Mahrajan in Muscat!

This is the first in a series of posts of our sightseeing around Oman, so brace yourselves for some pictures! Once again, my husband has done a fabulous job with the photography.

This installment covers our visit to the Muscat Festival and mostly our time in the Heritage Village.

There was a really great laser, dancing fountains, and fireworks display celebrating Muscat, the capital city of Oman.  

 



These men are demonstrating a traditional Omani dance.

 

This lady is working with wool. Behind her is a traditional Bedouin home constructed from desert brambles.

This guy is making "heluwa" - an Omani sweet made from date syrup. 

 

This is a traditional well. The livestock are harnessed to a pulley system used to bring the water up to a pool for easy access. It also makes a pretty annoying noise as it comes up, haha. I guess there is a lot of weight on the pulley!

 

 

These ladies were demonstrating traditional handicrafts like making tassels for the rugs. The jars have incense (a really big deal around here!) and maybe some black charcoal-like stuff they use as under-the-eye eyeliner.

These ladies and gentlemen are demonstrating another traditional dance. It was the first one we have seen with women and men performing together. The ladies are wearing a dress more typical of interior Oman traditionally that stops about mid-shin and has colorful matching pants underneath.

 



This lady is using a traditional mill to grind flour by hand! She is also a beautiful example of how colorful traditional Omani dress can be. We suspect that has a lot to do with the Indian influence over the years. These days, the beautiful colors are worn as house dresses but outside of the house they are covered in a black abaya, like the lady in the background. 

Dubai area (round 2!)

Hi everyone!

As our normal day-to-day activities are on somewhat of a vacation, 'tis the season to travel the region! We have now been to Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the last week, and we have plans to be in Muscat for a Cultural Festival later this week and tour some of the interior of Oman on our way back home. All that to say: stay tuned for a lot more pictures!!!

Here are some of our favorites from Dubai:

 Here we are with the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa! The trick to getting this shot is to stand on a bench and have a friendly stranger practically lie down on the ground to get an angle that will include all of the tower.

We got to see a lovely Dubai Fountain show. The fountains are really impressive. Each show is set to music and in the evening there are coordinating lights. Apparently the show runs every 30 minutes in the evenings, but afternoons are more hit-and-miss. We were thrilled they had a show because we got great seats at TGIFridays for viewing, so we were glad they weren't wasted.

Here I am at Friday's. 4th floor of the Dubai Mall. You can see the fountains and Burj Khalifa behind me. 

My hubs next to a model of Dubai on display in the Dubai mall. It even had little fountains next to Burj Khalifa!

 This is an indoor fountain and sculpture combination called "the waterfall" in the Dubai Mall. 

I think this is one of about 3 pictures we took of our trip to the Mall of the Emirates. We had to document our amazing dinner at IHOP. 

 This was taken at Souk Madinat Jumeirah, an up-scale shopping and dining area near Jumeirah beach with the ambiance of a traditional market. 

 This the the Burj Al Arab, known for its distinctive sail shape. It is a hotel boasting a self-proclaimed 7 stars with an underwater restaurant and even some underwater rooms.

 This was taken in the Jumeirah Beach Park. Photography is strictly forbidden on the beach itself. We will never forget the mental image of the woman fully clad in her black abaya with a white headscarf tightly wrapped around her head, positioned next to an overweight white woman in a bikini that didn't quite cover her tush. Ah, juxtaposition. Too bad photographing would have been illegal.

We call this the "Fareej" shot after a cartoon of the same name. The cartoon follows 4 older Emirati women who live in traditional homes like this one in the foreground in the shadow of Dubai's architectural playground.

  This is a view of the sand dunes (probably in the Abu Dhabi Emirate) on the road between Al Ain and Dubai. 

 Dune buggies in the sands. 

  

Abu Dhabi

We really enjoyed being tourists in Abu Dhabi! We saw the Emirates Palace Hotel, the Corniche, and the UAE Heritage village. Here are a few of our favorite pictures.