Christmas in Dhaka

We spent our Christmas in Dhaka this year.  Although walking around town you would have no idea it was Christmas, we tried to make our home a bit festive.  We decorated a wall of our house with our stockings and put some ornaments on a Christmas tree Scott found at a nursery a few days ago.  We also had a string of lights in the window.  On Christmas day we hosted two friends who were also in town for the holiday.  The meal included turkey and homemade cranberry sauce, both are a rare treat around here.  The day was made all the better with skype video calls from family back in the States.  We felt just as if we were back in the US at least as long as we didn't look out the window...
Preparing to eat Christmas dinner

 Before dinner

 Before bedtime - this time we got Guinness, with his festive collar, in the photo too

Monkey business

Today we went scouting for monkeys from our balcony.  When you're wearing the right gear, such as a stylish hunting hat, expect nothing but success!

Fancy Dhaka wedding

Scott and I were invited to what must tie for the one of the biggest / fanciest weddings in Bangladesh, ever.  The gossip on the street is that the cost of the wedding was ~$1.7...MILLION before you add in the cost of jewelry and clothes for the bride and groom. It was held in the national convention center - think about having your wedding at the Kennedy Center.  Extravagant and a must see!  To prepare for the event, we rushed out last weekend (here they send out invites only a week or two before the event unlike 4 to 6 months ahead of time in the US) and bought a sari and a panjabi and had a tailor come to our house to measure me for a sari blouse and scott for panjabi pants which were delivered 2 days later; what service.
You may have heard that weddings in South Asia can last 5 days each filled with different celebrations. The big event that we were going to was the dinner.  Quite literally, the purpose of the event is to eat - you arrive, are ushered to a table, fed a meal, and then leave. That's it.  The event started at 7:30pm so we planned on getting there about 8pm and figured we would be out by 9pm.
Shilpi and Shobita agreed not only to babysit Henry but to also help wrap and pin me up in a perfectly folded and creased sari.  We had a great time getting me all dressed up. 

Don't you just love our matching outfits? We thought it was pretty clever.
The entrance:

The first room we were directed into was where the bride and groom had been sitting on stage on super fancy couches or perhaps more accurately thrones.  We missed them by 5 minutes.

Although blury, this photo shows the whole sari including the beautiful bottom part not captures in our first photo.

Then we were corralled to a dining room, one of at least three.  Actually, we weren't just directed to the room but to a specific side of the room with 60 tables.  The room we ended up in easily held 800 people if not more. Here are some views from along the way:

The food was amazing, some of the best biryani we've ever had. Just by chance, we ended up sitting with the leaders of two political parties and an advocat at the Supreme Court.  Interesting.  Within 35 minutes we were done and out door.  We were encouraged to go to the dessert table and although we walked passed it we just couldn't fit in more food. By 9pm we were calling the driver to pick us up.

When we got back in the car the driver estimated that 3000 cars that had dropped off guests at that point, which was an early bird 9pm.  Assuming 2.5 people in each car, certainly by 11:00pm ~10,000 guests were going to pass through. Wow. Well then we got stuck post-wedding traffic resulting in it taking us 30 minutes to go the first 1/2 kilometer.  What a night.

Feeling corny?

Today when we were running errands I decided to take a photo of Henry in the car seat.  We stopped at a light a minute later and I just had to snap another photo....

Christmas came to Dhaka

Today we went to the Club's New York City themed Christmas Party. The party was well organized with a roasting marshmallow stand, an ice cream stand, a Santa's workshop area for making ornaments, a snowman construction area, an "ice skating rink" aiming to bring Rockefeller Center to Dhaka, and a drink station offering frozen hot chocolates based on Serendipity drinks - delicious!  Although we were in short sleeves and flip flops in the 75 degree weather, there was a little bit of wintery Christmas in the air.

Heading over there

Entering winter wonderland

Making a snowman

And, of course, a photo with Santa!

And then Henry had to fend off the paparazzi

7 months old

Henry had a fun and relaxing 7 month birthday highlighted with a ride on Guinness

 and a comfy nap

Here he is on his Henry quilt

He spends his days exploring, crawling all over the place, jabbering, goobering, and giggling. This last week he started "walking" along the couch edge reminding us that we don't have much more time before he'll be running.

Henry's friend's 2 year birthday party

Yesterday was Henry's best friend's birthday party, and we had a lot of fun celebrating.  His friend, Sophia, is the daughter of our good friends here who we have known for years.  Henry and Sophia often hang out during the week days and we all meet up at the Club, which we call our "backyward" because it has green space and is so close by, some evenings and weekends.  Here are some photos from the party:

Balloon entertainment - and amazingly no cries when the balloon inevitably burst

Henry, Scott, and Jamal

Sophia and Henry playing.  First, Henry is trying to grab some icing off of Sophia's face:

And this next one captures them toppling over while Sophia was showing us how she could give Henry a big hug.  The super cute hug lasted a good 5 seconds!

Photos from the past few weeks

When will there be a camera that can just follow me around or be a "birdie on my shoulder" taking photos whenever I want them snapped?  I haven't published a post in a little while because I just haven't been taking that many photos.  That being said, here are a few from the last few weeks since Thanksgiving.


Here are some photos from a Christmas themed play group.  I just love that Henry doesn't mind wearing hats. While most kids dropped the Santa hat as soon as they could, Henry sported his the whole time!

 Nothing like a bit of slober

 Handing out stocking goodie bags....

 ....while Henry was taking a nap. 

Later that day

 Relaxing on his "hammock"

Two days ago enjoying some broccoli, carrots, and yogurt.

 Having a good old time

 Playing yesterday morning with some added entertainment for me.  Like I said, he doesn't mind hats and he proudly wore Pooh for a long while.