Libya in Oddee!!

I found this weird website called Oddee which describes itself as " A Blog On The Oddities Of Our World" this website tends to list bizarre places, pictures or people in numbers, for example the 10 most bizarre people in the world and so on.... I am posting some pictures and do not think that Libya does not feature, look at the end of the post, you will be pleasantly surprised:

Toilet restaurant in Taiwan

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The following 5 pictures are described as Curiously Coincidental Photos

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Strange Plastic Surgeries

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Japanese Diet water!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The following are the most bizarre shopping bags

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OK, now for the bit about Libya, the website lists the 7 Most Beautiful Oases in the world, Libya proudly holds the number 1 & number 6 places, here is what they have:

1-Ubari Oasis (Libya)

Ubari is an oasis city in South-Western Libya, in the Targa valley. It lies between the Messak Sattafat plateau and Idhan Ubari sand dunes and lakes. The oasis is the second centre after Ghat for Kel Ajjer Tuareg. Neighbouring villages include Germa, and In Garran. The water is salted like the dead sea, but swimming into it is rather not a good idea as it is very dirty.

6-Gaberoun (Libya)

Gaberoun is an oasis with a large lake located in the municipality Sabha in the Libyan Sahara. The old Bedouin settlement by the western shore of the lake has been abandoned, and now lays in ruins. A rudimentary tourist camp is located on the northeastern shore, including an open patio, sleeping huts, and a souvenir shop (attended by a touareg in full costume) in the winter. The lake is very salty, swimming can be pleasant despite the salt water crustaceans. Mosquitoes are abundant, especially in the summer. October to May is considered the best time to visit as the climate is milder.

Caught in a Tidal Wave!

Aida & Amir caught in a Tidal Wave!

Both kids get caught in a tidal wave, watch what happens

I am sure many parents must have experienced buying a nice and expensive gift for their children just to watch the kids put the gift on the side and play for hours with the empty cardboard box! well that is sort of what my kids did, I took them to Thorpe Park yesterday which was not cheap at all and while they did enjoy most of the rides, their favourite time was just standing opposite the Tidal Wave ride just to get soaked, this was free fun and they kept going back for more, I have never seen them this happy before, they were screaming with delight!

I chose to take them there on a school day just to avoid the crowds and school is almost finished anyway so they are not missing anything but we forgot that this time of year many schools take their annual trip, many of them ended up in Thorpe Park, it was PACKED!

Most rides had a waiting time of between 45 minutes to 2 hours! I hate queuing for anything and would never do it for myself but when you have kids you do not have much choice.

Apart from school kids, there was many Arab tourists mainly from the Gulf and a lot of British couples, a word of warning if you decide to go there on a busy day, they have this new Fastrack system where if you want to jump the long queue then you pay extra money (£3 per person) on top of what you already paid, the kids really wanted to go on the tidal wave ride which is a great ride but it had 1hour & 20 minutes wait so I had to buy these fastrack tickets just for this ride, what a big con it was! the fast track queue was just as long as the normal queue and we ended up waiting 1 hour & 10 minutes! a complete waste of money. In all it was a very enjoyable day on a day that we have been told was the last dry day for a while, looks like summer is finished here.

The end result, thank God they had a change of clothes and it was a hot day

Can somebody tell me what it is with this new trend in London? why is it that most men and women (young & old) are wearing flip flops (Shibshib) everywhere? even going through central London it is becoming a normal sight and believe me in a polluted city like London, it really is not a pretty sight to look at dirty feet!

becoming SHLAFTI is trendy now :o)

Mediterranean Union

Yet again the Libyan rulers prove they have no respect for their own people, for many years Libya has been portraying itself to the outside world as Jamahereya, which means something like the nation or land that is ruled by the masses i.e. Libyan people! yet in reality we all know that the country is ruled by one family and its followers.

Yesterday in France, Libya was the only country missing from the newly formed Mediterranean union, the reason for that is not because the Libyan people voted and decided against joining, no the Libyan people have no say what so ever, the rulers decided to prevent Libya from a possible improvement to the country by joining such a union which can have many benefits for a country such as Libya which in turn could possibly improve people's lives, the reason Libya will not join is because according to Mr. G this is a new form of colonialism, imperialism..blah...blah...blah
For nearly 40 years they have been shouting and screaming this crap at the Libyan people, this in turn lead to Libya being lacking in everything behind basically every Arab country yet the irony is that our leaders have no problem calling for and joining for an example an African Union and basically throwing away billions of dollars at corrupt African leaders who have a habit of keeping the money for themselves rather than spending it on their poor people!

