Tehran trip live blog (December 05)

It is now 1.30pm in Tehran and 6.00pm in Singapore :D

Yeah, finally we arrived in Tehran.

5.45am (local time, about 9.55am in Singapore), we arrived at Dubai Intl Airport. It's a big airport and there're so many things to buy. But we did not buy anything :D

7.55am: we leave Dubai

9.40am (Tehran time) we landed after a 3 hour flight and waited for 40 minutes for the visa to be approved. Surprisingly, everything went smoothly and when we are out, the guy from Sharif Uni. is waiting for us with the team from Taiwan. It turned out that they were on the same flight with us, but they did not have to wait for the visa.

12.20pm: we arrived at the guest house. The Iranian guy could not speak English very well which caused quite a lot of trouble for us and the Taiwan team. We intended to go to a restaurant for lunch together but I don't know what was happening. Everybody (Taiwan team + the guy) suddenly disappeared and we came back to our room. I'm thinking of the install noodle now :D I could not eat anything in the flights and I'm very hungry.

The guest house's great. It's warm inside though it's extremely cold outside (about 3 - 5 degree). Internet's available. It's just that I don't know how much they will charge us for all this.

I have a couple of photos but I cannot upload now as the internet is quite slow.

2.00pm: I finished the noodle. It's been a long time I haven't found the install noodle that nice =)) I went to bed and was waken up at 3.20pm to .. go for lunch. Amazingly, the Taiwan team's coach had been able to exchange some money and he lent me some. So we go to a kebab and bought 4 pieces of stuffed bread. 2 with chicken and 2 with "i don't know what, may be lamb" stuff, together with 2 box of fresh salad and 1 bottle of coke. It cost us 100.000 rials (1USD = 9550 rials).

4.00pm: we walked around together. The scene is pretty beautiful, yellow leaves, big houses, lots of trees... Please wait for the photos.

5.00pm: now come another two guys from Sharif University. They can speak English very well!!! And miracle comes true, they said they were sorry about the problems and they would be back at 6.30 to take us to a very nice dinner and after that, the super market. Now I know how hard the life is when you cannot communicate with others and how easy it is when you suddenly got someone understand you :D. So you may wait for the story about our shopping trip tonight ;)

10.30pm: AMAZING!!! That's what I want to say. The guys picked us up at 6.45 sharp with 2 cars. They were so friendly and they even prepared some pop songs for us to hear on the way to the shops. Shopping was short indeed, as we don't have money =)) :(( Then they took us to the restaurant.

Now, here's the interesting part. The place where we had dinner is called Darband. You may have a look of it here. Our first feeling: it is too too too luxurious. In fact, I've never been such a "high level" restaurant like that before. We got soup and salad for appetizer, lamb rib, fish and chicken for the main course together with vegetables and fries. Drinks include coke and 'non-alcoholic' beer (liquor and alcoholic drink are illegal in Iran). It was so delicious that the Taiwan coach had to ask the guys how much it was for one person. The answer was "you are not supposed to know that, this is our treat". I believe it would be around 50USD/person. Poor the guys! After dinner, they fed us back to the guest house and wish us nice dream.

It's been a great day for me and the team and it's time now to go to bed. It's now 3.19am in Singapore, so good night all of my friends ;)