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Rain in Dubai

March 26, 2009

Wednesday evening we had RAIN and it has been raining off and on since. It began with a spectacular lightning and thunder show. This first video is of the worst of the downpour that we were in. It involved large hail pelting the car. Watch for the guy who is riding a bicycle. By the end of the video the hail has stopped but the rain is coming down so thick that the wipers can’t possibly keep up and we are “rain blind.”
The next video is more of the same driving rain. Notice that everyone turns on their hazard lights, as if that makes it better. After every foggy day, there is an article in the newspaper telling people not to use their hazard lights while driving in fog. I’ll have to check and see if there is a similar article after this rain storm. The comment I make about maybe not going to work the next morning is because if this had kept up all night the flooding would have made it impossible to get anywhere. Notice that already there is significant puddles (less than 10 min. of rain).
This third video starts with one of the many rather spectacular puddles. Keep in mind this is within a few minutes of the start of the downpour.
Next morning, still raining, but not flooded, so we are off to work. If you compare these to the previous videos of our drive when it’s dry, you’ll see that the rain has little impact on people’s driving or pedestrian behavior. We saw a few guys who had put a plastic grocery bag on their head and tied it so that it was a sort of hat. At one point in this video I point the camera at the storm drain that is definitely not doing its job.

The next, and last, video is of the end of the drive to work. Watch for the construction workers who are perched on top of cement blocks in a puddle. They created their own stepping stones in an attempt to get across. The automatic focus of my stupid camera was focusing on the windshield, so everything outside of the car is blurry. It is not really that blurry in real life, even in the rain.

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National ID card – minimal adventure

March 25, 2009

Back on November 6 I vented about our experience with the national identity card process. The whole thing is a bit of a fiasco, but they have made some changes over the intervening months which have made it easier. Wednesday morning we showed up to one of the registration centers when it opened at 7 am with our proper papers and passports. We got one of the tickets they give out to people without appointments. We waited for our number to be called. We answered the questions, paid our fees, got our pictures taken, got our finger/palm/hand prints taken, and were done by 10 am. The cards will be “in the mail.” Actually, they will be delivered by courier in 10 working days or 6 weeks, who knows.

There was no adventure or excitement, other than my inability to figure out the numbering system for the tickets (turns out there were three groups – 0##, 7##, 9## – and the counter number). My ticket only had 017 and the “now serving” sign had 5 numbers on it and they seemed to be changing randomly. If I had read the writing on the sign, I would have been less confused. Duh! Luckily, it made perfect sense to Paul.

The whole ID card experience was remarkable in it’s lack of difficulty, anxiety, or Globish miscommunications.

After we finished, I was starving, so we ate at a little cafe nearby. We ordered the “English breakfast,” but there was nothing English about it. The menu said “two eggs any style,” but when I tried to order them “over medium” the waiter said “scrambled?” “omelet?” So, I gave up on the idea of two eggs over medium and gave in to the “scrambled” option. It turned out to be what Paul calls a “saddle blanket,” an omelet with no filling and not folded over. We also received a bunch of white bread toast that was apparently made with a George Forman grill. We also got some butter pats and two slices of cheese product wrapped in plastic, apparently for our egg saddle blanket. Not even the English cook this bad. I guess we have to have a bad meal once in a while. It wasn’t inedible, just not what the menu had led us to expect.

Posted in UAE ID | 1 Comment »

Bargains

March 24, 2009

The other night, we stopped at a hypermarket in our neighborhood to get deodorant and yogurt (two unrelated items needed for different reasons, obviously). Anyway, if you know Paul, you know we didn’t just go in, get the two items we came for and leave. Also, I rarely get to shop, since he does the grocery and errand shopping while I am at work, so I will admit to looking around for more than those two items.

We found the following:
The above glasses set us back Dhs 10 ($2.70 – not each, the whole set). There’s nothing in the picture to give you size comparison. These are what my family would call juice glasses, about 3 or 4 inches high.
The above dozen coffee cups (Arabic style) cost Dhs 39 ($11.00).
I kept looking and found these, which don’t exactly match the coffee cups, but are close enough. The set of 6 cups and saucers cost Dhs 35 ($9.50).

