Adventures w/ Teh Bear. Part 6.

As time dwindled down, :(, we had to do the things we hadn't done yet.  The 2 primary things that weren't cooking related were the Tree of Life and visiting the Grand Mosque.  Teh Bear also kinda wanted to go to the Wildlife Preserve that Teh Sister and I went to in March, but due to their hours vs our sleeping schedule and the heat, I kinda talked him out of it.  He wanted some camel pics, but said he'd just steal mine.  Totally worth the extra snuggles.

We considered doing the Tree of Life at sunset, but that meant getting up early, and as vacation went on, we were getting to bed later and later, which was is super annoying, because that meant sleeping in even more, and I really love my sleep.  At some point, the idea struck me, how about Tree of Life at sunrise instead of sunset.  Teh Bear was down for this idea, as we would already be awake.  Then we'd go tour the mosque and come home and go to bed, potentially at a reasonable hour.  So much potential in the idea...

We left the house around 3am, becuase I was thinking the sun rose at 330ish, I mean thats what time the first prayer call is, and that's at sunrise, right?  Apparently, not.  Teh Bear had looked it up, but didn't tell me, the sun wasn't rising till around 430.  Teh Megan, fail.  So we got there super duper early.  As if shots in the dark aren't difficult enough, I didn't bring my tripod because I'm a newb.  I figured that since the sun would be rising there would be light.  Wrong.  Teh Bear likes me enough, so he shared his tripod with me.  He might have also realized that I was sulking in the car because I was listening to my ipod and playing Pocket Frog, where all I do is breed frogs, make them happy, then sell them.  This game is supposed to be super fun when you have a large network of people you play with, except that rarely do I have internet when I am playing on my ipod (waiting rooms, middle of the desert, etc).  He got some pretty cool pics of me playing in the dark, showing off my double chin, which is only ok because he's my Teh Bear.

Teh Bear's photo, thats not the sun in the background, thats the glow of oil refineries.

Finally, the sun started to come up.  We finally got some shots with light.  I followed around this mega-huge ant and tried to get a photo of him, but that asshole was moving too fast, and I was semi-afraid he was going to bite me.  Pics of the Tree of Life were had, and because there isn't much else out there besides oil refineries and flare stacks, we left.  I was kinda sad that I didn't stop on the way down and take night shots of the oil refineries, because lit up they looked super cool, as I don't usually see them at night.  Teh Kaar did enjoy going 85mph on the highway back to civilization.

This is actually the speed limit for the street beside my apt.  The speed limit in oil refinery land was 100/kmh, which is about 60-65/mph.  I took matters into my own hands since the cops like watching people race down the streets.  :)

There is a sign on my way to work that says Humps Ahead (for the speed bumps, pervs).  A few months ago, someone put a <G> sticker over the "mp" part, so now it says Hugs Ahead, and I've wanted a shot of the sign for a while.  Apparently, while I've been on leave, some assholes decided to turn the visual sign to the side, so you can't really determine what the sign was supposed to be for.  Teh Bear tried spinning the sign back around, but it wasn't budging.  :(

Then we headed to the mosque.  Apparently, touring hours start at 9.  It was prob around 530.  Fail.  So we went home, ate dinner/breakfast, were generally lazy, then around 850 we started the trek across the street to the mosque where we got a pretty awesome tour, we got some photos, and we got a little sweaty (from walking around outside, pervs).  We also both lost our lens caps.  Very inconvenient and strange.

The tour guide didn't understand what close up photo meant.. and he had a very strong aversion to feet considering I asked for a whole body photo... because walking around in socks is my favorite part of going to the mosque.

 There is a fountain that I can see from my apartment.  I think this fountain is beautiful and I really want night shots of it.  It was on when we were walking to the mosque, so when we were leaving the mosque, we walked around to the fountain so I could get some daytime shots of it running.. And the fucking fountain was off.  I know the thing turns off around midnight 15ish.  I have no idea what its always on time is.  One day, I'll just stop being a lazy ass, and just go take photos of it one night when I get up.  It just requires so much motivation to make the trek to the fountain in the heat, with all the camera gear.  Hear me whine.

Stupid fucking fountain.  Actually, I think I read somewhere that this can be called the Princess Fountain.  IDK, but I know it hates me and never wants me to take photos of it.

I would like to say thank you to Teh Bear for putting up with me sitting at the computer for hours on end writing blogs and being an internet addict while he was here.  I got away with blogging because I told him that he's never had his vacation documented in such a way before, so he should feel excited that his Bahrain vacation has been internet immortalized.  He also dealt with the doormen/maintenance men while he was here, but mostly because once they saw someone that owned a penis they immediately thought that everything had to be ran through him.  Made my life easier, so I was ok with it.

Maintenance was also part of the reason our sleep schedules got pushed so far back.  They don't come to do work on the apartment till at least 11, which is definitely past my bedtime, so we were having to stay up to deal with them, then we'd get up late.  Nasty, vicious cycle.

The only other super amazing thing we did was eat.  I made all the things Teh Bear felt like he's been missing out on, enchiladas, lasagna, alfredo.  We had local pizza, we both had our first McArabia's (which were actually pretty good) we had dinner at Coco's, dessert at Cafe Lilou's, crepes at the movie theater place, brunch at Golden Tulip, dinner at Al Abraaj.  I feel like we covered all the things I really like about Bahrain, and that was my goal while Teh Bear was here.

Us popping our McArabia cherries together.  It was actually kind of tasty once we got past the curosity:

Fatty McFatties.  We did not eat all those fries, but it was easier to just  let them give us 3 meals instead of trying to tell them "just the sandwiches"..  Not confusing Arabs, one step at a time.

All things considered, it was an awesome vacation, even if I didn't get to experience the wonders of America.  It was nice just to be lazy and live a normal-ish-y real life with Teh Bear.

The Bear has now returned to America.  Despite some very serious concerns about missing his connecting flight once he arrived back in America, all went well.  Also, airports not having free wifi blows.  Srsly.  Internet is right!  Right?

That was a teaser for a blog to come btw.  Ahhhh.. another day.. :)