And another one....

Yesterday morning I was in my classroom chatting with Julia when we heard a MASSIVE boom and the whole (rather large) school shook to it's foundations. Now you can imagine, although we all feel very safe living here there are moments when you think, 'What was that and what's it going to mean to me and all the others that take up the space of my life?'

We dashed outside and saw a huge mushroom cloud hanging about 5 kms frome the school, closely followed by this thick grey smoke. Turns out to be an illegal firecracker factory/paint factory (depending who you believe) and the smoke is toxic. SO we get the kids in and shut all the doors and the AC goes off. An hour later the word comes that the school is shut! All kids to go home! This is the same term as George Bush day, remember? And the 2 days off because of flooding? We wont forget it in a hurry. Last day today.

Some more (delayed) Oman!

Some more Oman.... Muriel convinced a friend to babysit and we headed out for a delicious Mexican meal (I'd have to say it was better than Prickly Cactus...). Here we all are having a laugh.

Here's me with Charlie, I think he is probably trying to get away from my alcohol tinged breath, hehe. Isn't he gorgeous!

Dubai is not marked on this mapbut it's parralel with the curly border of Oman, on the Persian Gulf of course. When we drove in, we crossed the border at the curly bit then drove through to Sohour (Suhar) then down along the coast.

Muscat is divided up into areas, like suburbs, that pretty much run straight along the coast, ending with Muscat, which is the oldest part.

In the photos below we are in Muttrah, which is just before Muscat and has the old Souq which is stunning. It's all decorated in Carved wood and stained glass. To my untrained eye the style seemed more Morrocan than you would see in Dubai.

For those of you who haven't been, Dubai has a very flat coastline and although the beaches are beautiful the lack of cliffs can make it a bit monotonous, in Muscat there are cliffs everywhere plunging to the sea whith quaint little coves in between.

Most of this area was severely damaged during Cyclone Gonu in August, a good deal of work has happened to make it look like this.

Lots going on, will try and post last lot before end of term. Holiday next week! YAY!!!

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Ok another flashback.... Zadok and I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge when we were home last July. It was a fantastic experience, well worth whatever they charge! Took about an hour to do the actual bridge part but they string it out by doing a heap of training etc etc. Definitly a must do if you are ever in Sydney.

I will post more about Oman, I am flat chat at work with all sorts of interesting things going on!

Oh man, a long weekend in Oman!

I had half term TOW (4 days sigh...) and Zadok took the time off so that we could go and visit Muriel, Alasdair and baby Charlie in Oman. They moved there in September last year for Al's work. Charlie was born a month later so we hadn't met him yet!

It's about a 450km from Dubai to Muscat, the capital of Oman, it took about 5 hours but that did include visas and customs checks (they didn't look very hard) at the border. I'll post in installments.... Charlie pics to come I promise! Our first tourist stop was Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, which is stunning.

The mosque has the largest carpet in the world, made in Iran.

And the largest chandelier.

Women have to be covered from head to foot so here I am all wrapped up... Each of these arches features Islamic art from a different area, there qre 12 countries represented and about 10 arches in each area.

I've not been very detailed so if you want to read more have a look here....

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque-Wikipedia