Damascus, Syria - 26 Dec 2008

Damascus International Aiport

This month was lucky in a way, cos there's quite a number of destinations which I haven't been before, like Damascus, Syria. Flew with Owen - First Officer Malaysian, and met his wife, as well, Diana, who came along with us to DAM.

Our hotel - Rotana .....outside it looks like a rundown building...but inside it's not bad ler....

Taken from my room....

On the way to city... As I didn't do research, my colleague Yara and I just followed Owen and Diana to the Old City. We followed the "right" person, cos Owen and wife printed the places of interests!!! How great....

I'm surprised to find MILO in Syria, cos there's none in Abu Dhabi.....







And Cactus!!! People keep asking me if I see cactus in Middle east cos it's a desert...errrm.......nope, it's quite rare that I see cactus in Abu Dhabi, but yes, here is Cactus.....The taxi dropped us at the wrong "entrance" to the Old City, but it's good cos we found all these discovery....Just take note of how they like to extend their "houses".....errm...just wondering how much "extra" space can it be for the "little" extension... :P

Some kind of dessert....nice....dunno what it's called...it's made of flour...it's deep fried...sweet....gluish..a kind local offered us to eat cos we were all staring at it..for so long.....hahaha..

Random Art shop at one of the streets.....




















In Old city.....amazed with the ruins...

Diana, Owen and me....

Diana and I preparing to go inside Umayyad Mosque. We paid 50 lira (RM5) to go in. As I was wearing a short jacket, I was given an "albayah" - the "long cover" and we'd to use our shawl to cover our head...Diana's jacket is a longer one so she was pardoned for wearing the albayah....so how do we look? heheehhe...

Umayyad Mosque is supposed to be one of the oldest mosques in the world....the interior is very nice as well.

Diana and I chilling out...

Inside the Mosque....

As we passed by the souq, Owen said this is a very famous ice cream shop....

Name of shop - Bakdash....the gelato style....with pistachio....50 lira (RM5) per bowl....

Another heritage which shouldn't be missed out - Jabri HOuse - (I didn't realize that the photo wasn't clear) Anyway, what was so special about this place was : this is a an old house built in 1737, and this house was being converted to a restaurant now. As you could've seen, I've purposely made these few photos in a larger size just to let you see the inside of the restaurant....it's really amazing and it'll never cross your mind that it could be so beautiful inside. We just snacked in the restaurant as we wanted to go somewhere else for dinner... Address of this place : it's quite a tricky location as you have to pass by small alleys to reach here. It seemed that this house is quite famous cos you just need to ask the locals in arabic (Jabri House) and they'll know where.....Thanks Owen for bringing us here!!!

Yara outside the restaurant...look at how small is the entrance is....Inside the restaurant...I'm just amazed with the small little pool in the middle...nice...Turkish coffee.....Overall, nice trip thanks to the company of Diana, Owen and Yara....