Just a few more pictures from the trip to Kuala Lumpur. There were motorcycles everywhere. We see them in Dubai, but mostly as delivery vehicles. In KL, they were clearly a personal vehicle of choice.
At intersections, the motorcycles collect at the front of the lanes and when the light turns green there is a roar as the crowd of motorcycles are the first to take off.
Posted by DaddyBird
I recently went on an unexpected business trip to Monaco. The magazine that I work for, Shufflegazine, had been invited to attend a trade show, but my boss was unable to attend due to other obligations, so he asked if I would like to go in his place. It took me about 3 seconds to say, “yes!”
The trip really was mostly business. The trade show, DISTREE XXL, is aimed at bringing together IT & consumer electronics vendors with distribution companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It was a good opportunity for the magazine to find out about new tech products that night be coming to our region and to get acquainted with some companies that we may not have had contact with yet. That meant I spent as much time as I could talking to representatives of the companies in attendance and almost none seeing the sights of Monaco. I had hoped to slip away for an hour or two to visit the museum or a historical building, but time and the need to talk to as many as possible just did not permit me to do so. I did get a little free time late one evening, but by then all the historical sites were long closed for the day and even the little local restaurants were locking up for the night.
So my glimpses of Monaco were pretty much limited to what I saw on the walks in Monte Carlo, between the hotel I stayed in and the hotel where the trade show was being held. That being said, for an almost completely “all work, no play” trip, it really was a pretty nice time, and a beautiful place to be doing business for a few days. Attending a tech conference for the magazine and talking to people about their cool new products isn’t bad duty at all, and Monaco is one most lovely places to get to do it. Also, the food served to the attendees of the show at the Fairmont Hotel was outstanding. So while it was busy and tiring, and even though there were many things close by that I hated missing, overall it was still a great several days.
Here are a few pictures:
I got to stay at the beautiful Hotel Hermitage in Monte Carlo. Certainly the nicest place I’ve ever stayed. One of “The Leading Hotels of the World” according to the publicity literature. This fortunate geek boy certainly can’t dispute that. It was gorgeous, very comfortable and the staff was highly gracious.
The elevators in the hotel were small, but nicely appointed.
My room was too big to capture in a photo without a very wide-angle, fish-eye lens.
Many channels available on the TV, including French, Italian and other European channels. Interestingly, channels for Dubai and AbuDhabi TV were also included. An episode of “The Million’s Poet” is on!
It was a fairly short walk between my hotel and the Fairmont where the trade show was being held, with some nice sights in between, in particular the Monte Carlo Casino.
Adjacent to that was a fancy shopping mall and the Café de Paris.
And across from that was the most adorable little police station that I’ve ever seen.
It was just a little further to the Fairmont Hotel where the show was being held. The Fairmont is a much more angular and modern building than the others. If you’ve ever watched the Grand Prix de Monaco, you may have seen the Fairmont. As you can see in the picture, the hairpin turn on the Gran Prix course is right in front of the Fairmont. Also the course goes through a tunnel that is underneath the hotel.
The Fairmont is situated right on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and has bay windows running all along the seaward side of the building, so while at the conference we were constantly treated to spectacular views.
Sometimes the sea and the sky were unbelievably blue.
I have several more pictures from Monaco to share, but I put them in another post. Stay tuned!
A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to go to a party at a villa on the Jumeirah Palm Island. Our friends Lara and Terry are on a one year adventure they are calling GranTourismo. They’ve combined their career as travel writers with HomeAway Holiday Rentals and are traveling around the world this year spending two weeks in each destination. Their first stop was in Dubai on the Palm, then to London, then to Marrakesh, then ???? If you like good pictures, good food, and good travel advice, you should follow their blog.
First let me say, our twitter friend Grace did a better job of documenting this party on her blog (than I am about to do). So, I recommend that you click here and read what she said and check out her pictures. Also, there is an entry by Terry detailing the food served and you can click here to read that. Extra points for those of you find us in the pictures on both the blogs.
Here are my pictures:
This is the villa on Frond E. It is a five bedroom home with a lovely kitchen, dining room, living room and den. (Five and a half bathrooms, by the way.)
This is the view toward the stem of the Palm.
This is the view toward the end of the fronds. It was atypically stormy. It didn’t actually rain, but was cool, cloudy and breezy.
There was a nearby cell phone tower disguised as a palm tree. Notice the fake dates hanging in the fake tree.
It was a beautiful evening with (in our opinion) perfect weather, good friends, and good food. We may never have another reason to go out onto the Palm, but at least we can say we’ve been there.
I tried to stand far enough back to get everyone in the picture.
[In DaddyBird’s defense, we started out sitting together, but as the group grew, he mingled. We ended up sitting next to each other. As for my birthday, I don’t know what we will do, yet.]
Posted by DaddyBird
Last night, to celebrate my birthday, we had a dinner at my favorite restaurant, Aroos Damascus, with a number of our Dubai friends, most of whom we have gotten to know through Twitter. We had a great turnout, including ourselves 30 people showed up over the course of the evening, and it was a really wonderful time. Aroos Damascus serves very delicious Syrian-style Arabic food, and has a large menu, so there’s plenty of choice. The staff there is always very helpful and kind. I like getting people to visit this restaurant with us, but it can be difficult coaxing some to our part of town since the traffic can be very heavy coming this direction in the evenings. So last night, it was a particular thrill to have so many of many favorite people together at one of my favorite places.
Aroos Damascus has a large outdoor seating area which is very popular, and always full in the evenings when the weather is nice. We managed to monopolize several tables for our large group. It was a lovely way to spend a birthday evening!
Here are a few pictures taken by our friends at the party:
Our friend Mahdi took this picture of me, along with (part of) Muhammed Ali, Wajiha and Money:
Micheline had several picture to contribute, capturing much of our group:
Here’s Micheline herself flanked by Muhammed Ali and Ritesh:
We are currently in the midst of the annual Dubai Shopping Festival. Last Saturday night, we were at a “tweet up” dinner at Al Mallah on Al Diyafah Street and this is the carnival (parade) that came by.
Yes, those are walking shopping bags and a drill team with shopping bags instead of pom-poms.
First, let me correct a slight faux pas in the previous post. DaddyBird did go to France, since he landed in Nice in order to get to Monaco, but Monaco is a separate country and not IN France. Some of you may remember that Grace Kelly was the Princess of Monaco. Silly me, I should have remembered.
Now, back to Kuala Lumpur for the flora. I’ll let them speak for themselves.
As you can see, the cats are being very helpful getting DaddyBird packed. Where is he going you ask? To Monaco, where else? And, yes, Oliver, Bert and I are left behind, green with envy. Okay, I’m the only one who is envious. Oliver and Bert are just freaked out.
This is a business trip. DaddyBird is representing Shufflegazine at a trade conference. Hopefully, he will have a little time to get out and about and take a few pictures for us.
I haven’t quite finished posting the pictures from KL, so there may be a mishmash of posts in the next week or so.
Living the Travel Channel 