The Philippines -- City Life

Atrium of Shangri-La hotel at the end of Day 1

Last week Lisa took a trip to the Philippines with two of her colleagues. Isabelle grew up in the Philippines but immigrated to Canada more than 30 years ago to begin her career as a nurse.

Isabelle now teaches at the University of Calgary -- Qatar with Lisa and takes advantage of the (relative) nearness of Doha to Manilla by traveling home several times a year. This makes her a great local tour guide.

The adventure started in Manilla (an 8 hour flight from Doha). The city is noisy, crowded, hot and humid, even in the cooler month of February. There are lots of people, lots of colour, lots of traffic.

Manila is also the place to find knock-offs! Shoes, purses, sneakers, jewelry, watches. Because of the inexpensive cost of labour, companies (like Adidas) have shoes made in Manilla for the market in USA. Sometimes the factories produce "extra" sneakers and then make them available locally at a much reduced price.

The other type of "knock-off" is when one original Rolex watch (for example) is given to a factory to make a replica. The original watch is taken apart and reproduced in exact detail and then sold in the market at much-reduced prices.

There are also markets with local items --baroque pearl necklaces, ornaments made from caprice shell, lamps made of abalone shell, outdoor lighting made from coconut shells, salad tongs made from kamagong wood and mother-of-pearl. There are also many markets of local clothing items -- cotton, pineapple fabric, lots of polyester!

extra suitcase for all the purchases

Around the compound

This morning I noticed the cleaners using the aloe vera plants for a new purpose.

Christmas belated

Not only was life interrupted when Max broke his arm, so was our blog. Here are some pictures of our amazing time in Nova Scotia for Christmas. We found the weather very cold but the beauty of the snow made up for the cold -- almost!

Christmas Eve

The hostess with the mostest!

Above all, it was a time to hang out with family. We laughed, told stories, played cards, and ate lots of good food. We celebrated Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Simon's 14th Birthday, New Years Eve, New Years Day.

Lisa, Todd, Shelley

Chinese food for New Years Eve!

Dairy Queen Cake for Simon!

making mincemeat pie together

Sights beyond the city

Sam and Lianna have been busy visiting some interesting sights beyond the city limits. There are a variety of activities that take place in the desert that don't involve dune bashing.... Sheik Faisal's Museum is a large collection of buildings with an odd collection of items. You can spend hours wandering amid old cars, tapestries, pottery, paintings, swords.

On weekends the Losail Race Track is very busy. It is loud and fast! The boys went on Friday night to watch a Porsche GT3 race. The cars raced at speeds over 200 km/hour.

The Pearl is another area on the edge of town that warrants a few hours of wandering. It is a man-made collection of islands that has condos, marinas, shops, restaurants and lots of view.

And then, of course, there is the beach. Qatar is a peninsula surrounded by the beautiful green water of the Gulf. A stroll on the beach in the northern part of the country is actually pleasant at this time of year.

A day in the desert

Dune bashing is one of the unique activities that people love to do while visiting Doha. Riding the sand dunes in a Land Cruiser is fun, exciting, and a little scary at times. Although Sam thought the highway drive to get to the desert was even more scary!

Climbing dunes is harder than it looks!

Spending a day in the desert never gets old: riding camels, looking at the blue-green Gulf, climbing the dunes, splashing in the water, eating traditional kebabs and hummus, napping on the majlis cushions. It is warm and sunny and so-o-o relaxing!

Hanging out with friends

at Villaggio Mall

This week and next, Tim , Max, and Simon are on a semester break from school. But instead of going away without Lisa (who is not on break for 3 more weeks), we decided to invite some friends to come hang out here in Doha. After a 24 hour delay because of an east coast blizzard, Sam and Liana arrived on the weekend from Nova Scotia.

eating Arabic bread at an Iraqi restaurant

So far their time has been somewhat mundane as they adjust to the time difference. Malls, restaurants, schools, basketball practice, city traffic will pale in comparison to a day on Desert Safari tomorrow!

Simon and Sam ready for go-karting

Life Interupted

On Thursday evening we were looking forward to spending the weekend with friends from Abu Dhabi. Deanna and Paul are from Bridgewater and moved to the UAE in August 2013. When we picked them up at the airport here in Doha we had no idea how different our weekend would turn out.....

Max played an evening basketball game on Thursday and had a stellar start to his school basketball season (shooting 100% free throws, "buzzer beater" to win the game!). At basketball practice on Friday afternoon his season came to a standstill.

He fell and broke his arm. It was a green stick fracture of the radius, very near his wrist.

The Xray Technician was a referee for Qatar Basketball Federation -- they recognized each other.

Lisa stayed with Max in the hospital overnight while Simon and Tim played hosts to our guests.....

On Saturday morning Max had surgery to set the arm and put in one pin.  The surgery lasted just 20 minutes and the time in the Recovery Room was quite fun!

The photo that received 60+ Likes on FaceBook!!

After spending the better part of the day sleeping, Max was discharged home with very little pain.

We said goodbye to Deanna and Paul and wondered how many other vacations included seeing the local hospital and health care system in action!