Janaki's Blog

“Is that a hen?”  “Certainly not!” ”Then what is it, smarty pants?”  ‘’It’s a rooster!” “How can you tell?” “Look at the tail and also it has some more differences like --!’’ “Oh, shut up!’’ “You’re the one who asked!” “Will you all keep it down?!” “We are moving!” “No we are not, the other boat is moving, and you just feel like it’s us because you are looking at it.” “Look, the rooster is crowing!” “Told you, it was a rooster.” “Oh darn! I forgot to take my iPad!” We were all chatting, arguing and joking. Sitting on a comfy chair, I looked all around me. Savithri was sitting on another chair next to me, Kunjunni and Shanku were monkeying around, and Kunji chechi was admiring the view. We all were in the houseboat, by the way and the journey had not yet started. Vembanad Lake, the largest lake in Kerala, was beneath our houseboat. The boat, White Water Cruise , belongs to Savithri’s Valyachan and it was big and beautiful with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a living room

Just one day after the vacation started, we went to Dirab. It is a place in Riyadh which is really worth seeing and is a 30 minute drive. We can see many valleys in Dirab. It was mid-morning when we went there and then we wished we had thought of the time more clearly because Dirab looks best in the evening. When the sun’s rays shine through the mountains in the colorful evening sky during sun set, it looks just great. The sun’s rays on touching the clouds reflect the clouds with a bright golden colour. The blue sky is transformed into pink, purple and golden. There are farmlands and a horse stable  at Dirab. From a distance the valleys look beautiful. My Mom loves Dirab a lot. She always insists on going there since it is such a relaxing destination. Since the valleys are low, every time we go on the  hairpin  road downwards, my ears pop. Thankfully it goes just as quickly. My ears pop in flights and they begin to hurt a lot. The foggy hearing that I get only goes after a

I groaned while I lay on the back seat, feeling bored and tired. The traffic crawled, moving 3 inches in every 10 minutes. My Mom had adjusted her seat so that it leaned back. Her eyes were closed and had her hands folded on her lap. My Dad rested his hands on the steering wheel. We were on our way to Bahrain. We had started out early in the morning and had been going for 4 hours. We left Khobar and reached the middle island though King Fahd causeway. Finally, when we got past all the traffic and visa checks after 2 hours and reached Bahrain, I became more relieved. We reached Hotel Ramada . It was a really grand hotel, with a swimming pool and breakfast every day. We would stay there for 4 days. Mom was tired and asked me and Dad to have lunch and get a take-out for her. But that was where the trouble started. I and Dad went out, ready to go to ‘ Saravana Bhavan ’. Ajay Valyachan lives in Bahrain, so he had told us about this restaurant. He gave us directions. We

“Behave like humans” was the first instruction given to us by Sandhya ma’am as she laid out the rules before we went to Star City, an amusement park, next day. Sandhya ma’am gave us a small glare and continued. “You have to wear your uniform ...” Sandhya ma’am went on. After she explained the instructions she said ‘’Don’t go anywhere alone, always be with your partner. The shops in Star City will be open for you.” My partner was Chandana, and Anne’s partner was Terrin. We had decided to try and stay together, but in either case that was tough. Everyone was so excited today when we were going to Star City. I, Terrin and Anne sang the song we had made in class yesterday, with the lyrics as the blood circulation. It started like this- (Sung to the tune of the hit Malayalam song ‘Appangal Embaddam’) “Pulmonary vein Left auricle, left ventricle Aorta, arteries All the body parts except luuungs..” Everyone laughed. We looked out of the window as we reached

Are you wondering why I have not written for so many days??? I have 2 reasons…..                 1.      We went to Dubai for 4 days. Yaaayyyy!!!!                 2.     Exams are going on… After coming from Dubai, I had a lot of class work to complete so I was very busy. We had tons of fun in Dubai! We went to the aquarium, Burj Khalifa, Ski Dubai etc.  Kochakka lives over there and we stayed with him. The night when we arrived at Dubai airport, Kochakka was waiting for us at the arrival.  On the way from airport, Mom said “Kochakka, take us to some interesting restaurant”,  “We are on our way” he replied.  Soon we reached at “Punjabi Dhaba”. They served good food and there were even some Punjabi dances and songs.  It was the first time I was going to such a hotel and I felt it very entertaining and interesting.  Kochakka took some photos of me standing with the dancers. There was a funny incident. When I went to take the photo, I totally forgot that I was