Thank You for 100,000 Views !

                                                        Saints at 55 : Mad Men Roof Top Bar ;

L to R : Me, Joe Lee Oon Wah, Hung Kee Chong (black shirt), Faisal Alsagoff, 

Paul Ezekiel, Albert Hong.

Center (front) L to R : Kent Tan Keh Eng (pink shirt),A. Surendran, Thedassaidas, 

         Kenneth Fong, Gurdeep Singh    

It took a long time to reach this milestone, but thanks readers for the 100,000 views ! 

I enjoy putting my random thoughts online, and new my target is to to garner 100, 000 additional views every 3 - 4 years as compared to the first 100, 000 which took more than 10 years to reach.  

Thank You 

10 km run as recorded on my Polar M430

I have recently slowed down in my running speeds, as a natural process of aging I guess. Here is 1 for the record of memories past....

Carpe Diem 

My Rave Run at Nassim Road - 2 loops of 4 km each

Starting at the junction of Cluny / Evans Road opposite the entrance of Botanic Gardens East Gate

I have been running this route for the longest time. The reasons I run it are as listed below :

1. Proximity to home (5 minutes by car)

2. Access to car park just 2 minutes away from start point

3. Wide and (most importantly) tree lined roads more like avenues

4. Embassy row or many embassies are located here, so not many condominiums and hence not so many school buses plying the area causing noise and smoke pollution at 6 am in the mornings ! 

5. Many shrubs to put my isotonic drinks by the roadside. :)

So here goes the route (4 km or so) ;

Start at one end of Nassim Road, and head up the small hillock towards Orchard Road.
Turn right at Lermit Road and run one lap stopping at Cluny Road junction and head back
Turn right and head towards the Orchard Road area, to your left are the embassies of Philippines, Japan Embassy and that of Saudi Arabia.
At the end of Nassim Road at the T junction leading to Orchard Road, head back the same way and make a left turn back along Lermit Road and do the same forward and back.
Once back after Lermit Road, turn left and head towards the start point, the Russian embassy is to your left.

This constitutes 1 Lap of roughly 4 km length. It should take you about 20 to 25 minutes to complete.

A Beautiful Painting

                 Beautiful oil painting bought from one of the shops inside the Souq Waqif

                                             

It depicts 2 soldiers or 'cavalry' in their desert gear mounted on their camels with the backdrop of a clear blue sky. I bought it for roughly 260 Riyals or $100 Singapore with the mounting of the canvas on wood backing.

I spent practically half a day at the market browsing the shops and having a fantastic meal of Lamb Kulwa from the Iraqi Restaurant. (See previous post for details).

Inside the gallery of shops by Qatari artists 

I am most pleased with this piece of artwok and hangs on the wall in my small office.

Carpe Diem ! 

   

Al Shahmi Restaurant in Doha Qatar 25 Feb 2019

Hummus (right with cucumber and pomegranate) 

Located along the ring road near Al Najada towards the Corniche is a lovely restaurant serving Arab food. I have been there 3 times, and I rave about their grilled lamb, beef and chicken chops which are tender, tasty with minmum garnishing allowing the flavour of the meat come out and the wonderful hummus which is a side dish.

The hummus dish is made from chickpeas and made into a paste. With a garnishing of pomegranate, some cucumber and raspberry topping, it is an excellent starter dish which goes well with their Naan type of bread and other pickles native to the region. Olives, green and black in colour, some gherkin and pickled cucumber complete the starters.  

After a nice meal on 25th Feb 2019 

While people criticise Arab meals as being too meaty and salty, if eaten sparingly, the food is really tasty and it is another one off my bucket list of must trys.  

Snacking should not be used to 'Fill" in between tasks

Outside a House in Canberra 2017 

This post is self explainatory. I have the bad habit of snacking on food, especially at the end of the day, to eat some snack, or drink some wine when in actual fact I am neither hungry or thirsty.

I have managed to curb this bad habit for most of the day, as I have stocked in the office, 24 bottles of mineral water and wafer biscuits with oat. As they are both the lowest calorie foods I can find, during the day at the office, I can manage to keep the hunger pangs down by only eating 1 sachet and 1 bottle to drink after a long task (say several quotations or replies to numerous emails).

The work at the office is never ending, so it is up to me to decide when exactly to stop the tasks and head either to the gym at the club or back home. There are days when I visit customers in Singapore and again, I try to minimise eating out in the malls as best as I can.

I have decided to only eat as and when I am hungry, so I have utilised intermittent fasting (up to 16 hours at 1 stretch) to some good effect. The next step is to count calories and reduce the total amount of carbohydrate into my body while at the same time increase the energy expensed each and every day.

My goal (this has been an almost unreachable target) is to weigh 72 kg by June. It is only 1 kg per month from my current 74 to 75 kg.

Al Admadiyah Iraqi Restaurant at Souq Waqif, Doha Qatar

    At Souq Waqif

The most famous Souq or market in Doha is the Souq Waqif, it is by the promenade and just opposite the Islamic Religious Center of Doha. As Qatar was once an English colony, and was once poor, it pays homage to its colonial past by putting up a Pearl structure at the start of the Corniche or old fort.  See below.

Currently it exports a large amount of Natural Gas (or LNG) worldwide and the GDP per capita income, Qatar is the highest in the world, meaning, that the gross domestic product per citizen is an astounding US$ 98,000 per citizen or how much it makes per citizen is equivalent to US$ 98,000.  

  

                       Downtown Doha (Banks mainly) with gleaming shiny Buildings 

There are only about 0.5 million Qataris in the kingdom of Qatar. Ruled by an emir or king and his prince. The remainder of the 3 million population are made up of foreign workers and expatriates. There is a developed 'downtown' of banks with Islamic banking at the forefront. Industry is centered mainly in the traditional Oil and Gas, Liquified Natural Gas, and now Sports Medicine.

2 years ago, Qatar secured a coup in the sporting world by winning the bid for the 2022 World Cup. Hence at least 24 world class teams and their supporters will come to this modern kingdom in the desert and watch the only winter time World Cup held in December of 2022. 

The Restaurant is at one end of the Souq. Watch out for the flies while dining outside though

The Souq Waqif is meant for the tourists like myself. After 2 days of work at the Aspire Hospital, I had some time to myself and ventured to walk and look for souvenirs and knick-knacks to bring back home. My stomach was rumbling and I decided to try something I had never eaten before. Iraqi food. Boy I was so pleasantly surprised. I ordered the lamb Kulwa which is something very much to our Mutton Briyani back home. The lamb is grilled on a stainless steel stake over a coalpit and the end product of the lamb with 3 types of Basmati rice was served to me.

Iraqi Tea 

Best Tasting Lamb Kulwa I have eaten 

I took one bite of the lamb and was in Briyani heaven. The meat was tender, practically falling off the bone, and 'sweet'. After removing the fat, I thoroughly enjoyed the meal served with some dalcha or vegetable soup and topped off with some Naan like Leaventhine bread.

The tea to top off the lunch was also something else, the Swedish couple at the next table were exclaiming it was the best tasting tea they had tasted, and coming from Sweden, I think they do not know their teas !

However, the tea was exceptional, strong to the taste with cinnamon flavour and sugarred accordingly.

This meal will go down as the best meal in the Middle East for me since I have bee coming to Qatar since 2016 !