Wayne and Kathy Visit !! Nov 8-28 (aka Adam's parents)

2nuksabroad became 4 as Wayne and Kathy came across from Regina, Saskatchewan. They arrived Thu evening after a 30 hr trip (Regina-Toronto-Dubai-Muscat) for 3 weeks of adventure in the middle east. This was their first time in the Middle East, let alone Oman and neither of them had ever seen a camel. We had an ambitious schedule for them including bbqs on the beach, Dubai, Hashing, camping, swimming, Wadi trekking, a Muscat city tour, golfing, Arabic and Indian restaurants, boating and a trip to the ballet.

What better way to start the week off than by going for a walk and downing some beers. It happened to be Guy Fawkes day, and so there was a bonfire too!

Hashers through and through!

Nice down-down

Guy Fawkes bonfire, yes we burned some people (cardboard that is)

Sunday is our Bollywood night and Wayne and Kathy were up for trying some Indian food... brave soul's from SK! They did extremely well with the heat, Kathy even ate a pepper with the meal and did just fine. Adam not to be out done by his mom, also ate a chili with his meal, although his lip swelled up pretty good an hour later.

The green chili's are there somewhere

The Royal Opera house was showing the Stravinsky Ballet that week, and it happened to be a group from Montreal - Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. We were sure this time to check our attire before going. On our first visit, Adam had the shoes, jacket, shirt, but the jeans were sub-par. Luckily they let him in anyway. So this time we did all our checks before leaving the house, although when we arrived, Wayne's collared shirt was short sleeved! They were really nice about it and offered to lend him a jacket, but he just borrowed Adam's.  Pete and Zan joined us for the evening followed by dinner and drinks at Trader Vics.

Unfortunately Janelle and I had to work during the week so we arranged for a city tour one morning taking in all the main attractions, Grand Mosque, Mutrah & both souks there, the palace and old town.

Fish souk (in case the fish didn't give it away)

Dad using the gents foot wash at Grand Mosque

Outside Al Alam Palace

We ended the week with a trip to Dubai for 2 nights. Being that Canadians need tourist visas to enter the UAE, we had our hotel the Radisson Blu Downtown sponsor them. It turned out to be a better (cheaper and quicker) option than going through the Canadian Embassy. The hotel sends you a form to fill out and you provide them with scanned copies of the form, passport pic, passport copy, and credit card verification. All of this was done via email and took 7 business days to arrange. The visa 500 ($143 cdn)dirham each plus a 5000 dirham deposit which is refunded when you send a scanned copy of the passport exit stamp.

Fun with bendy lights

Finally a camel! (we did find a real one later in the trip)

 

 

Somehow I managed to look in the wrong direction

Brunch at The Social House in Dubai Mall, amazing!

Dubai Marina

 

The rest of their time was filled up with quality snorkeling, relaxing at PDO beach and some more touring around town. Our friends Tom and Donna also took us out on their new boat to end the week. We fit in a camping trip to Fins Beach and Wadi Shab in between but look for that in the next blog.

My dad was thrilled to have pressed coffee

Much better than snow

Heading through the hole by Shangri-la

Tom, Donna, Wayne and Kathy after boating

Overlooking Ruwi on the walkway to nowhere in the middle of nowhere

A good last day on the beach (PPE & Skittles in the background)