Something for the weekend?

Ahh, Wednesday has arrived once again!

I guess the biggest entertainment news of the weekend is that tomorrow is the opening day of the Grand Circus down at Marah Land (Qurum Park). Thanks to the Omani Brit over on English Girl in Oman for posting the flyer (it's nice to see you blogging again!)


Tickets start at RO 2, and go up to RO 5 for a VIP pass - no clue what that gets you though - probably better seating I'm guessing. The show is rumoured to be 2 hours long, starting at 7pm. It's running for a month so it will hopefully be something many of us can go along and see.

Now, on a more serious note, I read yesterday with some concern over on another local blogger Mimi of Shy Rebellious Arab Girl about the plight of blind Dhofari women. According to her findings, it appears to be the general trend that blind Dhofari women are kept out of sight in their family houses and remain uneducated for their entire lives. I hope that this is not true, but if it is, something must be done for these poor women. Certainly more attention needs to be paid to those who are differently abled here in the Sultanate.

And finally, a shout out to the Muscat Rugby 1st XV who are flying to Kuwait this weekend for the season opener - good luck! Their first home game is next weekend against Bahrain (the winners of the last season) which should prove to be a stiff challenge for the local lads.

le fin.

And, I'm back.

Hello everyone.

I decided to take advantage of the generous Eid vacation and promptly buggered off for a couple of weeks. I'm back now, and will get back to posting local news as it comes my way.

Here's a few snaps of where I've been...

It was nice. I am often torn between living the life we live here, and returning to this place, but here I am again, back in sunny Oman :)

So, what's been going on here in the last 2 weeks then?

Local bloggers, Undercover Dragon, and more recently, Muscat Jet Driver, have announced that they have left Oman. I felt that the Jet Driver's farewell post was fairly hate-filled, but I guess that's how he feels. It's a shame he's off, I enjoyed reading his blog. I really did enjoy reading about the exploits of Nasser Bin Tumoon.

Hi FM have launched their 80's night, which by now everyone should know about. I'm looking forward to it, I even bought some awesomely tacky aviator glasses when on leave. Now, to find a suitably large and over-sized gold chain to complete the master-piece that I intend to be :) So mark October 7th in your diaries!

Also, on Hi FM news... I understand that Rachael Howarth has left Hi FM, and new girl Erin Fleming will be taking over... I hope she is received better than Rachael was... I find it mildly amusing that Erin's bio page is still titled as Rachael's... ;)

Traffic seems to have gotten absolutely insane again, I guess all the schools are back on then. I hope the Expressway is opened soon!

Thats all for today, more again soon.

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Cupcakes!

Recently I was given some delicious Red Velvet cupcakes by local baker Janan Abdullatif from Sweet Sensations. Janan has been baking for years, starting out all the way back in school and baking for friends and family. However, as word of her skills spread, more and more people kept asking to buy them - and so she first started commercially in 2007. She's known in some circles as the cup cake lady, as that seems to be her most popular item!

Her Facebook group serves as her main website, and contains a lot of photo's of her previous creations. Just looking at the pictures makes me hungry! Click these pictures to see higher quality versions of them. The picture above is of a Red Velvet cupcake that's been sliced in half - it was so moist!

This was the Twitter cake she made for a Tweet Meet held in early July to say goodbye to local blogger Other Oman. This was the first of her products that I tried, and I have to confess I took two huge slices home with me.... it was the best cake I've had in a long time!

She has a menu available online here. The prices for the cup cakes are for 25 pieces. A lead time of 2 days is required for items on the menu, or for designs that are not on the menu, 4 days are required. After stopping taking orders last November, Janan's decided to start taking orders again after Eid, much to the relief of many!!

To Order:

SMS: 99 85 59 79
E-mail: Janans.Sweets@gmail.com
Send a Message to Janan via Facebook

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And it's all over for another year.

Yup, that's it kids. Ramadhan is over for another year. Today is the last day - Friday will be the first day of Eid. :)

For those of you that are not heading away for a break, the bar's will be open again from 2pm on Friday.

The news in the Muscat bar scene really has 2 highlights:

1. There have been rumours running around town that the popular new night spot, Zouk, was fined heavily for operating a night club (as opposed to a bar - dancing being the key thing) and may not even be reopening. The rumour started about 2 weeks ago, but I could not confirm it. I have spoken with Zouk's management, and confirmed that no fine was imposed on them, and they will be open for business as usual on Friday. DJ Rita x.craft will be spinning in the club for 1 month - so if you like House music - check it out.

