shabnam

happy valentine's day!

2006-02-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!
Hi! It's been ages, I know! It's getting close to Valentine's Day and so, happy Valentine's Day guys!
This picture was taken in a bright sunny day at one of khorramshahr's park .This park is a kind of mini zoo and it's got cages with different animals, mostly birds. These monkeys were really cute. They had fallen asleep in each others arms without paying any attention to the visitors, aren't they really funny!
Without any relevance to the above picture, hug your beloved ones on Valentine's Day and remember and enjoy yourself!

hamoome sahrayee!

2006-01-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

This is really a shower, I'm not kidding! Last week we went on a small trip to "OMIDIYE" (In southern Iran) and we went out to take a look around and we saw this. This shower is located on a small farm, in which the owners grow cucumbers, wheat and … & since they got dirty they came up with such an idea. This is how this shower works:
As you see first we have a small tank in which they pour gasoline in it.
Then the gasoline drips and passes through the small pipe to reach the big tank containing water. This will warm up the water.
Finally the warm water will be directed through a small water pipe under the plastic cover and you are ready for a warm shower.
Although this idea is really brilliant, it makes me thank god a hundred times for our own shower!

SOOBOOR pazoon

2006-01-07T12:26:00.000-08:00

Hi guys! I know it's been a long time since I've updated my blog but I was kind of busy these days & fortunately now I'm free once again! I know you missed me but what could I do? J
As I had written before, a very special fish in abadan & Khoramshahr is "SOBOOR". Well last week at my aunt's house we had this delicious meal, so I took some pictures from the different stages of "SOBOOR" making and here they are:
1) First as you see you cut the fish from the ventral part and you fill it with a special kind of filling called "hashoo", then you place them in a special kind of metal net.
2) Next you place the fish in that thing (which I don't know the name) and you leave it until it cooks pretty well.
3) Now you are all set. "BON APETITE"!
Wish you were all here to enjoy it with us, specially the ones who have tasted "SOBOOR" & have missed it.

the winners of game number two

2006-01-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

This week's winners (of game number 2) are:
DADDY, TAJALLI and MOHAMMAD. Congratulations, you did it! The picture below was actually one year old Farhad! You were right. Hurray! Now as I had promised before, this is your valuable prize:
This week we will be talking about you & the good memories you have left us ;)
Now all the other visitors should do the same. Anyone who knows daddy, tajal or mohammad just pick one nice memory & share it with the others. Here goes my memories:
Daddy: I can't just pick one memory so I will just grant this fortunate opportunity and just thank my wonderful father for all he has ever done for me. Thanx dad! I love you!
Tajal: I have A LOT of great memories but ultimately I picked this one: I remember that in Khoramshahr whenever we would gather together to see a movie & all of us couldn't come to an agreement to pick one, tajal would use a special technique: each person had to give each movie a number between 1 to 5 with 1 being the least favorite & 5 the most favorite, then he would add up all the numbers to see which film/films get the highest mark and so after some time we would finally see our movie. I remember one time after about an hour "ACE VENTURA" got the highest mark but when we wanted to watch it no one was satisfied. Akhey ,taji jaat khaalie!
Mohammad: The best & funniest cousin anyone could have. About 2 years ago me, parastoo, tajal & mohammad went on a trip to kish & since we didn't want to pay extra money for another room we said that mohammad was our uncle! That was a really fun trip.

and special thanks to farhad for his cooperation in not letting out the answer.

work of art !

2005-12-26T11:45:00.000-08:00

Now these fine work of art are handmades of two incredibly talented artists: me & Ramin .we made these a couple of weeks ago. It was really fun. After spending a morning on it, this was the result & on the same day we had an invitation of joining a totally professional team for making the "neverhood 3".We are currently thinking about accepting the offer or not.

game number two

2005-12-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

Ok guys, last weeks game was a bit easy for a lot of you since you had seen the picture before, so it DOESN'T count and no one will be receiving any prizes. And for the ones who still don't know the answer, the correct answer was candidate number 4:"farokh".Now for this week I have a new picture and if anyone guesses this one right then, that person will really be receiving a valuable prize. I didn't change the candidates for this week so choose between the below 8 people. (Of course I have already asked the right person to not give out the answer : )

game number one

2005-12-22T21:52:00.000-08:00

Now, guys this is a simple game. Take a wild guess! To whom does this cutie's picture belong to?

Ali: 28 years old, is becoming a father in a couple of weeks & is one of our classmates .This photo was taken in kelardasht after a long walk. I guess he's trying to scare someone off!

Tajalli: 28 years old, has recently moved to Adelaide & is my brother in law. This photo was taken in Sydney after a conference. He's quite happy in this shot.

Bavand: 27 years old, has become a great photographer & is another one of my classmates. This shot was taken at "Ando restaurant" for pouya's birthday. Bavand was posing to the camera with pouya's ring.

Farokh: 27 years old, has also become a great photographer & is a great inspirer for my blog. This photo was taken at my custom party 3 years ago, he was dressed as a sweeper and was taking a picture with my feathers. These beautiful feathers were made by "nazanin & Bahaman" and they lend it to me for the party; thanx guys.

Mohammad: 28 years old, has recently moved to Canada & is my cousin. This shot was also taken at the same party & mohammad was dressed as one of the Daltons together with his 3 sisters .And as you see mohammad was "Averil; the tallest Dalton & also the …(just kidding)

Roozbeh: 27 years old, is another one of my cousins. This photo was taken at summer, about two years ago.

