Sheesh!

I'd always wanted to try my hand at smoking sheesha, so on Friday night Barry took me to this nice little restaurant tucked away in Arab Street. It had a nice chill-out vibe to it.

Listening to the band play (they used an interesting mesh of western and classical muscial instruments) while sipping on my hot glass of mint leaves, I felt like I'd been transported half a world away.

There was even eye-candy. He's quite blurry in the picture above, 'cause he was so engrossed enjoying himself in the dance. The whole restaurant had a relaxed, familial air about it, as if we were guests at someone's abode. As the night went on, more and more people showed up - not as customers, but performers - and the band just made space for them on the stage or on the dancefloor by passing them another instrument or involving them in one of the dances.

Ah, yes. The sheesha I went for. I had an inkling that it contained tobacco, but I'd long wanted to know what it was like to smoke, even if I only did it once. I ordered an apple-flavoured one, but I suspect that the waiter just brought me something generic - the smoke was sweet and was not choking at all, as I'd feared it would. And although onlookers wouldn't have any difficulty seeing that we were novices, it was Barry who smoked more like a girl - you know, the way they suck in the smoke, hold it in their mouth for all of 0.25 seconds, and then spits it out with badly-veiled distaste. Meehee.