Dusshera Festival Celebration at Edsion, NJ

This Saturday we went to see the Dusshera mela in Papaianni Park in Edison. I could not believe how excited Gia would be to see the Mela and especially the burning effigy of Ravana. We also were able to grab the front seats and watch Ram Leela (thanks to our friends Kavita and Ritu).

Mehendi Fun at Wedding

Applying Mehendi on your hands is a symbol of happiness and celebration. What more fun can it be to see it on cute little hands.

Please Touch Museum

Wow! Please Touch Museum is a dream come true for any young child. My 3 year old was in heaven ! “Museum”, I thought when I heard the name, what would that have to hold a child’s interest.  But it turned out that it this place completely targeted towards kids is one of the best children’s Museum. Their mission is – “to enrich the lives of children by creating learning opportunities through play, enables us to lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning and cultural awareness.”

We were there for almost 4 hours but still were unable to cover the entire place. It is huge, and there are so many areas to explore. The best part is that everything here is kid-sized, kid-sized markets, river, cars, train, ice-cream stand and McDonald’s too. Among the various attractions in the museum, the ones that we loved the most were :

v  Alice in Wonderland 
v  River Adventures play areas
v  Space Station, which features a series of display cases with over three decades of Star Wars toys.
v  Roadside Attractions, a new locale with a SEPTA bus and actual car.
v  The Walking Piano
v  The Woodside Park Carousel
v  The McDonald’s Restaurant

The museum focuses on teaching children through interactive exhibits and special events, mostly aimed at children seven years old and younger.

Gia's favorite part of the Please Touch Museum and mine as well, was the ShopRite store, where kids can grab a cart and stroll the aisles for all grocery items, including fresh fruits, oatmeal, honey, fresh bread, deli meats, produce and even frozen Philly cheesesteaks!  There's a checkout area at the front of the store, where kids can delight on hearing the beeping as they scan their items and ring them up at a cash register. It was an absolute fun to see Gia move around busily around the store, filling up her cart with as much stuff as she could get her tiny little hands on!

The museum focuses on teaching children through interactive exhibits and special events, mostly aimed at children seven years old and younger.

Gia's favorite part of the Please Touch Museum and mine as well, was the ShopRite store, where kids can grab a cart and stroll the aisles for all grocery items, including fresh fruits, oatmeal, honey, fresh bread, deli meats, produce and even frozen Philly cheesesteaks!  There's a checkout area at the front of the store, where kids can delight on hearing the beeping as they scan their items and ring them up at a cash register. It was an absolute fun to see Gia move around busily around the store, filling up her cart with as much stuff as she could get her tiny little hands on!

Fun trip to the Philadelphia Zoo

We visited America’s first zoo, the Philadelphia Zoo last Tuesday. I have fond memories of visiting our city Zoo every year with my cousins and parents as a kid. I loved exploring the zoo as kid and couldn’t believe that after so many years I still enjoy it to the core.

It was a pleasant summer day (thankfully not very hot) and we were beyond thrilled to experience the magical animal kingdom.

Big Cats exhibits was wonderful. We were charmed by the beautiful creatures – the magnificent lion taking a catnap, tigers playing in the water, cheetahs sprinting across their enclosure and pumas racing around the steep walls of their exhibit. It was also fun to watch the giant tortoise, the giraffe family including a baby giraffe , zebras and rhinos.

Gia’s favorite part was the primates section!  She loved the swinging monkeys and the orangutans. Oh, what fun! My daughter got so excited to see them that she started jumping like a little monkey herself. We could help but laugh our bellies out.

As an amusement park, the Philadelphia Zoo is pretty good.  There are lots of activities and play areas for kids. They have lots of great things like a petting zoo with adorable sheep, goats, and miniature horses. There is a lake as well with lovely Swan boats. 

Along with Gia, I also enjoyed the  the Zoo’s enchanting Amazon Rainforest Carousel. It is an all-wooden, hand-carved and hand-painted carousel was the first of its kind in the United States featuring endangered species found within the Amazon Rainforest. The Carousel includes 30 bird, reptile, mammal and amphibian "seats,” as well as two spinning snake chariots. 

The Lorikeet experience was one of its kinds.  There is a fair-sized aviary with many different lorikeets happily playing and flying back and forth.  It was fun to see the zoo staff feed the birds with a plastic syringe. Sometimes,  you can also expect a naughty lorikeet to land on your arm and or sit on your head.  We walked through the aviary silently  .

We missed the Balloon ride this time, but hopefully we will be able to actually ride that Zoo Balloon on a good weather day.

Although, we had planned to spend half a day at the zoo but wound up staying for the whole day. And even after that the little one did not want to leave and was gladly ready for a sleepover party with the monkeys.