It began with a Shuffle-gazine business lunch at a Mexican restaurant (Americanized Mexican food – rare here). Yummy!
The restaurant was located along the beach.
The red arrow above points to the Atlantis Hotel which opened a few months ago with the enormous fireworks display and was apparently all over the US news considering how many of you asked about it.
Here is the view looking away from the beach.
There is an inlet that serves as a marina.
Here is Paul working — slaving away — at, yes, Starbucks. [a contrite hanging down of the head] They have a free wireless hot spot, so what can we say?
Then it was off to the Madinat Jumeirah. [See previous post from September 9, 2008 for first mention of this place] We had dinner amidst all the tourists.
Here’s Paul in his new black shirt enjoying a nice meal outside. We try to sit outside whenever possible now to appreciate it while we can. Some places actually have heat on inside which is really unpleasant and doesn’t make sense because they air condition to a much lower temperature in the summer.
Archive for the ‘Dubai’ Category
Another high pressure, stressful day in Dubai ;-)
January 22, 2009This week in Dubai
January 18, 2009
This is the view from a restaurant where we ate sitting outside in the pleasant cool evening (cool is 60-70F). The water is Dubai Creek (more like a bay or inlet) and the bridge is lit with blue lights underneath. Very beautiful. While sitting there enjoying the view and the good food, we talked about how we no longer feel like newbies here, but this is our home. Not that we aren’t still seeing new things and being amazed by the unexpected, but we are very comfortable here and so very glad we came. Instead of asking ourselves “What have we done?” we are asking “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
Here is our current rental car. We started out with a Caprice, which was rather large and a real challenge to get into our parking space. Then we had a Honda City, which was smaller, but not what we really wanted. So, now we have a Honda Jazz and really like it. It is small and peppy, both things that are advantageous when driving in Dubai. We’ll probably keep this one until June. Then, when we come back in the fall, we’ll lease or buy a new one.
For two days this week I attended a conference on teaching. It was very enjoyable and I learned some good things. The next four pictures are the view from the pool deck of the hotel where the conference was held. The large silver thing in the center of the first picture is the indoor ski slope, Ski Dubai, in the Mall of the Emirates.
The Christmas decorations have finally disappeared at Festival City mall and been replaced by brightly colored ribbons for the Shopping Festival. They also have a carnival set up on the walkway by the Creek.
Below is a fountain that consists of beaded strings that hang down several floors and water is running down the strings and then dropping into a pool at the bottom.
Below are several pictures of another of Paul’s favorite fountains. The stairs switch-back through the fountain which consists of water running over the “boulders.” He always has to stick his fingers in the water. It is imperative.
Below is a garden and fountain in the lower basement parking area. It is open to the sky directly above the garden. Leave it to Dubai to have a basement parking lot garden. Again, Paul had to stick his fingers into the water.
Now we move to Lamcy Plaza. A truly unique mall. Below is the waterfall fountain that you see immediately as you walk in.
Behind us at the entrance is a replica of the Tower Bridge (London tower???) Anyway, it is definitely European, not Middle Eastern. None of the decor here matched. Very eclectic. There were no walls and doors between the different stores either, so was hard to keep track of where you were and who you should pay for what you had picked up.
There you have it. Our week in Dubai. Home, sweet home.
Dubai Mall miscellanea
January 9, 2009The Dubai Mall is the biggest and most recent mall. It is at the base of the Burj Dubai (tallest building). Many of the store spaces are still vacant with “store opening soon” signs. I kinda figure if it doesn’t say the name of a specific store, that nothing is opening there “soon.”
When we go into these massive and confusing shopping malls, I am very lucky to have my spacial genius husband to do the navigating. I would have to spend all my time looking at the maps to figure out where to go. Sometimes the maps don’t have the “you are here” indicator, so that increases my fruitless staring at the map time.
There are giant led boards displaying ads or national symbols on the sides of the walkways.
We were especially amused by the Ribs and Rumps restaurant. Doesn’t that sound appetizing?
Here is the one and only Taco Bell in Dubai. Yes, we ate here. The rule is that if we didn’t eat at an American fast food restaurant back home, we won’t eat at it here either. We did our fair share of Taco Bell back home. However, this TB does not have the burrito supreme, but it does have cheesy fries?!?!?!?!? We did not try the fries. There seems to be a rule that you can’t open a restaurant unless it has fries on the menu.
The mall has a giant ice skating ring.
And a large aquarium. We were too tired of foot to go through the aquarium, but it is on our list of things to do. I love the aquariums where you can walk through the tube and see the fish all around. After they had stocked the tanks they were having trouble with the fish eating each other, especially the big sharks eating the smaller sharks. Go figure! I’m not sure how they resolved this. They have regular feeding times (one of the things advertised on the reader boards), so maybe that keeps the predating down.
