New York Cafe at Downtown Manama

UPS Office Branch in Manama

3 UPS small buses in front of one of its branches in Manama. Great service and nice people.

Mosque Series - Little Mosque in Manama

Water Tank at Hoora, Manama

Car Series - Grey Hummer

Car Series - Yellow Hummer

Is Your Car Child-Friendly Type?

Sky Blue Troops - Standard Charter People

Bahrain's Local Carpet

Day of Ashura

Today is the 1st Ashura festival in Bahrain and the rest of Islamic country. As quoted by Wiki, the Shia muslims are commemorating the Ashura day as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Husyan ibn Ali (peace be upon him), the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad SAW (Peace Be Upon Him) at the Battle oof Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 AH (October 10, 680 AD meanwhile for Sunni Muslims believe that Moses fasted on that day to express gratitude to God for liberation of Israelites from Egypt.

In some countries and regions such as Iran, Iraq, pakistan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamica, the commemoration of Ashura has become a national holiday and most ethnic and religious communities participate in it.

The word Ashura means simply tenth in Arabic; hence the name of the remembrance, literally translated, means "the tenth day". For further reading about Ashura, please go here, so you could get a better understanding about this religous event.

The further interesting about this event, it also existing in my home country Indonesia, exactly celebrated in Pariaman, the West Coast of West Sumatra Province. Though it is originally a Shia festival but in Pariaman is held by the Sunnis, please go to this article about Tabuik (local manifestation of Muharram by Wiki to further reading about the history of Tabuik celebration on Ashura.

In Bahrain, the Ashura procession is held in many areas such as in Manama (the capital city), Sanabis, Jidhafs, Budaiya, Ali and Buri and other areas as well. Unfortunately, I am always at work during this festival and luckily a friend give some photos taken last year for Sanabis DP. After a lot of consideration, I decide not to post them here today due to the nature of the content but I will give you a link here. Sara from Mashhad DP Iran is also posting about Ashura and will give you a complete explanation about how Ashura celebrated in Iran. Please go here to see her DP as she also has tons of beautiful photos.

So, further to keep Sanabis DP with photo, I am posting the photo shown at Wikipedia;

Manama's Bus Station

Today's photo is the bus station at Manama.

Traffic in Downtown Manama

Manama Downtown Shot # 02 Taxi Driver Hang-out Place

Today's photo was a group of taxi driver sitting in front of Cafe Sayah and it is across of Gold City. I did posted the similar road here but today's photo was shot from the car.

I would like to thank Summer for asking for this picture, as yesterday I was having a connection in my flat building and due to the slow process, I could not load it. So here it is anyway. Please do drop back!!

Happy Saturday all!

Manama Downtown Shot # 02 Manama Mosque

Fuddruckers Logo

Today's photo is the logo of one of famous fastfood chain in Bahrain.

The Mosque Series # 06 Blue Mosque in Manama

Today's photo is the beautiful blue mosque in Manama. This is one of the many Shia mosques in Bahrain. As some of you may be aware that Bahrain has some of the largest proportion of Shia Muslims in the World. While mosques specifically Sunni's are known for their architecture, Shia mosques in particular are very colorful and full of calligraphy on the outside.

National Evangelical Church in Manama

Today's photo is The National Evangelical Church in Manama. Leah gave me this one as she reminded me earlier that I have not posted any place of worship from other religions. Well it is about time then. Thanks Leah!

Though having a small indigenous Christian community but Bahrain is one of the Gulf state where the minority communities of Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and other religions are allowed freedom of worship. Here is an interesting column at Washington Report about Christianity in Middle East. I hope it will give a better understanding for us. If you want to know further about who the christians are in the Middle East, please go here for an interesting reading by authors Betty Jane and Martin Bailey.

Here are the following Christian churches and other religious worship places in Bahrain;

• St Christopher's Cathedral in Manama
• The Community Church in Awali
• The National Evangelical Church
• The Sacred Heart Church here in Manama
• St Peter's Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church
• The Gospel Church of Philadelphia here
• St. Mary's Orthodox Church
• The Bahrain Tamil Christian Congregation
• Telugu Christian Congregation
• The Middle East Pentecostal Church
• The Bahrain Malayalce Christian Congregation
• The Malayalce CSI Parish
• The Mar Thoma Parish
• Sikh Temple(Sri Guru Singh Sabha) and many MORE!
  
  PS : I need to tell her that I need the high resolution picture then as this one is very small. I will change it as soon as possible and I should make a plan to cover all these worship places. Wish me Luck!)

Kanoo Travel Center

Bahrain Hotel in Manama

Today's photo is Bahrain Hotel located in Manama.

DP Theme - Sister City

Our theme of the day for the 1st of September is Sister City(ies) and I must confess that I had no idea wether Sanabis has a twin city! After searching at Wikipedia, I only found out that only Manama is being twinned with Dubai city in United Arab Emirates. Since Sanabis is under the municipality of Manama, so that is it then!

Here is a nice shot of Manama Skyline from Wikipedia since I do not have any of such pretty composition. For you who are interested for our twin city, we are lucky that Dubai DP does exists but unfortunately not being updated for a year, please go here if you want to see the wonderful shots taken by DXBluey and Chuckeroon.