Welcome to 2014! (and a review of our work last year)

Welcome back Dear Readers, after a hopefully relaxing winter break.

Jeddah Blog has enjoyed an exciting year, and 2013 has been pretty eventful. According to our blog stats, Jeddah Blog has been viewed 100,000 times in 2013, we gained 1,000 followers on Twitter, and over 6,000 members on our Facebook group.

Looking back at some of our favourite blog posts of 2013, we’ve written about  a typical Eid in Jeddah, Iftar at the Red Sea, the Pakistan Kidney Centre, Fayfa Garden Centre, the Urdu Academy, Going Green in Jeddah, and a special dinner in honour of cricket superstar Shahid Afridi.

Places we talked about were World Heritage Site Madain Saleh, Thuwal Beach, the Tomb of Eve and the newly-renovated Jeddah Corniche.

Food-wise we’ve reviewed the Teayana tea house, Gelato Mochi, Lama Al Khereiji’s desserts, our recommended pick-me-up Breakfasts, and tried some delicious Zaatar recipes.

We’ve been very lucky to interview film director Rahul Gandotra, Diana from That Jeddah Podcast, the Mad Traveler Paul Hudspith, and highlighted the amazing achievement of Raha Moharrak – the first Saudi woman to climb Mount Everest.

New columnist Hanane Fathallah aka The Plus Size Fashionista wrote about her pick of plus-size brands in Jeddah and Summery swimsuits, and Bee gave us her top tips on makeup.

We compiled a list of Compounds and Hospitals and Doctors to join our lists of schools and preschools, and brought you news of a large number of workshops, conferences and courses happening all over the city.

Thanks to our designers, we introduced our new logo at the start of the year and entered the Expats Blog Contest 2013. We are so pleased to be able to announce to all of you that Jeddah Blog won the top spot and bagged the Gold Award for Saudi Arabia. Thanks to Alina Bokhari for writing the winning article. The badge has proudly taken its place in our right-hand side menu bar.

Our sponsors this year were the N.Sight Centre, Arabian Food Corporation, Zamudi, Hello Food, Lifebuoy, Asus, Intel®, Jumeirah luxury hotels & resorts,

This review of 2013 would not be complete without a heartfelt thank you to all of our wonderful contributors who work hard to bring us great articles. We couldn’t have done it without you. Team Jeddah Blog 2013 were:

Alina Bokhari

Anousha Vakani

Bushra Azhar

Delina Partadiredja

Haris Ali

Hanane Fathallah

Muhammad Abdul Nasir

Naima Bashir

Rohail Khan

Zareen Muzaffar

We have some great articles, reviews and competitions lined up, so stay tuned to Jeddah Blog, and please continue to support us throughout 2014.