Saturday, 13 August 2011
All Change!
Well, it's 4:20 am and we're (well I'm) up and about getting ready for Shanghai! Apologies for the distinct lack of blogs since the news that we were off to Shanghai, but things got a little hectic before we left! A few quick updates: we had an amazing holiday in India where Joe learned to paraglide and met some brilliant people; we had a great last few weeeks in Oman saying goodbye to all of our friends and generally having a great time seeing places for the last time including the partaking in the Radisson all you can eat/drink buffet!
So... After a few weeks of Chinese lessons (thank you immensely to my very patient teacher), I have a smattering of Mandarin under my belt and a basic understanding of Shanghai customs and culture. I am sure that we are heading off for an amazing adventure in an incredible country. More new experiences and people await at the end of a 13-hour flight.
Shanghai here we come!
p.s. Thanks to all of those avid followers who could pinpoint the exact date of the last Oman blog. Sorry, I will endeavour to be a little more conscientious!
So... After a few weeks of Chinese lessons (thank you immensely to my very patient teacher), I have a smattering of Mandarin under my belt and a basic understanding of Shanghai customs and culture. I am sure that we are heading off for an amazing adventure in an incredible country. More new experiences and people await at the end of a 13-hour flight.
Shanghai here we come!
p.s. Thanks to all of those avid followers who could pinpoint the exact date of the last Oman blog. Sorry, I will endeavour to be a little more conscientious!
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Breaking News!
I promised to be in touch with any further news and here I am...
As of August, our blog will be 'Westwoods Teach in Shanghai'. We are both very excited and cannot wait!
On a slightly more mundane note, I made my debut stage performance last night as a Spice Girl. I can safely say that I shall not be giving up the day job!
As of August, our blog will be 'Westwoods Teach in Shanghai'. We are both very excited and cannot wait!
On a slightly more mundane note, I made my debut stage performance last night as a Spice Girl. I can safely say that I shall not be giving up the day job!
Sunday, 20 March 2011
We are still here!
Sorry (again!) for the infrequency of blogs, but things have (as usual) been a little hectic. First of all, we would like to reassure all who have been/may be concerned about little old us in the Middle East. We have seen no trouble at all, and heard about the trouble in Sohar (around an hour north of Muscat where we are) via the good old BBC!
Just a few highlights of the last few months (the time is simply flying by so fast!!!)
We had International Day celebrations at school with a food fair and 'around the world in 30 minutes'. My class chose England (no prompting from me - they wanted Ancient Greece originally but then decided on England when I told them it would be modern Greece). We had a traditional English cream tea to celebrate with scones (jam and cream obligatory) and tea from a tea pot. They adored the scones, many of them taking the recipe home to make themselves! They did find the idea of tea with milk rather odd, and many chose scone with butter and cream no jam... Still, several entered fully into the spirit of the occasion and dived in like true English people. My offering for the food fair was good old cucumber sandwiches (white bread, no crusts). Once more, they adored them, although many asked what else was in them apart from cucumber!!!
My parents paid us a visit for 3 weeks which was great, spanning half term and my birthday. I am struggling to believe how time has flown! We took them around the sights of Muscat and they were very adventurous while we were at work taking themselves around in taxis and visiting good old LuLu. We went to Jabal Shams and stayed overlooking the canyon once more which was beautiful, although not sure dad was too impressed with the drive to the top of the mountain! However, the absolute highlight of the week was the trip to Wahiba Sands and the desert. My father came with a request that he leave with a picture of him on a camel. Not too much of a problem, although we had planned various other activites which did not include such antics. Anyway, they went away happy with a picture of dad on that camel. That was not all though... they also went away with a picture of mother on a camel too! Not only did we spend the day in the desert, had a quick camel ride, went dune bashing with a guide, but we also hired quad bikes! We also have a photograph of both parents on them too! I am so proud. My mother's first experience of quad bikes. Well done mom!
