Foodie Friday: Kargeen

I would like to start a new series that I will add to occasionally that will highlight local restaurants, restaurant chains, or homemade food that we consume here in Oman.  Stephen and I are foodies.  We may or may not have left Florida extremely early one morning so we could be at a specific barbecue restaurant by lunch.  We may or may not dream of a Psych food themed trip to Santa Barbara, California some day.  We may or may not have a growing list of food to eat when we're home this summer.

An Arabic lamp hanging in the garden.

This tree is so cool!  And it provides nice shade.   As you can see, there are also large fans that can be used for extra cooling.

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is a sight to behold and see if you come to Muscat, Oman.  Warning:  lots of pictures to come in this post.

The exterior corridor on one side of the mosque.  Two of the five minarets are also seen here.

A view over the gardens to the mountains beyond.

Royal Opera House Muscat

While my in-laws were in town, we took a tour of the Royal Opera House Muscat (ROHM).  It is a great building.  It is beautiful.  It features a great lineup of operas, concerts, ballets, etc.  But a tour is not the way to see it.

Royal Opera House as you enter it.  Beautiful, but be careful if you are visually impaired.  It can be hard to see any steps down or up.

The opera house is a beautiful, large building.  They spent 4 years building it.  It features the very best of materials for the design and decoration.  There are hints of Oman in the design of the chandeliers and hints of many other countries in the wood and structure.  It was constructed because the Sultan loves his classical music.  He has his own orchestra that travels with him.  He has a bagpipe band, for Pete's sake.  He holds the caliber of performances that come to Muscat to perform at the opera house to a very high standard.  So the shows are great, and you should definitely try to attend one if you are in town.

Tomato Bisque

This tomato bisque is my favorite soup!  This coming from the girl who despised tomato soup growing up.  This coming from the girl who used to hate tomato anything.  I add beef for protein and noodles for kid friendliness.  Feel free to drop the noodles to make it grain free.

My tummy tomato bisque being served up with Nessy.  There are many options for Nessy on Amazon.

Makes approximately 8 servings depending upon how big of a bowl you prefer. 😉  Recipe adapted from Taste of Home.

Wadi Ghala Hike

Two weeks ago, our all girls hiking group had our largest group ever to take an exploratory hike in Wadi Ghala.  This is an easy hike with it starting on a path that TAISM takes younger kids when they are doing a rock exploration field trip.  At the end of the path, the wadi starts.  At this point, it is all about scrambling over boulders and finding your way as far back as you like.  This was the fun part.

Our awesome group in a cave

We started near a hot spring "tourist attraction."  In fact, to find this hike, look up "Ghala Spring Water" in Google.  I have no idea how this tourist attraction pans out, but it does allow for parking spots.  Once in the wadi, the first pool you encounter also has hot water. We could feel the heat when we reached our hands close.  I wouldn't actually get in, though.  For one, there was trash (an unfortunately all too common problem here in Oman).  There was also quite a bit of algae.  The green, fuzzy bottom of the pool didn't look inviting.