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| Tuesday, 29-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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A short trip to Dubai
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What a swift spree…two days and one night, and most were spent on the road. Will have to arrange for a longer stay when ayah is here next February.
The night before, I prepared nasi lemak and roti telur for the trip. Raring to go, right after suboh, we left but 50 miles down the road, I realized I left sambal for the nasi lemak, would’ve gone ahead had we left ikan bilis or timun, but sambal!  So, my dear hubby with “smile on his face  ” had to turn back.
Anyway, spent our time at DCC and the bustling souqs until real late. On our way back, we stopped at this place (was it Hatta??…I don’t really get the name till now) where they have all sort of desert safari adventures, games and activities. The kids enjoyed quad biking - I did too  . We all had a good time at this place, when we decided to leave, I had to promise the kids to take them here again.
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| Monday, 28-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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Getting’ busy with knitting and weaving..
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getting' busy...
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Nurul with key-chain for hubby
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I kept Nurul, Adik Iman and Nadira quietly busy with these activities – at least they would learn a valuable new skill, gain creativity, and create a useful, valuable product in the meantime. Hubby uses two of the finished “product” for his key chain. 
For the heck of it, I started knitting too, not a hobby per se, but just trying out things. Interesting, despite ‘strong’ encouragement from hubby who obviously does not seem to grasp the idea of us spending time fiddling with needles and thread of cottons to make up something, when we can always buy!
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| Saturday, 26-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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The Arts of Henna.....
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We went to one of the salons to get a henna painting. There was this one mid-aged lady who welcomed us, and she happen to be the owner of the salon. Not a local though, but has been running the business for years - must be a good line of business 
She was drawing on our hand without a tracer, I mean free hand – phew… I’m sure the lady has every possible design stockpiled in her head. I bet she can even put the henna with her eyes closed  .
Decorating the hands with henna is a cherished custom for women in this part of the world. According to this lady, for many women using henna is an Islamic alternative to Western nail polish. In fact, most women just don't feel fully dressed for the holidays or for weddings without it. No wonder business is so good....Henna is often applied to the fingertips just to color the fingernails. Or it may be applied to cover the palms of the hand or the soles of the feet. On special occasions it is often applied in intricate designs on the hands and feet by piping it out through the narrow tip of a cone.
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| Wednesday, 23-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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Al Marah Land Amusement Park
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Finally, as promised, the other night we took the kids to Al Marah Land Amusement Park. They had been nagging me to take them there for days. Hope the place met the kids expectation or imagination, not indah khabar dari rupa.... The park was quite ok, though not as “modern” or big as the ones we have back home, the kids seemed to have a good time there  . So much activities, so little time….next... I'm going to take them for henna, I have found the place, it'll be interesting
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| Tuesday, 22-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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Nabila is three
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with friends at playschool..
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so funny, everybody was trying to blow the candles
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My Nabila is three years old. Three years??? wow….still remember how tiny she was when Dr Rolland M and the nurses handed her over to me. Remember the day when I had to stop breastfeeding her after finding out my yet another pregnancy, how frustrated she was for the drastic change to bottle feeding………it broke my heart.. Now she’s three… so hale and hearty. And bossy - barging in the living room asking where’s “her” remote control while I was watching my favorite TV station.
We celebrated her b’day a day earlier at home. She was not feeling well though – cold and light fever and also later on her birthday, at her playschool. I bought goodies and cake for her celebration at school..
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| Monday, 21-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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Many faces of my princess
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It amazes me just how fast kids nowadays grow (just as fast as I am getting old...). These photos were taken during one of our holidays back home. We were, as usual, due to lack of places to waste our time at, browsing in one of the shopping complex and "accidently" ran into the cosmetic section where they had this one product promotion. It was a grand promotion, buying their product would entitle you to an "Xtream Make-over" and got your photos taken by a professional photographer. Obviously I was swayed into buying their super product, ergo all these photos......
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| Friday, 18-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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Oman National Day - 19th Nov
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19th Nov is Oman National day - same as Nabila's birthday - but thats another post later. There was a huge celebration here in Muscat. Public holiday to commemorate this was made later on 3rd and 4th of December, to avoid Omani people from leaving the country, instead celebrating the day in Oman.
As for us and my regular kakis (Ismail family and Haji Mohamad), we had our own plan for that day. Right afer breakfast, at noon, Ismail invited us for lunch, Khamsiah made a special Nasi Minyak (Kuantan recipe mari punya...), and right after lunch we headed for Qantab, some 30 minutes drive from our place, and much later after Magrib we settled for dinner at one recreation park somewhere in Mutrah. Qantab is quite a popular beach here. We took a 30-minute boat-ride cruising the area, passing by few island and landmarks - bandar Jussa, Bandar Khairan, Fahal Island - all these are superb diving sites for diving enthusiasts. The popular Oman Dive Center is located somewhere in this area - the water surrounding this coast provides fine tropical coral sea diving. According to local, its an underwater sea paradise since there is no strong sea currents in these parrts of the Arabian sea and such diving is both fun and easy for the beginning and experienced divers.
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| Sunday, 13-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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the kids are here..
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Last week hubby went back and brought the kids to spent their school holidays here. Their first time here, and were so excited. So excited to have them all here. I have all the plan ready for us to get ourselve busy with. My routine changed though, Nadira and Nabila are still schooling, not until their winter break sometime close to Xmas.
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| Monday, 7-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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Bidiyyah Desert Camp, Wahibba Sand
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Desert camping was fun, really enjoyed it. We arrived mid day, was served some local refreshment, and at night we had a taste of local dishes followed by camp fire where omani tea was served. After Magrib, they took us in their four wheel for a rough round of desert driving, the kids really enjoyed it as if they were on a roller coaster. Nabila and Hakeem fell asleep right after dinner thus missed the camp fire. It was kinda cold at night, so we didn't went straight to our hut, instead we gathered and spending hours looking at stars (shooting stars) and borak borak. It was so dark out, you can see stars rather clearly.
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| Sunday, 6-Nov-2005 00:00 |
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Wahibba Sand Camping
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Our second raya was spent travelling to Wahiba Sand. The journey took a good 3 hours, could've been less than that, but we were travelling in three cars. Superb view along the way, we stoped and treasured the scenary. The Wahibba Sand is a popular desert closed to Bidiyyah Wilayat. There are actually a number of tourism company organising desert camping around here, I chosed this package as I know their camp is not that far-off from the main road, some 15 Kilometers. Other packages goes as far as 50 kilometers from Bidiyyah.
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