and that's how it's done

after enduring 2 torturous belly dancing classes last month, i gave up on the tdsb version of belly dancing classes. becoming a fluid, beautiful belly dancing is just really not in the cards if you are learning from a soviet prison guard in the boys' weight room of a high school. it's just not.

this weekend i had the opportunity to see some real belly dancing, live and up close. a friend celebrated her 30th birthday yesterday, and the night began with dinner at the sultan's tent - a moroccan restaurant downtown where your 4-course dinner comes with a side of shimmy & shake. while i will admit up front, the whole idea of the place is supremely cheesy, it's also pretty fun. the inside of the restaurant is draped with miles of flowing fabrics to create several distinct "tents", and the lighting is soft & low. the $40 4-course prix fixe menu was also surprisingly good. it's somewhere that i would likely take family or friends from out of town, to give a taste of the big city flavour you can't really get anywhere else.

anywho, back to the point. there were 2 belly dancers complete with jingly bells and scarves. they were really excellent, and managed to drag up a respectable number of people to give belly dancing a try (not me, of course). the sight of such rock hard abs just feet away while tackling an impressively large serving of chicken marrakesh made me very glad that i had gone to the gym earlier in the day....

in summary: now that i have seen some good belly dancers, my interest has been slightly re-ignited, and i'm thinking of perhaps finding a more legitimate place to take classes.