After I got them home, I proceeded to inspect them for chips, etc. I turned one of the coffee cups over and read the bottom. “24 carat gold” Oh, yeah. Gold covered porcelain cups for less than a dollar each. The cups and saucers are “24 carat gold” too. They were decorated by machine, so don’t exactly pass close inspection, but near enough for me. Just another reason to love Dubai.

Posted in dishes and coffee cups | 1 Comment »

Day at the Races

March 21, 2009

This is what I call a serious bumper.
*******************************************************************
We spent the afternoon at the Dubai Autodrome because Paul’s boss Omran and his brother were racing and we thought it would be an interesting experience. Just driving out there was an experience in itself. It is far from the city and is surrounded by construction. We missed the turnoff due to vague signage. We had to go quite a ways to an enormous ROUNDABOUT (my favorite thing) and come back to a different turnoff. Then we wondered around driving generally toward the grandstand which we could see at that point. When we got to what looked like the entrance to the grandstand, it looked deserted except for a few cars parked out in the street and on the sidewalk. We found a parking lot, which was a significant walk away (through construction), so we decided to join the cars parked on the street right outside the entrance.

As we were walking in I saw a sign that said “Ear plugs 5 AED.” This was truly a sign as you will see if you play the videos with the sound all the way up. There was, however, no one in the ticket booths selling tickets or ear plugs. So, we just sauntered in and found a seat in the grandstand. There were only a few other people there as you will also notice in the videos. Racing hasn’t quite caught on here yet. The addage “if you build it, they will come” is taking a while to come to fruition. They built this big race track about three years ago and it’s only now that they are seeing enough racers to make it interesting. It hasn’t caught on as a spectator sport, yet. It hasn’t caught on with sponsors either, so the drivers are those who can afford to finance their own cars.

Here’s a overall view of the race track.

The bike race was first. This shows them coming in from their warm up lap, lining up and then starting the actual race.

Then the first of two car races. My camera doesn’t cope with the speed, so it looks more like stop action animation than live action.

Then the Formula One cars raced. They take their warm up lap behind a pace car staying in a particular order, then start the actual race without coming to a stop.

During that race we moved over from the grandstand side to the pit side.

Above is the back side of the pit area. Below are Omran, Crystal, Magnus and Paul chatting between races.

CentimeterCube – Omran’s architecture company and publisher of Shufflegazine. Notice the circles in the bumper. They have cut these holes to improve the speed.
Filling the gas tank – three guys, a gas can and a funnel.
We got a peek under the hood.
Even Hello Kitty gets to go to the races.
Here is Paul hanging through the gap in the fence to get pictures. The guy behind him is Magnus, doing the same.

Apparently, the day wasn’t quite exciting enough for Paul. He watched part of the second race from the fence behind the pit area near one of the curves. He also dropped his camera phone on the other side of that fence down between the tires piled there for cushion. So, after the race was over, he snuck onto the track to try to retrieve his phone, which turned out to be just out of reach. After some consulting and brainstorming for what tools might be available to reach the wayward phone, he raided the emergency kit in our rental car and found something he could use as tongs to reach it. So, snuck back onto the track a second time to grab his phone.

We had a really great time. It turned out to be nothing like what we expected, but those are usually the best experiences.

Posted in car racing, Dubai Autodrome, video | Leave a Comment »

Honey did good

March 21, 2009

My Honey did good. He asked me what I wanted for my birthday and it occurred to me that I wanted a speaker dock for my iPod. He went one better and got one with two docks (for my Classic and my Touch) that also has radio, alarm clock, video output and a remote control. Excellent! This also solves the problem of having four iPods in the house and only two charger plugs. He can have the plugs now, because mine are nestled in their docks.

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Lessons learned

March 15, 2009

Had my purse stolen tonight and aside from a few minutes of panic, it was a very pleasant experience. Let me set the scene for you.

