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Showing posts from June, 2006

Scenes from Oman

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Awesome Gulf of Oman. Beautiful contrast in colours. Rugged hills of Al Khufaygi on entering Muscat from the South. Excellent driving by Alex_Babe.

Scenes from Oman

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Fishing boats on a beach. Goats in a village overlooking the Gulf of Oman.

Scenes from Oman

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Irrigation system or felaj in which the Omani farmers use to distribute water around their date farms. A closer look at date palms.

Scenes from Oman.

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Our knowledgeable tour guide and master chef Ali. Background is Wadi Tiwi. We stopped to see where they make the Omani dhows. This is a racing longboat of theirs. Omani version of a fautasi our racing canoe back home. A view of the sun rising over Sur Bay from our Hotel balcony. This was about 7am.

More scenes from Oman

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A view of Wadi Tiwi a village in the midst of rugged mountains. It is so green its amazing considering its mostly dry but water runs along this valley. A view of Sur Bay with traditional Omani boats or dhows(spelling).

The Green Turtles of Oman!

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From Sur Beach Hotel we drove another 60 km to the beach where the turtles were. We arrived there and it was so dark it was just pitch black. An Omani guide who had been working there for 18 years took us to see the turtles which was on the nearby beach. The night was so dark that not a single star was visible. Our guide told us that camera flashes were not allowed and to follow him closely. We only walked a few steps when we came across the first turtles digging holes to lay their eggs. I've never seen turtles use their flippers in this way before. It was like a four wheel drive in action. They flap those flippers like they're swimming but they dig up quite an amount of sand in the process. The turtles were about 3 feet by 1.5 feet. They were huge. These turtles come ashore and start digging holes to lay eggs. After they lay their eggs they make another hole nearby as a decoy so the foxes are outfoxed! They lay up to 140 eggs in one go. After laying a batch they go back to the

The trip!

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South of Oman near the town of Sur at Ras al Hadd is a stretch of beach on which the green turtles surface to lay their eggs. Most of the areas are protected except for Al Ras beach which is open to allow people like us who want to mess with nature by watching these huge turtles lay their eggs. We started our drive at 4pm yesterday taking the highway through Ibra towards Sur. We bought some meat for our BBQ and our tour guide Ali from Rawabi Adventures lead the way in his Land Cruiser with part of our crew. Alex and I were behind with other friends in our car. Of course on the way we encountered the accident in the picture below which gives an idea of how fast they drive here. We stopped at many gas stations to get some ice but since its the week-end they were out of ice. We stopped at Ali's home town in the village and of course Omani hospitality greeted us there! We drove on and finally made it to the Sur Beach Hotel at 9pm. It was a bit late so we checked in and hopped back in t

'Simply The Best'

Well went to the Karaoke Bar last night at Pavo Real (Mexican style) here in Muscat. It is quite the happening place every Monday night! After chugging back a couple of Amigo cocktails I felt I was Tina Turner marched up with my friend Ponita to the DJ and demanded Simply the Best to be played! heh heh Then we hid behind the partition and sang from there hahaha! It was hilarious, but man I swear we outdid Tina or was it my Amigo hearing lol. In between dancing the night away I get the occasional irritating question: "So what do you do?" My reply, "I'm a housewife, a Desperate Housewife." End of story haha!

Samoan Maiden

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Just playing around with this picture of Francesca. I thought it was really pretty with the red Samoan hibiscus. I took it while she was getting her Samoan tattoo last December.

Greetings I know!

Samoan Talofa Oa mai oe? Manuia faafetai. Tofa soifua Arabic Salaam Alekum Alekum aSalaam Kayf halish A Hamdolililah Kayf halak Ma asalaama German (Austrian) Gruss Gott Wie geht es Ihnen? Sehr gutt danke Pfirti papa French Bonjour Comment ta le vous? Tres bien merci. Au revoir. English Hello How are you? I'm fine thank you. Bye

Silver status!

Got my silver skywards cards in the mail today. Very exciting, finally a silver member. It means I can now go into the Emirates silver members lounge in Dubai airport where internet, food and drinks are all free and if lucky get a couch to sleep on while awaiting the connecting flight. Last year on my way to Samoa I took Alex's silver card with me as he got silver status last year. So I managed to bluff my way into the silver lounge using Alex's card. You're not allowed to use your spouse's card. The next time I went through Dubai I tried the same trick again but this time the guy behind the desk did a check and said sorry that wasn't my card. I quickly put on my "ignorant" look and walked away before any further embarrassment, heh heh caught! Well with silver status I can check in faster, receive more points for the next bookings and goodness knows what else they have. I just have to travel some more now to get gold status(wonder what their lounge is like

The twins on holiday!

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Isaac with the big grin. Alex on the boat. Just received some nice pictures from our relatives in California updating us with what the twins are up to. Some pics of Isaac and Alex on holiday with their Uncle and Aunt. Isaac and Alex Solomona are my brother Chris Andrew's twin sons from his previous marriage in the US. Baby Siatua is their new little brother.

Newest member!

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Here's Siatua Solomona, the newest addition to our family. My eldest brother (on Mom's side) Chris Andrew and Norah Solomona's baby boy. This is Mom's 16th grandchild all up and counting. He is one month old now.

Sunday Drive!

So, we decided to drive to Abu Dhabi UAE instead of flying just for adventure's sake. Everyone who has driven to Dubai said that the drive was four hours at most. Dubai is the north Emirate so we decided to cut through the Al Buraimi border and the Al Lain Emirate to get to Abu Dhabi which looked like the speedier option. Hmph we left home at 9.30am and we got to our destination at 3pm. Talk about a never-ending drive! However I'm very glad we had done it. Though we drove through sandy, rocky and rugged hilly desert I was amazed even more of the wealth in these parts. The immaculate highway took us all the way to Abu Dhabi no worries. And passing through Al Lain you can see they are a fairly developed Emirate. It was a small city but they had everything you could think of. We knew we were in Abu Dhabi when the driving got even worse. Though the highway in Abu Dhabi was wide with a 100km speed limit there were cars whizzing past at 160km or more. Oh and my favourite part is when

Health and Exercise

Now, we're really into improving our eating and everyday habits for better health. The things we pick up at the supermarkets determine what we put into our bodies during the week. So we learned in the "Abs Diet" that we're reading by David Zinczenko otherwise known as the Men's Health Mag Editor. I like how he focuses on the core of the body being the abs area. So the exercises outlined include other main muscles in the body but comes back to pinpoint the abs as an important part to work on. So my mission has begun yesterday the first day of the program. Most important though is that we must eat six small meals a day instead of the traditional three main meals. This has been published in many health books though as the key to leading a healthy life. Then it makes me think of our Samoan counterparts who eat a lot when it comes to meal times. Its interesting but our eating habits I think we learn from an early age: I was always taught to finish the plate because the

Caught at last.

I just got very good news from my brother at home regarding the thief that has been stealing from our place for the past three years. They caught him and now he is in police custody charged with breaking and entering. The sad part is this guy goes in and out of our place freely every day more than once. He was a trusted young guy from the village who played in the hotel band. Really really sad that our family trusted him so much and he turns around and robs from us. Oh yeah this is the same thief who robbed from our place the same night my grandmother passed away. That was the lowest of the lowest and I hope they lock him up and throw away the key. Over the years, whenever there was a theft on the compound all the other guys would be taken by the police for questioning for the past years including his first cousin. Not once did anyone suspect this one. Very very sad indeed but I'm just relieved that they now caught him and they at home can sleep better at night now.