with love from Muscat, Oman.

Ahlan! Greetings from the land of oh-so-damn-panas, Muscat, Oman. As informed in the previous post, I’ve been spending my 1 whole month semester break here in Oman. I’ll probably solve your curiosity as I go along typing this post. Oh well, you might want to know how’s it like staying in Oman in terms of the weather, food, people, buildings, shopping etc right? I can sense 1 bloody long post is coming.

Fyi, this is my 1st time here in Oman. The 1st ever impression I had when the plane landed at Muscat International airport and when I got out from the shuttle bus that drove us from the plane to the airport terminal was.. aisehmennn.. this is HOT weh! No, I’m not kidding. It was seriously hot. And hey, it was I think around 4am in the morning? It’s supposed to be cold~ lol. But I was told by my parents earlier that that’s the way it is here during the summer. I was just too stubborn to be convinced ;p I stayed at my parents temporary accommodation for 2 nights and moved in to their new house at Al-Khuwair. It’s a pretty huge house. It has 4 sitting rooms- 3 downstairs and another one on the 1st floor. 4 bedrooms with bathrooms in each room- 3 on the 1st floor and another one is on the 2nd floor. I’m happy as long as I have the A/C switched on, books with me, Internet and my PS3.

my parents house

the front gate.

The weather.
It’s pretty hot here. It reaches 45 degrees celsius during the day and a little bit lower during the night. Surprisingly the temperature went down to 30+ for a couple of days now. That’s good news for Omanis and me too! Haha. Oh btw, the water here is naturally hot even if you don’t switch on the water heater. I felt like it was burning my skin for the 1st couple of days. That shows how hot the weather was back then. I’m okay now.. but skin is kinda dry. Bloody weather..

desert

The food
I’m very happy with the food here. Mainly because they’re edible? Haha. Well, they have Kabuli Rice, which is my favourite. It’s very tasty! Shawarma- something like kebab but nicer and smaller in size. That’s all that I remember. The names are amazingly difficult to pronounce. Lol. And oh, they loveee to drink Dew. Mountain Dew to be exact. Sounds familiar? Yea, not so famous in Malaysia. It is here! Dates (Kurma) trees are everywhere here. They plant them like they plant coconut trees back in Miri. hahah. So basically you can just stop by the road side, and pluck 'em fresh dates! oh yeah, they have fresh cherries too. but you can only find it in the supermarket. haha. I'm mentioning about cherries cos that's what I eat here!

fresh dates

Dew!
Cherry~!

The people
Omani are very friendly people. Don’t be surprised they are very close to their family. As for the man, it’s perfectly normal to have more than 1 wife because the ratio is 1:3 here. More woman than man. Which I find quite pitiful for the ladies. They have to share 1 man with another woman? That’s ridiculous. But as long as they’re fine and happy with it, that should be fine. and I guess their mentality have changed over time. Hey, women are smart too okay? ;p

oopsie :X

The building
The buildings here are very ‘unique’. They have no roof. Even the houses, they’re all square-ish, retangular-ish or whatever you call it. It doesn’t rain here, that’s why they don’t need roof tops for their houses. Oh yeah, they have no drainage system here too. Weird? Yeah, I know. Btw, shopping here is just okay. Though I find some stuff here are far more cheaper than the ones in Malaysia. For example the purse from forever 21. The same exact thing, but the difference is almost rm20. That’s a lot isn’t it? but nothing compares to Dubai(oh yes I’ve been to that pretty place)- the city of sin cum shopping heaven! I’ll talk about it in the next post.

view from the highest floor of my house.

my neighborhood

*click on the pictures to enlarge*

That’s all in my head right now. I know my blog is SO UPDATED (Suchi 2008). Sorry for that. But here it is, a decent post. At least something to prove that I’m still alive here in Oman ;p