Muscat trip

A group of my coworkers and I went to Muscat for two days and had a great time!

Pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/shirinsharif/Muscat

• Muscat was awesome! Very pristine city with beautiful landscaping and flowers (you don't see many of those in Dubai) and very peaceful
• As you will see, the Grand Mosque is GORGEOUS! I thought it was super cool that the mosque was actually completed in 2001, so it's a fairly new building, but still has such grandeur
• We decided it would be cool to go boating, so we had taxis take us to an area with boats. A random man in a boat approached us (see pics) and offered to take all 7 of us around for only 5 omani riyals (like $12). The boat ride was amazing-- definitely a highlight of the trip.
• We were walking around the city and saw a little amusement park and decided to go bumper car-ing. Turned out these were some super-powered Omani bumper cars-- way higher impact than the ones in the States and no seat belts. Was a random but very fun experience
• Going out in Muscat was almost impossible. We tried to go to the only club in the city, but it was totally empty. Then ended up in a hotel bar that closed at midnight. Finally went to a bar at our own hotel that had a rather amusing girl band performing... twas cute
• The Chedi hotel is gorgeous
  
• Taxis in the city are super annoying. They don't have meters so they can charge whatever they want. They also seem to all know each other so they hold a unified front when you try to bargain with them
  

Anyway, Muscat was the kind of city I would totally like to live in some day-- very peaceful and beautiful...