Jerash

Posted by Kanga.

Our last site to see was Jerash. It was established by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. and later expanded as a Roman city, one of the Decapolis cities.

Much of the city was toppled by the earthquake in 749 A.D., but it is one of the best preserved sites.

The pillars of the Temple of Artemis remained standing despite the earthquake.

We had a guide and it was worthwhile. Sometimes the guides can get in the way of the experience (such as the one at the Citadel). This guide went slowly, told us important information without it being too much and gave us lots of time to take pictures and enjoy ourselves.

To see all the pictures, click here.

Madaba, Mt. Nebo, and the Dead Sea

Posted by Kanga.

After Wadi Rum and Petra, it seems to be downhill. Perhaps we should have reversed the order of our itinerary.

On our way to the Dead Sea, we stopped at St. George Church in Madaba where there is a mosaic map from the 6th Century. Neither of us is very interested in the Byzantine era. I enjoyed some of the newer mosaics that were hanging in the church (21st Century).

We also stopped at the Mosaic School, where we were briefly (very briefly) shown how new mosaics are made in a small workroom and then ushered into the expansive gift shop. The school teaches Jordanians, some of whom are physically disabled, how to create and restore mosaics. They do good work.

Next was Mt. Nebo, where there are more remains of mosaic flooring from a Byzantine church. The view of the Jordan Valley was lovely, despite the cloudiness.

By mid-afternoon we were at our Dead Sea hotel, ready for a late, late lunch and a long nap. Testing the waters waited until the next morning.

See all the pictures – click here.

Petra Cats

Posted by Kanga.

You knew it would happen, right? A post about stray cats during our vacation is traditional.

We saw this tom three times on our trips up and down the siq (canyon). He clearly has a territory that is his niche. There is a patch of bamboo and a large crack going away from the path area, so there is probably a whole ecosystem that provides for his needs.

Since we were walking out on the second day, we could stop to have a little chat with him.

He was very sweet and very clean (except for his dusty paws). It would appear that he has a pretty cushy life just sitting around, licking himself, and watching the tourists go by.

The cats in this region aren’t Arabian Maus, like our own Oliver and Bert. These cats have shorter legs, shorter spines, and rounder faces. They are very nicely proportioned, medium sized cats.

He even made himself right at home on DaddyBird’s shoulders.

We tore ourselves away and went further up the trail. This little female came running with her tail in the air when she saw us.

She also was happy to get some attention.

Until the dog came…

And she had to take defensive measures.

All the stray cats we’ve encountered in town have been very skittish and defensive. It was nice to encounter these two, who have it pretty good and can afford to be friendly.

If you would like to see all the pictures from our second day at Petra (222 of them) click here.

Petra!

Posted by Kanga.

Our first day at Petra started at 8 am. We met our guide, Abdullah Al Nawafleh, bought some hats to shield us from the sun, and headed in. To ease the experience we hired a horse drawn carriage. Abdulla negotiated it so that he could drive us in and another driver would come to pick us up at the other end around 2 pm.

The horse drawn carriage is a rough, rough ride. We were bounced down the path. Luckily, Abdullah stopped occasionally to explain the features along the way giving us a bit of a break. The path in is all downhill. We felt sorry for the poor horse who slipped occasionally on the rocks.

We had a marvelous time. The tour was informative and enjoyable. We had a few hours on our own, mostly spent in the Roman part of town. We started to climb to the Monastery, but I was not up to it. We came upon a trinket stall along the way and the Bedouin woman invited us to stop and rest on her bench. I took her up on the offer. She also offered us tea. We accepted not realizing that she would have to start a fire and make the tea for us. A couple of tourist police on their way up and a German couple on their way down joined us. It was quite pleasant. We bought a necklace from our host. She was very gracious.

Then we headed back to our rendezvous point for our carriage ride back to town. It was a bumpy ride back and a bit worse because there were no stops to alleviate the experience.

You can see all of the 390 pictures here.