My birthday was another quite exceptional experience. Not only did I get to go on a school trip to 'The Wave' and the '2011 Extreme Sailing' competition which consisted of little more than sitting in the sunshine watching huge catamorans race round in front of us. We were welcomed by Khamis who was one of the competitors and last year's champion. Great fun! I was also surprised by a party thrown by my class! The scoundrels had discovered not only the date for my birthday, but also my age! One had brought a home made cake (beautifully made and hand decorated with my name. Almost as good as mom's but not quite), another had brought candles and a third had brought candles for my age!!! Aren't they brilliant! I also had lots of food and pressies given to me which was truly wonderful.
We went to Left Bank for fish and chips on my actual birthday and the Shangri-La for dinner the night after for the parents to experience the 5* luxury buffet and it didn't disappoint.
In addition to all of this being spoiled at work, I also had a marvellous post-birthday party on the roof at the compound. Yet another cake (again, absolutely delicious) and more presents, including some Laduree macaroons and a massage at one of the nice spa places. What a lucky girl I am!
Nothing has really happened since then of note, I've been to Qatar which served to show just what a spectacularly beautiful country Oman is and we have made several trips to the beach. Again, reminding us how lucky we are to live here!
We are coming to the end of our penultimate term, again I can't believe how quickly this year has flown! Tuesday heralds 'Stars in Your Eyes'. I have found myself agreeing to play a part in the staff Spice Girls act. I'm Baby Spice. Hmm. Still, it will provide amusement to many, of that I'm sure!
No more news for now, but I promise I will let you know as soon as we have some!
Just a few highlights of the last few months (the time is simply flying by so fast!!!)
We had International Day celebrations at school with a food fair and 'around the world in 30 minutes'. My class chose England (no prompting from me - they wanted Ancient Greece originally but then decided on England when I told them it would be modern Greece). We had a traditional English cream tea to celebrate with scones (jam and cream obligatory) and tea from a tea pot. They adored the scones, many of them taking the recipe home to make themselves! They did find the idea of tea with milk rather odd, and many chose scone with butter and cream no jam... Still, several entered fully into the spirit of the occasion and dived in like true English people. My offering for the food fair was good old cucumber sandwiches (white bread, no crusts). Once more, they adored them, although many asked what else was in them apart from cucumber!!!
My parents paid us a visit for 3 weeks which was great, spanning half term and my birthday. I am struggling to believe how time has flown! We took them around the sights of Muscat and they were very adventurous while we were at work taking themselves around in taxis and visiting good old LuLu. We went to Jabal Shams and stayed overlooking the canyon once more which was beautiful, although not sure dad was too impressed with the drive to the top of the mountain! However, the absolute highlight of the week was the trip to Wahiba Sands and the desert. My father came with a request that he leave with a picture of him on a camel. Not too much of a problem, although we had planned various other activites which did not include such antics. Anyway, they went away happy with a picture of dad on that camel. That was not all though... they also went away with a picture of mother on a camel too! Not only did we spend the day in the desert, had a quick camel ride, went dune bashing with a guide, but we also hired quad bikes! We also have a photograph of both parents on them too! I am so proud. My mother's first experience of quad bikes. Well done mom!
My birthday was another quite exceptional experience. Not only did I get to go on a school trip to 'The Wave' and the '2011 Extreme Sailing' competition which consisted of little more than sitting in the sunshine watching huge catamorans race round in front of us. We were welcomed by Khamis who was one of the competitors and last year's champion. Great fun! I was also surprised by a party thrown by my class! The scoundrels had discovered not only the date for my birthday, but also my age! One had brought a home made cake (beautifully made and hand decorated with my name. Almost as good as mom's but not quite), another had brought candles and a third had brought candles for my age!!! Aren't they brilliant! I also had lots of food and pressies given to me which was truly wonderful.
We went to Left Bank for fish and chips on my actual birthday and the Shangri-La for dinner the night after for the parents to experience the 5* luxury buffet and it didn't disappoint.
In addition to all of this being spoiled at work, I also had a marvellous post-birthday party on the roof at the compound. Yet another cake (again, absolutely delicious) and more presents, including some Laduree macaroons and a massage at one of the nice spa places. What a lucky girl I am!
Nothing has really happened since then of note, I've been to Qatar which served to show just what a spectacularly beautiful country Oman is and we have made several trips to the beach. Again, reminding us how lucky we are to live here!
