First full moon in middle east

[Already past midnight on the full moon Friday but I got to see it tonight and watched it go from crescent when I arrived to the real deal—just in time to celebrate Laylat al-Bara'ah, the holiday fifteen days prior to Ramadan where people get excited for what is to come that includes giving tons of candy away to children.] Early Thursday morning, I got to the Sharjah Institute of Heritage to set up my workshop.

It was earlier than planned because there was a last-minute invite to tour the manuscripts division, where they make paper, boxes to house objects, and do preservation work. Here is part of the display to show what they do, an insect-eaten book.

A sample of ebru, or marbling

Samples of colored pulps used to make paper in their paper machine that is kind of like a vat and mould in one box.

The blender seems to have been made for hummus!

I was on my feet most of the workshop and really busy + I want to respect the women there who don't want their photographs taken, so all I have is me next to a banner after we did a photo shoot of being given a certificate and gift for participating in the Heritage Days. My students at what I call lunch but what they call morning snack (catered) asked if this is what I wear back home to work. I didn't know there was going to be a photo shoot, I just needed to be warm against the A/C and ready to do seriously compressed jiseung teaching. It was too much/too hard to ask them to do but they actually did quite well considering.

After barely sleeping and then working all day from early morning to late night, I had my final day trip to Dubai as my hosts invited me to Expo 2020. These are only half the flags of the participating countries. The rest are on the other side of the massive gate.

They built an entire site in the desert where there was nothing, including roads and infrastructure, and were ready to go when covid hit, so it was delayed almost two years and closes at the end of the month. Apparently the whole thing will then turn into a brand-new city after this world's fair is over.

It was a busy day and the people I was with (5 adults and 3 children) had already visited two to five times prior and seen most of the good pavilions, so I didn't see any of the blockbuster ones. The one with greenery outside is Singapore, a favorite.

In the far distance, Japan, another top tier one in popularity and already completely booked (not all of them require advance tix but this one did) by the time Expo opened today.

So we went to the ones with no queue, like India.

They had one section with videos all over the walls and this imagery I loved, as it's a close up of weaving.

and textiles, which are seemingly endless there!

Israel was one level, only a circular room with a 360-screen to show a video.

Once outside of Israel's pavilion, you'd climb up stairs or the "hills" and get your stamps: the kids love this, getting their expo passports stamped.

This is the US pavilion, also skipped to climb the escalator right next to it for DP World, representing I guess the port of Dubai.

You go first to the top tier, where you have a big view.

Inside are floors connected by a circular ramp and a waterfall show in the center.

Kazakhstan, from the outside (which is mostly all I saw, which was fine with me as I was on the fence about even going to the entire thing during my whole stay).

The robot that delivers food

Morocco

Great Britain

Ukraine

United Arab States

Wandering around after losing track of my group

Sweet reunion: spicy chocolate ice cream (yes, a chili pepper to garnish!) before we left. The flavors are SO much better and more interesting than back home. It was a lot after such a giant lunch that we shared of delightful Arabic food. This pic is doing double duty of showing one of my host's sons (who has a delightful personality; when I walked him thru my hanji show, his comment was, "You are very informative"—hahaha!!). He's opening one of the gift bags given to children all day everywhere to celebrate. Full of candy, snacks, and an expo bracelet.

It felt like a family trip to a theme park, and I was so happy that we had perfect weather, cooler (given the heat and humidity of the last few days) and very breezy. Despite us all being worn out and exhausted by the end, as attested to by the children dragging their feet, I was glad to have more time off the clock with these ladies who work so hard to pull of this massive event and take care of me. I dozed a tiny bit in the ride back to the hotel, and took my time getting back to the exhibit. I had a great evening with fascinating visitors. One couple of Sudanese heritage but from UAE came expressly because one of them heard my live interview on Pulse 95 Radio yesterday while commuting home from Dubai. It was amazing to see that they visited just based on that.

Many wonderful conversations since opening, knowing I have learned so much here about here while barely having learned anything at all. But so grateful to have been able to start. I'll be sad to say goodbye but excited for one last full day.