Burj Dubai, fog, traffic patterns
January 1, 2009
Here are a series of pictures of the Burj Dubai (world’s tallest building) as we get closer to it. Our original intention was to go to Festival City – one of the many malls – but if you miss your turn-off, you are up a creek. It is often easier to just change your destination than to try to get back on the path to where you originally wanted to go. So, our destination changed to the Dubai Mall.
These pictures were taken at dusk and, yes, there is a significant amount of pollution, but this was also the evening of our foggy day (see previous entry) and there was still a significant amount of fog hanging around. Warm and foggy, imagine! In fact, we had to run the windshield wipers because it was condensing on the outside of the windshield and making it nearly impossible to see to drive.
The frame of the building has reached its highest point, now they are just filling it out. They haven’t announced exactly how tall it has turned out to be, yet.
Various and typical Dubai sites
January 1, 2009
Driving down Sheikh Zayed Road is like driving down a canyon.
This construction site has 15 cranes. We’ve counted them multiple times. We’ve decided that the philosophy is that they don’t want to have to move them, so they install enough to cover the entire construction site at all times. Considering that a few months ago a crane on Sheik Zayed road fell over, it is probably a good thing that they are not moving them about. (By the way, no one was hurt by the falling crane, which is an amazing thing, since that is a heavily traveled road.
Great advertising. “Big Tasty – It’s big and tasty!” One thing I am very glad of — we have not seen the creepy Burger King in any advertising here (although we don’t have cable, so maybe he is here.) KFC has a questionable looking chicken mascot making the thumbs up sign (with his wing???). He apparently thinks it’s great to be your entre.
The guys in this picture were painting the cross walk stripes with a bucket and a brush in an active intersection. That is typical Dubai!
I think the Picadelly Hairdressing Saloon speaks for itself. There are a lot of saloons here. We find the use of that word amusing. They are always gender specific. No unisex here. You can see into a gents saloon, but the women’s saloons always have opaque windows. It’s hard to wear a veil and get your hair cut at the same time.
Franchise intersection
December 12, 2008There is such a thing as winter walking distance and summer walking distance (in my mind anyway) and the pictures below were taken at an intersection within winter walking distance of our apartment. First we have the two story Pizza Hut.
Kitty corner across the intersection is the Haagen Dazs.
We have the Burger King also. And you can “dial a whopper” for home delivery.
The shot below is of the KFC and Hardees that are on the next block. Unfortunately, the construction barriers kept me from getting a good angle, but you can see the Colonel’s smiling face on the bucket sign.
Just down the block we have a Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins in one place. One stop gluttony.
Next to these was a clothing store with a Christmas tree in the window. The Christmas trees started appearing in public areas in October. A coworker who has been here 15 years says that there was a time when Christmas decorating was done only in private homes and it was a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” type of thing. However, Christmas is primarily a shopping holiday and if it is one thing Dubai loves and relies upon, it is shopping. So, we can buy fake trees, decorations, cards with the nativity scene on them, etc. I have even heard Christmas music playing in the Home Center store today when I was buying pillows for our new furniture.
So, now that I’ve shown you all the familiar franchise restaurants where we WON’T be eating… We had dinner tonight at Samad Iraqi restaurant, also within winter walking distance of our apartment. Before we even ordered, they brought us flat bread (freshly made), green salad, lentil soup and two bottled waters. That in itself would have made a tasty meal. However, we also ordered fish entrees and an appetizer plate. They even supplied us with a cat (ha). There was a stray cat patrolling around the tables to clean up any tidbits, so we shared our fish with him. Paul made a few overtures to pet him, but was swatted away. This cat was too wily for that cuddly wuddly stuff, but was glad to help us out with our fish. After we stuffed ourselves with delicous food, they brought us several cups of tea. We ate outside. The moon was full and there was a pleasant breeze. (The temp still gets up to 78F or so during the day.) All in all, a very pleasant evening. (Except for the guy three tables down who was talking loudly on his cell phone.)
Back by a popular demand of one
December 1, 2008
We got off the beaten path and into a busy neighborhood. You can see how the pedestrians just walk freely out into the street. No one here knows about “look both ways before crossing the street.”
The woman above is wearing distinctive clothing that is not local, but is definitely Muslim. I have not found out, yet, what nationality this style of dress indicates. Notice the Hardee’s advertisement with the juicy burger.
Here we have a Wimpy burger joint. The woman in yellow and her companions are in African style dresses. Notice the guy with a box on a handcart. Before I took this picture he was actually out in the middle of the road. And by the way, where’s Waldo?
Above is the sandlot, now empty, that had an untold number of cricket games going just yesterday.
I tried to take this picture to show the woman with the beautiful shayla with blue beading and sequins on it. She is in the center of the picture, just heading into a door. This neighborhood is predominantly East Indian, so it is rare to see an Emirati here.
