Tuesday, December 8, 2009

After 9 days in Qatar

Wow, I have been in Qatar for more than a week now, time certainly flies...My sister and brother work here, so my two nieces and I are here to pay them a 3 weeks visit, so far so good.

Sis and bro have been totally brilliant, taking us everywhere in Qatar. Or should I say most of the places in Qatar, we were at the Islamic art museum, where we spent more time admiring the building than the displayed pieces; then we were at the shopping complexes (all the big ones); and an afternoon visit to "The pearl" which is the man made island (still under construction) taking after the same idea as "Palm Island" in Dubai; then also the Souq Wakef, an interesting market place. By now, am pretty certain that we had covered all of Doha. Well, Qatar itself is a small country, so with our dedicated guides, it's not possible that we missed anything!
Part of "The Pearl", still under construction


Throwing my youngest nephew into the dustbin, sometimes I really feel like doing it!!


We had some trips out of Doha too. My brother first took us on a long drive to Dukhan for the beach, we did not think that the beach deserved a 1.5hours drive out here.
Dukhan beach, nothing too special....

Then last Friday we had a better trip, this time my bro took us (my 2 nieces, 2 nephews and myself) on a convoy to the desert for fossil hunting in a place not too far from Zikreet movie set, a really fascinating trip that is. Enjoyed ourselves tremendously, though we did not find any dinosaur fossils (not that we expect to find anything of that sort), my nephews insisted on bringing back lots of not so fossil looking stones, so we have some desert stones outside my sis's house now. As for the view, hemnnn....well, some parts are quite interesting, with interestingly shaped rocks, where as some parts are just flat and sandy, and then more flat and sandy. It did made an interesting 4WD trip though, the route were really trying at time, but also fun!Well, I was not the one driving, and it's not my car, guess that adds up to the fun part, hehe...

Part of the movie set in Zikreet

Fossil my niece found

Another day, my brother took us to a beach generally known as "sealine", name taken after the popular resort located there. We tried to get in and was asked to pay 300 QR (1QR = RM ) for 5 of us, how ridiculous is that?? And so we walked on and found that a mere 5 minutes walk away (or 30 seconds drive) , there is a perfect beach with sand dunes just next to it. This time I had my 2 nieces and the youngest nephew. After some constructing and destroying sand castle processes, we walked up the sand dunes and had a very beautiful view from the top, dunes and more dunes lay upon us, also some fanatics driving round in their 4WD at a totally insane speed. It's a pity we did not have anything suitable for sliding down, next time we will bring something, then it'll be a real dune bashing, haha...

When I am not out exploring, I spent time playing some silly games with my nephews, baking scones, making "tang yuan汤圆", and next am going to try a hand on sushi, can't wait!!

So that's my life in Qatar so far, I can't complain, can I??And I have another 10 days to go, isn't that great!!

Great place to be

Great place to be
If only I can wake up to this view everyday.