weekly photo challenge: fleeting moment

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weekly photo challenge

Friday, June 29:  Today’s Weekly Photo Challenge is fleeting moment.

Earlier this week WordPress published a showcase of beautiful street photography blogs from the WordPress.com community. Now it’s your chance to give street photography a shot!

Share a picture that captures a fleeting moment on the street!

a fleeting moment at Nizwa souq

a fleeting moment on the poolside walkway at Al Bustan Palace in Muscat

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a day at al bustan palace

Thursday, June 28:  Today my friend Barb invites me to spend the day with her at Al Bustan Palace, a luxury hotel on the beach in Muscat (Al Bustan Palace).

approaching Al Bustan Palace

She rents a room for the night, and as a paying guest, she is allowed to invite a friend to the pool for the day. I am thrilled to be invited because I would never generally spend so much on a hotel room.  I’m not used to the life of luxury.  Barb, on the other hand, believes in treating herself often, and I’m thinking I should take a page from her book.

Looking back at the hotel from the end of the pool nearest the beach

Al Bustan Palace is a Ritz-Carlton Hotel set on a private beach with acres of lush gardens. The hotel was originally built to host the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in 1985.

the only way to cool off in these summer temperatures of 45C (115F)!

date palms and colorful flowers make the pool especially inviting

to infinity and beyond!

I love the palm trees in the pool 🙂

There is a hot breeze coming off the ocean, but because of the shade from the date palms and the ability to dip into the pool whenever we get hot, it’s not too unbearable.  Actually it’s quite a lovely afternoon.

hammocks where we can laze away the afternoon…

inviting setting.

We alternate between swimming in the Gulf of Oman, tanning in the sun, and dipping into the pool, helped along by a couple of cool Heinekens.

the beach at Al Bustan

symmetry

lawn party

sun beds

the view from Barb’s balcony

After relaxing all afternoon, we shower and change and share some chilled white wine on Barb’s balcony.  The room is quite luxurious.  I’m envious that she gets to stay here, because I have to drive back to Nizwa tonight!

Barb on the balcony

relaxing on the balcony with a glass of chilled white wine and a hot breeze

We head out for a lovely dinner of appetizers at the Left Bank.  We spend a nice day getting to know each other; though we’ve worked together all year at the University, our paths have not intersected that much.  So, it’s a very pleasant day all around and I’m grateful that a new friend invited me to share her day with me!

farewell to Al Bustan Palace

no comfort zone challenge: myfitnesspal.com

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No Comfort Zone Challenge

Tuesday, June 26:  I just discovered a new challenge from Marge Katherine at Inside Out Cafe.  Her blog is called Inside Out Cafe because her “inside thoughts show up in [her] outer world and [her] outside activities influence [her] inner thoughts.”

She set a challenge called The No Comfort Zone Weekly Challenge. I really like the idea of this. She writes:

• Once a week in 2012 plan to do something out of the ordinary and blog about it each week.
• These things don’t have to be earth shattering but they have to be different from your ordinary course of action.
  

  the gym at the Falaj Daris

“Whether you decide to take a different route home, listen to country music instead of rock and roll,  read a book by a new author, drink a new type of wine or work on a crossword puzzle, visit a new website, increases your daily steps, try a different workout routine, listen to new singer, try a new food, attend a poetry reading or WHATEVER …. do it and share it on your blog!”

This idea reminds me of a book I read a while back: Do One Thing Different: Ten Simple Ways to Change Your Life by Bill O’Hanlon.  The review on Amazon.com says: “The theory behind the title of this book is solution-oriented therapy. Rather than probing the past and analyzing causes and effects of psychological problems and troubles, therapist O’Hanlon advises making changes in behavior in the present in order to feel better sooner rather than later. Using 10 “solution keys,” he challenges readers to focus on the here and now and adjust behavior to change the situation. The author uses plenty of examples to show solution-oriented therapy in action. There is something to be said for taking action in times of trouble rather than wallowing in the many negative feelings that arise.”