Yes, this is a TGI Thursdays restaurant. There are also TGI Fridays restaurants here, but Thursday is the end of the week, so someone took advantage of that fact. Kinda like the Southern Fried Chicken restaurants that look suspciously like Kentucky Fried Chicken, right down to using SFC in their signage.
Here we have the Tourist Star trading company. There was also a Tourist Cafeteria in the neighborhood with hamburgers and fries on the menu. There were a lot of little hole in the wall food joints, most of which looked pretty questionable. I don’t think they have invented the Food Inspector here, yet.
Someone was kind enough to feed the pigeons.
We ventured into this neighborhood for a reason — the search for sewing supplies. Our efforts did not go unrewarded. We found a tailor supply shop and I bought a bunch of stuff and we chatted with the owner. I will definitely be going back as a loyal customer.
We often see public service type advertisements around town. Things like “UV rays can harm your eyes.” I particularly liked this one – Say no to Obesity. If I had only known it was that easy. “NO!” and the pounds just drop away.
Even better, I should fight obesity. Just haul off and let it have one right in the kisser! Just like any bully, it will turn tail and run away.
I took this picture of this mosque just because it is beautiful. Mosques are usually white, so to see one with a little color and interesting decoration was a pleasant change.
Here is a better, closer shot of the Burg Dubai, world’s tallest building for the moment.
And, one last shot showing several buildings and how each one has to be unique. They definitely don’t do the same thing twice.
So long and thanks for all the fish
November 28, 2008I am afraid that I will have to stop writing this blog. It was fun while it lasted, but it must stop. Because, if I continue to tell you how freaking happy we are here and how cheap things are here and how interesting things are here and how freaking happy we are here, there might be unfortunate consequences. Dubai should be kept our little secret. Shhhh.
So, if you are tired of hearing us rave about how much fun we are having, stop reading and never come back. If you stick around to hear more, you must swear to keep it a secret.
Tonight we ventured out to find an out of the way furniture store that we had been told about and wanting to get to, but it’s not the kind of place you can get to by taxi. Now that we are mobile, we went in search of Pinky’s and after a few wrong turns, found it.
A warehouse full of lovely hardwood furniture from India.
This is the set we bought. Sorry that the picture is blurry. The seats lift up and there are storage compartments underneath. We (read I) will add cushions to make them more comfy. We got all three pieces for Dhs 3200 (approx. $800.00).
The table on the bottom we purchased to be my sewing table. It is 160 cm X 160 cm, which is just over 5 ft X 5 ft and it cost us Dhs 1400 (approx. $380.00).
And here’s the corker, all prices are negotiable and we did not dicker. We paid top dollar.
They will deliver on December 10th, after we get back from Germany. The delivery charge is a whopping Dhs 100 ($27). That is for delivery from a different city and they will bring the pieces all the way up to the 8th floor (I hope the table fits in the elevator!) — all for $27.
Other things we saw today:
The brown arch above the rearview mirror on the white SUV is a boat spraying sand/dirt to create an island.
Again – brown arch = island in the making.
Most of my pictures are devoid of people, because it is considered rude to take pictures of people without their permission, but that makes it seem like no one lives here, but us. So, I snuck a few pictures to prove that there are MANY people living here.
This is a pedestrian overpass with crowds coming and going.
Where there is a sandlot (and there are many), there’s a cricket game or ten.
In the picture below, above the bus, between the stop light and the round sign, way in the distance is the world’s tallest building, the Burg Dubai. At least it will be the world’s tallest until the next one is built, which will be a kilometer high. It must be disappointing to be building the world’s tallest building and have someone else start a bigger one before it is even finished.
Above is the Dubai Ports and Customs Authority building, made to look like two ocean liners side by side.
Well, for someone who threatened to stop blogging, this is a very long entry. Hope you enjoy it. You could always leave us a comment or too, ya know (hint, hint).
Anyway, keep our little secret, and I will keep on extolling the virtues of Dubai.
Random things we saw today.
November 25, 2008These are just unrelated things we saw on our bus/taxi journey to the airport to rent a car. Below is the Rolex building and someone is washing the windows. Interestingly enough, you can actually see a difference. Everything is covered in dust here.
Below is a wooden yacht that is docked in The Creek. It is very beautiful. I don’t know if it is a private boat or if it is a business – tours or restaurant.
Below, notice the parka in the store window. For those chilly winter temperatures of 80-70F. Burrrrr.
Below is another shot of the big yellow thing they use in assembling the elevated train track. We still haven’t figured out how it is done. The sections are always complete, so they must assemble them on the ground and then hoist them up.
Before we left USA and people would warn us about the heat, I would say, “Hey, everything is air conditioned!” Here is proof. This is the machine for paying for your parking at the airport in its own little air conditioned box. Wouldn’t want you to die of heat prostration while you’re paying for parking.
Hope you enjoy the little things as much as we do.
Living the Travel Channel 