The Arabic Script

The Arabic script is very decorative. It is no wonder that it has been used extensively in Middle Eastern art, and the calligraphic curves are an art-form in itself.

 

 

Arabic is written from right to left (isn’t this perfect for left-handers like me who get smudge prints from writing the other way round in English?!).

 

The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters. The ABC (or first three letters) of the Arabic alphabet are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are no distinctive upper or lower cases. However, the shape of a letter changes according to its placement in a word:

 

 

 

Many Muslims the world over learn to read Arabic at a young age so that they can read the holy Quran. However, many have this skill without actually understanding the language (me included!).

The Arabic script has been adapted by a number of languages, with additional alphabets and varied pronounciations. These include Urdu, Persian, Ottoman, Sindhi, Malay and Pasto.

To end this blog post, I thought I'd leave you with something to smile about...

 

 

- Big Sis x

The Hamsa Talisman (Hand of Fatima)

I’ve always been a sucker for mythical luck-enhancing talismans and the healing powers of gemstones, so it’s no surprise that I’ve accumulated quite a few pieces of the gorgeous Mediterranean Hamsa jewelry. I wear a tiny silver Hamsa as a charm on my silver bracelet, I have an antique-style Turkish Hamsa ring, and my latest buy is this huge silver Hamsa pendant embedded with semi-precious stones (it's just under 10 cm in length! I love huge statement jewelry pieces).

The Hamsa is not your regular hand. It is a very symmetrical hand that has two mirror-image thumbs at both ends. Many refer to it as a divine hand, an icon that defends against evil. The Hamsa is said to bring good luck, prosperity, fertility and good health, and ward off the evil eye. The evil eye talisman is also very predominant in the Middle East, and many Hamsas have been created to incorporate both where the evil eye is shown in the palm of the Hamsa.

The talisman is used to ward off the ‘evil eye’, the negative energies that come about from negative emotions like jealousy and hatred. Apart from beautifully crafted jewelry, many homes display the Hamsa and evil eye at the entrance to keep the evil forces out.

Historically, the Hamsa is linked to many of the world’s major religions. In Judaism the Hamsa is referred to as ‘Humes Hand’ (a reference to Prophet Moses’s sister Miriam who is a prominent figure in the five books of Judaism). Levantine Christians refer to the Hamsa as the ‘Hand of Mary’, and Anatolia Muslims refer to it as the ‘Hand of Fatima’. Fatima was the daughter of Prophet Mohammed, and the story goes that Fatima was stirring up a hot stew when her husband Ali walked in with another woman. Taken aback, Fatima dropped the spoon and started stirring the hot stew with her hand. The hand then became a symbol of tolerance and good faith. Religious background goes to show the Hamsa is a feminine energy, a talisman from a matriarchal goddess culture. The word ‘Hamsa’ comes from the word ‘khamsa’ in Arabic, the number 5. Five refers to the number of fingers in a hand, and also has religious significance in Islam (the five pillars of Islam, the mandatory five daily prayers).

- Big Sis.

Nifty Ideas For the Everyday Domestic Goddess

Here's some real nifty ideas I've found online...

1) Recycle empty lotion bottles buy trimming them into mobile holders for charging your phone! No more tangled wires, and you can pretty-up the bottle to suit your setting.

2) Running our of air-tight containers? Grab a pack of marshmallows! They soak up excess moisture in anything you store away.

3) Dropped you mobile in water? My Sony Ericsson once ended up in the ladies' loo at work. It was a brand new piece, and I was running int oa meeting and got very frantic as I saw the screen go blank. Then I found an interesting tip that worked wonders for me... I opened up the mobile completely, battery and all, and put all the parts into a big bowl of uncooked rice. I left it like that for almost a week, and miracle of miracles, it came back to life! Dry rice soaked up all the water that had gone into it.

4) As the days get warmer here and my toddler's demand for iced lollies gets more frequent, this nifty trick will help limit the mess she makes.

