a word a week challenge: pose
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We have been enjoying participating in the The Daily Post weekly photo challenge. Recently we have started following A Word in Your Ear and she has a similar challenge called: A Word a Week Challenge.
The reason we are immensely enjoying the challenges is that it really is a challenge! We love sorting through our photos and looking at them from a different angle. We need to put our creativity hat on and try to think outside the box to interpret them to suit the chosen “word”!
Luckily for us, our first A Word a Week Challenge is a relatively easy one: POSE – when taking photos, posing is natural! Or is it?
Hope you enjoy our photo selection of poses taken on our travels:
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weekly photo challenge: layers
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We are really enjoying participating in the Weekly Photo Challenge….
Our choice of photo this week to represent LAYERS is a photo we took in Mauritius back in 2005.
This is “Chamarel Seven Coloured Earths”. Bascially it is a geological formation where the seven different coloured sands have settled in different “layers” causing the colouring phenomenon.
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48 hours in dubai: this is what we did (day 1)
We’ve been back for over a month and it seriously feels like we’ve never been away. How does going back to work do that to us? And we’ve written a few posts about Turkey but still yet to cover another part of that trip; Dubai.
So what is there to do in Dubai? This is what we did in our 2 days stopover.
We arriving late on the Tuesday night (Day 0) and had booked everything with our Emirates flights as part of the “Arabian Adventures” 3-night stopover. It was our last ditch at feeling “away” before we flew back to Sydney.
The package was a VIP welcome before customs (which was really a “hello” and “this is where you go for your hotel transfer”) with a Welcome Package and complimentary transfers to our hotel, Park Regis Kris Kin. We were told to sit and wait for our names to be called…. everybody turning up after us were being transported off but we sat and waited and waited and waited. Finally, we got to our hotel which was amazing and super comfortable (we have reviewed it at Tripadvisor).
After a day of flying from Antalya to Dubai via Istanbul, we were exhausted so were happy to just crash on that first night.
Day 1
According to our package, before the pre-arranged (as part of this stopover package) City of Merchants tour, we were meeting a representative at midday at the hotel. This meant our Wednesday morning would not be as productive as we had hoped. So we spent the morning exploring our first mall in Dubai. The walk from the hotel was 5-7 minutes but goodness, the heat was unforgiving and we were relieved to hit the air-conditioning. The mall was filled with luxury brand shops but not with many shoppers. It did get us questioning how there could be so many malls yet not all the malls be busy? We later learned malls were a form of air-conditioned entertainment to escape the searing heat of the desert.
Meeting our representative at noon was extremely pointless because she provided no additional information than what was provided in the Welcome Package – so that was the biggest waste of our time. We were beginning to get a little unimpressed with the service we were getting from the Arabian Adventure representatives.
However, they were able to redeem themselves with the City of Merchants tour. The tour guide whose name escapes us now (dammit!) was extremely entertaining. We also received bottled water every time we climbed back on the coach. They were very conscientious about not letting us dehydrate!
With the half day tour, we got:
(1) a photo stop at the Burj Al Arab: the self-proclaimed “7-star hotel”
(2) a photo stop at the Jumeirah Mosque
(3) to drive past Zabeel Palace because it is the Sheik’s residence, stops for photographs are not permitted
(4) to visit the Bastakiya historical and art district
(5) to visit the Dubai Museum: which we found fascinating. It is a small museum but there is a lot of information to learn about the history of Dubai
(6) to cross the Dubai creek in a traditional abra
(7) to visit the spice and gold souks as our last stop.
We arrived back at our hotel by way after 8 pm and yearning for a nice cool shower before seeking somewhere to eat dinner.
That was 24 hours in Dubai gone. Day 2 was to be spent exploring the modern part of Dubai, so a good night sleep was needed!
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our second blogging award: the liebster
What a pleasant surprise to be nominated. Two very gracious monkeys would like to thank Emily from innocentnomad for nominating us.
