Went to sultan shopping in athaiba today .. It would seem that my sultan boycott is almost over .. I managed not to shop there for more than 5 years .. Had a huge fight there back then with the guy that runs their qurum store .. You see they have this habit of piling things up and saying 1.999 rials only ... So shoppers would pick the item up and would not notice that the price is different when you check out at the counter ... After 3 times of getting suckered I lost the plot ... All the manager had to do was to charge the item at the advertised price ... But he refused .. That was it ... Never went back..

Until recently.. I was looking for lebanese black olives and my wife found them at sultan in athaiba ..so I went back to get some a couple of times now .. And must admit .. The place is impressive .. Clean, bright, and full of really good stuff .. AlFair still wins when it come to bread and bakery but overall .. Sultan has much better variety .. The meats section is awesome .. I had them make me some fresh burgers .. I got to choose the cut and those babies sizzled so nicely over the BBQ .. And went down smoothly with a big glass of ice cold vimto ..

Just as you enter you will meet this Filipino guy...

You would think that he is real .. but he is not .. he is made out of cardboard .. you would think that he could have smiled for the photo ... but he didnt ... i looked for him in the store ... but couldnt find him .. maybe i should have asked about him? the store is organized nicely the ground level is nice and well organized .. the upper level is a little crammed but also well stocked... while i was walking around the upper level .. i kept hearing these English couple shouting at each other ... "Do we want ketchup" .... "yea" ... " Do we want pickles"... Wha2" ... Pickles, inni2" ... "which ones" ... "pickles.. pickles" ... and it went on and on ... and all the Omanis in the store were just looking at them and at each other .. it was like a like show for us locals .. all of us started to walks towards the voices just to see what what going on .. why are these guys shouting ??? they didnt seem to care ... even my kid started to ask me "laish yi9ar5oon, 3aib la baba?" .. that what tell the kids when they start screaming in public "3aaib" ..

They seemed like they might be new to Oman from the way they were dressed... the guy was a pink polo shirt wearing 'indo" brit .. you know those new polo shirt with the HUGE polo logo .. and the lady with him was a blondy indecent beach wear ... i must admit they did make the whole outing that much more entertaining for us ..

Junior and Mummy are out of my life i just need to get the car fixed .. and renew my passport .. and renew my car mulkiya ...