5) White vinegar is a miracle product. Not only does it bring your salads to life, but a few capfuls can help open up clogged drains, and also help remove unsightly rust stains in the bathroom. Attach a bag-full onto your shower head, leave for a couple of hours, and be amazed at how bedazzling it can get! Best of all, white vingegar is eco-friendly unlike many of the detergents we tend to use.

xoxox Big Sis.

 

Small Town Wisdom

Witty billboards are not limited to bustling metropolitans.

Check out this gem I saw in Shannon:

 

 

Lil Sis x

A Wise Treat

Having had recent wisdom tooth surgery, my food choices have been limited for the week. Besides the traditional broths and ice teas, it thankfully it does include one of my favourite naughty cold treats, ice cream!

So seizing the chance, I took to try out the new limited edition Magnum ice creams today. They come in two flavours: Black Espresso and Pink Marc de Champagne.

 

Magnum Black: With its swirls of espresso in classic Magnum vanilla encased in a dark smooth shell, it was much like a divine affogato elegantly presented on a stick. A coffee lovers delight.

Magnum Pink: Pink champagne sauce rippled though classic Magnum vanilla, in a chocolate layer embodied as pink pearlescent shell. A tad prettier than it tastes, this girly ice cream indulgence however does not disappoint.

Lil Sis x

 

Hey Lil Sis!

You know I'm a total die-hard fan of Magnums. A 'wise' treat for the loss of wisdom teeth indeed!

Sadly in the UAE we only get the basic Magnum flavours... Magnum Classic (chocolate shell, vanilla on the inside), Magnum Almond (chocolate shell encrusted with almonds and vanilla on the inside), Magnum Belgian Chocolate (Belgian chocolate shell, chocolate ice-cream on the inside) and Magnum White (white chocolate shell, vanilla on the inside).

The last time I was home in NZ, I was obsessed with the limited edition Magnum Honeycomb flavour. Hope they're still making it?

For now, I'll make do with a Magnum White...

Big Sis x

 

The Hurrem Sultan Ring

Here’s a little history for you…Hurrem Haseki Sultan was born Ukrainian, and led a very colourful life that has preserved her in history books. She was captured as a slave by the Crimean Tatars and later taken into the harem of Sultan Suleyman of Istanbul. She soon became his favourite and the Sultan overthrew his first wife and son for her. Being the clever woman she was, Hurrem converted to Islam to impress her master, and then refrained from having sex with him as her new reilgion forbade her from doing so with a man she was not married to. The Sultan abstained for a few days, but could not resist her charm. Hurrem (meaning ‘the cheerful one’) went on to marry the Sultan and had five children with him. Today she is remembered as one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history.

Hurrem Sultan was recently brought back to the spotlight through Turkey’s highly acclaimed drama called ‘Muhtesem Yuzyil’ (or ‘Magnificent Century’). Hurrem Sultan was cast by the beautiful Meryem Uzerli. The drama not only popularized the actress (who I think looks freakishly identical to Drew Barrymore), but also what is now known as the Hurrem Sultan ring. You can find it all over the net, and I found many variations of it on my last visit to Sharjah Gold Souk.

I haven’t bought the Hurrem Sultan ring yet, but I have the pendant. Think I need the ring, and maybe a pair of earrings too, to make a set!

- Big Sis. 

Monochrome Stripes

My mother loves stripes. She must have a dozen or so striped blouses and t-shirts in varied colour combinations stacked up in her wardrobe. I’ve never been a stripy person. I was made to believe horizontal stripes make you horizontally wider, and vertical ones look all too familiar to convict attire.

However, the last couple of weeks have made me change my opinion on this very classy nautical print. It all started a few weeks ago when I was lucky enough to be invited to Dubai’s ultra-glam Ahlan Hot 100 event. This is an annual event hosted by the very popular Ahlan series of magazines in the UAE where they showcase 100 of UAE’s most influential people from trendsetters and business tycoons to unsung heroes and upcoming starlets. Dubai’s most beautiful would be there at the very posh Kempenski The Palm. The invite also stated a dress-code; red, black and white. I presumed it could be any combination of these, and started a web crawl for ideas on what to wear.

