This and that

Well here we are, the end of the week, and a rather nice 6 day weekend ahead of us, or, if you happen to be employed by the Government, 9 straight days off for Eid. All flights out of town are pretty much sold, and what is left is so astronomically expensive, you might as well not bother. You could get lucky and score a flight to Al Ain... ;)

I've been fairly quiet here on the blog lately - partly because I've been swamped with that pesky little thing called work, you know, the thing that pays for everything else in my life. Thankfully though, by the time you read this, I will be on final approach to an airport in Europe and starting a nice little Eid vacation - so again the blog will be quiet until my return in a weeks time.

Having said that, there's been a couple of things going on around town lately that I wanted to highlight and touch upon. In no paticular order:

Tim Hortons....

Well, behind schedule, but as blogged by me a while ago, it appears progress is happening and a new Timmies is planed to be opened in Muscat City Centre "soon". The latest information I have is that the one on Muscat Grand Mall will still be opening. While on the subject of Muscat Grand Mall, the awesome 700bz for everything in it store, Daiso, will be opening next to Carrefour in MGM in.... October.

This picture was posted by the user "safety" showing the new MCC location, on the ever-useful source of information on many-things Oman: Oman Forum.



Muscat Oasis residence explosion

Well, it was in the papers yesterday. It seems there was some sort of explosion in one of the buildings in the Muscat Oasis Residences complex which is in Bowsher - sort of across the road from the Muscat Grand Mall (and down the road a bit..) A twitter person, @WadiWanderer tweeted the pictures below to me, no idea who originally took them though.

How no one died in that I have no idea.

The official news report is that 8 people were injured in the blast, and 2 of them are currently "critical" in hospital. From the pictures of the explosion, and from the understanding that the explosion happened when people went to investigate a smell of gas from a vacant unit... I'd say its a miracle no one lost their lives. The explosion rocked site porta-cabins at the large Al Ameen mosque project being built on the hill over-looking Al Khuwair, so it had some serious power to it.

Presumably, some idiot somewhere, will lose their job for being a muppet, hopefully this sort of stuff won't happen again any time soon.


The Habana Bar

My preferred bar in town, the Habana sports bar in the Grand Hyatt, has been undergoing a spot of renovation, with the bar being taken in a few meters and some columns removed to make more space, judging from the construction shots I've seen, it looks like quite an improvement on the space down there in the bar.

Dave was hard at work.

While on the subject of bars, the working assumption across town right now is that the first day of Eid will be Sunday the 19th, which means the bars will be open from the 19th. Of course if Eid slips until Monday the 20th.. then the bars won't be open until then.

Al Murray the Pub Landlord comedy gig

Well. I guess the summer is starting to draw to a close and the wives and kids are starting to return back to the Sultanate for the new school year. The busy little bee's over at Alive Events and Hi FM have gone and lined up a cracker of a comedy gig for the 10th of September to be held in a new venue for these comedy nights - the Al Bustan.

Tickets are on sale now, you can get your tickets at the HI-FM office in the Muscat Grand Mall, OUA Retail in MQ, Mackenzies Cafe and Deli in MQ, Al Bustan Palace Hotel, Bose in QCC, and Connections in Muscat City Center. There is also more information available at the facebook event page here.

As usual, the loveable little chap Mr Shortt from Hi FM has given me 2 tickets to give away on the blog.... we'll do that a little closer to the gig once more people are back in town :)  

Bike for sale

A friend of the rugby club, Stan, is leaving Oman, and he's flogging his motorbike for RO 1500, or nearest offer. I don't know a lot about it but my understanding is that he's not done a lot of miles on the thing. Anyway, if your interested, drop him a line on 9322 2978.

It's a Honda Pan European tourer, 1300CCs from 2003. It's got 17,000 miles on it. Sounds like a bargain to me, hopefully someone will snap it up shortly!

USF store Eid Sale

The boutique clothing store at the Zakher Mall is having a sale, and coincidentally has a brand new collection of clothes in store as well... check their facebook page to see some of their new stuff.

I'm also reliably told, for the fans, that the Muscat Gem's store is still indeed open and doing business. Loyal readers of the comments-section of my blog posts will know what I'm getting at.

Eid Mubarak / Happy Eid everyone.

Have a great time, I plan to with Mrs Sythe in Europe :)

le fin.