2. The InterCon have tarted up the Al Gazhal Pub - new pool tables, Abu Dhabi Sports installed and apparently "sexy new uniforms" for the staff. Good news that they got Abu Dhabi Sports in - that'll keep the footy crowd happy. They'll be open on Friday at 2pm. On regular days, the Happy hour runs from 1-2, and 6-7.30. For the extra "speshal" people, you can sing along to your favourite songs on Friday nights - Karaoke night.

Have fun - I'm heading off in a jet plane for a few weeks.

le fin.

Congratulations!

I pulled 2 names out of a hat to find out who are the lucky winners of 2 tickets each to the Dan Zak concert to be held at the InterCon gardens next Thursday (16th).

The winners are:

Omani Princess (Not Omani) from popular local blog How To Live Like an Omani Princess
Paris "The Ripper" Norriss

I am not even joking - the email was signed off with that name!

Emails have been sent out to the winners with details on how to collect their prizes. Congratulations, and thanks to everyone who entered the competition.


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Asian Beach Games

The Asian Beach Games is fast approaching - 92 days to go - 3 months. December 8 - 16th will mark the event in what is expected to be a well attended games.

But the questions continue to come.

The official website talks about the Al Musannah Sports City, which amongst other things, will house as Athletes' Village. Take a look at the pictures recently sent to me below.





You can click on them to open up in a larger screen for a clearer view.

The Athlete's Village is supposed to be between where the picture was taken, and the buildings in the distance (serviced apartments, and a 4* hotel). Except....... you got it - there's no athletes accommodation to be seen. 3 months to go, and the work for the athletes accommodation has not even started on site.

Sources tell me that all of the serviced apartments and hotel rooms have been booked out by dignitaries / sponsors of the event. So the people actually playing in the games won't be staying there then either.

So where are these players going to be staying? There's a few rumours flying around:

1/ They will be put up in the Blue City labour camp, 20 minutes down the road. Possibly, I guess. I doubt the teams would be too happy about that.

2/ They will be put up in various hotels in the area. This is a no-go I think - where are the tourists - the very people Oman is hoping to attract by running this event - going to stay? Plus there is politics to consider - what if you put one team in one hotel and another in another hotel of a different standard, or distance to the games... I don't think this option has any credence at all.

3/ Tent city (or portacabin city). I think this is the most probable option, but who knows?

Do you have any observations? Whatever they do, I imagine they're working hard on getting it done!

Don't forget to enter for the prize draw for 1 of 2 pairs of tickets to Dan Zak's concert next Thursday.

le fin.

Eid holidays announced.

The Eid holidays have now been announced for the Government sector, expect to see it in the papers tomorrow.

For those hard working Government boys and girls, they are getting the entire week off next week - 11-09-2010 to 15-09-2010.

For the Private sector workers, Saturday - Tuesday has been given as holidays, with a return to work on Wednesday - 11-09-2010 to 14-09-2010.

Not a bad result, that.

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Competition! Dan Zak @ T'Intercon Thursday Sept 16th

Next Thursday at the InterContinental hotel gardens, Dan Zak will be performing. You can read all about him (if you don't already know of him) on his official Facebook FAN PAGE here, and his Facebook Celeb Verified account here. He's an East-African guy (born in Tanzania) with a strong Omani connection, and has recently returned to Oman. You can listen to some of his stuff on his MySpace page, here.

Dan's style is RnB and he signed up to Akon's Hitlab website some time ago. He held the number 1 spot on Hitlab for an impressive 8 weeks (longer than anyone else to date) and has since built a pretty impressive following (over 7250 fans on Facebook).

Tickets are RO 15 a pop, and are on sale right now through the usual outlets (Bose store in QCC, HiFM & Intercon Box Office).

But if you either comment below, or send me an email, you could win one of two PAIRS of tickets!

If you choose to comment below, please leave a method of contacting you. It's much better to send me an email.

Email your contact information to: mrsythe @ gmail.com

The prize draw will be made early on Thursday morning, so make sure you enter! Remember - it's free to enter, I won't keep or sell your information for any reason except to tell you that you've won some tickets - You've got to be in it to win it!


le fin.