We are coming to the end of our penultimate term, again I can't believe how quickly this year has flown! Tuesday heralds 'Stars in Your Eyes'. I have found myself agreeing to play a part in the staff Spice Girls act. I'm Baby Spice. Hmm. Still, it will provide amusement to many, of that I'm sure!
No more news for now, but I promise I will let you know as soon as we have some!
Friday, 14 January 2011
Happy New Year!
I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know that the intrepid travellers are back safe and sound from our gallivanting around the Middle East.
Christmas was amazing, although quite strange being in the sunshine. We had lunch with most of the people left in Muscat which included huge amounts of food and a cocktail competition (sadly, we came joint last) and karaoke (we didn't subject the others to our dulcid tones I'm afraid). It was home from home with 'Linda McCarney' pies instead of turkey.
We flew out to Syria on the 27th for our brilliant trip. We left Muscat at 6am and landed in Damascus at 8pm. A long journey, but it was definitely improved by the day spent in the Dubai Mall, no hanging around in the airport for us! We eventually emerged from the arrivals lounge once they had decided that we could have entry visas into the cold and our antics began!
Syrian driving makes Omani driving look positively sane and reasonable. Once you realise that there is some order to it, it's not quite so frightening but the order has nothing to do with any kind of road rules experienced before. Apparently, it's perfectly reasonable to drive 4 abreast on the motorway if there is space even if there are only 3 official 'lanes' (difficult to make out sometimes given the lack of lane markings). Also, if someone flashes their headlights, it means 'don't you dare pull out - I am going to drive straight at you if you do'. All good fun, and we were grateful for the fact that we hadn't hired a car and relied on taxis and coaches to travel the country, although given the number of bumps and scrapes on the taxis we felt quite fortunate that we did not experience any of these first hand.
Damascus is a truly amazing city, with rambling souks (markets) selling everything from socks and spices to hand carved wooden furniture. Everyone we met welcomed us to Syria and were most helpful. We ate at a huge range of emporiums (emporia?) from a rather nice courtyard restaurant which gave free chocolate crepes and an enormous fruit bowl (recommended by Lonely Planet, although we didn't know until after we had been), to a spiral cut potato on a stick from one of the street stalls. Fantastic!
We had a great time seeing the sights including the Umayyad Mosque which has had pilgrims visiting for 3000 years! (Amy and I had to don rather fetching grey hooded cloaks in order to cover our normal clothes) We also visited the Sayidda Ruqayya Mosque and again had to wear the cloaks. We gazed in amazement at a group of Shi'a pilgrims chanting in the courtyard before going to visit the shrine. It was truly like nothing I have ever seen before!
We must have walked through almost every inch of the old city at one time or another. It's narrow and winding streets seemed to hold no prohibition to the many cars and vans which wanted to drive around them. On one occasion we saw a car do a many-point turn in order to proceed along one particular street, only to see further along the street that they would have to turn around because it was too narrow! All very entertaining! We explored the Jewish Quarter and the Christian Quarter, which proved rather more affluent than many of the other streets. One of the hotels costs around £400 per night!
A visit to the National Museum was an interesting, if chilly, affair because it is under renovation. A real shame because it meant that we were unable to see the Synagogue. Never mind. I did see some ancient relics from early Syria and learned much about it's history.
We embarked on a couple of trips to cities away from Damascus to see some more of the ancient sites Syria had to offer. The Roman theatre which dates back to the 2nd century at Bosra was truly breathtaking! We wandered around the walls and stood on the stage, listened to some people 'performing' and explored the back stage area. It had been buried under sand for hundreds of years before being uncovered in the last century. The coach trip was quite interesting - they bring you water and sweets to help you enjoy your journey. It cost less than £1 for the return trip! We did have to produce passports before being allowed to get on the coach, which seemed rather unusual.
