Amman, Jordan

Our first stop on our Journey Home was Amman, Jordan’s capital. Arriving here after a 7 hour stopover in Doha, Qatar was a great experience. Amman is a city that looks like it grew out of the rock of the desert as it sprawls from hill to rolling hill. Friendly Jordanians and Palestinians on every street, some shaking hands, almost all with a greeting of “Welcome! You are welcome to Jordan any time!”. Carly and I wandered the streets here for the afternoon, and found ourselves attached to one of the many fresh juice stalls where they will squeeze fresh orange, carrot, banana, lemon or random other juices for you on the spot for a meager 750 fils (around $1.10 CAD).

The fresh spices and coffee shops are equally amazing in their site and scent. If we weren’t traveling for another 2 months I would’ve piled the fresh spices into the suitcase for a ride back to Canada.

The Roman Theater was the neatest piece of architecture (in my opinion) that the city had to offer. Carly and I climbed up to the area of the city known as the Citadel, but I didn’t find it nearly as interesting. That said, everything I see these days has to be compared to Angkor Wat – and not much can compare.

Carly had her eyes open for flowers – she always finds great macro shots.

We tried our luck for the first time with a nargileh (AKA: argile, sheesha, hookah, water pipe and hubbly-bubbly). It’s filled with a flavored tobacco (apple flavor being the de-facto standard) and filters through the water at the bottom of the pipe. Not sure if it was really our thing, but I managed to share another one with a few guys in Petra while we were jabbering about random whatevers sitting outside Naser’s hotel (I know – I’m getting ahead of myself here).

Amman – the city that grows up out of the desert.

We also managed to get ourselves a plateful of yummy Arabic sweets which were absolutely delicious.

The city is somehow exquisite and captivating in its drabness – with every building the same color as the sand of the rolling desert surrounding it.

Carly and I had dinner at the same restaurant on both nights. Cairo restaurant as recommended in the Lonely Planet (which we never leave home without) had absolutely fantastic Arabic food – Kofta, Moutabaal, etc. Yum!

For lunch on our second day we stopped at a place called Hashem Restaurant which provided Carly and I with the best hummus we’ve ever had. Everyone is interested in talking to you, saying hello and making very certain that you know you are welcome back to Jordan any time you like.

We stayed at the Palace Hotel where staff were all exceptionally friendly, and the facilities were adequate. The location was absolutely terrific. Following our stint in Amman we hired a driver to take us down to Petra via the Kings Highway. Stay tuned…

In Jerusalem

So, it’s true. Carly and I are in Jerusalem. We’ve survived our Tour of Duty in Jordan (which was fantastic… blogs and photos pending). Currently I’m typing this up on my laptop a few hundred meters from the Temple Mount in the Old City in a 500 year old building. Can’t wait to put up some photos. It’ll come as soon as we have some time, but in the mean time, we need to sleep. So sit tight!

Dining in a Cable Car

Carly received as a gift from the parents of the students in her class a gift certificate for Sky Dining – which is basically a three course meal served to you in a cable car as you make a few passes between Mount Faber and Sentosa.

The food was nothing to write home about, and the people trying to sell you photographs and make you fill out surveys while you’re trying to enjoy your dessert were a bit obnoxious, but the views at sunset were spectacular.

(I shot these images in RAW and exported them from iPhoto as JPEG – and now they look GROSS compared to the originals… I’ll have to figure this out later).

Emerald Hill

Tucked away, right beside Centrepoint Shopping Centre on Orchard Road is Emerald Hill. It’s a really neat hill / alley way with all sorts of wonderful restaurants and shop fronts that really comes alive at night.

I was down there the other day with the new camera snapping a few shots. Carly took me for a great dinner here a couple weeks back to a place serving up Spanish tapas. I can’t remember the name of the place but it was yum.

We Hate Phuket

This is a long time coming, but about 3 weeks ago (May 11 to be precise), Carly and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary. As such, I spoke to the principal of the school and got Carly a day of leave, so we flew off Thursday night for a long weekend away in Phuket.

After arriving at our accommodation (which indeed – looked nothing like the pictures on the web site) we figured we were in for a rough weekend, but thought we’d try to make the best of it.

The next morning, our accommodation wasn’t looking any better, but we headed down to the beach, which wasn’t looking too bad at the time. We paid a nice Thai lady for the use of some great lawn chairs, and settled in under some umbrellas for some snoozing and sun (as you can see below):

As I lay on my beach chair, I didn’t seen any insects, but it was clear after about 30 minutes that I was being eaten alive and or destroyed by something. Turns out it was likely sand flies, and within another 30 minutes, I had bites that were swelling up all over my body. Carly received a few herself, and by this time both of us were pretty miserable.

To cut a long story short, we bailed on our accommodation, headed to the airport and paid Tiger $190 to change our flights and we were out of Phuket on our way back to Singapore that day. I had to head to the doctor for some Turbo Powered™ antihistamines the next day because my arm and leg had swollen enough that my hand was starting to go numb (pretty sure the swelling was preventing proper blood circulation).

Once we arrived at the airport in Singapore we grabbed ourselves a bottle of champagne from duty-free and the next morning had champagne and orange juice brunch by the pool, quite happy to be bloody far away from Phuket. We also managed to sneak into a reservation last minute at our favorite fine-dining restaurant here: Ember. They serve an Apple Tartin for dessert that will make you believe you’ve died and gone to heaven.

Can’t remember if we blogged about all this already or not, but my brain is mostly mush these days anyways.