Oliver had a big day today. #1 Sores on his lips & tongue #2 First ride in the car #3 First trip to the vet #4 Two shots & oral medication #5 Ride home in the car #6 Feeling better fast #7 Played with Bert AND had fun doing it. Major progress made today. Now he is deep asleep. Whew!
In the news again…
September 17, 2009If you look quickly enough, you can see glimpses of Kanga and I in the linked newscast. We were attending the Dubai Twestival charity event for the Dubai Autism Center the other night. I didn’t realized that there was a television news crew there amongst all the press. Many of the people in the crowd are dear friends of ours here, and they got statements from some especially nice folks. It was a really fun time for a good cause, and another indicator of how blessed we are to get to know so many wonderful people in this city.
Also, earlier in this same newscast is a segment about the newly opened Dubai Metro, featuring an interview with an acquaintance of ours, Peyman Parham, who is Director of Communications for the Regional Transit Authority. It’s worth watching the segment about the Metro, especially for his part.
Peyman and his brother Mohamed are soon to open a new restaurant here called Wild Peeta. We’re really looking forward to it and will have a blog entry on it soon! Mohamed is interviewed about Twitter in the Twestival segment, and that’s one of the parts with a glimpse of us, along with our friend Mali.
There we are lurking in the background, while Mohamed of @wildpeeta explains Twitter.
Peyman Parham discussing the first weekend of the Dubai Metro
The video can be found here:
http://vode.dmi.ae/video/18A2A86DA6/emirates-news-13-9-2009
The segment about the Metro is at the beginning of the newscast, and the segment about the Twestival event starts at a about 13:49 minutes in.
This page has the webcasts of the Dubai 1 nightly news broadcasts, so it’s a good site to check back on if you’re interested in what’s going on here in Dubai.
Metro
September 13, 2009The Red Line of the Dubai Metro opened this last week on 09/09/09. It is not the line that passes in front of our apartment. That line isn’t scheduled to open until March 2010. However, the central station where the two lines intersect is within walking distance of our apartment, so we will take a ride soon and let you know how it is. We were going to do it this last weekend, but everyone else had the same idea (over 110,000 riders in two days) and we had a lot of mundane things like house cleaning, laundry, and grocery shopping to do, so our ride has been delayed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8245408.stm
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/09/09/12/10348257.html
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/567523-110000-ride-dubai-metro-in-the-first-two-days
Signs
September 12, 2009We have a rental car again, so went for a drive. Our goal was to find the “best” fish-n-chips place in town, but it eluded us. We did, however, snap a couple of shots to share. At first, we thought this sign said “Tasty Meal Restaurant,” but, apparently, you get attitude with your meal.
Testy Meal Restaurant
The full name of this establishment is Moon Way Passengers Transport by Rented Buses, LLC. Really. I’ve seen other similar companies “____ Passenger Transport by Rented Buses.” Many of the company names here are way too specific and spelled out. Others are very cryptic and don’t give a single clue about their product or service.
Moon Way Passengers Transport by Rented Buses
Oliver, again
September 7, 2009When he is awake, Oliver is a busy kitty. I was sick this weekend, so I spent a fair amount of time locked in the bedroom with him (still keeping Oliver & Bert apart). Oliver is getting so big. My “baby’s” growing up.
Voice of Reason
September 6, 2009Over the last year there have been some infuriating “news” articles written about Dubai, mostly by British journalists (and I use that term loosely). I purposely did not mention them here, although I wanted to rant about them and set the record straight on the gross inaccuracies in the articles. I did not want to bring them any more attention than they already had. The articles went on about how Dubai was a ghost town hit hard by the economic crisis with the attitude that the “great” deserved to “fall” hard. The articles demonized the U.A.E. with twisted truths and flat out lies.
The truth is that the U.A.E., including Dubai, is positioned to weather the crisis better than most, if not, all other countries. Some construction projects have been put on hold, while others are proceeding. We were happy to see the progress in the metro/street construction accomplished while we were gone for the summer. Rent costs are going down and considering that they were inflated 25% each year for three years before the crisis, this is a very good thing. With regard to real estate, sanity is being re-established. This is a good thing for now and the future.
Just last week we had a chatty taxi driver who told us he had been in Dubai for 3 months. He is an Indian who previously was a massage therapist in Singapore and came here to drive taxi because of the economic crisis. When the crisis is over, he’ll probably go back to therapy. This is still the land of opportunity. Driving taxi may not be a promotion or upward career move, but it beats being unemployed.
Anyway, I say all this because, finally, there is an article that speaks with the voice of reason and I am glad to point you to it. http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/09/guest_post_by_j_12/
Proof
September 6, 2009
Here’s the picture that triggered the last post. 20,000 Dhs is over $5,000, so this is serious business. How much would you pay for a ridiculously insecure PIN?
Numbers
September 5, 2009One unique obsession here is with numbers … Phone numbers, license plates, PINs. People actually buy and sell them. Car licenses with low numbers, symbolic numbers or double digits are desirable. My coworker has a man harrassing her because he wants her to sell him her phone number. People advertise numbers for sale. It’s very odd to the Western mind, but then again we’re the people that decided to put “art” on our car license plates.
I know I’m back in Dubai when…
September 3, 2009
I get this error message a lot. Apparently, it is assumed that any search query from the Middle East must be a spammer or other dubious action. I am getting really tired of having to prove I am a human. I may start testing other search engines and give up on Google.
