First, my family - parents and brother - came over to visit me in Lebanon. I had a good time showing them around Beirut. We also did two trips out of Beirut - to Sidon and Tyre, and to the Qadisha Valley the next day. I was quite tickled by the attention my family attracted. See, most Asian females in Beirut are Filipino maids. There aren't many Asian men around and certainly hardly any families. When I was with my brother (he'd arrived first), we got plenty of STARES. I joked that people must be thinking that I was a naughty maid running off with a boyfriend - there may actually be some truth in that given the looks people were giving us. That all changed when we started walking around with our parents. People were so friendly and we got lots of random people on the streets saying "Welcome to Lebanon". At Raouche in Beirut, a local couple asked to take a photo with Mum. In Sidon's old souk, kids followed us around to say hi multiple times.
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| Downtown Beirut, by the cinema |
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| Qana el Jalil. Thought to be the site of Jesus' first miracle, where he turned water into wine. This cave houses a small shrine. |
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| Sidon Sea Castle |
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| Beautiful Bcharre in the mountains above the Qadisha Valley. |
After the Lebanon teaser, we jetted off to Jordan to continue our family holiday. We arrived in Amman too late to do much on the first day apart from stroll around Rainbow Street and the downtown area. The next day, we did a tour of Madaba (famed for its mosaics, also the ancient Biblical land of Moab), Mt Nebo (where Moses is said to have looked over to the Promised Land before he died), Jesus' baptism site, and finished at the Dead Sea.
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| Copy of the Holy Land Mosaic. Outside the St George's Church where the actual mosaic is. |
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| The oft-photographed Serpentine Cross, Mt Nebo |
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| Where Jesus was baptised. The Jordan River has shrunk so much that this area is now (almost) bone dry |
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| Modern day baptism site. That's Israel across the river |
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| The Dead Sea. I understand that sunsets can be spectacular, but not the day we were there. Still, the pinkish-blue hue was very pretty |
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| Salt deposits form layers with sand on the shores of the Dead Sea |
In the following days, we explored the magnificent ruins of this ancient city of Petra, experienced the Wadi Rum desert and stayed in a Bedouin-style camp, and saw Amman's Citadel. Then it was sadly time for Mum and Dad to leave. My brother and I stayed back in Amman where friends kindly hosted us over Christmas. My brother and I managed a visit to Jerash to see some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world and finished with floating in the Dead Sea the morning before finally saying by to Jordan.
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| The iconic Treasury of Petra |
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| Red sand dune at Wadi Rum |
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| Camels being watered at Wadi Rum |
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| Sunset behind the Temple of Hercules, Amman Citadel |
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| Oval Plaza at Jerash |
A truly enjoyable couple of weeks. Now I'm back to the daily drudgery of work, I'm truly thankful I have these wonderful memories to keep me going. :)
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| We had a fire burning merrily all Christmas afternoon at my friend's apartment in Amman |
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