Fathima Supermarket

When you step out the front door of our apt. you see Fathima's sign.
This is where we do some of our shopping, it's really small and kind of like a general store. You can get everything that you need here as far as essentials are concerned, like soup to nuts.

Upstairs you can buy suitcases if you are leaving town, can openers to get into that soup tin you just purchased downstairs or prayer mats if the one you have just won't hold out for one more session.

Yours Truly

Yaris

OK I was pretty much lost before, now I am still lost except that I am now 35 km from home. At least I have a map to keep the sun off my head so I'm not too over cooked when the vultures swoop in.

This is showing off our new set of rented wheels that I call squishies ( it looks like they were squished between two trucks). You can get them by the day, week month, year whatever. Unlimited mileage too!
Singapore here we come!

Back home in Canada I would always have an emergency survival kit in the car, you know,.. 7 pairs of long johns, candles, blankets, food, etc etc. Here you keep drinking water in the trunk. ( and a camel ideally)

The Doors ( not the rock band)

Pictured here is one of the entrances (wooden doors) and the sculpted openings that lead to the outdoor "porch thingy" that surrounds the theatre before you can get to the wooden doors.

For further clairification and loads of quote marks surrounding nebulous terms like "thingy" please leave a comment with your email.

The Theatre

A couple of shots of the theatre previously seen from across the water in the photo titled "The Arabian Gulf".

Tile Work

This highly detailed tile work is at the entrance way to the theatre pictured in the photos titled "In The Arabian Gulf". It would be my assumption that every piece of this was laid individually, because that just seems to be how they do things of this nature here.

Iftar Tent

Iftar is breakfast in Arabic, literally breaking -fast, which is done after sunset during Ramadan. Iftar can be enjoyed at home with the family and sometimes as a community at an Iftar tent.

Traditionally fast is broken with dates and water.

This particular tent is in front of the Mosque just down the street from us.( pictured in the following photos.)

Throughout Ramadan the city is spotted with such tents.

The Gate

Minarets have been described as " the gate between heaven and earth"

More Mosque

Here you can see the prayer hall or Mushalla windows lit up on the main floor level with the minarets behind.

Minarets were also used as a type of air conditioning before mechanical AC became popular. The sun would heat up the tower and then pull air up and out (stack effect) and thereby pull in air from outside to cool off the people inside.

Minarets in the dark

Shown here is the dome and two of the four minarets that this particular mosque has. Minaret comes from the Arabic word manara which means light house. Before the days of speakers and microphones the Muezzin (person who sings out the call to prayer) would climb up the minaret and call out from the gallery up near the top.