me "after 10 times, you will feel nothing"..so I decide that I can't be humiliated by kids and I will take the slide! Actually it wasn't so bad as it went so fast, but the feeling when your turn came, you have to sit with the position told by the guard and wait for his green light to go... it was so scary, now I can feel the feeling of chicken in a slaughtering line:( You know what will happen there, but nothing you can do. I felt that I fell down freely, nothing under my feet, for a few seconds before the slides turn flatter and splashed water everywhere and I went through a slide underneath fish tank and came out in a pool.Then I continued to take another ride, it called Shark Attack.... went to a fast and curvy slides before I entered a tunnel inside the big tank, so we can flow slowly and watch fish swim around us...Around mid day - the people started coming and this place became very crowded.Most of the park's rides are located in the Ziggurat, a Mesopotamian-styled structure that towers 30 meters into the sky. It boasts seven slides, including the now renowned Leap of Faith, a 27.5 meter slide roughly 9 storeys high....it is the tallest, fastest freefall slide in the Middle East.We took Celmi to Splashers, a water playground featuring elaborate water games, slides and structures for toddlers...but she didnot enjoyit...she was enjoying the lazy river with us..Overall we had a good day...

Istanbul, Day 2..

Had a small breakfast in hotel. Picked up some street food. Hazelnuts and kismis. Quite good (btw the guy I met in the morning is also the GM of a large hazelnut exporter, ferror rocher, cadbury and all his clients..)

Ok.. so.. me and my cabbie shared the packet, quite yummy, infact I like hazelnuts.. Which actually reminds me they didn't give me hazelnut packet on Turkish airlines (cost cutting maybe), and I was looking forward to it. You don't get good hazelnuts in Dubai (atleest I haven't had any).. Ha these were very good ones..

For my afternoon meeting, had to travel all the way to Asia. I mean I am staying in Europe, my meeting was in Asia, went by road ofcourse. Ok, to explain better, Istanbul is part in Europe, and part in Asia. I am staying in Europe side, and had 2 meetings in Asia side today..

Ok now you gotta hear this, the guard who was helping me get a taxi, did not know about 'India'. He says "Indonesia?" I say "no India", he looks confused.. He asks again "not Indonesia?", I tried my best to convince him that there actually exists another country on the very same planet, which has a very similar name to country he knows, and yes it does exist.. Though he did not seem 100% convionced though.. He must be thinking I just made the name (the name India) up..

Hmm.. Some brand building needed here, I guess.. And turkey would be a good place to advertise India, as it is a tourist destination, and the same guys can then visit India as well.. go where your target customers are.. he he..

You know, how we keep our houses cold in Dubai.. Even when the outside temp is ok, we will switch on the AC, and then sleep with quilts.. I think people here like to keep it hot/warm.. The taxi drivers heat up thier cars, and they feel cold when I leave the windows open.. whereas I quite enjoy it..
Which reminds me 11 pm night walk on the roads in a 8 degree city without a headcap is a bad idea... Shonu.. next time please woh monkey cap (jisme mei actually bahut stupid dikhta hu), please pack kar dena..

I was stuck in a traffic jam returning from Asia, the bridge is in itself a tourist attraction.. And you know what.. People were selling in the traffic.. Like in india at traffic signals.. A guy was selling water, another mobile chargers, another flowers (flower dekh ke mere shonu ki yaad aais) another one selling bread.. (very interesting looking bread, like a donut with 6 inch dia, but only 1 inch thickness and he was carrying a huge pile on a stick.. Wanted to buy it, but we went past him.. Being a Muslim country, I can pickup eatables w/o too much of a worry.. I Picked up something from another vendor, had no idea what it was when I bought it.. It was called wafer halva, quite good, infact pata hota accha hoga toh do leta, one for home..