What would we do for New Year? When planning the trip, we had planned to visit both Syria and Lebabnon. We deliberately flew to Syria because you cannot get entry visas for Syria from the Lebanese border, although you can enter Syria from Lebanon if you already have one (all terribly complicated). So one of the plans was to sepend New Year's Eve in Beirut because coaches were freely available and very cheap. However, we decided that Beirut and Lebanon deserved it's own trip and there was more of Syria to see than we had time for anyway. So, having survived the coach trip to Bosra, we decided to brave the much longer journey to Palmyra to visit the ancient ruins. Unfortunately, the coach journey was not anywhere near as pleasant, but definitely worth it, it was an incredible place! We were able to just walk down the colonnaded avenue, stepping over huge pieces of stone. The whole city had been devastated by an earthquake and then covered in sand for many years until the 17th century when it was 'rediscovered' by a pair of English merchants living in Aleppo. Renovation work has meant that some of the structures have been reconstructed as far as possible, and makes for a truly breathtaking experience. The guide books warn against hot weather and tourist groups, but we found neither to be a problem. Despite the fact that we were there for New Year, we booked the hostel the night before and saw the new year in with a single other couple. Amy and Antony had gone to bed earlier, leaving us to finish our beers (alone other than the miserable-looking bar man) when they appeared, pleased to find other people to spend the time with!
To escape from the cold, we experienced 'new Damascus' and watched 2 films back to back - 'Little Fockers' and 'The Tourist'. A far cry from the Old City, we definitely rubbed shoulders with the 'haves' rather than the 'have nots'.
The end of our stay was spent around the area where our hotel was on the outskirts of Damascus in an area called Sayyeda Zainab which attracted many Iranian Shi'a pilgrim. We explored the local area and visited the mosque. Again, an amazing place with pilgrims chanting before vying for a touch of the shrine. Rather than cart our heavy hand luggage much further, we had a rather nice afternoon tea in the lobby of the posh hotel. Tea from a tea pot. How terribly English!
We had one last taxi journey back to the airport and began a rather long journey home back to Muscat. It felt odd returning 'home' to somewhere other than England, but strangely comforting. Coming back to temperatures in the low 20s was a definite improvement and we spent the day by the pool to celebrate.
It's been a full week back at work, with nothing particularly to report. 2 late nights (or should I say early mornings...) have resulted in a sleep-filled weekend. I have now been to a nightclub for the first time in a while, I think since Rachel's hen do in 2009! It was certainly an experience. They have a live band playing (parents of one of the boys in grade 2 are among the line up) which is quite cool, although they sing chart songs rather than their own.
Anyway, I will endeavour to update you again soon with our latest escapades!
Christmas was amazing, although quite strange being in the sunshine. We had lunch with most of the people left in Muscat which included huge amounts of food and a cocktail competition (sadly, we came joint last) and karaoke (we didn't subject the others to our dulcid tones I'm afraid). It was home from home with 'Linda McCarney' pies instead of turkey.
We flew out to Syria on the 27th for our brilliant trip. We left Muscat at 6am and landed in Damascus at 8pm. A long journey, but it was definitely improved by the day spent in the Dubai Mall, no hanging around in the airport for us! We eventually emerged from the arrivals lounge once they had decided that we could have entry visas into the cold and our antics began!
Syrian driving makes Omani driving look positively sane and reasonable. Once you realise that there is some order to it, it's not quite so frightening but the order has nothing to do with any kind of road rules experienced before. Apparently, it's perfectly reasonable to drive 4 abreast on the motorway if there is space even if there are only 3 official 'lanes' (difficult to make out sometimes given the lack of lane markings). Also, if someone flashes their headlights, it means 'don't you dare pull out - I am going to drive straight at you if you do'. All good fun, and we were grateful for the fact that we hadn't hired a car and relied on taxis and coaches to travel the country, although given the number of bumps and scrapes on the taxis we felt quite fortunate that we did not experience any of these first hand.
Damascus is a truly amazing city, with rambling souks (markets) selling everything from socks and spices to hand carved wooden furniture. Everyone we met welcomed us to Syria and were most helpful. We ate at a huge range of emporiums (emporia?) from a rather nice courtyard restaurant which gave free chocolate crepes and an enormous fruit bowl (recommended by Lonely Planet, although we didn't know until after we had been), to a spiral cut potato on a stick from one of the street stalls. Fantastic!
