Avatar.. am so likin it

I saw Avatar last week an i am so liking it.

it is the most beautiful film i have seen since many years. the animation is done in a genoius way and the creativity of the nature in the planet they are living in is out of this world.

IT IS A MUST SEE!

Magical Singapore in Xmas

I was in Singapore on a business event and i thought i will not enjoy it and will suffer from the 5hours jetlag, the long business meeting, and the extremely humid weather.

Suprisingly, it turned out to be a nice experience as i last visited the place 10 years back.

I have stayed at the Shangri la with a nice room with garden view. the weather was good and not very humid so it added. room was spacious and had a nice terrace and ofcourse non smoking as it is a country policy.

I liked more the chewing gum policy were you re not allowd to throw it on the ground and the fine is around $300. you are only allowed to bring a personal consumption quantity of chewing gum. We were making jokes on smuggling flavoured chewing gun to the country and sell it in the black market.. we didnt figure out if there is one :)

The hotel had a nice bond which was full of white orange, yellow, and gold fish called Koi. The fish size was big and reminded me of Kempenski hotel entrance in Tanzania. The pond was created 30 years back.

In the last day of the event, the organizers took us into a tour to see Xmas lights in Orchard road, the most famous shopping place in Singapore. The Xmas decoration was amazing and very neatly organized. it was full of lights of all kinds and sizes, huge size decoration representing reine deers, the Xmas man, Xmas tree, and the candy houses. it was a realy joy just looking at it through out the long road whether from the car or walking and it seems that every one was enjoying the festive moments and the bright colors. The place was dresses with joy!

We also did window shopping in Orchard road as Singapore is known to be a pricy place. We checked out the famous Takashimaya mall whic has a huge Xmas tree outside it. there was a new mall ehich was recently opende and son shops wee celebrating thier openings.

i have spent quite a good time in Funan which is known as the digital life mall. As soon as i enteed the pkace, i was iching to buy a gadget. and although i tried to refrain from buying any, i caught up the virus and bought a new Nikon camera!

We have also went in a nice boat ride where we saw the rest of the Xmas decoration and lights, restaurant on the sea front, all he way to famous fountain representing the symbol of Singapore whic is a fish with a lion head

All in all i enjoyed Singapore..

Old Damascus- going back in time

I have been meaning to add a lot of interesting subjects but time was the issue.

I wanted to share with you my summer vacation adventures where i enjoyed the Levant region visiting historical places in Syria and Turkey.

I started in Damascus. I have planned to visit historical places, old souks and markets and stay in a hotel that is an actual old Damascus house hotel.

I was looking for an old traditional house type hotels. some of which i found on the web or travel blogs and others i just happen to fin while having my self lost in the old souks.

Such hotels were old Syrian houses recreated as a hotel but keeping the same old house style where a fountain is centering the middle yard and surrounded with the different rooms. each room was decorated with Mosaic wooden furniture, antique Almira, ceramic painted decorative items.

Finding those hotel was and adventure on its own since most of them you find it while walking as the car cannot reach it. also you have to wonder through different alleys of sops, houses, and restaurant in order to find it.

This photo is showing one of these hotels. The door on the corner of the picture was my hotel room door. looking at the outside middle yard where Arabic breakfast is served.

The moment you enter the place you feel like you have gone in time to an ancient era where life is beautiful and everything is harmonizing with nature.

I will share with you some photos of other boutique hotels:

I liked this place but did not stay in it. one interesting thing in this place is that they have old customs hanged in the room where you can try it and take a photo while wearing it.

This is another boutique hotel where we have met the owners and they took u inside one of the room which was not reserved at that time.

Zanzibar trip

I am always fascinated with natural scenery, plantations, and natural resorts. After going to Zanzibar i felt that there are still many places to see and more items on the MUST VISIT list.

courtesy: http://zanzibar.net/zanzibar/what_is_zanzibar

Zanzibar is an archipelago made up of Zanzibar and Pemba Islands, and several islets. It is located in the Indian Ocean, about 25 miles from the Tanzanian coast, and 6° south of the equator. Zanzibar Island (known locally as Unguja, but as Zanzibar internationally) is 60 miles long and 20 miles wide, occupying a total area of approximately 650 square miles. It is characterised by beautiful sandy beaches with fringing coral reefs, and the magic of historic Stone-Town - said to be the only functioning ancient town in East Africa.

It took a long time to reach Zanzibar but it is worth it. In the plane, the pilot mentioned that Kilimanjaro is visible from the plane. Taking its picture from above is not like reaching its top after climbing it but it is still a beautiful scene.

when we were approaching the small islets where visible and i took some pictures of it from the plane. the scenery was amazing.

