Dubai 2

David had a conference in Dubai the first week of February, so we all went along for the trip.  It was a completely different experience from last time we went to Dubai, as we spent most of our time at the Dubai Mall (since that's where the conference was).  The Burj Khalifa had just been renamed and officially opened as world's largest building.  Can you figure out which skyscraper it is in the next photo?  (This photo was taken from the balcony of our friends' condo where we stayed during the trip)

 

Dubai Skyline

 

The real reason we came to Dubai (and the Middle East, for that matter!).  While David attended and presented at the education conference, the kids and I hung out at the mall.  Photos below:  Fashion Avenue (every high-end store I've ever heard of, or not), Armani Junior (I spotted a baby onesie for $60), arab-style manequins, indoor fountain, ice skating rink, aquarium, Gold Souq... all inside the mall.  Plus three stories of more trendy shops.  I just shopped at Osh Kosh and Coldstone Creamery. 

 At 6:00pm each evening, we'd meet up with David at the fancy hotel within the mall, and walk out of world's largest mall to stand at the base of world's tallest building and watch world's tallest fountains.  So very Dubai.

  

Waiting for the fountain show to begin.  

You can see the base of Burj Khalifa in the background. 

The photos do not do justice to the beautiful fountains.  Imagine 4x more fountains than shown here, choreographed to a different international song every 20 minutes.  My favorite was Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman singing "Time to say goodbye."  The show was even more spectacular after sunset with the lights.

    

We told Ethan that he was looking at the tallest building in the world. Probably hard for a 3-year-old to truly appreciate, but he liked it anyhow.

 

We had planned to go up the elevator on tour, but tickets were sold out.  The next week the building was closed to tourists.  Hopefully it will reopen before we move back to the U.S. in June.

  

We could have watched the fountains all night.  Can't wait to go back!

Musandam

David's first semester of teaching ended in January, and we took advantage of our 2-week break with a road trip north to Musandam and then over to Dubai.  Musandam is an exclave of Oman, separated from the rest of the country by the eastern section of UAE (thus, we had to cross two border posts to arrive back on Omani soil).  Musandam has been called the "Norway of Arabia" because of its many fjords.  I've never been to Norway, but the drive in reminded me of the Seward Highway in Anchorage.  Don't you think the name Musandam sounds like some fantastical kingdom from a children's novel?

 

 

We spent the night in Khasab, then went on a morning dhow cruise in the Gulf of Hormuz.  Control of this waterway is shared between Oman and Iran, and is strategically important for transport of 90% of the Gulf region's oil exports.  We could not actually see as far as the coasts of Iran, but we did see plenty of speedboats which smuggle American cigarettes and electronics into Iran in exchange for goats.  (How come they never feature goats in the spy movies?)

  

The kids loved the dhow cruise!  There were only 5 other passengers and 2 crewmen on the boat with us.

Dolphins!

 

David's family (siblings+children) has roughly the same population as this remote village. 

 

On the way out of town, we stopped by an old village to see prehistoric rock carvings:

 

Camels!

 

Youth Hike - Muttrah

David organized a hike for the youth of our church in the mountains behind the Muttrah Souq and corniche (a 20-min drive from home).  We have three teens ages 12-16 years, two from Argentina and one from the U.S.  They are great!  David is president of the young men's organization and I teach the youth Sunday school class.

 Youth #1, David, Youth #2, Youth Leader, Friend, Youth #3

 

Beautiful mountains of Oman. 

It's January and so there is some greenery.  

They picked up trash along the way.  

This was the ceremonious rubbish-tossing.

Christmas 2009

For the past 8 years, David and I have celebrate the holiday season with family members.  I never though our first Christmas "at home" would be in Muscat, Oman.  Christians observe the Sabbath on Fridays here, so we attended church on Christmas Day.  We woke up, opened stockings and presents from Santa, threw on our church clothes, and headed downstairs to our chapel.  It was a really nice service, with narration of the Nativity story and Christmas hymns.  David and I sang "Once in Royal David's City," our first time singing a duet together.  Later, David played piano and I led the primary children in singing "Silent Night."  One of our friends was holding Claire, but Ethan surprised us with a "guest performance" as baby Jesus, laying down in the middle of the floor in front of the singing children ("sleep in heavenly peace").

