Sand..It's Everywhere...Get Used To It...

Though we get quite a rude awakening on the amount of sand left, right, front, back and centre, it only took awhile for this to reveal it's beauty to us. The pics you see below were taken from the top floor of our apartment.

These are aerial view of the Ritz-Carlton, the best hotel in the country. It's nice to see how the greenery seems to blend with the surrounding. However, the view on the other side of the apartment immediately reminded me of where I am. It's sand...lots of them....everywhere...

I just have to get used to it.... :-)

The Start of My Nomadic Life...

Manama....

Mana?

Ma-na-ma....

Mana-mana?

MA-NA-MA!

Where is the world is Manama?

That's the usual conversation that I would have to go through everytime someone asks me where have I been posted to...for the benefit of the uninnitiated, and to save myself from exhaustion of having to repeat myself countless of times...Manama is the capital of Bahrain. It is located in West Asia (or the Middle East; then again, geografically speaking, there's no such thing as the Middle East), a tiny island just of Saudi Arabia's coastline.

 And so, armed with a very limited Arabic proficiency (yes, no, alright, no problem) I bundled the whole family on 14 July 2010 to the other side of the world, clueless of what is in store of us in the days to come...

You Can Never Get Too Much Sand

After a long haul flight which saw us transitting for 5 hours in Dubai, we finally arrived at the Bahrain International Airport on 15 July 2011. After getting the immigration and baggage clearance, we exited the airport to a 48 degree celcius weather! It's the middle of the summer and being an island country , the humidity is even worse than Malaysia.

As we were driven across Bahrain to our temporary apartment, I can safely say that I have never seen so much sand in my whole life. And this is amplified by the colour of the houses and buildings along the way.

Ironically, this would be the start of my nomadic life....