A new post...at last

Days 26 to 35, 3rd to 12th Mar 2009:

Finally, some time to put up a new post. It's been 10 days since my last post and quite a lot has happened. I won't go into too much details; i'm not even sure i remember that much.

I left the base camp in Marmul on the 4th without having much time to say goodbye to some of the people there, partly again from my last minute attitude. I decided to stay in and not go out upon reaching Muscat...a mistake i was soon to find out. Since my flight back to Houston was on the 7th, i decided to wait until the next day to go exploring. Unfortunately, i forgot that this was an Islamic country and it was a Friday the next day. I spent Friday morning online and was prepared to go out at 12pm only to be informed that the shops will be closed until 4pm. So i had to wait a while. After lunch, i walked to the nearby beach and found that some sort of party was going on. A lot of Indians around and quite a few of them were flying kites as well.

4pm came and i went on a mini tour with Bala, the company driver. He charged me 7 Omani Rials to go around (which was about RM70) but i guess it's a good deal, plus the fact that this would be my only chance to go around in Muscat. He took me to the Mutrah Souq, which was like a flea market of sorts, one of the palaces of Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said and finally to a street that resembled Little India in my opinion because it was practically filled with Indians and only a handful of Omanis. One thing that i really found beautiful about Muscat is the mountains surrounding the capital city. Really spectacular and the evening sun falling on them gives off a slightly romantic feel.

Near the Mutrah Souq in Muscat

The Mutrah Souq

In front of one of the Sultan's palaces

The beautiful mountains surrounding Muscat

So, it was back to Houston on the 7th. Another long, long, long flight. I did manage to get some interesting shots on the flight back though and here's one of them:

Somewhere over Dubai

Somewhere over the northeast coast of the North American continent

I reached Houston around 4pm local time the same day. Most of the others had already reached the Hilton Garden Inn and i was one of the last for the day. There were 2 more coming in on the next day and on the 10th respectively.

On Sunday the 8th, we checked out and moved into our apartments at the Marquis on Briar Forest. We each had our own single bedroom apartments and man, are they nice or what. The apartment is fully furnished with practically almost everything. There's a kitchen with stoves, an oven and microwave oven as well as a fridge. We got a washer and dryer to do our laundry, cable tv, walk-in closet and other stuff. There's definitely privacy but i think it would have been more fun with two in a two bedroom apartment instead of just one in a single bedroom apartment. They had to split us up between the units at Briar Forest and the units at Westheimer as they were unable to get 17 units in the same place. We also got 5 cars to share among the 17 of us as well and it really helps to have a car around Houston.

Block 13, which is where my unit is

The bedroom inside Unit 1325 of Block 13

The kitchen

The living room

Anyway, the reason why i haven't been posting lately is because i was trying to finish up my report and presentation. The presentation was today and i think i did alright, though i was a bit too fast and finished too early. Instead of using up the 15 minutes allocated, i finished in about 10 or maybe less. I wasn't too nervous but my hands were freezing when i started to give my presentation. And now that the first presentation is out of the way and my report more or less completed, i look forward to Saturday the 14th. Houston Rockets vs. the San Antonio Spurs!