After church, we ate Indian food from Edna, the woman who cares for the villa, then returned to our room to open gifts from family members.  We tried not to spoil the kids too much, between the toys we bought and the great gifts from Grandmas and Grandpas, there were plenty of packages to open.

 

Later we went for a warm, afternoon stroll by the beach.  As we passed a group of young Omanis playing soccer, and David sang, "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?"

The rest of the pictures are from Christmas Eve.  We went to our friends' house for food, Nativity enactment, and a visit from Santa.  Oh, and per their family tradition, we also danced a Russian Wedding dance (think Fiddler on the Roof) in our new pjs. 

 

Ethan refused a costume, but since he wanted to play with a flashlight we called him the Christmas Star.

  

Poor, terrified Claire-- why did Santa have to pick her present first?

 

December dating

I back-dated my blog entries for Nov-Dec, trying to catch up while keeping the entries chronological for my own journaling purposes.  If you are a person who keeps track of friends by most-recently-updated blogs, then you've probably missed our family's updates for a couple of months now, since they are showing up as older posts.  Ooops!  Sorry about that.  Please keep scrolling for posts from our fun Nov-Dec! 

David presented at an Education conference here in Muscat, and I was able to attend.  He did a great job!  I was proud of him.  At the end of the conference, a banquet was held at Muscat's fanciest hotel, the Bustan Palace.  There was a lot of good Arabic food as well as live traditional music and dancing.  We arrived a little late, and were invited to sit at a table of 5-6 Omani men.  It was an interesting social situation for me, because Omani men and women generally do not sit together at public or private parties.  At this particular banquet, the attendees had naturally segregated themselves into tables of Omani women, tables of Omani men, and mixed tables of western expats and other middle-eastern expats.  As usual, the men at our table respectfully averted their attention from me, unless I was speaking directly to them.  As usual, David was friendly and surprised/impressed everyone with his knowledge of Arabic.  By the end of the night he had exchanged mobile numbers with one numbers with one or two people, and was invited to visit homes and villages should we ever be in the area.

I left the banquet early with one of David's co-workers to attend the wedding reception of another Omani co-worker.  Omani wedding parties are really just for the women... hundreds of female friends and relatives attend, and no men or cameras are allowed so that the women can be free to let their hair down (figuratively and literally!).  Unfortunately, we missed the big moment when the bride arrives (around 9:30pm) and we had to leave before the groom came to pick her up (around midnight).

My birthday was Dec 20th, and we celebrated by going out for panini sandwiches and icecream at a place called 5th Avenue Deli.  It almost felt like being in the U.S., except our kids were given way too much attention and icecream by our friendly Filipino waiter.  We were pretty much invited to sample each and every flavor before we left!  We will surely miss kid-friendly Oman when we return to the states.

The day before my birthday (mid-December, mind you) we drove an hour north to Sifah beach, known for it's white, sandy beaches.  My first thought when we arrived was that it wasn't much better than the beach two blocks from home, but it was secluded enough that I could actually wear my swimsuit and get in the water!  (I suppose I could do this at our local beach, but not without an audience of male workers).  It was a lot of fun, even though I came home with a major sunburn.  I never got sunburned when it was 120 degrees outside, because I never spent more than a few minutes outdoors.  Now that it's winter time, it's easy to spend a couple of hours in the sun!

Preschool Program

Ethan completed his first trimester of preschool in December, and the grande finale was the holiday program!  2-3 year olds sang songs they've been singing throughout the school term (including 1 or 2 Arabic songs), as well as some "Santa" favorites.  My favorite part of the program was just after the children started filing into their seats, when Ethan spotted me in the crowd and got a huge smile on his face.  "Mommy!  That's my mommy," he said, pointing.  SOOO sweet!

That's Ethan's teacher on the left directing the singing.  She's from S.Africa.  Other teachers are from the U.S. (married to Omanis), Scotland, and Oman.  The children are from a variety of backgrounds, many of mixed heritage.  Ethan was one of two American kids at the school of 70 children.

Ethan and friends

 

The proud parents

Preschool has been a great experience for Ethan both socially and behaviorally!  Now that the weather has cooled off and we can play more outside, we've decided to take a break from school.