Europe might not be perfect but it is for sure a better choice for Libya if life there is to improve for everyone, what can Libya loose from such a union? at the end of the day they can opt out if it is not for them.
I am sure Libyan people are just about sick of all that nonsense they keep hearing about why Libya can not become a part of the developed world.

God bless Libya and its people....

Schools Celebrations

Friday was international day at the kids school, children were required to dress in their national costumes, unfortunately both of my kids did not have any Libyan costumes that fit them as it has been 3 years since they went to Libya, so they improvised by wearing clothes with Libya written on them and added a Libyan touch by wearing my late father's Shanna (Libyan Hat).

You couldn't get more Musrati than that :o)

They both helped with the international food section, Amir learnt how to make Sushi and he really enjoyed doing it but did he eat any? no, he thought the rice looked squishy but he liked the crab claws.

Saturday was the last day at their Arabic school which is run by the Qatari embassy, they had an assembly for parents and both kids took part. Aida did a song with her classmates about family life, Amir took part in a play, he played an elephant that was going to destroy the Kaaba, he was very confident and said his lines perfectly, they both enjoyed the assembly and were really good.

Afterwards, they got their certificates, surprisingly Amir did very well compared to last year, he achieved 248 points out of 300 while Aida got 345 out of 400, MashaAllah, mabrouk to both of them.

The assembly was supposed to start at 11:00am, I got there about 10:30 just to find the stage, the seating area and sound system were not ready, I mean you would think some people would turn up early to setup everything but no, us Arabs have to take everything so easy!

This is how the stage (above) looked like as I walked in, I thought the small lights at the back and the very simple decoration looked great but the organisers had other ideas.

They brought many boxes of the awful stuff you see above and started to hang them over the little star lights at the back of the stage, instantly it looked cheap! Thank God these things didn't stick and started to fall so they had to settle with hanging some of them on the side of the stage, I made sure I gave the evil eye to their awful decorations so they kept falling :o)

By 11:30, the hall was packed with parents and little children, it has been some time since I have been to an Arabic event so I had forgotten about the dreaded speeches so you can imagine how I felt when we had to go through about 10 speeches by different people each lasting about 10 minutes, most of them just kept sucking up to the Qatari embassy, while I am grateful to them for running the school but why do we have to go on and on thanking the embassy, at the end of the day, the school is not free and many parents struggle to pay the fees. Of course by then little children were so bored they started to scream and cry, I wanted to do the same but I kept myself composed, eventually the school children did their performances through the sound of kids screaming but they did quite well.

Amir as the elephant

Libyan Party in Cannes

Ever wonder why Libya is called the richest country with the poorest people?
Well, wonder no more!!
Here is a video of Libya's elite wasting our money (money they didn't inherit or work for) at one of their many parties, this one was held last year in Cannes.

Cannes Libyan party
Uploaded by cpalatine

Thanks to Al-Satoor, الساطور

Brace & Engrish!

My daughter was having few problems with her teeth which the dentist could not do much about so he referred her to a specialist in one of London's best hospitals Chelsea & Westminster, luckily for Aida she was looked after by the main dentist there who as well specialises in Craniofacial and cleft lip and palate cases, so after few visits Aida got her removable brace fitted which she will have to wear constantly for 6 months minimum then she may have to get a permanent brace when she is about 12 years old.

The best thing about this lady dentist is that she basically dealt with Aida directly while I just sat there listening, Aida's opinion was taken on board plus what she wanted her teeth to look like and how she felt about it ...etc.. Aida even signed the consent form herself (I signed it too of course).

Of course as soon as Aida put the brace on we were told that she would be talking a bit funny for few days, as soon as Aida talked in the car on the way back, I couldn't help laughing, she sounded so cute and full of saliva, she felt embarrassed and kept quiet for a while which is an achievement for her since I always tell her that she swallowed a radio when she was a baby that is why she cant stop talking, she does not mind that, she enjoys talking a lot and proud of it.

We have had very few problems with the brace so far as Aida is determined to get her teeth fixed, thank God for that.

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It is nearly time for the greatest sports show on earth, The Olympics, since it is being held in China this time, there has been a lot of interest on everything Chinese. Engrish is the name given to the funny English mainly spoken by Chinese and Japanese people and the funny spelling mistakes they make, it is referred to as Chinglish as well.

There is a website dedicated to Engrish, it is full of hilarious (or should that be hirarious!) pictures from China and Japan that you can enjoy looking at, I have put a some pictures here, I hope you enjoy them as I heard that the authorities in China are doing major clean up for the Olympics and are actually correcting all the spelling mistakes, which is a shame really :o)

Best of luck to China for a great memorable Olympics.....