It took us an hour to reach the resort from the airport. It was a business gathering so everything was arrange including the music from native locals playing the drums welcoming us to Zanzibar.

The resort nestled in acres of lush tropical gardens overlooking the Azures waters of the Indian Ocean. The water was amzingly clear where you can see arm size fish within the reeves.

we had dinner with the refreshing sea breeze in the Jetty stretching about 150m over the reef and a local band played music called " TARAB".

In the last day we enjoyed an ethnic band dancing on african music. This was on the beach with fire places with resting are on the beach. It was just heavenly!

Creative Tea from Shanghi

I like to call my self an occasional blogger. it is only when i see an interesting thing that i think of blogging it. Strange but that's me :)

A good friend of mine has recently came from Shanghai China and wanted us to share his experience by bringing us chines tea that is different from the ones you see in an ordinary shop. Mostly it was Jasmine tea with a blend of some fruity flavors like apricot.

First of all, it was wrapped in elegant colorful boxes and in side it separately sealed tea leaves or small bouquet.

Each box was nicely imprinted with sticky stamp explaining the tea flower name and picture.

Each one of us started to choose a box based on the picture and his or her expectation of the flavor. the tea bouquet were different in shapes ranging from round, to mushroom or pine nuts shapes.

We poured hot water and started to gaze at the glasses in mischief looks like it was a new toy and we were small children.

We enjoyed the different aromas from each type and watched the tea bouquet expand into beautiful tea flowers that kept on growing like a real flower.

our friend who bought them said that the tea shop owner insisted that this type of tea is for women. I guess because it is so artistic and delicately presented, women would appreciate it!!! i tend to agree!! i think when you see the pictures you will also agree!!

I enjoyed the tea and the company and that's that!

friends at work

I have a white board in my office and sometimes i use it to ignite people into conversation. It is a strange approach but the way i do it is to ask one of my working colleagues to draw different things on the board and have people steping into my office to talk about who drew it and why it is there and then we start talking on who participated in the drawing and that last guy who added sometheing to the picture is back from his work or vacation leave.

As strange as it may sounds we always end up talking about work which is the not the objective of such conversatins.

To simplify the process, i started collecting board magnets from all over the globe and sticking them on the board or wall. This really helped idea continuity for newer drawings.

The new challenge was that i moved to an office where i cannot use the wall for my magnets to hang all my important and not so important things!!

So now i have to only use the board for my daily work, drawings, and magnets. this means optimization of magnet usage on the board.

Actually i can provide magnets to whomever want one and in any shape or size.

Tanzania Trip

Last January we were in a business gathering in Tanzania and we took a half day break to enjoy the country. it was really a beatiful place we visited famous beach and relaxed through out the rest of the day. it was like charging process for next day which we knew will be a looong working day.

I want to share with you the pictures of Amani beach and some local scenes from the country.

We went to this fascinating beach resort and enjoyed the amazing sea breeze. We glazed in the place that brought peace to everyone to the stage that we stop talking for sometime trying to capture the lovely scenes, fresh air, and warm sea waves. The way to the beach was full cocunut and Papaya trees

These are picutures of the lovely resort

This is a type of fruit that the monkeys usually eat. It was displayed at the entrance of the resort.

last visit to Amsterdam

I love Vincent van gogh and his really artistic paintings. I had a chance last week to visit Amsterdam but the only sightseeing i saw was the office where i had my meetings and the airport hotel where i stayed.

I was really running on a tight schedule and saw nothing of Van gogh. So, i went early to the airport just to visit Van gogh museum and ended up buying most of the souvenirs :)

My Jigsaw puzzles

I love doing jigsaw puzzles and for a long time I did not find a good one to play with. My home is full of finished, glued and framed jigsaw pictures. I even did some for my friends. Actually, they bought it and tried to complete it but never managed to do so.

Jigsaw puzzles distress me from work stress and teaches me patience ( no one believes that it does!!)

Here is some finished jigsaw puzzles pictures I have at my office

This is a mosaic jigsaw puzzle and a bit difficult. It took me quite a good time to finish it.

I love Van Gogh paintings and it was the prefect thing when I found a jigsaw puzzle box in the gift shop of Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam where it composes a collection of his most famous paintings. When i went home, the first thing I did after unpacking was to empty the jigsaw puzzle box on a plain white board and leave it for next day to start playing with it. Next evening it was completed in 2 hours and was grinning when I started to think of the frame color :)

I am still lookiing for a nice jigsaw to play with so help me if you know a good place that sells it.