Saturday, March 14, 2009

We like Oman

Oman is situated on the end of the Arabian pennisula. The main city, Muscat is on the east coast. Unlike most of the gulf, Muscat and Oman has mountains which is a nice break from the flat expense of the gulf.

Kuwait's national day is the end of February. This year the country took two days off for the national day. That plus the weekend gave a four day weekend which gave us time for our trip. The flight was only 2 hours, but a lot warmer than Kuwait was.



The Sultan's Al Alam Palace in Muscat is the place that the Sultan entertains dignitaries. This is as close as we got, but looks quite nice on the outside.



Talyn, of course, was not impressed.



The boys liked the fort in Nizwa.



See the mountains, aren't they cool. Even more impressive is the guard rail near the edge. You do not always get such luxuries in this part of the world.


Here is a garden in Misfah.






Some of the doors were quite ornate.





I have no idea what they are looking at, but they seem interested. What can I say? My kids like looking at rocks!




Here is the main shopping drag. This is the Souk Muttrah.






Look more mountains.
The highligt of the trip was the Grand Mosque. This Mosque can fit nearly 15000 people inside and the persian carpet was one piece! It took four years to weave.



Women had to wear long sleeves and keep their head covered.














There is Talyn wandering ahead again.



Deanna went shopping with friend one day and brought back an Abaya. She said it was a good deal. It had a big design on the front. Deanna liked it since she could remain covered in the Mosque and then took it off for the rest of the trip.



We stayed in a simple hotel. Here Nyssa and Dante size up the pool. It was Februrary, but still quite hot. The sun was so strong. This place must be brutal in the summer.

Here is the view out the window of the hotel.
The hotel we stayed at had a continental restaurant, a pub, and a Japanese restaurant. The hotel was not near anything and after doing a day of touring the kids were too tired to eat anywhere other than the hotel. The pub was not an option as you had to be 18 or 21 to enter since they served Alcohol. So we ended up eating in the Japanese restaurant every night.
Deanna loved the Japanese restaurant. We had not eaten much Japanese in Kuwait as it was so expensive. The food was not cheap, but we could get things that we did not have in Kuwait namely Tonkatsu(Pork cutlets) and Alcohol. Deanna and I tried a couple of beers and then the next night we tried the Sake. It was very good Sake. We had several servings during the trip.
The kids loved Japanese also. Talyn has been eating Sushi for years and he will often order specific types of Sushi. This time I told him about Sashimi (Sushi without the rice). We ordered it one night and then he wanted it the next night. However Nyssa and Dante wanted Sushi, so Talyn asked to order the Sashimi just for him. I did get him an order and he finished off that dish in such a short order.
We have not had Sushi since and we will probably not have any Sushi for a few more months. In Kuwait when you find something you like, buy a lot of it as you never know when you see it again. We found good Japanese and we had our fill as we did not know when we would be this way again.
Deanna also got some furniture in Oman and we had it shipped. It is carved wood from Syria. We will post some pictures soon.