We were having a lovely meal at an Iraqi restaurant on Al Muteena Street. This street has a parkway down the middle of it with palm trees and park benches and is quite populated in the evenings. The men who work in Dubai while their families are back in their home country hang out in the parks in the evenings since they have only crowded shared living quarters to go to otherwise. We were sitting at a table on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant enjoying the evening (it won’t be too much longer before it becomes too hot to do this.) I am usually quite paranoid and careful about my purse, but not tonight. I know better, but I put my purse in the seat next to me. [insert contrite hanging of the head here] So, in the middle of our meal, a man grabbed my purse and took off running. I yelled. The man at the next table next took off after him. I took a few steps, but as Paul sped past me, I realized the futility of my attempting to run anywhere. (Yes, he can speed when properly motivated. It was a sight to behold.) I spent the next few minutes trying to contain my panic as I realized that everything was in that purse. EVERYTHING. But, once I saw how many of the bystanders joined in the chase and the commotion it was causing as this guy tried to run down the parkway crowded with men who had nothing better to do than give chase, I relaxed a little and started telling myself “In little while, Paul will be back with my purse. Everything will be okay.” That thief did not really stand a chance. He did get away, but not before someone snatched my purse back from him and gave it to Paul.

Things I found out after the dust settled – the purse snatcher had been sitting at another table scoping out the situation, so this was quite premeditated. The man at the next table who took chase was the restaurant owner or manager. How’s that for service? He apologized to us for the incident. What has he got to apologize for???

The sad or amusing thing (depending on your perspective) is that the guy is not only out the contents of my purse, but his sandals flew off his feet as he sped away. He’s poor and shoeless.

The feedback we have gotten from people who have lived here a long time is that this is truly rare. I suspected as much based on our experiences so far and the strictness of Arab law. It is not like the American “slap on the wrist” system. People get punished here and then sent back to their country of origin.

Lesson #1 DON’T BE CARELESS with my purse.
Lesson #2 It’s rare, but there are a few thieves here.
Lesson #3 They are not tolerated and bystanders WILL take action.

It is nice to depend on the kindness of strangers.

Posted in theft | 4 Comments »

Silly roundabouts

March 13, 2009

Here are two of my favorite silly roundabouts. In this first clip we have just turned into the Outlet Mall. We can’t turn into the parking area until after we have gone around a dead end roundabout. It was very windy that day, which is why I started recording. This is the day when we saw someone washing a car in this parking lot in this wind.

This next clip is a slip road that connects two major roadways. We take this route often. We can’t just merge onto the road at the left where we want to go. We have to first turn right, go around a roundabout, then back the way we came to where we can finally merge onto the road. The “soundtrack,” if you will, is coming from the car radio. We usually listen to an Emirati station even though we don’t understand a word (yet). This snippet seems to be the call to prayer.

Posted in Dubai traffic, roundabouts, video | Leave a Comment »

Three totally unrelated things

March 13, 2009

Cars here have strange names. This is probably the cream of the crop – the Nissan Sunny SuperSaloon.
Here’s the KFC and Pizza Hut signs somewhere between here and Ras Al Khaimah.
How did we know what floor of the shabby parking garage we were on? Why by the “2” drawn in crayon on the wall next to the elevator buttons, of course.

Posted in cars, KFC, oddities, signs | Leave a Comment »

"Fast" food

March 13, 2009

This is Paul’s chicken sandwich from the mall food court restaurant. Notice that it is two real chicken breasts, not a reconstituted chicken patty. It cost a whopping Dhs 18 ($4.50).
Below is my large pizza. The dough was hand tossed and it was baked fresh for me in a brick oven. Cost me Dhs 35 ($9.50). The crust is the thinnest I have ever had. It is crispy and almost like a cracker. Yum.
Who needs to go to the food festival? Every day is a food festival in Dubai.

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Sand storm

March 13, 2009

You may have heard of the sand storms in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on the news. We are not experiencing anything as disruptive as that, but here are pictures of the view from our balcony this morning.

Contrast that to the fog back in December.

And a sunny day in January.