Author archive
20 April 2006
Boy’s night out We arrived in Aden’s Crater area after midnight. To my shock, one of the boys threw all the empty water bottles from the taxi ride onto the street. I know the streets get swept but it just seems wrong. Yep, he’s the same one I saw spitting in the carpeted mafraj (living […]
19 April 2006
I had moved my class forward to 1300 today, to finish at 1500 so that we could leave reasonably “early” for Aden by road. There were five of us: Aaron, Evan, Gary, Tom and myself. Three Americans, a Brit and a Malaysian. We walked to the taxi stand around 1530. It took a while for us […]
18 April 2006
After my usual 1330-1530 class and homework, I went to the hammam (bathhouse) with James, with whom we had an excursion together few days back. His teacher Badr took us to Hammam Al Khawi by taxi. I was scrubbed down by a child who was possibly 11 years old, while my English friend was done […]
15 April 2006
The language is written using a consonant script, like some other languages such as Hebrew. This means that it is written somewhat like SMS (TXT messages) … quite confusing as “bnk” could mean bank, bunk, bink, binak, banik etc. Additional vowel signs are shown by marks above and below the proper script to assist students […]
14 April 2006
Confusion I woke at 0630 for the 0730 pickup outside the school. After yesterday’s adventure, it’s hard to believe I have another one today. Yesterday with Americans and today with Europeans. The destination of our day out hadn’t been confirmed. I was told now that it wasn’t going to be Shihara but to the Haraz mountains, […]
13 April 2006
A Slow start Being Thursday, it is the weekend. I had arranged with British Tom and American Tom to join them on their day trip. At 1030, we walked to Medah Tahrir with the intention of catching a bus or shared taxi to Shibam (not the one in the east of the country but a […]
11 April 2006
Yemen? Yes, Yemen … in the corner of the Arabian peninsula next to the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia and Somalia) … one of few countries on the New Zealand’s government’s “no go” list, ranking up there with Iraq. Makes the previous trips to Beirut and Tehran seem tame right? The ranking ascribed to Yemen is […]
10 April 2006
Onward to Dubai and Sana’a With an 0210 departure from Singapore to Dubai, I was sleepy even before the flight departed. The Emirates flight was full. Fortunately I was comfortable enough to get a little sleep. Connecting in Dubai upon arrival at 0510 was slow. Transit security comprised of one x-ray station which meant […]
9 April 2006
Start of my adventure My brother dropped me off at Kuching International Airport in the morning. As it was a new terminal building, I explored it as much as I could before my flight to Johor Bahru. I did notice on the apron that there were ground markings for the Airbus A380! Seems like a […]
2 April 2006
I try to combine my world adventures with a visit to see family in Kuching. It was cheaper to fly from Johor Bahru across the border on a domestic flight to Kuching, rather than from Singapore’s Changi airport. Step-bro and his partner Josephine took me out for a very good dimsum breakfast at Lau Pa […]