Well, it’s not exactly the same, but anyway, it’s just my cup of tea.  I read another book by writer Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way, that encouraged me to take artist’s “dates,” to plan an outing each week to nurture my artistic and creative self.  I love this idea and try to do this anyway in my daily life, ever since I read this fabulous book in 2000!

So, my No Comfort Zone action for this week was to sign up for fitness on a website I heard about on Facebook: My Fitness Pal.  On this website, you can write down everything you eat, and the calories are calculated. You also keep track of your daily exercise. The only weight loss plans that have worked successfully for me in the past have been ones where I’ve written down everything I eat.  So today, I signed up for this, in hopes of slowly changing my bad eating habits to good ones.

run, lift, walk, ride, sit-up!!

On Thursday I paid 30 rials for a membership at the Falaj Daris Hotel in Firq, which has the only exercise room in the vicinity of my house.  Now I can go every day if I want, and then relax poolside afterwards.

the falaj daris hotel pool

So, wish me luck!  Hopefully between being aware of everything I put in my mouth, exercising more regularly, and being held accountable to myself, I will be able to get in better shape and fit into my clothes more comfortably.  Here’s to trying new small things.

refreshing relief after exercise

share your world: cee’s life questions (week #29)

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share your world

Monday, June 25:  Here are Cee’s life questions for this week.

What sound or sounds do you love?

I love the sounds of a breeze rustling through leaves, birds warbling, wind chimes, music of all kinds including rock, Arabic, French, light opera, and classical; I love the sound of waves washing up on shore and the rush of a running stream.

a running brook in South Korea

If you could be a tree or plant, what would you be?

I think I would be an ornamental maple tree because I love the shape of the leaves and the oranges, reds and golds of autumn maples.  I also love Japanese maples, which are often used in the art of bonsai.

maple trees in Jeongju, South Korea

What is your favorite recipe that was passed down from your mother or grandmother?  Have you mastered it as well as the original?

I don’t think I have any recipes handed down from either my grandmother or my mother.  I don’t like to bake at all, except to make apple or other fruit cobblers (as long as a rolling-pin is not involved!), and I always cook meals from recipes I find in contemporary magazines and cookbooks.

What is your favorite genre for novels, and why?

I love literary fiction, meaning novels that are character- rather than plot-driven. I’m most interested in stories with lyrical writing styles that examine all aspects of the human condition. I’m most entranced by the characters and their situations, and find the plots usually unique and quirky. Literary fiction often deals with controversial issues which are interwoven with the plot.

I love the real life and the honesty in literary fiction; these books make me feel that I’m not all alone in the world, that I have a connection with other people, that I’m not so different.  I guess I’m showing my background as an English major… 🙂

Some of my favorite novels are A Town Like Alice, Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Hours, Love in the Time of Cholera, Crescent, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, Pride & Prejudice, A Farewell to Arms, Father Melancholy’s Daughter, Sister of My Heart, The Fountainhead.  That’s only to name a few.

I also love travel/spiritual quest books, The Art of Travel & Eat, Pray, Love being my favorites.  However, these are not considered novels.

a-z archive: z! challenge (zinnias)

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a-z photo challenge

Tuesday, June 26: This week’s topic for our A-Z ARCHIVE Tuesday’s photo challenge: the letter “Z”: introduce one photo of your own archive with a “Z” keyword for example Zoo or ZigZag – Zeppelin – Zen – Zombie – Zeus – Zip up, Zip-fastener, zipper – Zebra – Zorro – Zoom – Zakynthos – Zemanta etc.Here are some zinnias for this week’s challenge.  These are in front of the Sultan’s palace, Al Alam Palace, in Muscat.

Zinnias in front of Al Alam Palace in Muscat, Oman

zinnias!!!

sunday post: village

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Sunday Post

Sunday, June 24:  Jakesprinter’s Sunday Post challenge this week is village.  He writes: A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand (sometimes tens of thousands).  Although many patterns of village life have existed, the typical village was small, consisting of perhaps 5 to 30 families. Homes were situated together for sociability and defence, and land surrounding the living quarters was farmed. Traditional fishing villages were based on artisan fishing and located adjacent to fishing grounds.