No surprises, I came across loads of monochrome prints which looked very polished and sophisticated. But I seemed to be drawn more and more towards stripes.

Monochrome stripes have a fresh, modern appeal to them. What I also like about adorning this zebra-like style is that it can be taken from the boardroom to the party hall, and even to the beach with the right accessories. So began my hunt for the versatile monochrome maxi dress for summer.

I ended up buying this lovely maxi dress from www.ebay.com . It didn’t get here on time for Hot 100 (I ended up in a LBD, red heels and a white clutch combo instead), but I think it will look refreshing for the ‘oh so very hot’ days to come.

I love the vertical stripes; they give an illusion of height. I also love the ruffled top portion, so in trend. And even trendier is the asymmetrical hemline. The jersey material makes it very breathable and wearable in the hot humidity of UAE summers. I think this dress will be a great way to draw attention to my gorgeous new red Mary-Jane shoes from Nine West (yes, I’m currently a sucker for Mary-Janes, more on that in my next post!).

 

Love,

Big Sis.

 

Happy Mothers' Day!

Today is Mothers' Day this side of the globe (in New Zealand it's the second Sunday of May). So how lucky is our mum! We get to wish her twice every year!

 

It's also a great reminder to us of how lovely she is and how much we love her. Ok I'll leave all the senti sobby bits for another time... One thing I miss about being away from home is my mum's company when I shop. She's a die-hard shoppaholic and is loads of fun to shop and eat out with. After becoming a mum myself two years ago, I appreciate my mother even more. Apart from labour pains, the time and energy that goes into looking after a little child far exceeds a full-time day job. And my mum had three children! And I lived at home till my mid-twenties! Yes I am a sissy and yes I am very spoilt. My younger siblings are by far more worldly-wise than me.

 

This song has been playing in my head all day. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I have to admit its always been one of my favourite Spice Girls songs, and being Mothers' Day and all, its the perfect excuse to play it. So here goes...

 

 

Alot of young people these days have never even heard of the Spice Girls (makes me feel ancient!). But I'm sure they've heard of Posh Spice (aka Victoria Beckham).

 

Happy Mothers' Day to all you lovely mothers out there (including me teehehehe...).

 - Big Sis.

 

 

Quirkbox Minion Boyfriend Jacket

I first heard of Quirkbox from the super-cool fashion blog Fashion Bombay: http://www.fashion-bombay.com/2013/01/quirk-me-up.html

This article took me to the Quirk Box website (www.quirkboxed.com) and that is where I saw this jacket and had to, had to have it!

 

It also comes in white, but I liked the grey better for the contrast. Through Google image search I even found Bollywood beauty Gul Panag sporting the white one!

I placed an order through Quirkbox’s online store site www.inonit.com . Initially I had issues getting the payment through, some technical site issue. But the inonit team were super-fast at helping me out, great service! Although I paid more than I expected to on delivery charges, the jacket got to me from India to Dubai in eleven days flat.

When I first set eyes on it, I was quite disappointed. The material looks far duller than it did in the vibrant website shots. Also, what you can’t see in the shots is the overly funky puffy shoulder pads. A friend of mine gave me the booboo for splurging online and said she reckons I would hardly wear it.

Just to prove her wrong, I wore this, and that too to work! I wore it with dark distressed skinny jeans, a black camisole, and my funky purple Mary Jane shoes. This time the same friend said it looked great, and I felt great in it too! I think it’s one of those pieces that you have to wear to love (puff shoulder pads and all – yes, I even got used to these now!). And the best part is its pretty roomy and I love the funky neon pink buttons and generous pockets. Even though summer is nearly here, I think I can get quite some wear out of them given how freezing it is under the office air-conditioning. And my jacket has another unexpected fan, my two-year-old toddler! Every time I open my wardrobe door, she points out the wee “monsurs” on it (that’s ‘monsters’ in baby-slang).

xoxox Big Sis. 