Another good street food I had during my post dinner walk was freshly roasted chestnut, this was kept on a hot plate on the street.. 10,000 better than the so called 'roasted chestnut' we get in packets in Dubai in most of corn carts.. what was very interesting here is that this guys bakda was on the street outside a MacDonalds.. and he was sitting inside MacDonalds reading newspaper.. uska dhyan tha baahar, so if you went near his wares, he would come out proactively, but also interesting was that MacDonalds not only allows him to sell wares on the street right outside their door, but also give him shelter in the cold weather.. maybe extreme harmony or maybe he pays them, like it happens in India.. but we people always think "it happens only in India".. but guess the people, and thus situations and reactions to the situations is probably quote similar across geographies..

Arrey one more interesting thing.. Most keyboards here are ofcourse dual language keyboards (like we have in UAE also).. So the keyboard here did not have i,instead it had in place of i, i without a superscript dot.. and didnt notiuce it first, and my mail login attempts kept failing.. then found the actual i was sitting somewhere else.. interesting..

Happy 2 nd Birthday..

23 March 2010,
Dearest Celmi,
You, our first child our baby forever,.... I could end this post right here.... Wipe my hands clean of what I want to say and call it a day, "Happy 2nd birthday." But I have so much on my mind today and we want to say it all to you.... we can never live without you.. I still, to this day, have not forgotten about the week we spent together sleeping side-by-side when u were born 2 years back.. You... My love,are the one that made us realize that life is so precious.... we can never thank you enough for comming in our lives and for that we are forever thankful.... You are so special....Perhaps that is why you are so incredibly spoiled with love. I have no patience in disciplining you correctly as i thought of doing... When you SCREAM "no" when its ur eating time..and we giggle out loud together in defeat.... I have thought about it for awhile and realized that you, my baby, have years to understand the word NO and in the meantime I will continue attacking you with kisses every time you have a tantrum..... as a new parents we made sure you were taken care off, well fed, and well mannered...me and daddy would read lotz of books to do that!... With you it's all so fun.. all I have is time... Time to appreciate. YOU are my baby,our first.. the child that we always dreamed of having.... You complete us as a family.We are so in love with you... Happy Birthday ..Forever yours, Mama and daddy...may allah bless you with good health..and everything!

I got a very good forward email from my friend Madhura...thought of sharing nice lines here...
*A Birth Certificate shows that we were born
A Death Certificate shows that we died Pictures show that we lived!
*I Believe.... That just because two people argue, It doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, It doesn't mean they do love each other.
*I Believe...That we don't have to change friends if We understand that friends change.
*I Believe....That no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
*I Believe...That you should always leave loved ones with Loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
*I Believe....That my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time.
*I Believe...That sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, But that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.
*I Believe....That our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, But, we are responsible for who we become.
*'The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; They just make the most of everything they have

My bad haircut experience

Itz been a month i got a new haircut...and i was just loving it...my friends and family complimented on my new look...but my fringes had grown and i thought of getting it trimmed... I was okay with my hair but I did need a trim. I sat down in the saloon and it felt pretty normal at first... Then I started to see hair fly. I asked my hairdresser what she was doing, that I only wanted an inch or so off... She said that's what she was doing... She cut off about 4 inches off of the front of my hair next. I freaked out and asked her why she was cutting off so much! She said she had to make it even. I was really scared but I didn't want to make her feel bad nor did I want a half-done haircut. She finished and I looked in the mirror. My first thought was, "MY GOD! I LOOK LIKE A BOY!" She cut my hair so it was the same as it was, only twice as short and she left the back of it the way it was. Basically, I hate my haircut and waiting it to grow out....

nameeeee

Celmira picks up words so easily these days, but she says them in her very own inimitable style (like I have mentioned earlier) . Infact she can rerpeat almost every word, given some encouragement, and claps.. Here are listed below some of the few words, she pronounces in the msot cutest way:

tak.shi (taxi)
too (two with a 'ta')
theee (three with a 'tha')
nameeee (yummy) - the more the eee's the more nameee it is
pleeesh.. (please)
sho shorry (so sorry)
banna (banana)
doya (dora)

and so many more words..

luv vuu shelmi..