Vol 72 Michele Day 4

One thing I have I haven't mentioned is that when my sister arrived on the 13th of February, her suitcases didn't. Every day she would call the airport and every day they would say maybe today. She was wearing all my clothes for the first 4 days. I was eager for her bags to arrive too because my Mom had sent homemade pecan squares with her and I wanted them!

Her bags finally arrived on day 4. Sheesh! Quick transfer my ass!

I took Michele on our first day trip. We only had half a day after we waited for her bags so I drove us up the coast to Al Sawadi Resort. We passed these gates on the way and Michele made me turn around and go back for a photo; they amused her so much. Yes, thoses are giant Omani coffee pots.

Right after I mentioned it was odd we hadn't seen any camels yet these guys showed up. Again I had to turn the car around.

I was happy to do it. Camel still give me a thrill as well.

We passed a little fishing village.

This is where they process and sell the daily catch. All closed up for the day.


Michele's first mud brick ruins.


Nice shots, Michele!


We parked at the public section aof the beach then walked in the sand to the private resort.

We walked in like we owned the place. I met a guy who is a member here last year so I was prepared to say we were meeting him for lunch if they questioned us. But there was no problem. We had lunch by the pool. Probably the most mediocre meal we had while Michele was in Oman but the view was nice and it was so peaceful. Everyday Michele would comment on how peaceful it is in Muscat.

Then we walked back down the beach, passing a couple of Omani families playing in the water.

There were a couple of dudes taking horseback riding lessons.

This guy dropped his cell phone on the beach and when I passed it back to him his horse got a little frisky so I beat a hasty retreat.

Another nice shot, Michele.

I can't remember where we had dinner that night but apparently my friend Mahfoodh joined us. As did Puddles.



Admitedly, this video is pretty lame.

Vol 71 Michele Day 3

On the 3d day of Michele's visit we enjoyed a well deserved sleep-in. We had lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Turkish House. It's not really Turkish food, it's just owned and operated by Turkish people. The menu is very Middle Eastern.

We had their appetizer plate. From the top of the plate we have humous, chili salad, olive salad, baba ganouj, taboula and moutabel. So delicious. The salad at the top of the photo is called jarjeer. It's arugula with a pomegranate dressing and it is awesome. The bread they serve at Turkish House is the best flat bread in the city, hands down.

I ordered the grilled hammour for Michele because it's one of the dishes my friends always have. She declared it yummy. She picked it almost clean. That's fresh mango juice and strawberry juice in our glasses. Fresh juices are cheap here so I get to drink them all the time. My favorites are watermelon and lemon-mint.

I believe I have mentioned before that Oman has a large population of Indian laborers. Well, Ruwi is where most of them live. Every time I mention I want to go to India someone jokes that all you have to do is go to Ruwi High Street on a Friday night. Friday is the one day off that most Indian workers have together so Ruwi really comes alive on a Friday night.

Naturally I took Michele there on a Friday night.

For fun I showed her a grocery store.

It all seemed fairly normal until we reached this section.

I don't know what the hell happened here but no one seemed in any hurry to clean it up. It seemed as though this crap had been lying around like this for quite some time. In the middle of the grocery store. Nice.

Michele got a kick out of the name of this very popular processed cheese product.



We bought a bottle of rose milk for Michele to try.

Next stop was the shopping center I buy most of my fabric at. 2 floors of fabric shops selling beautiful silks, rayons and cottons at stupid cheap prices. These pieces are for fancy dresses. Michele was trying to get me to buy this heavily sequined, beaded and embroidered blue fabric to make a new dress to wear to weddings and balls. "You can't keep wearing the same dress" she said. Granted, this fabric was gorgeous but I've only worn my dress twice. I didn't buy the fabric.

The thing about the Indian population in Oman is that it's mostly men. Their wives are back in India. So you're wandering around at night in a crowd of Indian men. They're all happy and laughing.

Every now and then we would see a few women. Michele asked these ladies for a photo while shopping for Indian bangles for Chloe.

There are so many jewelry stores in Ruwi selling outrageously beautiful stuff.

This set is gold and enamel.

We ate at Pizza Hut that night. I know, I know! I'm supposed to take my guests to places they can't go to at home but Pizza Hut had put up signs all over town advertising their new cheesey-bite fondue pizza and I had to have it.