I have a number of favorite villages in Oman, but my absolute favorite is the beautiful village of Balad Sayt in the middle of the Hajar Mountains in Wadi Bani Awf. It’s not an easy place to get to.  You have to drive through perilous unpaved mountain roads on steep grades and hairpin turns.  I almost killed myself and my sons the first time I drove here and just two weekends ago, my students told me one young university student, a girl named Aisha, and her brother died when their car went over a cliff.  Very sad, but not surprising.  It’s a dangerous road.

What makes the drive worth the danger is this little village.  There isn’t much here but some houses, a mosque, probably a store, though I’ve never seen one, and a lot of plantations. The idyllic setting is in the midst of a bowl carved out of the steep Hajar Mountains.  It’s peaceful & picturesque.

Here is the village of Balad Sayt.

the picturesque village of Balad Sayt

another view of the lovely Balad Sayt, back in January when I visited with my sons

lethargic internet seeks to sabotage blog

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Six Word Saturday

Saturday, June 23: Today is Six Word Saturday:

LETHARGIC INTERNET SEEKS TO SABOTAGE BLOG

My internet connection is so slow, that I often lose patience writing my blog!! Anytime I write a post that is longer than normal and has a lot of photos, it takes FOREVER.  Each photo upload takes an eternity.  Sometimes, I don’t know how much longer I can take it.  I’m losing patience.  This afternoon at 5:00, I started writing about my dhow cruise in Musandam.  I just posted the blog at 9:30!! Four and a half hours????  While waiting, I watched a movie (Me and You and Everyone We Know), a TV show (Brothers & Sisters), and ate my dinner.

As anyone can see by looking at the post, the writing was not what took time. Uploading the photos was excruciatingly sluggish.

Oh well, I’m sure I’ll be back at it tomorrow.  In the meantime, I’m signing off this blasted computer!!

weekly photo challenge: create

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weekly photo challenge

Friday, June 22:  The Weekly Photo Challenge for this week is CREATE. The best part about creating something is being in the moment, relishing the creativity you’re experiencing, and letting your actions guide you to an end goal. Then you can step back and admire your work!  Have you snapped a picture of something you’ve created, or something someone else has created?  

Share a picture that means CREATE to you! (Weekly Photo Challenge: Create)

Walking around the University of Nizwa art department one day, I came upon the following things that students at the university created.

a turtle made of spoons & plumbing fittings

some kind of animal made of sticks (possibly a horse?)

I don’t know what this is, but it’s certainly colorful and cool!

finally!!! my kind of movie in muscat: salmon fishing in the yemen

Wednesday, June 20:  I have been searching and searching in the Muscat cinemas for my kind of movie for a long time.  As a matter of fact, I’ve only been one time to the cinema in Muscat (we have no cinemas in Nizwa!) to see a really bad movie, One for the Money, when my sons were visiting in early February.  For a movie-loving girl like me, going to the cinema only one time in 9 months is like going through severe withdrawal from an addictive habit.  Now that I’ve seen a glimmer of hope here in Muscat, I will pay more attention to the movie listings in hopes of finding other great movies like this one.

Most of the movies shown in Oman are either Bollywood movies, which I like but they have Arabic subtitles, or the blockbuster American action/thriller/adventure movies that are also highly popular in the USA. Lately the cinemas here also seem to have an infatuation with 3D movies, which I dislike immensely. I generally don’t enjoy these kinds of movies at all, even in America.  I seek out first-run independent and foreign language films, documentary features and classic revivals that are of a quieter type, character driven, with a quirky or interesting story.  In the Washington area, there are several theaters that feature these kinds of films, namely Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax, Virginia; Bethesda Row Cinema in Bethesda, Maryland; and E Street Cinema and Avalon Theatrein Washington, D.C.

So.  Drumroll, please…. TA DA!!  The movie I drove to directly from work on Wednesday afternoon because it was the last day it was showing in Oman was: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, playing at City Cinema Shatti in Muscat.

