Friday was the last day of school of the current academic year . It was also an emotional time for most as inevitably the day was also the last day for many close friends. The school, composed entirely of children of expatriates, normally see quite a significant turnover annually as families move when their assignments completed.
What an epic game. It was the longest Wimbledon final tennis match in history. 
The recent one obviously was the Euro 2008 where El Nino meaning 'the kid' in Spanish aka Fernando Torres scored the winner against Germany.
The grueling bicycle race for the famous yellow jersey started on Saturday. Tour de France is cycling's most prestigious event. It is a 23-day, 21-stage race which this year runs over more than 3,500 km. During the course of the race the riders will be attempting some almost super human feats that will test their mental and physical toughness to the limit. A recent BBC documentary recently showed how grueling it is to race up the mountains while constantly faced with gusting winds and chilling rains.
The Tour de France race traverses across picturesque landscape of France and is going anticlockwise this year. It will go from the West, to the mountainous South before heading to the North and finishing off in Paris. On the way they will have climbed mountain passes of more than 2000 metres high. 
The school year is ending this coming week and it's the start of the 7 weeks summer holiday. The kids have been doing all sort of activities and trips these past weeks. Our eldest just returned from Engelberg in Central Switzerland for her Geography and Biology trip. We sent her off last Sunday and the students set off on a number of coaches at around 6.30 am from school. The bus trip took 12 hours to reach Engelberg. Obviously the physical geography in Switzerland is much more interesting to study than flattish Holland. They went up to one of the snow-capped mountains, studied the river and so on. Emm......interesting. 
Talking about holiday, the Dutch schools in the South have started their Summer holiday. The start of the school break is staggered by a week between the South and the Middle part of Holland and a further week for the North; this is to reduce traffic congestions as people are driving South. In fact the whole Holland by then will feel like being emptied. People take their holidays seriously - a holiday is after all a much needed break and time to be under the sun. After the break, everyone will ask where have you been? Oh...I went to so and so beach in this great part of Southern France!
Well, holiday doesn't need to be expensive. In fact a lot of people here hire caravan (last photo) which can be pulled behind car and forms their home during the holiday. And off course not to leave their bikes behind. One could checked in into the many caravan camps dotted all around Europe, normally around nature parks which are great places for outdoor activities.
Driving South either to France or Italy during this time can be much longer than normal. Motorways are really clogged up. We found this experience quite awful when we drove to Italy last year.
Now you can buy Liverpool football jersey without the Carlsberg logo on. It’s a good step forward by the club to let their fans to don the club’s colour without the need to also advertise an alcoholic drink.
As I took 2 days off for my eye surgery, I took turn from my missus to accompany Faris on his bike to school. Faris enjoys cycling and it really makes a difference as it gives him a good start to the day. For us, it also took out the headache to find a parking space when dropping and picking him up from school. In fact I read that 1 in 4 people here go to work either by bike or walking. A higher portion is true for kids going to school.
What do I do with my specs. I got 4 pairs which I regularly wear but are now redundant. There are a few known organisations in UK collecting old specs for the developing countries but I still need to find one here in Holland.
On Thursday, I did it. I had a laser treatment on my eyes. After checking around and getting advice, I decided to do it. There are over 70 laser clinics in Holland, the one I went to is one of only 14 that got the latest equipment called Allegretto™ Eye-Q Laser 400 from WaveLight Laser Technologie AG. WaveLight's laser is the most precision laser on the market today. This clinic is also ranked as amongst the top 7 here.
I had an initial extensive eye examination. This is to check my cornea, thickness and shape amongst others. One thing that came out was that the glass lens for my right eye was over prescribed. It should be -3.25 rather than -4! So beware, the equipments used by high street opticians are not that accurate.
But my doctor didn’t recommend it. He convinced me that PRK which is a more traditional method is the best one for the longer term. It is painful, but safer and better for the eye. He said people are just engrossed with Lasik here Lasik there because of the sale pitch and big publicity, but if given the choice many doctor would recommend PRK.
So on Thursday I went for the PRK. I was laid down on this laser bed (see photos). The epithelium layer was first scratched off. Then a cool laser was fired to shape the front of my cornea (last photo). After that a temporary bondage contact lens was laid on the eyes for protection, to be worn for a few days. The whole operation took about 10 minutes. The laser treatment itself was about 5 seconds for each eye. I didn’t feel any pain at all because of the drips provided to numb the eye. I immediately could see the effect. For the first time I could see clearly without wearing glass.
You can see the video made for Dutch TV about the PRK procedure in the link below made by the clinic that I went to. It's in Dutch though but you should get the gist of it.
Today, just past 8 am, Faris and I went on an early cycle ride to the beach in Scheveningen. As it was relatively early, the beach was still quiet except for some joggers and people strolling on the beach. People here must have been very downbeaten today after last night exit of Euro 2008.