Farhad: 28 years old, is another one of my classmates & is also becoming a great photographer. This shot was taken in kelardasht when making "jooje kabab".

Sepehr: 22 years old, my beloved brother. This shot was taken at "Darband " 2 years ago.

So the question is who did this little fellow grow up to be? Write your answers. The winner will be receiving valuable prizes. :)

yesterday came suddenly....

2005-12-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

Memories, memories; they're all which will ever stay! It's funny how time passes so quickly. It was just yesterday when parastoo & tajalli were still in Khoramshahr and we would stay at each others place almost every night watching movies; just passing time. I remember when tajal first rented this office & went to order a sign for it. In the beginning each & everyday we would anxiously wait for tajal to come home & the first question would always be: How many patients did you have? Come to think of it, I realize that those were really fun days (although I didn't notice it then).
Well after 5 months which parastoo & tajal have moved from Khoramshahr the "sign" is STILL there :) .So you see even though they have moved from this city they have left us a lot of things to remember them by .By passing this sign, we would sigh and say "yaadesh bekheyr"! I'm sure this sign will not come down so soon, it's interesting to know when & by whom will this sign ever come down. Until then tajal will have to order a new sign " Dr.tajalli sagaei graduated from Adelaide University"!

home sweet home

2005-12-17T12:59:00.000-08:00

This is dedicated to mom & dad & anyone who has memories of it. Now what is this? It's a picture of our old house in Abadan(BOVARDEH)! We lived in this house about 25 years ago! When the Iran-Iraq war started and I was only9 months old, we had to leave our house & move to Shiraz. I don't remember anything of this house but have heard a lot of good memories from mom & dad. It was really interesting for me to see the house.
The above picture (the square with just some soil in it), is very close to our house. Mom says that it used to be a small park and a small playground which she used to take parastoo there daily. But now it's a bit different!
In the other picture you see our house number which hasn't changed through the years but has just got a bit rusty! "3346".When we went there to take these pictures we saw some shoes at the front door, so obviously our old house has new owners now!

fresh fish

2005-12-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

As you might have heard, southern Iran, due to being close to the Persian Gulf, has plenty of fish and shrimps which almost all are very delicious. Abadan has a fish market which is always so live & so full of different kinds of fish. (You can see some pictures of the fish market in farokh's blog)The smell, although is not that good, is pleasant for me and a lot of whom I know. When we first moved here, I didn't know the names of these fish, but now after a year I know a lot of them.
From these fish I think " zaboon" is the funniest. It's very flat and the eyes are both located on one side of its body and very close to each other. It's so flat that when you fry it, it turns really crispy, yum!
One of the other fish, (one of my favorite) is "soboor" ,"the bony Fish ". The arabs here cook this fish in a special kind of oven. This fish is really delicious but all the bony processes makes it quite difficult to eat. In just one small piece you might even find hundreds of small bony processes. Here the people say that god intended to make "soboor" so full of bones or else since it was so delicious every human or creature would catch it so much that we wouldn’t have " soboor " any more. I like this theory!
All the other fish in this picture are also delicious, like the "shoorideh" which is great. I believe it's parastoo's favorite fish. "Shir maahy" is usually large & is great for "galie maahy" which is a special dish here. I haven't tried "hamoor", "ghobad" or "neyze maahy" before. As you see "ghobad" and "shir maahy" are very alike & it's hard for us to tell them apart!
And the last but not least "zobeydi". It's great. Fantastic. And the most expensive ,it's about 7500 tomans per kilo that would be about 8 A$ , which is quite a lot here.
Well that's about it!

Introduction

2005-12-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I have opened this blog for a few days now but actually I couldn't think of anything to publish in it ,until today which I decided to put some pictures of Minoo Island ( I know, this idea is a copy of mohammad and tajal's idea). I guess it will be interesting for some of my friends who have never seen this place and have just heard the name from me .I plan to change this site in some ways but just bare with me until then.

sorrow!

2005-12-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

The above shot is a picture of some burned palms in a part of Minoo Island. Talking to some of my personnel which have lived in Minoo Island before the Iran-Iraq war, they say that this place was such a beauty years ago. Years before a lot of people from abadan, Khorramshahr and … would come to Minoo to spend a weekend or have a picnic. They say it used to have so many palm trees with lots of different kind of dates ,with beautiful branches of rivers passing through the palms …but now just after some years it has turned to this ! When they talk about their memmories you can trully understand the word " sorrow " in each and every word .Some of them like our general manager have only stayed here with the hope of helping their people.

hot summer days!

2005-12-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

As you know southern Iran gets really really hot in the summer. It's so hot that one day when we had gone out and the chiller was off after only 2 hours all of our candles had melted! Any ways there aren't any swimming pools in Minoo Island so one of the most fun activities for the kids is swimming in Karoon or Bahmanshir and… .They are so joyful that make you wanna go for a swim too. I remember one day farokh, tajal and bavand went swimming in Bahmanshir ( after catching 250 grams of fish!)

khorramshahr bridge

2005-12-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

This is the new bridge of khorramshahr.I think it is very beautiful specially with the big ships and boats and most typically the "leng"s. By passing this brige you get to a square and by turning right you reach parastoo and tajal's former house.! Ofcourse now they have moved to "Adelaide" and I'm sure by seeing this picture they will remember a lot of good memories.

2005-12-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

this is me and my cute little dog, jackie.