The plot summary is as follows, from IMDb: “A visionary sheikh believes his passion for the peaceful pastime of salmon fishing can enrich the lives of his people, and he dreams of bringing the sport to the not so fish-friendly desert. Willing to spare no expense, he instructs his representative to turn the dream into reality, an extraordinary feat that will require the involvement of Britain’s leading fisheries expert who happens to think the project both absurd and unachievable. That is, until the Prime Minister’s overzealous press secretary latches on to it as a ‘good will’ story. Now, this unlikely team will put it all on the line and embark on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible, possible.”

I love this movie!  It especially hits home since the story takes place in Yemen, which lies to the southwest of Oman and has a similar landscape to my temporary home country.  Although, the actual filming was done in London, Scotland and Morocco, the landscape in the film looks similar to the arid desert and the wadis of Oman.

I also love the characters, especially the quiet fisheries expert, Dr. Alfred Jones, played by Ewan McGregor, who is a man with high-functioning Asperger’s Syndrome, and Harriet, played by Emily Blunt, who is the sheikh’s representative. I love the quiet camaraderie that develops between Dr. Jones and Sheikh Muhammed, played by Amr Waked, with their almost mystical infatuation with fishing. At one point the Sheikh asks Dr. Jones if he is a man of faith; Jones replies that he isn’t.  The Sheikh is surprised because he sees fishing as the ultimate expression of faith: a fisherman must spend all day casting a line with the simple belief that he can catch a fish.  He must have patience. Belief.  Faith.

From the book of the same name by Paul Torday: “Faith is the cure that heals all troubles. Without faith there is no hope and no love. Faith comes before hope, and before love.”

At the beginning of the movie, Dr. Jones is stuck in a stale marriage, drifting along with a cynical attitude about life.  Harriet has just met a young soldier named Robert, who has to leave for an undisclosed location three weeks after they meet.  At one point Robert is reported missing in action, and, since Harriet and Dr. Jones are working together, Dr. Jones is there to provide comfort and solace to Harriet.  Of course, a romance quietly develops between the good doctor and Harriet in the absence of Robert.  Maybe a little sappy and unbelievable.  But.  I love it nonetheless.

I am thrilled to have finally found what I consider a GOOD movie in Muscat.  Thank goodness for small favors… 🙂

picture the world!

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Picture the World!

Tuesday, July 19:  I found a surprise message a couple of weeks ago from one of the most inspirational bloggers I know, Jo Bradley of restlessjo ~ roaming, at home and abroad.

Jo is an English lass who loves to travel and embrace life. She keeps a travel diary and holds a special place in her heart for Portugal. She provided a representative photo of her favorite country to display on the Picture the World Project: Portugal.

The Departure Board website has a great initiative to create a gallery of wonderful photos, one from each country in the world.  I am so honored to be nominated to provide a photo from my collection to represent Oman. Jo nominated me for my “wonderful depictions of life in Oman,” which was really kind of her!

Here is my number one choice of a photo to represent Oman.  In my eyes, Oman is most amazing for its dramatic landscapes of golden or brown rocky mountains punctuated by smatterings of green.  The rare areas of vegetation reveal a strong determination by a people, dealt a harsh climate, to make the most of scarce water resources.  When they have managed over the years to eek some water out of these dry mountains, extensive falaj systems, which they have painstakingly built throughout the country, carry the water to cultivate mangoes, pomegranates, grapes, lemons, walnuts, roses, indigo, sorghum, corn, apricots, onions, and dates.  It’s amazing to me what a country, which up until 1970 was living in a less than modern world, has done to survive and thrive.  This picture of the terraced plantations on Jebel Akhdar, otherwise known as “Green Mountain,” is one of the most beautiful places in Oman.  At over 2,000 meters, it retains a temperate climate even in the hottest months of summer, and its people have cut into these stone mountains to create terraces where they can bring forth life.  This, I have to say, is my favorite place in Oman.

the terraced plantations of Jebel Akdhar in Oman

It’s also my task to nominate two people to submit photos of another country.  I would like to nominate Donna on Palawan, who has lived on the island province of Palawan in the Philippines for 30 years.  She knows extensively its capital city of Puerto Princesa, Palawan.  I would also like to nominate 3rdculturechildren, a globetrotting family of 5 in the foreign service, for Brazil.

Thanks so much for the nomination, Jo!  What a great project… 🙂