Oman Vs Japan (Brazil '14 Qualifier)

Oman 1 - 2 Japan

At 2 rial (£3) a ticket and a surprise long weekend off work, going to the game was an easy and, in hindsight, great decision. 

After work I met Hannah and Lyndsey, who has been visiting for a few days, and we took a taxi to the stadium. After buying a couple of flags and a scarf (not really scarf weather Lyndsey!) we headed into the stadium and found a place to sit. The atmosphere was great, loud booing during Japan's national anthem and a passionate belting out of Oman's. For the opening 20 minutes the energy continued with the crowd constantly singing and chanting, encouraged by a loudspeaker every time things started to subdue. Unfortunately Japan are quite good and scored to dampen the spirits for a large portion of the rest of the game. Oman were playing well and creating lots of chances, hitting the post but generally lacking any real quality in front of goal. 

Half time was a welcome break and a chance to get some water. (Absolutely no shelter from the sun for 45 minutes was brutal). I stayed with the seats and bags while Hannah and Lyndsey went to find the refreshments stand. After 5 minutes they returned empty handed and quite unnerved by the experience of being in a raucous crowd of Omanis pushing, shoving and groping their way to the front of the queue. Maybe Hannah will elaborate more on this but I'll leave it at that. Anyway, I set off to try my luck and saw a mass brawl/queue and began fighting my way to the front, at which point we were 'water is finished'. The crowd ran off in the direction of the next stand, I headed back to the seats, empty handed. 

So we sat, waterless, through the second half and thankfully Oman leveled with a freekick that sent the crowd into wild celebrations. Usually, in English football at least, this dies down after a couple of minutes. In Oman this apparently continues until there's a reason to stop. So we danced and sang and waved our flags, barely noticing that the game was still on until Japan spoiled the party by getting an 89th minute winner and the wild celebrations around the stadium came to an abrupt end unless you were sitting in the tiny section allocated to Japan. We left to beat the crowds and got a taxi home. Unlucky Oman. 

Eid Mubarak! - Camping on the beach

Eid Mubarak everybody! It's Eid in Oman (equivalent of being Xmas in the UK) so I've had a week off work. We went camping on Thursday about an hour and a half from Muscat on a beautiful beach called Fins. Lots of drinking (probably not the thing to do at Eid), BBQ food, marshmallows on the fire and a nice swim in the sea in the morning to get over the hangover. Highly recommended. Here's a few photos (Hannah has more, better ones that I'll put up when I get them off her) ...

Views from our new home

The view from the kitchen window as you're doing the washing up. Hannah hasn't seen it yet!

The view from the balcony as you're relaxing. I haven't seen it yet!

New home

After weeks staying in shared accommodation with 2 other teachers, we have finally found our own place to live.

We chose an area called Madinat Al-Sulatan Qaboos (M.Q.) because Muscat is a large city spread out along the coast and M.Q. is pretty much the only area that you have shops, restaurants etc within walking distance so it's perfect for us as we're not driving and were spending a fortune on taxis. We've got a supermarket that annoyingly stocks Waitrose products so even away from Kensington I still have to shop there and more importantly a licenced Mexican restaurant that feels a little bit like a strip club in the sense that all of windows are boarded shut so that nobody can see the debauchery that's going on inside (namely an Indian band playing soft rock covers and people drinking cocktails while munching on nachos)

We live about 5 minutes walk from the main plaza with the aforementioned establishments and it's very peaceful and relaxed. There is a lot of welcome shade provided by trees and the colourful plants and flowers provide a pleasant contrast to the desert surroundings of our old place. The whole area was designed by the British in the 60's/70's and is mainly home to European and Indian expats. We found an old building that looks quite quirky from the outside although not as appealing as some of the surrounding villas! However inside there is lots of charm including a big wooden door to lead you into our flat which is much more modern and cleaner than some of the other places we saw.

Inside we have 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, living room and a balcony with great views of the mountains that trap Muscat between themselves and the ocean. The ocean itself is not too far away, maybe a 20 minute walk or a quick taxi. Also, there's access to the roof via an old wooden ladder that will be great for sunbathing, exercising or barbeques once the weather cools down a little bit. (in about a month or so we're told)

Due to having to pay 3 months rent in advance we're basically camping at the moment, sleeping on an airbed and cooking on an electric hob we bought for 5 OMR (about £7.50) but not to worry, today we ordered a mattress, fridge and washing machine and a few days ago we managed to acquire a cooker from a friend who's moving to Abu-Dhabi so normal life will resume soon!

I was going to take some photos today to put them up here but it rained for the first time since we've been here. It was very dramatic with thunder and lightning right on top of us but didn't lend to good photos so I'll take them tomorrow when the weathers back to its usual beautiful, sunny self. Until then, we hope you're all well and look forward to hosting those of you planning to visit us in our new home.

Boring first post

Hi everybody, I've created this blog to keep you updated on how we're getting on in Oman (if anybody is interested) and hopefully as a place to post some nice photos.

So, I've been here for about a month now and Hannah arrived a week ago. The first 3 weeks on my own were mostly boring - just working and sleeping and calling Hannah. With temperatures reaching over 45 it was hard to do anything at all!

I'm not going to give a day by day account so I'll give you a quick run down of how things have gone.

School - I started working at Azzan Bin Qais the day after I got here. It's a nice school but I quickly realised that Omani kids are little shits, just like the kids at home really. As a result I haven't done much teaching yet mostly just ear-bashing which I'm much better at than I thought I'd be. Now Hannah has started working there too which is nice the kids all think she's beautiful and interrupt my lessons to tell me so.

Weather - It's been hot!

Muscat - We still haven't seen that much of the city yet. It's much more spread out than I thought it'd be. It's difficult to travel around so we've been spending a lot of time and money in taxis everyday (a good place to practice speaking Arabic) . From what we've seen it's a really nice, clean, safe city and as soon as we're driving I'm sure it'll get nicer. We're yet to visit the actual old town of Muscat but we did visit another small port called Muttrah and wandered around the souk for a while and bought some frankinsense.

Other than that, not much else to say yet, we're settling in well, just relaxing and enjoying the sun. We've met some really nice people who've made us feel welcome and invited us to a few parties where we downed magnums of champagne and jumped in the pool at 4 a.m. so can't really complain too much.

I'll update this again when we've explored a bit more and I can stick some photos up.

Ma'asalama.

The view as you leave the school.

The front of Azzan Bin Qais International School. Leaving the school and immediately seeing the mountains rising up in front of you is very impressive.