A Late Post - In March We Went Back to Saida (Sidon)

Thought I would catch up a little and take a step back. Mid-March we went south to Saida again. Within the Souks of Saida there are many Churches and Mosques. It is like a little city within the city with people living above their shops. There are also community centers, schools and museums. The last time we had been there we had been in country for about 2 1/2 months and were still in a daze. We wanted to go back and see it again with a different viewpoint. It was a lovely day trip with friends. Here are some pictures!

We went through a few places in the Souks. This is the clothing area.

You can see where many people live in the Souks if you look up. I can only imagine what their rooftops look like. If I lived here I would put a lovely garden up there.

I post this picture for my friend Paul. Electrical is always interesting outside of the U.S.

This picture and the next one are for my father. There were little wood shops in one area of the Souks

We walked through the Khan El Franj, an old Caravanasarie. In other words, this is where they would stop or end trips from and to the east. 

Our lovely friend, Sharon. She's inside the Khan. The acoustics are wonderful and they do have performances there.

Delaney, Andrea and Sharon in front of one of the original doors.

We were once again going through the Souk which feels like a labyrinth and went up some stairs around a corner and walked right into a basketball court of a school. Yes, there is an old fountain in the middle of the court and yes, they played around it.

The group of us outside of the Soap Museum. Tim, Michelle, Sharon, Delaney, Janna, Andrea and Philippe

Of course we had to stop at the sweet shop. Everything was wonderful. Giant pancakes filled with cheese, little pancakes with walnut filling and deep fried yummies.

These were kind of like funnel cakes dipped in something?? Tasted good!

And of course the baklava type sweets that you see all over Lebanon. The ones in Saida are unique.

Philippe seems to know everyone where ever we go.  This man is the owner of a restaurant on the the edge of the water.

Once again, a lovely meal.

We went back into the Souk. Philippe had arranged for a friend to walk us into a VERY old Mosque that is still in use today. On the way we saw this place selling charcoal. I just thought it was interesting to see how it is sold here.

This is within the mosque. I love the old chandeliers.

The stained glass windows were lovely as well

As always, you see beautiful old rugs on the floor. You cannot wear shoes in a Mosque and Delaney and I have to put a scarf over our hair. 

This is the foyer of the Mosque.

I don't know what it says but the writing is so beautiful.

The minaret

In the late afternoon it got pretty windy but we wanted to go out to the crusader castle on the water anyway. 

A view of the city from within the castle

Tim and Janna in the upper part of the castle

Another view of the city just as you are walking back to shore

And what it looks like from the shore

I just thought I'd add this one. We went to lunch the next day and someone took this picture.

Spring Break in Thailand - Part One

Well, it has been a while since we've posted. It seems that the time between Christmas and Spring Breaks is incredibly busy and therefore, less blog posts. So sorry!
Suffice to say, going to Bangkok was quite the experience. The city has over 14 million people in it. Just the city. The country of Lebanon has 4 million....total. We had chances to leave the city which was good but it took a minimum of an hour to just get out of the city itself. Here are some pictures of our first day. We went on a tour which took us to a few places including Khao Yai National Park. Our first stop was to a local market. You know me, I love looking at different foods that people buy and sell. Here are some examples of what we saw:

Not full sure what this stuff was to be honest but is smelled interesting.

Eel anyone? 

This woman sold a variety of seafood including eel, snails, fish, crawdads, and frogs

Very hot peppers

Flowers were sold everywhere we went

Just sitting there ready to eat!

We then stopped at a local farm to take an ox cart ride and have lunch. 

There were a few dogs there. This one seemed to own the place.

Water tower

The girls wearing traditional farmers hats

Our cart

We got back and had the opportunity to make some really nice food. All of it was fresh.

Tim cooking. Yes, it was pretty cool!

We were on a tour with a couple from Singapore and another couple from Australia. A very nice group.  

Lunch!

More Lunch!

These things looked like apples, had the texture of apple...didn't taste like apples. Tasted good though!

Our cook insisted on having a picture with us.

Yes, we did hike into the waterfall but sadly, it was very dry.

These posts were in a variety of places along the path. They are there to block the elephants from knocking down some of the buildings in the park. No, we didn't see any elephants...only elephant poo!

This guy came to say hi. He was not shy at all.

This was the stairway down to the trickle of a waterfall. Sadly, I did not venture down. Eventually, Tim will add a couple of pictures.

We then went to a place to see elephants. I did do a little research and found that this place, while they still had rides, they treated the elephants in a humane manner. I am hoping my resources were correct.

Tim and Janna in front of us.

This is Cherry. She stopped to eat a couple of times.

Yes, it was a great day. We had a wonderful time together seeing the countryside.  Yes, I will post at least two more blogs about Thailand in the near future.

To the Land of Sand....

A couple of weeks ago I (Midge) ventured to the country of Saudi Arabia for professional training. While I didn't get to see much (because is was learning a lot) I did find that yes, there are friendly people everywhere you go.  Here are some pictures of my short adventure.

Since I flew in after dark this was the first view I saw when I got there. Outside of my hotel room

Something we don't have in Lebanon. I wish we did. 

My very nice hotel.

This is at the school I was thinking WOW! This place is HUGE! But then I realized how flat and spread out it is compared to where we are. We are just more vertical. I took this picture because there sure is a lot of sand on the campus. With all of the cats we have, it would be a SERIOUS litter box!

Another picture of the school

This and the next picture are a little blurry because I didn't want to make a scene taking a picture in the mall. This was a mall on steroids. Some wonderful people that teach in Riyadh took pity on me (being alone) and invited me to go with them to the Outback Steakhouse here. We walked from entrance #2 to entrance #11 for 45 minutes until we found the restaruant.

This mall seemed to be the place for women to go. The only men I saw were with women or they were boys.  I guess this is tradition here.

This was a lovely sunset I saw.

Many of the shops have this kind of entrance. Sorry it's blurry. Taking pictures in the car is tough.

I did successfully get some Starbucks mugs. This was a challenge since women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia. I had an hour before someone was taking me to the airport. When I was at the hotel I asked them if someone could get me a taxi to go. This man came up and said he would take me for free because I reminded him of the English tutor he had when he lived in the U.S. for 6 years. This was very nice. He rushed me to Starbucks and I ran in to get the cups. While I was buying them the Call the Prayer happened. This means that all businesses lock their doors. I thought I was going to be stuck there for 20 or so minutes but a nice Indian man that worked there let me out. YAY!

I found that not only was going to Saudi Arabia an adventure. Getting into this country was an adventure in and of itself.  You have to be officially "Invited" to be able to go to Saudi Arabia. This is a challenging thing to do for foreigners in the Kingdom so the school hosting the training could not help me.  It took the efforts of many people here at ACS to get me there AND the help of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Lebanon as well. This was some of the best professional development I have had in a few years and so I truly appreciate all who helped me to get there!