Nanuk and Puddles slept together that night. I slept as best I could beside my snoring sister.

Vol 70 Michele Day 2

I am a bad sister. I'm sure Michele would agree. I started the 2d day of her vacation (and the 1st day of mine) with a lie. I told her I had to go into the office for a hour or so to see one patient. I promised to be as quick as I could. She requested to stay in bed. I told her that to come back to my apartment to fetch her would be counter-productive, that we were heading in the opposite direction after I finished at the office. I assured her it would be better if she came along.

So my sweet, trusting sister came along to the office and settled into the red leather sofa to wait for me. She didn't have to wait long. After setting up my room for a full series of x-rays, I went back into the reception area. "Michele Honey, my patient is you".

Her poor, sweet, trusting face fell. She had a look of equal parts disbelief and betrayal. She stammered. She tried to smile. She looked scared. My dear, sweet, trusting sister is a dental phobic and I betrayed her on her 2d day of vacation by forcing a dental appointment on her. I am a bad sister.

I have worked in dentistry for 8 years now and for 8 years I have encouraged her to go to a dentist for a check-up and a cleaning. And for 8 years she has found all kinds of reasons not to go. So I tricked her into going.

I am a bad sister. But only because I love her. The way I see it, I had told her I would take care of her once she got here. So, I took care of her.

I took her x-rays, processed them into the computer and then led her into our hygienist, Angela's room. Angela is from Texas. She is gentle and friendly. She soothed Michele. And she cleaned her teeth. And Michele mostly didn't cry. She was a brave soldier. And she has beautiful teeth. She promised Angela she would go to a dentist in Vancouver in April. And I will make her keep that promise because I, am a bad sister.

Her reward for enduring a dental appointment was coffee at the Hyatt Hotel. The Hyatt is a little over-the-top on sumptuousness.

We drank coffee and ate chocolate desserts. I hoped it made up for the morning.

Then it was off to the mall. I just think the mall is kind of culturally interesting. There's all the same stores as in a mall anywhere (designer clothing, assecories, jewelery stoes etc) but the shoppers are different. The mall is full of Omani men in dishdashas, Omani women in abayas and head scarves, Indian women in beautiful saris and westerners in, well, westerner clothes.

We wandered around a bit then had lunch at Hamburger Nation, an Australian based chain. We passed on the blubbery cheese cake.

My GAP manager sister had a chuckle at the GAP branch here. "Oh my God, they still have their winter posters up!" Plus it's the smallest GAP ever.

Next stop was a different venue of the Muscat Festival. This one is in AlZaiba and it focuses on food and shopping.

We shopped and shopped, buying little things here and there. And she snuck photos.


There are all kinds of food booths featuring cuisine from all over the world. We ate at the Indian booth, where I introduced her to the joy of pani puri. I discovered pani puri at an Indian restaurant a few months ago and it's one of my favorite foods now. Seek it out.

Puddles enjoyed a fresh juice cocktail.

And a ride on the giant rubber duckie bouncie thingie.


Michele was quite amused at how Omanis will park anywhere.

All is fair when parking in Oman. Side of the highway. Middle of the highway. Off the highway in the sand dunes.

Another great day with my sister.



And another video.

Vol 69 Michele Day 1

Alrighty then. My sister, Michele, came to see me here in Oman. Yay!!!!!! My first non-CouchSurfer visitor! Airfare to Muscat is stupid expensive so I had told her all she had to do was get here; I would gladly pay for everything else. Incidentally, I extend this offer to all my loved ones. She scheduled her trip to coincide with Firas' trip to Chicago for a dental conference so that I was off too. She arrived in the morning on my last day before vacation reasoning she would have the day to rest before we hit the ground running. Mahfoodh picked her up at the airport for me. I have to say it just about killed me to think that her first impressions of Muscat were formed without me.

As I mentioned in the last blog post, my camera was no more, so everyday I downloaded all the photos from Michele's camera onto my laptop. It is her photos you will be seeing in the coming posts. She took a butt-load of pictures. I will attempt to choose the best ones as I've always done with my photos but I also want to show quite a lot of her photos as I figure if these were the things she found interesting, you will too.