We had a great time seeing the sights including the Umayyad Mosque which has had pilgrims visiting for 3000 years! (Amy and I had to don rather fetching grey hooded cloaks in order to cover our normal clothes) We also visited the Sayidda Ruqayya Mosque and again had to wear the cloaks. We gazed in amazement at a group of Shi'a pilgrims chanting in the courtyard before going to visit the shrine. It was truly like nothing I have ever seen before!
We must have walked through almost every inch of the old city at one time or another. It's narrow and winding streets seemed to hold no prohibition to the many cars and vans which wanted to drive around them. On one occasion we saw a car do a many-point turn in order to proceed along one particular street, only to see further along the street that they would have to turn around because it was too narrow! All very entertaining! We explored the Jewish Quarter and the Christian Quarter, which proved rather more affluent than many of the other streets. One of the hotels costs around £400 per night!
A visit to the National Museum was an interesting, if chilly, affair because it is under renovation. A real shame because it meant that we were unable to see the Synagogue. Never mind. I did see some ancient relics from early Syria and learned much about it's history.
We embarked on a couple of trips to cities away from Damascus to see some more of the ancient sites Syria had to offer. The Roman theatre which dates back to the 2nd century at Bosra was truly breathtaking! We wandered around the walls and stood on the stage, listened to some people 'performing' and explored the back stage area. It had been buried under sand for hundreds of years before being uncovered in the last century. The coach trip was quite interesting - they bring you water and sweets to help you enjoy your journey. It cost less than £1 for the return trip! We did have to produce passports before being allowed to get on the coach, which seemed rather unusual.
What would we do for New Year? When planning the trip, we had planned to visit both Syria and Lebabnon. We deliberately flew to Syria because you cannot get entry visas for Syria from the Lebanese border, although you can enter Syria from Lebanon if you already have one (all terribly complicated). So one of the plans was to sepend New Year's Eve in Beirut because coaches were freely available and very cheap. However, we decided that Beirut and Lebanon deserved it's own trip and there was more of Syria to see than we had time for anyway. So, having survived the coach trip to Bosra, we decided to brave the much longer journey to Palmyra to visit the ancient ruins. Unfortunately, the coach journey was not anywhere near as pleasant, but definitely worth it, it was an incredible place! We were able to just walk down the colonnaded avenue, stepping over huge pieces of stone. The whole city had been devastated by an earthquake and then covered in sand for many years until the 17th century when it was 'rediscovered' by a pair of English merchants living in Aleppo. Renovation work has meant that some of the structures have been reconstructed as far as possible, and makes for a truly breathtaking experience. The guide books warn against hot weather and tourist groups, but we found neither to be a problem. Despite the fact that we were there for New Year, we booked the hostel the night before and saw the new year in with a single other couple. Amy and Antony had gone to bed earlier, leaving us to finish our beers (alone other than the miserable-looking bar man) when they appeared, pleased to find other people to spend the time with!
To escape from the cold, we experienced 'new Damascus' and watched 2 films back to back - 'Little Fockers' and 'The Tourist'. A far cry from the Old City, we definitely rubbed shoulders with the 'haves' rather than the 'have nots'.
The end of our stay was spent around the area where our hotel was on the outskirts of Damascus in an area called Sayyeda Zainab which attracted many Iranian Shi'a pilgrim. We explored the local area and visited the mosque. Again, an amazing place with pilgrims chanting before vying for a touch of the shrine. Rather than cart our heavy hand luggage much further, we had a rather nice afternoon tea in the lobby of the posh hotel. Tea from a tea pot. How terribly English!
We had one last taxi journey back to the airport and began a rather long journey home back to Muscat. It felt odd returning 'home' to somewhere other than England, but strangely comforting. Coming back to temperatures in the low 20s was a definite improvement and we spent the day by the pool to celebrate.
It's been a full week back at work, with nothing particularly to report. 2 late nights (or should I say early mornings...) have resulted in a sleep-filled weekend. I have now been to a nightclub for the first time in a while, I think since Rachel's hen do in 2009! It was certainly an experience. They have a live band playing (parents of one of the boys in grade 2 are among the line up) which is quite cool, although they sing chart songs rather than their own.
Anyway, I will endeavour to update you again soon with our latest escapades!
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Sorry it's been a while...again!
At last, the end of term has finally arrived!