Day two, we go in slow on foot.

Jordan, Day Two – Citadel, Amphitheatre, Wadi Rum

Posted by Kanga.

Wow, this was an eventful and amazing day. I took 341 pictures – click here to see them.

We started with the Citadel, the top of a hill in the heart of Amman which has a wealth of archaeological sites dating from all periods – early bronze age, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, etc.

From here we went to the Roman amphitheatre at the base of this hill.

There is also a small museum there. While looking at this dress, a young woman standing next to me asked “Do you like it?” I said, “Yes, it’s beautiful.” She said “Not so much.” I’m guessing, but there seemed to be a group of students so she may have been a Jordanian university student. Too bad she doesn’t appreciate her own past. Since I’ve made clothing and done embroidery, I have a better appreciation for what kind of work went into creating this beautiful dress.

Next we were on the road to Wadi Rum. This took about three hours.

Wadi Rum is a large area of limestone formations. We rode in the back of a jeep pickup driven by a bedouin who lives in the valley. It was an amazing time.

We stopped a couple of times to see petroglyphs.

We stayed for sunset, then it was back to our tour driver so we could head to our hotel in Wadi Musa. Tomorrow we explore Petra.

We are having an amazing time.

Dinner Adventure

Posted by Kanga.

It began with a walk in the neighborhood of our hotel looking for a restaurant. We soon discovered there was little to choose from. DaddyBird flagged down a taxi and asked if he could take us to Al Quds Restaurant (purported to be the best place to get Mansaf – the national dish). The taxi driver wasn’t sure, but it was agreed that he would take us downtown. This led to a fairly long drive. The meter said 27 at the beginning of our ride. We are used to cheap taxi rides where petrol is cheap, so I began to worry as I saw the meter going up and up. I only had 140 dinars because we haven’t changed all of our cash, yet. When the meter hit 130 I was envisioning us being stranded downtown with no money to get back to the hotel. We arrived downtown and found the Al Quds Restaurant very easily. The restaurant appears to have two names – Al Quds and Jerusalem Restaurant.

The meter showed 190 which turned out to be 1.90 much to my relief. So our ride only cost 2 dinar ($2.68).

This was the restaurant we were hoping to find. No fancy ambiance.

English menu:

We ordered mansaf, motabal, mango juice, and lemon juice. This meal cost 13.30 dinar ($9.30).

Here is a close up of the mansaf. It was quite tasty.

After walking around a little bit in the downtown area where most of the businesses were closed for the evening, we flagged down a taxi. We are staying in a small, little known hotel, so the driver didn’t know where it was. DaddyBird only had a general idea where it was. So, the driver called someone to ask for directions. Those directions led to a completely different hotel. We drove around the general area for a bit. The driver stopped at a grocery store to ask the locals if they knew where it was. They did not. We knew we were close because we were seeing familiar things. I had taken the photo below soon after leaving the hotel, so I showed it to the driver. It did not help him. We stopped again on a backstreet and the driver asked some locals about the hotel and then about the street in the photo. It turns out that the street is known by another name. They told him where the street was. As soon as we reached it, we recognized where we were and found the hotel. This time the taxi ride cost 3.33 dinar ($4.70).

It was a pleasant evening with good food and a bit of drama for excitement.

Amman, Jordan – Day One

Posted by Kanga.

We have arrived safely in Amman, Jordan.

Maybe someday we will travel somewhere that we don’t say “We could live here,” but it is not today. It is beautiful here. We are enjoying the cool weather.

I wasn’t sure what a shoe mitt was, but I figured it out. Few people shine shoes anymore.

Bilingual shampoo and lotions. The signage we’ve seen so far is bilingual, too.

Shortly, we will be off to walk in the neighborhood and find a good restaurant for dinner.

Travel By Book: Bryson’s Britain

Posted by Kanga.

Bryson, Bill. Notes from a small island. London: Black Swan, 1996. Print.