Afterwards, after late breakfast, we all went to town. All , except for our two daughters, were on our bikes again. Fizah and Zimah took the bus instead. On the way back home, it became very windy. Things were flying around and tree branches falling down. Luckily the wind was on our back. Apparently in some places in Holland there were hails with hail stones as big as ping pong balls. In the Dutch News it was reported up to 2000 people made insurance claim for the hail storm damage. What a wierd weather!
The long awaited quarter final between Holland and Russia was finally on tonight. The game was dubbed Holland versus Holland as Russia is coached by Gus Hiddink, the former Dutch coach.
21st of June is officially the longest day of the year and the start of the Summer season in the Northern Hemisphere. Sunrise is at 5.17 am while sunset at 10.10 pm. From now on the sun will start to reverse and heads to the South.
While on transit in Vienna, I saw this mural on the side of this Austria airplane trying to live up the spirit of the Euro 2008 that is gripping Austria and Switzerland. The host countries however are already out as expected. Tonight is the turn for the Group of Death where Italy and France could be out. In the end even the second string Dutch team was too strong for Romania. And that opened the door for Italy to go to the quarter-final.
This is what it looks from the hotel window. There are mosques everywhere, sometimes just about 100 metres apart. Even I saw one tucked at the middle of a shopping centre. The one directly outside looks like a typical Ottomon or Turkish design. And yet Syria is a real melting pot with a large christian population living alongside the Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.
The Middle East is famous for its souks. Each countries have their own trademark souks and obviously claim theirs are the best. In Damascus, the main souk is called the Al Hamidiyah souk located in the Old City. It's quite a busy souk connecting to other smaller souks, each one specialising in something different such as ladies souk, spice souk and so on. While here I met a Syrian who has been to Brunei many times mainly selling table cloths. He still could speak a bit of Malay! He said normally he attended the annual international fairs being held there but lately has not done so but rather concentrates his effort in Malaysia.
In general, goods are quite cheap in Damascus, up to 50% off from what one could get in the Gulf states. This is because the standard of living is lower and salaries are in general below US$300 a month in the private sectors. Recently the Government increased the fuel price - the biggest increase was on diesel which went up by 350%. Although it is still relatively cheap, but everyone are feeling the pinch. At the same time the Government also increased the salaries of the civil servants by 25% and the private sectors are expected to follow as well. The main reason for the increase is to reduce smuggling of fuel to Iraq but also to lessen government subsidy on fuel which amounted to about a billion dollars annually.
There was some time to spend in the late Sunday afternoon so I went on foot to the Umayyad Mosque, a 20 minutes walk from the Four Season Hotel. It is one of the largest and oldest mosque in the world located in the old city of Damascus.
He reconquered parts of Egypt and moved across to the west of North Africa before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and began to conquer Spain. This would be the farthest extent of Islamic control of Europe. In the East, his armies made it as far as the Indus River, the empire thus stretched from Spain to India.
The other important site in the mosque is the burial site of Saidina Hussein, the prophet’s grandson (last photo). This is an important Shi'ite shrine and well visited by the Shi’ite pilgrims. Today there were quite a large group of shi'ite, I was told they were Iraqis.
In Wiki it was stated that despite the Crusaders' slaughter when they originally conquered Jerusalem in 1099, Saladin granted amnesty and free passage to all and even to the defeated Christian army. Notwithstanding the differences in beliefs, Saladin was respected by Christian lords. King Richard I of England once praised Saladin as a great prince, saying that he was without doubt the greatest and most powerful leader in the Islamic world.
Today on Sunday we drove back to Damascus as I have finished my short stint in the desert. I was there to see the overall operation and to do some scouting trips here and there. The drive back to Damascus again took 6.5 hours. We stopped over twice - one near to this small mosque by the road and the other at the famous Baghdad Café for some tea.
At one spot, there was a military exercise near the road with lots of tanks which looked like the Russians T72 make - very impressive indeed.
Compare to 20 years ago where facilities were pretty basic, nowadays life in a base camp is relatively comfortable. Staffs are accommodated in aircon cabin, the standard of catering are quite high, but most important of all is accessibility to internet and satellite TV. The desert area I am working on is quite a large area, in fact three times the size of Brunei! So driving around in this vast and empty land can be quite daunting and long.
In this operation, we have some weird machines that looks like vehicles one associates with in the movie Space 1999. These are very expensive kits costing about US$250K each. They seemed to roam around the desert plain without any purpose but infact their paths have been well and trully meticulously planned.
Just came back to Damascus today after spending a few days out in a camp. It started last Friday when I set off on a 378 km drive due East of Damascus passing through the ancient city of Palmyra, a journey that took 6.5 hours.
