New year celebrations.

30th December 2009
Rohan's friends and we(5 of us) celebrated our new year on 30th December. We had been to the farm house at Mulshi and enjoyed a lot. It was very cold there and we all enjoyed it by having a nice barbeque :)

31st December 2009
Last day of the last month of the last year in the decade. We had invited Milind kaka's family at our place and ordered for a briyani. I had made caramel custard (Receipes blog) and it had turned out to be really good.
We all had good fun together and Ishaan was also awake and added to the enjoyment :)

Wishing all a very Happy New Year !!!!

A small puzzle from Ishaan :)

Can someboby relate these two thing?

Ishaan's Dictionary

Harihareshwar Trip

Harihareshwar Trip21st – 22nd November 2009

The people for the trip:For the trip in all we were 8 people, Me, Rohan, Ishaan, Daddy, Mummy Ajji, Medha Maushi, Kaka and Siddhi.

The journey:
We started our journey around 5:45 am on 21st November 2009, with our I10 and Ritz.
We took the Mulshi-Tamhni ghat-Mangaon-Harihareshwar route. Road till Mulshi dam from Chandni Chowk was good. And ride along the river was too good. This place must be beauty in monsoon season. After that started some bad stretch of 5-10 KMS. And then came a ride down the ghat, which is awesome and Tamhini route and jungle is too good. Before the ghat we waited and had tea and bread butter, then we traveled non-stop to Harihareshwar. After getting down the ghat we started off towards Mangaon. The road up to Harihareshwar is not so good, but the road work is going on at many places.
Below is the road-map for Hariharehwar. The total journey was of about 165 kms.
The total time required for the journey was 4hrs 15mins. Ignoring the road condition the total journey was very nice and picturesque.

The stay and food at Harihareshwar:We stayed in Harihareshwar at ‘Mauli Cottages’ owned by Wakankar. The overall arrangement was good and out of the all the complete surrounding was very peaceful. This place had 4 rooms with basic facilities and back-up facility too. The key point of this place was that it had a very big veranda and in it they had tied 4 big size swings. It was fun. These cottages were situated in areca nut (supari) and coconut baug.
The owner also stayed there and we could get freshly prepared home food whenever required, we had our breakfast here. First day they served us poha which was not all that good but next day we ordered for amboli and bharda vada i.e., dal vada. Both these dishes were good and lip smacking hmmm…
The only thing was that they didn’t serve non-veg food but just 2 mins away at Mr. Pradhans place we could have non-veg food. We took our lunches and dinner at this place. They served us with Chicken curry, Fish curry, Prawn curry, Prawn masala, Surmai and Pomfret fry. Everything was very delicious. Also the veg food was food, which served Valachi usal, Ukadiche modak (steamed modak).

The Harihareshwar Beach:
From our cottage the beach was just 7-10 mins walking distance. The beach was serene, clean and seemed to be very safe. The beach was like a personal beach and nobody around.



The sightseeing:

1.Harihareshwar Temple

Harihareshwar is popularly known as Kashi of Southern India. Harihareshwar is surrounded by four holy hills named as Harihareshwar, Harshinachal, Bramhadri and Pushpadri. The temple is situated near these hills and it consists of idols of Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu, and Lord Maheshwara. It was in the 16th century that these temples were constructed. It also consists of idol of Goddess Parvati. There are other temples in the vicinity too. These temples are of Shri Kalbhairav and Shri Yogeshwari.
We visited the famous Harihareshwar Shiva and Kalbhairav temple. There is a protocol to take darshan – you have to first visit the Kalbhairav temple then the Shiva temple and then again the Kalbhairav temple. After that there is a big pradakshina from the hills and by the sea side, a very enjoyable experience.

2.Shri-vardhan

We visited Shri-vadhan which is just 10-15kms from harihareshwar. It was nice visiting this town where there is a good market place where you can buy konkan products like amsul, poha papad, different types of papad, you can even buy a veni (flower garland worn in hair, typically by the fisherman’s ladies), and best of all was buying of the fish, here you get really good, fresh and really cheap fish. Only thing is that you have to carry a thermocol carton and buy ice, salt to carry the fish back home.
I bought 2 big Pomfrets and 1 big Surmai (King fish) at Rs. 280/-. For the recipes you may check my other blogs.

3.Other things to see were:• You can linger around in the small villages to get the feel of typical Konkani village.
• You can see many natural small lakes where lotuses are blooming in the morning time.
• You can even experience many local agricultural activities going on, which is very rare for city people. We saw the process of rice cutting and separating the grains from the plant and the process of supari collection and how they are peeled and then dried in sun.


To buy:
1. You can buy Konkani products like amsul, kokam sharbat, Avala Sharbat and different papads.
2. You can buy nice fresh fish at very cheap rates.
3. Also one more thing to mention is, on the way to Harihareshwar there is a small place called Mhasala where you can buy copper utensils, which are locally made and if you are fond to collect good shaped utensils, you will find them here.

Ishaan first day at school

Ishaan started going to school on 1st December 2009 :). My sweet little baby is now growing up.
More than Ishaan I was very excited about Ishaan school, I bought him a new school basket, sipper and dabba. Ishaan too enjoyed this shopping and everything was shopped with his choice (somewhat :D )
On 1/12/09, I had college so went and came back till 9:00 am. Till the time I was back Rohan was feeding Ishaan his breakfast (Dudh and Biscuit, currently one of the favourite meal of Ishaan). Then we dressed Ishaan. Ishaan cha Aukshan kela ani to saglanchya paya padala (small Indian rituals to be followed when you are going for a good task and take blessing from elders). We took him to school, he was fine there as we both were around him. First day itself he learnt to play with hopping animals and slide too, that too alone. (I couldn't believe this :) ). After play time it was singing time, Ishaan was bored with this activitiy. Later they gave everybody cream to apply, which the kids enjoyed a lot. After this it was eating time, before which the kids were given sanitizer to apply and they enjoyed this activity.
First day at school Ishaan got Sabudana khichadi and to my surprise he finished it.
After eating the kids gathered together for prayers and National Anthem.
All in all the first day of school was good and Ishaan and I enjoyed a lot :)

Ishaan now knows 2 languages. Isn't that great for his age.

Yesterday I had taken Ishaan to a Aquarium shop. There was a big fish in an aquarium and I said 'Motha Fish' he immediately translated it to me 'Biggg... Fish'. Isn't this a bit too much for his age. :)

Ishaan is getting more smarter day by day :)

Ishaan is now just 2 months less to be 2. Day by day he is getting smarter and naughtier. Now he knows how to convince dadda(Rohan) to get things done. He will very sweetly say 'Eaaa... Dadda' and Rohan will do anything for him.