During this two week stay at home vacation I am visiting Britain through the eyes of Bill Bryson. We have a very similar sense of humor and perspective on the world, so reading a Bryson book usually results in my laughing out loud and then reading the passage aloud for DaddyBird.

Bryson is at his best when he is making up words, like imaginary (but believable) place names – the Buggered Ploughman pub, Ram’s Droppings bypass, or the rail crossing at Great Shagging. Or mocking the formality of a restaurant menu by asking for “a lustre of water freshly drawn from the house tap and presented au nature in a cylinder of glass.”

His description of Daniel’s department store in Windsor makes me want to explore it. The sad part is that it is probably not there anymore. In this book Bryson is describing his “farewell tour” of Britain in the early 90′s. He combines flashbacks to the 70′s when he first arrived in England and his 90′s observations giving a taste of nostalgia for the things already lost to the passage of time. His travel plan was to use only public transportation (bus and train), but 1990′s reality was that much of the public transport network had disappeared.

Travel by book means that I have no pictures to show my daily adventure. However, having been to Britain a time or two, I will slip in one of my favorite pictures from a previous trip.

Southwark, London 2009

The Road Home

Posted by Kanga.

Singapore Airport has the best piece of public art. It is hundreds of silver tear drops, each suspended on a transparent thread and animated to move up and down in a variety of patterns. Very zen.

It was mesmerizing. We could have easily missed our plane while watching it.

Luckily, we tore ourselves away and made it back to Dubai safe and sound. Our plan for getting back to Fujairah from Dubai was a reverse of how we got there (taxi – bus – taxi). We fully expected to have a long wait in the heat waiting for the bus, however, we could not have timed it better if we tried. We arrived at the bus stop at 2:40 pm. A bus was waiting and it departed at 2:45 with us on it.

Singapore: Days Twelve & Thirteen

Posted by Kanga.

With only two days to go and a long list of things we hadn’t done, I had to beg off for a bit of a rest, so most of day 12 was spent with my feet up. Then, it was time for dinner.

Our friend, Adrianna, guided us on our evening repast adventure. First we stopped for a snack of sashimi. Our final destination was a small Japanese restaurant (Restaurant Chako) in which it is best to call/email ahead to get your order in, because everything is prepared fresh, even the sauces. Therefore, dinner can take a few hours to complete. (We all forgot to take pictures of the appetizers – oops! We had edamame [soy beans], shishamo [small grilled fish], and maguro yamakake [raw tuna with yam sauce])

DaddyBird’s dinner was yosenabe (claypot soup with seafood, chicken, mushroom, and tofu).

Adrianna’s dinner was unatamaju (broiled eel on scrambled egg and rice).

I had the Chako set meal (mackerel, breaded chicken, breaded cuttlefish, rice, cabbage salad, potato salad, miso soup, etc.).

We added tempura moriawase (shrimp and vegetables). It was all very delicious. Everything was prepared fresh and it doesn’t get more authentic than this.

We capped it all off with several desserts. Above is coffee flavored gelatin, below is green tea ice cream. Not pictured – cappuccino ice cream and black sesame ice cream. The black sesame ice cream was really interesting – almost more savory than sweet.

Our plan for the last day was to go to the bird park, but when we woke up it was raining heavily, so change of plans. The Asian Civilizations Museum was within walking distance of our hotel and offered an escape from the rain.

The rain had let up briefly, so it was a pleasant walk down the riverside.

We joined a tour that was starting when we arrived. The subject was the influence and use of Chinese art and style in other cultures.

This elephant is Chinese porcelain that was then modified in Turkey with the addition of the metal parts changing it into a hookah base (shisha pipe).

The museum presents all cultures and religions of Asia.

This bowl was made in Iraq attempting to emulate Chinese porcelain, but instead creating a unique and beautiful piece with a style of it’s own.

We left with a long list of places we didn’t go and things we didn’t do, but we enjoyed Singapore very much and will probably go back again.