I later followed to see the operation and headed South as far as about 90km to the Iraqi border. The terrain is quite rough with many jabals or high grounds to navigate through to reach the other wadis. At one instance we were circling on top of a jabal trying to find our way down. Eventually we found a tricky spot to drive our 4WD vehicle down the steep slope. Toyota Land Cruisers is no doubt the most reliable vehicle to work with in this kind of rough and hot terrain. The fact that the talibans in Afghanistan are also mostly using Toyota Land Cruisers are exactly for this reason.
Today is yet another of those hard and tiring working day. After work, it was time to watch Euro Football again at the hotel balcony. My wishes didn’t come through, the ‘diving specialist’ team a.k.a Portugal won by 3-1. Anyway, after that disappointment we headed to the Old City of Damascus for dinner. There are a few recommended restaurants but this one is amongst the best, once considered the best restaurant in Damascus. Anyway foods here are very cheap even in this posh restaurant. A 3-course meal for 4 including the mezzee as starter only cost 60 Euros! The setting is quite nice, where they transformed an old courtyard into an open-air restaurant.
The Old City of Damascus is like a labyrinth, once you are inside, you would feel like being trapped inside a maze network of narrow streets and busy souks. In my previous trips I did walk on my own around the Old City to try learn and familiarise with the different Quarters. But I must admit I’m still not confident to navigate around the place apart from the areas around the Ummayad Mosque.
We finished work at 6.30 pm today and went straight to dinner at a famous restaurant on top of the mountain overlooking Damascus. The sight from here is quite awesome. The photos show the panoramic view of Damascus taken when the sun was still there to when we almost finished our dinner into the evening. My Syrian colleague told me that there are about 2000 Mesjids in the city. There are quite visible by their green litted minarets. We tested the idea. We counted that there are about 10 mosques per square kilometer. The city is about 10 km wide and 20 km long. That’s 200 sq km. Multiply that by 10 – bingo – 2000!
Syrian foods without any doubt are the best in the Middle East. Syria however is not as well developed as her Arab neighbours because of the US economic sanctions. The country is also still technically at war with Israel. However the situation on the ground is very different. People are really friendly and living life as normal. Life is hard though, worsened by the migration of over a million Iraqis into the city. Life is even got harder recently as the government decided to reduce subsidy on petrol and triple the price of diesel.
Yesterday I flew to Syria – my fourth time in the last 14 months. It’s back to work again. However it wasn’t really a good start. My team got stuck at the airport as the people who are supposed to pick us up didn’t turn up. Strange thing is that mobile phone doesn’t work at the airport. We could not just hopped onto any normal taxi, as there are certain protocols that we have to follow for safety reason.
The hotel we stayed in is a world of a difference to what is Damascus. The Four Season is the most luxurious place one could find here, owned by the Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. We had dinner at the hotel and watched football together with a large crowd at the hotel’s balcony. It was an excellent outcome for Holland as they hammered Italy 3-0. No body could imagine the Italian known for their solid defence could conceed 3 goals.
It's the European Football championship right now but seems to be uneventful as England is not featuring at all. What a shame. Matches are being played during the evening prime time here but the games so far are quite dull. The big guns are starting to play tomorrow with Holland in the group of death with Italy, Romania and France. Any of those team could go through and becomes eventual winner.
Today during our one hour cycle ride we went along a scenic country road just outside The Hague. Being Sunday, there were lots of people on their bikes. What also helps is that the strong smell of manure out in the fields is no longer there. When farmers put manure on their fields during middle of spring, it really is quite unbearable to be outside! 
Today we bought yet another bike. This one is for our youngest. It was a real scramble to get it today as we arrived from Roermond quite late in the afternoon and made it before shops closing at 5 pm.
Since our daughters started going to school on bike or train, our fuel bill has gone down a lot. Normally we have to fill our tanks full for the week which is about 80 euros. Nowadays we only use a quarter tanks each week.
The blog has been quiet this week; the culprit was the office work that spill to the evenings. After all of that, we wanted to have a good start to the weekend with a small get-together at our house last night with a few Bruneians living here.
The Roermond outlet has 10 other sister outlets spread all over Europe. Today was the start of the summer sale where the discounts are up to 70%. Although the idea of factory outlet is for major brands to off load their old stocks, most people don’t mind buying them as long as they are branded and of high quality. But most important of all they are all sold at bargain prices, usually at least 30% off compare to the high street prices. When the sale is on the difference goes up to 70%.
It was a tiring Sunday today for everyone. I took all the kids for cycling – we tried the route from home to our daughters’ school which is in the next town. Using the shortest route along the rail track it was 7.2 km in distance and took 27 minutes. There was apparently a proper cycle path all the way without the need to go along any main road. So now they want to do it tomorrow – cycle to school with some of their school mates – weather permitting of course. They are now planning to do it every Monday and Friday, for the other days they want to take the train instead.