Our photo journey starts with this little duck. This is Puddles. Puddles belongs to my sister's 9 year old daughter, Chloe. Chloe reasoned that since she was not able to come along on vacation with Mommie, Puddles ought to come instead. So here is Puddles in London, at Heathrow Airport.


Here's Dubai from the air. She had a quick layover there before continuing on to Muscat.

Here's Muscat from the air. It shows very well how the city is wedged between the mountains and the sea.

As soon as I was finished work Michele and I headed out to the Muscat Festival. It's an annual, month long event focusing on cultural heritage and shopping and there were only 3 days left.

The event takes place at a number of venues. I took her to the venue which focuses on the traditional culture of Oman and other countries. We headed to the other countries section first, pausing along the way to watch some dancers from Mahfoodh's village.

I spotted this guy shortly after we arrived. He's pouring Moroccan tea. Yummy! I hadn't had real Moroccan tea since returning from Morocco.

I was excited to discover that he was also selling coconut cookies just like Hassan's sister Rabha had made in the cave. Bliss. My friend Emie from work came along with us as she had not been to the festival yet. I think we thought this was a "Who can be the least pretty" contest. We sipped our tea and pigged out on pastries while watching a Moroccan band.

While my back was briefly turned my ultra-friendly Canadian sister started chatting with this guy. She took a video of him in which he extended an offer of friendship and help. He states over and over "I like Canadians too, too much". I think she met her match in Oman for friendliness.

Later we returned for more tea and little doughnuts thingies. Yummy!

We toured through the stalls for various countries. This one was in the Iran section.

Michele insisted on taking a photo of this giant hubbly-bubbly (aka water pipe, aka bong) for Chloe. Seems Chloe has a fascination for hubbly-bubblies. Seems Michele doesn't mind feeding this fascination even though it will surely lead to her started smoking at an early age which will surely lead to her getting hooked on drugs, getting pregnant at 13, dropping out of school and working the streets for tobacco money. But who am I to judge?

Also in this section was an Iranian artist whose work I quite liked. I bought this painting from her.

When we were leaving the section featuring various countries we were approached by these guys. They asked if any of us were tourists. Michele confessed. They asked if she would mind taking a short survey about the Festival. Would she? A chance to talk to real live Omani guys? You bet! Much laughing ensued.

Michele made Emie stand and pose so she could get a photo of some Omani women. It's not cool to take photos of Muslim woman so she took one of Emie instead..... See how that works? We talked about a couple of other sneaky photo-taking tricks I have picked up along the way. My best two tricks are holding the camera casually at my shoulder, snapping away or having the camera completely ready to go at all times so that when you see something good you just quickly bring it up and snap, even if they see you doing it. The theory behind this one is that sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

We stopped to eat. I was delighted to introduce her to Koushari, an Egyptian dish consisting of rice, macaroni and broken spaghetti topped with lentils, chick peas, tomato sauce and crispy caramelized onions. Vegetarian and oh so good.

While we were eating Michele snuck over and took this picture of some Omani men hanging out, waiting for their food. She employed the "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" technique. This photo shows how Omani's will just cop-a-squat anywhere, anytime.

She wasn't completely thrilled with the results so she went back over again and this times asked if she could take a photo. This one makes up for it's loss of candidness with the smiles on their faces.

After eating we headed over to the traditional Omani side of the festival.

These guys are engaged in some sort of black magic/evil spirit chasing/removing ceremony. We were the only women watching.

These guys are making Halwa, Oman's most traditional sweet. I call it glop.

Sugar and ghee are cooked in a copper pot until a good, gloppy consistency is reached. Then rose water, saffron, cardamon and sometimes nuts are added. It's poured into a bowl to congeal. It's surprisingly good.

Puddles really wanted a camel ride. People thought we might be crazy.

We ended the evening with an eggie/crepie thing from this lady. She has a flour dough in her hand which she smears across the griddle.

Then she cracks an egg on top and smears that around. When it is mostly set she folds it and it's ready to eat. And it's surprisingly good too.

We headed back to my apartment. Such a fun evening and it was so nice having Michele in Oman, though I must admit I was somewhat dismayed that night when I discovered that my dear, sweet, beautiful, ladylike sister snores like a chainsaw. Sorry Michele, I'm a journalist, I have to tell the truth.

And now for a little video: