Written: [Courtyard of Al-Rabie Hotel, Damascus] 7.45pm 17th May

The courtyard is truly a blessing as it gives character to a hotel that would otherwise be fairly unremarkable. The marble tiles, fountain, chirping birds, old furniture and hanging vines all contribute to the generally relaxed, old and musty atmosphere of the hotel. The young guys that run it haev evidently run out of people to be interested in or foreigners to be surprised by as they approach their work in a relaxed but business-like manner. Although, maybe it's just me that they don't like given their general bruskness and constant rebuffs of my attempts to communicate in Arabic with their more than adequate English.

This place must certainly be over 100 years old yet everything in it seems normal, utilitarian and serves a purpose. The tourists recline on the more comfortable of the older chairs as if they were musty old armchairs in their livingrooms, as they read books. The older tourists huddle around small tables reading guidebooks, talking in hushed tones and reacting with muted wonder at the loud call to prayer that emanates from the large mosque.

The Chinese girl wearing a beautiful silk robe (knee-length, black) that contrasts perfectly with her alabaster skin thinks nothing of traipsing along the marble tiles, probably laid over 100 years ago, on her way to the ancient stairwell leading to the room in which she sleeps, that has probably never seen the modern wonders of TV and Air Conditioning, born of an older, more practical form of climate control and entertainment, before the advent of such luxuries. As she trails the sickly synthetic yet strangely emasculating (for me, not for her) scent of designer skincare product, it seems to stand at odds with the shisha pipes and decaying wooden furniture around it.
































This is the beauty of Damascus, as LP says, the locals shop in the ancient souqs, live in the Old City, pray in the Ummayad Mosque, bathe in the Ottoman-ear hammmams and fill the streets with a lifestyle that has changed so much yet so litle in Syria's long and turbulent history. The two old men playing backgammon outside a butcher's shop in the shade of the stone buildings of the old city. The men sharing a shisha and a conversation in the qahwa opposite the Ummayad Mosque. The women bargaining for spices and textiles in Hammidya Souq, 100+ years old. The kids bouncing a football against the eroding stone walls, a grey that is not so much unforgiving as seemingly eternal.

How many empires have these people seen come and go? Romans, Persians, Abbasids, Ummayads, Greeks, Ottomans, French, Ba'athists, and now, slowly encroaching, the empire of the tourist. The clothes may now be made of cheap manufactured Chinese textile and there may be satellite dishes above the slums, but some things in Damashq, as-Sham, will never change. And all those things can be found in the smile of the tea-maker as he serves the young German girl tea, directs his older son on where to place more stools, grips the shoulder, reassuringly, of his younger son who's playing on his electronic keyboard, and takes a relaxed, pensive drag on his cigarette as Damashq moves before his eyes.

Written: [Sheikh Zayed Mosque, Abu Dhabi] 5.23pm 4th May

Prayer Room

It is possible to swallowed up in a place like this, the light bounces off the white columns, dances around the room like so many fingers of God. As the tourists wander around, mouths open, looking at the opulence, they seem irrelevant, ants, no identity, no uniqueness. Humbling. A man-made structure can contain God in it if the minds of the men are turned towards Him. He made us in His image or do we make ourselves, our experiences, our work in His image?

Now empty, the hall seems less Heavenly. The sound of a vacuum cleaner reminds me that even Majesty requires hoovering. Was God in the minds of the architects or simply grandeur? Glory? Biggest mosque in the world? Who is flexing their might here? Man or God? I can outbuild you, man says, towers reaching towards the Heavens, sprawling Halls, domes, minarets, colours, volumes, carpets, marble and gold. All to bring me closer to You, closer to knowing You. But what is the achievement? God resides in our hearts, our minds and our souls. A simple prayer rug in Gaza holds more power than 1000 Sheikh Zayed Mosques. Anything over and above that is conflited.

God or Glory? If the minaret is built tall enough can it pierce the clouds and the Heavens themselves? Steadfastly reaching towards God, declaring, we will outbuild you, see Man's might. Man is foolish, Heaven has always been in our heats and we get closer to God on that Gaza prayer rug and more distant with every shiny marble column.

Written: [Anna's Cafe] 9.45am 16th April

You don't really notice places like this unless you walk. I wonder what this calm Filipino lady thinks of me wandering in at this time with my old jeans, flip flops and several day old beard confessing that all I have in my pocket is 600 fils. As expected when I walked past earlier this morning, there is no one here. I wonder how she makes her money. I must come back. There's nothing particularly special about this place apart from the fact that it's not very Bahrain. It's tiny, quaint and hardly patronised yet it still feels more European than Bahraini. It's nto a chain, no wi-fi and no credit cards. No shisha either, it seems, but they do bake their own bread and pastries and things. This would be a paerfect little local to frequent.

It has a very odd style about it. Rounded little hotel lobby-style camel chairs with a mahogany trim. Round pink ashtrays on tiny round black tables, pictures of pasties and cheese on the wall, all the same size and all in a row along the top of the wall. They all look like they're from the mid 90s. Some random fake vines in the corner and square wooden tables with green tablecloths and wooden chairs along the middle. Oh and a ceiling high circular shelving unit adorned with magazines on the bottom and faux wedding cakes at the top. All to the smooth commercial sounds of Radio Bahrain. Yet somehow the quiet mishmash of this place somehow fits together and it feels homely like Costa never could. The Filipino lady also seems pleasant, like a young aunt. I do wonder why the menu refers to it as a Cypress coffee and not Turkish. Political statement or gimmick?

Well you wouldn't call the coffee good yet there's still something enticing about this place. Maybe I'm just craving something different like this after all the cafe chains and shisha joints or maybe I just want to fall in love with a place that's so cosy and so human. The massive windows are a bonus but you wouldn't call the view 'beautiful'. On the other hand, this is the real, typical Manama neighbourhood. Road 3614, faceless grey apartment blocks, vans and old cars frame the dirtyish narrow concrete streets with not footpath. Random corner DVD store with posters of Egyptian and Lebanese posters adorning its window wall. This is Bahrain, or Manama at least. Rusty satellite dishes sit atop roofs of buildings a few stories high, all grey with dirty walls, grate square balconies and AC units sticking out. It's all function. Light colour walls, block the heat, ACs cool and satellite dishes entertain.

There never was a gothic period here, no renaissance. Surviving in the Gulf means protecting your family (women) behind thick walls and cooling your home from the 50 degree summer heat. They don't need flourishes, detail and fancy buildings. They live functionally, always have, maybe always will. They build beautiful monuments to Allah and they aim for their hearts to reflect the same kind of beauty. You don't need European charm for that. Life is simple. You fear God, protect your family, provide food and stave off the heat. Nowadays American TV and Asian labour takes care of the rest. America, a country born of the same functionality and simplicty seems a perfect cultural model for development in that sense.

Written: [Sevilla] April 4th 2.45am

The Andalusian capital and home of flamenco, bull runs and the best ever Santa Semana. Haven't seen much of those three but certainly loving the freedom and chilledness of the Spanish South. Streets are busy, places are open, people are boisterous well into the night. The food and coffee has been disappointing, like everywhere else we've been in Spain, but the vibe is fantastic and the narrow warrens and cobblestoned streets of the Old Town are some of the best in Spain.

The beauty of the Alcazar is also unrivalled so far, the gardens, tiling, architecture and meticulous attention to detail are sheer beauty. I could spend days exploring and chilling the plazas and jardins. The Catedral rises up like an eerie Dracula's castle at night, a massive Gothic monument to Christianity. It still incorporates the 90m minaret of the old mosque which it replaced and some reinassance period elements from the reconstruction. The inside of the main prayer hall is far from spectacular, however, and rather like any other big church.

This area with the Alcazar and the Catedral is really beautiful. At night when there is no one around and just the dim street lighting and the moonlight, to walk through this area is like a dream. During the day, the area is crowded with tourists but still the few small plazas and street bars around serve as good platforms for people watching and monument gazing. The incessant ringing of the bells is at first atmospheric but subsequently rather annoying. As are the hoardes of schoolkid tour groups. The beautiful weather, however, makes everything ok.

I love my red havaianas but am lusting for more shoes.
I also love tiles. Am buying too many souvenirs, far too many.
This Hotel Abanico is beautiful.

pg. 74 Walden
When Thoreau describes his surroundings in the woods it is very engaging and beautiful. In his section 'sounds' he does this, and discusses the old Eastern concept of being constantly aware of the moment, employing all senses to observe, etc. It's a powerfully appealing concept and coupled with his descriptive writing (which he does very well) is a strong impetus for personal change in this direction - but that requires much discipline, that which I'm bad at. Could use writing as a means to achieve this better...

Written: [Barcelona] 8.45pm 28th March

Starbucks in the Barri Goti with Sinatra painfully but melodiously churning through love songs. After a day of random meandering which started off with a trip to the hospital in search of medical help for my conjunctivitis (my conversational ability in Spanish surprised myself) and a bunch of Gaudis (the double take at La Sagrada Familia was particularly memorable), my mood worsened as we headed back to La Rambla and selected a rather unfortunate restaurant - Gaudi's Tapas or something equally tourist enticing. It felt like a quasi-English pub with bad service and overpriced food. No tip. The warrens of la Ciutat Vella continue to toss up gems but unfortunately, in the very Murphy's Law sense, never the ones we seem to need at the time. So after a half bottle of Rioja, we were too sleepy to search and settled on the comfort of Starbucks. After milky coffee, cake and a cigarette, the sofa seems a good place to sleep, or to at least read Walden.

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Page 59, Henry David Thoreau - "Walden"

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea!

Page 61, Henry David Thoreau - "Walden"

While the former quote is inspiring, I'm not sure if I agree with the latter. This attitude to current affairs has been exhibited by a number of philosophers as they believe their ideas transcend that of the normal populace. However, I find this arrogant. Alain de Botton has it right when he makes philosophy for the common man. What is the good of philosophy if it cannot enrich people's lives? And what is the good of being of an enormous intellect if you cannot use it to affect the people around you positively? And how could you do this without understanding what goes on in the day-to-day goings on of the world? On the other hand, the reality of popular media these days is indeed embarassing and far from awe-inspiring. There are very few newspapers and even fewer television news programs which are impartial enough to be reliable. The rest are controlled by corporations and the people's fickle demand for sensational information.

Jordan Part 3 - Madaba مادبا, Mt. Nebo جبل نيبو, and the Dead Sea ألبَحْر ألمَيّت

These three places were all pretty cool short day trips from Amman.

Madaba is pretty much a tourist town and is best known for its collection of Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics. Checking these out, and old churches, are pretty much the only things to do in Madaba so don't go here if you're not historically inclined.

In addition to the mosaics themselves, some of the churches are pretty old and pretty cool to walk around in, they have pretty cheap entry fees, the city is easy to navigate in a cab (stock 1JD fare to anywhere around but you could easily walk it if it isn't too hot) and it all doesn't take very long.


There is a really awesome restaurant very close to one of the Orthodox churches that we checked out, it was a little on the expensive side but was absolutely worth every fil because it was in this really nice tree-filled courtyard with wooden tables and atmopshere abounding. And there was good hummous and grilled chicken.

After a late lunch we went to one last church before moving onto Mt. Nebo. I can't remember whether this was the church we saw last or one we saw earlier but the thing I liked about it was that it took me back to my Russian Orthodox roots. The Byzantine empire was an Orthodox one and so the imagery and layout of this particular church were very very familiar to me.

After the last church, we caught a cab to Mt. Nebo. This mountain is supposedly the place where God revealed the Promised Land to Moses and where Moses is supposedly buried (although apparently the accuracy of these suppositions are still being debated by historians).

At the top of the mountain (which is apparentl 817m above sea level though it didnt feel that high) you get the view of the Promised Land with a handy basic little map to point out all the biblical places we've come to know and love from The Bible. I believe the first reaction is usually "that patch of brown is the Promised Land? Hmm". Underhwelming, perhaps.

Another cool thing on Mt. Nebo is this stylised cross sculpture that was put up by an Italian sculptor some time ago. It cuts a fairly striking figure on top of the mountain.



The Mt. Nebo site also has a nice old church which is another memorial to Moses.


So after we finished at the mountain and went down (past the old Greek Orthodox pensioners who were making their last pilgrimage and the nuns out and about for some inspiration) planning to make tracks to the Dead Sea which was apparently around 12km away along a road leading directly from Mt. Nebo. The plan was to find a cheap cab or service, or hitch a ride with someone. After asking for advice from the Tourist Police who advised us to sit and wait, and noting that most of the cars were going the other way, back towards Madaba.

After sitting and waiting idly for around 10 minutes we somehow find ourselves sharing cigarrettes and Pepsi with the very friendly tourist police. They spoke almost no English, we spoke almost no Arabic, somehow we got by and had one of the funniest, most random converrsations I am likely to remember for a long time. The police were funny bastards, making fun of all the tourists, ogling all the girls walking past, making fun of the poor woman who was taking a driving lesson and managed to stall her car outside Mt. Nebo, making fun of the couple driving towards the Dead Sea (advising us not to try to hitch with them because they want to make out [this bit communicated by furious kissing noises] and wouldnt want us to watch).

After this broken arabic/english conversation which Saba and I somehow managed to understand between our fairly crappy Arabic (hers apparently, better than mine, according to the head tourist policeman), we decided to finally make tracks back to Madaba, and Amman, and leave Dead Sea for another day.

And we did go back to the Dead Sea a few days later and it was awesome!


We managed to catch the sunset (not really difficult given we are prone to waking up in the afternoon and being horribly late everywhere) and it was super beautiful. The Dead Sea is 420m below sea level and its shores are the lowest points on land earth. The Sea itself is something like 30% salt and has a whole bunch of other minerals and things, so it's supposed to be very good for the skin but horribly horribly painful for the eyes or any other abrasions you may have. It's also impossible to sink (despite Saba panicking the minute her feet left the bottom of the seafloor and attempting to drown herself).

The Dead Sea region is blanketed in hotels and resorts which you can stay at if you're rich, or pay a day fee to visit the private beaches of. There is also a public beach called Amman Beach which costs 5JD to enter. This is the one we went to as it was perfectly fine for our purposes.

Anyways after floating around in this for over an hour, we decided to find a way back to Amman (which is only 45 mins away by bus), managed to get a ride with a friendly cab driver (once again, named Ahmed) and hightailed it back. Below is a picture of me in one of my floating moments. Til the next post, gentlemen and women.

Frankfurt

Instead of the customary after-IC-euphoria-posting I think I'd rather catch up on some reflections and favourite pictures from two other cities I visited in July - starting with Frankfurt. A place I stopped over at on my way to NYC for a meeting, and then again on the way back.


My brief but eventful journey started on one of these trains. The trip from the airport into Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main train station) cost me E$3.50 each way which is pretty damn expensive for a 15 minute ride but these trains were worth it. They were like long-distance trains, super fast, super smooth, super comfortable with reclining seats, tray tables and magazines.


The train station itself is very cool looking and reminded me a lot of Flinders St station in Melbourne - in terms of looks, positioning in the city, and the clock thing...


One thing I love about Frankfurt is the juxtaposition of really cool shiny skyscraper glass towers like this one...


... with beautiful European-style cobblestoned streets, parks, benches and many places to relax and watch the world go by.


In addition, Frankfurt has a very interesting historic precinct (that was flooded with tourists of course) which includes this very German-style looking building with the roofs that look like steps.


My favourite part of my day in Frankfurt (thats the first day I mean, on the way to NYC, I didn't take any pictures on the second) would have to be the time I spent at this little cafe on their Fressgasse (a street affectionally nicknamed so, after the amount of eating one can do on it). Sipping an espresso and reading Kafka in the morning made me feel very European... and the espresso was the best one I'd had since leaving Melbourne a month before... I returned to the cafe on my second day in Frankfurt (which was on the way back to Bahrain from NYC) and partook in some more coffee and reading...

Generally it was really nice to be able to walk around the city freely, look at things and bask in the German-ness of it all. There is something about travelling alone with no agenda in particular that makes you feel like you have the world at your feet...

Melbourne Post 7

On Friday night I attended the screening (run by the UNICEF society on campus) of an Oscar-winning film called "Born into Brothels" which was about an English woman living in the red light district of Kolkata, India and helping some of the kids there. She is a photographer and teaches them her art, helping them learn to do something productive, something they happen to have a knack for too, and also helping them get into schools and find new opportunities to better themselves and get out of the brothels. A strategy that works well for some and not so well for others (who face opposition from their families who want to keep them there). The film was great, provided many great insights into life on Kolkata's mean streets, the woman was quite inspiring and the kids were terribly cute... even for me who usually hates kids.

Here are some more Melbourne pics and places to check out for all y'all.


Cocoro is a pottery cafe on Smith St. This is truly a great place, "cocoro" which means "heart" in Japanese, is very much a warm, loving and cosy place to be in. The serving staff provide not only excellent service, but warm, friendly and obliging demeanor 100% of the time. The menu, which consists of small dishes to be shared, is not pricey and you can get away with dinner here for around $20 per person. They have some very original desserts and their drinks take on a bit of a Japanese green-tea feel. You can try the "macha latte" or "macha ice cream" or other green tea flavoured drinks/desserts. Alternatively, their regular lattes are quite alright... and served, like everything else, in Cocoro's own innovative pottery range... which you can buy!


This is a pic, taken by Heidi, of some terrace houses in Sth Melbourne. Victorian era terrace houses, typified by their 2-story+balcony facade, shared walls and long floor plan, are very popular in Melbourne and can fetch very high prices because of their historical value and how cool they look! There are many other suburbs with rows of terrace houses, mostly in the inner-city, including Carlton and Fitzroy. I've also seen them in parts of Sydney, like Paddington.

Multi-coloured Gelati in many flavours. Gelato, Italian-style ice cream, is very popular in Melbourne and common to find in the city, St. Kilda and especially Lygon St. This particular picture was taken in a gelati-chain called "Trampoline" which is quite good and pretty popular. They have stores in many places including Lonsdale St and Glenferrie Rd. Their Lychee flavour is recommended.


A barista, hard at work, as a pretty girl is caught in the reflection of his shiny bar/coffee machine. This is -orange-, a bar/cafe on the Windsor-end of Chapel St. This place has Gravity coffee, one of the better major roasters, and although the quality of the coffee is temperamental, it is one of the better places to drink coffee on Chapel St. The place is in a very old style, and local celebrities and fashionistas alike can be seen lounging around on its outdoor seating area. Here's another pic of it:

And finally, another pic of the State Library of Victoria, one I've posted about before. Here is a different angle, during dusk. Note the couple having a chat on one of the benches in the foreground... and the engagement of the heavily utilised phone boxes. The state library is truly one of Melbourne's great places for meeting and socialising. A symbol of our great historic + intellectual city.

Update + Melbourne Blog 6

It's been an up + down week as usual. The results of 3 out of 4 of my assessments have come back and they are all more or less favourable... haven't received the one I'm most worried about though, the essay about Chinese Peasants... that was a toughie, so we'll see how I go. I expect 60 at the most so I don't have very high hopes and will be happy with a pass... well not happy but sort of... not surprised.

Finals are coming! Argh! 3 weeks time! Seriously! And I'm still looking at quotes for my flight to Bahrain (which might turn out to be a flight to NYC, long story)... and trying to find a way to wrangle the Dept of Acctg to let me take my exam earlier...

A more-or-less party weekend (including V's party, Lammo's drinks, Isaac's potluck and Thomas' drinks) it culminated in a great night with the boys on Monday night at my place. Despite not winning their money for the first time since we started our poker nights (I won 3 in a row) and actually dropping out first, I had a great time. As usual... the shit talk and general good times were well worth it, especially the fact that I could drink without constraint since I wasnt driving home. The 3am (or whatever it was) drive to Maccas was a good call though. We polished off a good amount of Maccas + antipasto. Plus I drank a whole bottle of wine (never done that before, dont drink wine that much), Pete polished off half a bottle of vodka and Ippei+Daryl finished a bottle of Jack Daniels between them. Reasonable effort given that we werent particularly drunk. One caveat... that room still smells of cigars!

I've finished reading Zen + The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance... I'll put up my thoughts on it one of these days. I've also just read Camus' The Outsider. A novel that impressed me a great deal and gave me a lot to think about, especially in relation to the theories of absurdism and existentialism. More on this later.

I've recently discovered a new love. Melbourne Supper Club, an excellent bar that is the epitomy of Melbourne laid back class... more info and pics to come in future posts but I do have some other Melbourne things I'd like to showcase...

Today, we have some grand old buildings...

This one is South Melbourne Town Hall. Photo credit goes to Heidi here, snapped out of a car window too... there was a wedding going on here at the time when we passed by but I love the grand style of the building and its massive columns. Only a few of the inner city town halls around Melbourne are in this grand old style and they reflect the history of Melbourne's older suburbs. This particular hall was built in 1879-80 and is one of the best, most grand examples of this kind of Victorian style architecture in Australia. The building is actually much longer than this photo shows... here is a small pic from wikipedia


Another grand building is Melbourne's GPO or former General Post Office building:



Towering commandingly between the corners of Elizabeth/Bourke and Elizabeth/Lt. Bourke... this grand building is a wonder to walk through. It was built in 1859 in the Renaissance Revival style, GPO ceased operating as a post office in 1992. It was gutted by fire in 2004 and was then restored to be a major shopping and entertainment precinct and a hub for high end labels such as Akira + Comme des Garcon. It also contains a variety of restaurants (including Kenzan which serves reportedly awesome sushi) and some bars (including the Library, mentioned in previous posts and Lexington, ever popular with the after work crowd). It also has Fat, Mimco, Roy and Ben Sherman... some of my favourite labels.

Here we have a picture of Readings bookstore in Port Melbourne, taken trough a rain splatter car window by the lovely Heidi. Readings is a great chain of community bookstores, with stores in Malvern, Hawthorn and Carlton, in addition to the above one. Its bookstores tend to become focal points for the community with important arts and literary events being conducted in store and bulletin boards advertising all manners of things by residents being heavily utilised. The Pt. Melbourne one also contains a quaint little cafe, pictured below with a man enjoying a book + a coffee, two favourite pastimes I also share.


The below photo which I'll finish with was also taken by the dear Heidi (she's taken 3 of the 6 photos I've posted today... she does have an eye for great pics.) Taken out the window of Bimbo's, it's a photo of a street corner on Brunswick St.

The neon lights of bars, cafes + retail outlets are still glowing despite a more-or-less empty street, devoid of its usual revellers on a week night. A week night in Brunswick St is an enjoyable event... although many of the best places (Marios, Atomica, Ici) are indeed closed in the late evening, the street is also devoid of many of the yuppie/wanker types that go there to get drunk and create a ruckus. It is populated by more-or-less harmless homeless, poor workless bums from the Housing Commission flats down the road, and bummy student/arty types who have nothing better to do than to sit around in Gypsy Bar/Bimbos and chew the fat with their bohemian compadres. The bike with the basket says it all.