We have been rather busy over the last few weeks entertaining and generally working. We had a fantastic few days over Islamic new year, visiting Turtle beach, Dubai and the mountains.
The drive to Dubai was not so long and arduous once the holidays were finally announced. We had to wait until the moon was sighted to mark the new year...! We made it to the Burj Khalifah (the world's tallest building) and managed to see the incredible sprawl that is Dubai. Unfortunately, it was rather murky because the wind had whipped up the sand causing poor visibility, but the views were still amazing. We wondered through the biggest shopping mall I have ever seen (and quite clearly the most expensive by far!), saw an amazing fountain display set to music, drove up the Palm Jumeirah to the Atlantis hotel and visited the aquarium. All was incredible, and totally different to Oman. One of the highlights had to be my first sighting of a camel in the desert on the way.
The turtles were absolutely fantastic - we saw two laying eggs before returning to the sea and several babies on their first foray out into the open seas. The little ones are so sweet! It turned out that it was worth getting up for 4am when we managed to get some pictures once day broke. Cameras are not permitted in the dark because the babies head for the light and get confused if they see flashes. Aah!
After an interesting mosey round Niswah (Oman's original capital city), we headed up Jabal Shams, the highest point in Oman at roughly 3000m. We weren't allowed to the very top by car, but still saw absolutely stunning views. Our rooms for the night were rather high quality tents with fabulous views over the valley. I'm not sure I have ever stayed in an en suite tent which had walls made of more than canvas! We were the only people staying at the resort, so had individual attention - rather nice!
We said goodbye to Ron and Penny after a busy visit, and headed into the final stretch to the end of term. 2 parents' evenings on Sunday and Monday left us rather tired, but we have made it here at last.
We're spending Christmas with the people left here (most have gone home to the snow) before departing for Damascus on the 27th. Can't wait! Not sure 'Christmas' has really sunk in yet. It's a little odd when it's still in the mid 20s...!
We have been rather busy over the last few weeks entertaining and generally working. We had a fantastic few days over Islamic new year, visiting Turtle beach, Dubai and the mountains.
The drive to Dubai was not so long and arduous once the holidays were finally announced. We had to wait until the moon was sighted to mark the new year...! We made it to the Burj Khalifah (the world's tallest building) and managed to see the incredible sprawl that is Dubai. Unfortunately, it was rather murky because the wind had whipped up the sand causing poor visibility, but the views were still amazing. We wondered through the biggest shopping mall I have ever seen (and quite clearly the most expensive by far!), saw an amazing fountain display set to music, drove up the Palm Jumeirah to the Atlantis hotel and visited the aquarium. All was incredible, and totally different to Oman. One of the highlights had to be my first sighting of a camel in the desert on the way.
The turtles were absolutely fantastic - we saw two laying eggs before returning to the sea and several babies on their first foray out into the open seas. The little ones are so sweet! It turned out that it was worth getting up for 4am when we managed to get some pictures once day broke. Cameras are not permitted in the dark because the babies head for the light and get confused if they see flashes. Aah!
After an interesting mosey round Niswah (Oman's original capital city), we headed up Jabal Shams, the highest point in Oman at roughly 3000m. We weren't allowed to the very top by car, but still saw absolutely stunning views. Our rooms for the night were rather high quality tents with fabulous views over the valley. I'm not sure I have ever stayed in an en suite tent which had walls made of more than canvas! We were the only people staying at the resort, so had individual attention - rather nice!
We said goodbye to Ron and Penny after a busy visit, and headed into the final stretch to the end of term. 2 parents' evenings on Sunday and Monday left us rather tired, but we have made it here at last.
We're spending Christmas with the people left here (most have gone home to the snow) before departing for Damascus on the 27th. Can't wait! Not sure 'Christmas' has really sunk in yet. It's a little odd when it's still in the mid 20s...!
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
What a spiffing time!
One went as a guest to the Sultan's Horse Show and it was a rather splendid occasion! Among the other guests were one's very own Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. It was a most fun afternoon, one wached all sorts of horsey antics from tiny ponies racing to acrobatics on horseback. Piccies will follow when one has managed to transfer them from the other computer.
All good fun!
All good fun!
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