What we have learnt, thanks to the post written by Emily, is that the Liebster award is a nomination for up-and-coming bloggers with less than 200 followers.
- Thank the person who nominated you and link back up to his/her blog.
- Answer the 10 (or 11!) questions which are given to you by the nominator.
- Nominate other bloggers for the award who have less than 200 followers.
- Create 10 questions for your nominees to answer
- Let the nominees know that they have been nominated by going to their blog and notifying them.
Our responses…..
1. How many languages do you speak or do you ever learn some of the language of the country you are visiting?
Mrs Monkey: English, Vietnamese, school level French & Italian.
Mr Monkey: English, school level Japanese
We took Spanish lessons before we went to South America and loved it. We tried keeping it up but the class hours were not feasible for us to continue.
2. What country are you visiting next?
Singapore is our next overseas trip and we have been there in 2005. The next country we are visiting that we haven’t been to is Brazil in June next year! Cannot wait for that!!
3. What is the first thing you pack (not counting your passport or underpants)?
Travel diary – never leave home without it.
4. Do you prefer to travel solo or with friends?
Since we began travelling, we travel as a two-some & occasionally with family. Neither of us have in fact travelled solo.
5. Do you prefer hostels or hotels?
We have opted for hotels previously but after joining the blogosphere, hostels are not completely ruled out.
6. What is your best or favourite travel tip?
When travelling, don’t expect things to be the same as it would be at home
-This is what everyone should remember when travelling. Everything from language, food, drinking water through to shower pressure and toilets: expect it to be different either for the better or not. At least if it is for the better, you can be pleasantly surprised. And if things are not to the same standard as what you are use to, you won’t be disappointed.
7. If you could live in any country and never leave, where would it be and why?
We’ve seen a lot of countries (not as many as we’d like) and we’ve loved lots of them but there isn’t one that we could settle in. Australia will always be home and with our families and friends here, we could never live far away. It’s not only about the country but its also what is important to us. We have to admit though, we have it pretty good here in Australia, such as health care, welfare, food, personal safety, diversity in cultures as well as lots of land mass with plenty to explore! Maybe we are bias … 🙂
8. How spontaneous are your trips?
Most trips are booked well in advanced. But our destination is generally “spontaneous” in the sense that we do little research before we decide where to go next. Once we decide and lock it in, we then start planning the detail.
9. If you could sit next to one person on a plane, who would it be (dead or alive)?
Sounds corny but we want to sit next to each other. It’s our travel tradition, most of our travelling life has been flying with each other. It wouldn’t feel right without the other. We flew back from Vietnam separately and that was too weird for our liking!
10. Name your top three favourite blogs!
Top three blogs:
(1) innocentnomad : this was one of the first blogs we subscribed to when we joined the public blogosphere. Love her style of writing and what she’s got to say
(2) ourworldheritage.be : these guys share the same interest as us when it comes to exploring and seeing UNESCO heritage sites. We are yet to compile an official bucket list but our unofficial bucket list is ticking off the UNESCO heritage sites around the world.
(3) It Started in Asia: another blogger who loves travel and is in a similar situation to us: working full-time and fitting travel in wherever possible.
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Now we would like to nominate the following blogs for the Liebster award (apologies if you do have more than 200 followers – we nominated you also because we would love to see your answers 🙂 );
These are your 10 questions:
1. Where was your first ever overseas holiday?
2. What is the strangest thing that you have eaten whilst travelling?
3. What is your best or favourite travel tip?
4. Do you prefer hostels or hotels?
5. Is there anywhere you have travelled that you wouldn’t recommend to others? Why?
6. Do you still send postcards when you travel?
7. Do you collect souvenirs? If so, what is it that you always pick up?
8. Do you use suitcases or backpacks?
9. If you won an overseas trip, all expenses paid for, where is your ultimate destination?
10. Name your favourite 3 blogs.
wise monkeys abroad 