Adele - Set Fire to the Rain

Here's a song I'm totally in love with. It's been playing in my head ever since I heard it a couple of months ago. Love Adele, she rocks! This Youtube clip is especially good cos you can sing along to the lyrics!

 

 

 

 

Big love,
Big Sis. 



Yellow Jeans

On another one of my lunch-break rendezvous’, I ended up in the changing room of Vero Moda with a stack of clothes off their sales rack. I had the usual suspects in deeper shades of blues, greys and immortal black, and a few cheery pieces in pink and green and mustard after all the net surfing I’ve been doing on fashion blogs. What shocked me was I walked out with a pair of bright canary yellow jeans!

They’re skinny jeans, super comfy cotton and have an elasticized waist which makes them even better to deal with. But yellow?! I’ve never… never ever… been a yellow person. I think all this neon and bright colours trend is getting to my head.

So the lovely bright canary pair sat in silence in my wardrobe for the past couple of weeks. The first week I debated I could take them back to the store for something else. Then I browsed the net to see how other people have worn yellow jeans. Here’s a few ideas that appealed to me and kept me from going back to the store:

And here's some more great ideas of taking yellow jeans from casual to dressy:

A few days on I coaxed myself they might go with the funky Quirkbox Minion Boyfriend Jacket I had recently splurged on (more on that in my next post!). It looked quite funky, but I still prefer the jacket with my neon-navy linen drawstring pants (also from Vero Moda, love their stuff!).

And then it was Wednesday night. Thursdays are casual attire days at the office, so I thought now or never. I pulled them on and paired them with this very comfy frilled jersey black top I’ve had since my uni days (around 8 years old - almost vintage, deserves a separate blog post!) and asked for an opinion from the harshest critic I know; my husband. When he’d seen the jeans by themselves he feigned an overly dramatized look of horror, but when I donned the whole outfit together along with my comfy black Naturalizer Mary Jane shoes, he actually said it made me look slimmer! That is a super huge compliment coming from him, and it gave me the confidence boost I needed to wear it to work.

I’m happy to report I’ve received many compliments! My secretary tells me I have motivated her to hop on to the neon trend this summer (she also digged my orange Mango blazer, more on that in a separate post). Another colleague said I looked fresh and ready for the weekend (so no snide comments on bright-as jeans!) and I even got some sleazy stares at the mall when I went to lunch (ok, that’s not a good thing!). Now I have to try pairing these with a more dramatic colour contrast (without looking like a bright lollipop ofcourse!).

PS: I spotted very similar yellow jeans like mine in Zara for AED 250. I got mine at Vero Moda for AED 99. Victory dance!

xoxox Big Sis

 

Why “Kiwi Shawarmas” you ask?

Kiwi: The word “Kiwi” is synonymous with New Zealand. Kiwi is the national bird, the national fruit, and even the locals prefer to call themselves Kiwis! The Kiwi bird is a furry brown nocturnal native of New Zealand. The kiwi fruit is also furry brown (kinda resembles the bird in this respect!), has a contrasting green inside, and a characteristic tart-sweet taste. Both the bird and the fruit are icons of the beautiful country. So much so, that the natives are called Kiwis (a short form for New Zealanders).

Shawarma: A popular snack in the Middle East, a shawarma is a sandwich roll generously filled with shreds of chicken or meat, tahini (sesame) sauce, and variations of Arabic salads. The meat or chicken is skewered on a giant revolving spit infront of an open grill, and a shawarma maker skillfully carves off the cooked meat for the filling.

No, they don’t use kiwi (bird, fruit or New Zealanders) in your everyday shawarma! We were looking for a blog name that summed up both our worlds – New Zealand and the Middle East. We thought it was very apt, don’t you think?!