Nothing Rhymes With Pirate

At lunch today, the conversation turned to music and stuff they play at Cheese (retro/indie/british classics), Creamfields and KissFM mix CDs, "big" nights that happen here - Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Nick Warren, Fatman Scoop..

I dont know how many times I would've said "rubbiiiissssh"

Then Robin and I sang to Cassie's 'Me & U' that was playing on the sound system.

I’ve heard about the traffic problems here.. I’ve even seen photos and on TV. The closest I’ve experienced it is seeing it on the other side of the road as I’m pretty lucky that I travel against the flow and it takes me 10-15mins to get to and from work or generally about 20mins to get to most places. The worst traffic for me would be waiting for more than 2 sets of lights at the Union Co-Op intersection.

I started thinking it was bad when the new toll gates opened on SZR at Safa Park during Ramadan and Al Wasl Rd started getting a major increase of traffic due to the “salik dodgers”. All this to save 4 dhs?

Yesterday was the day I experienced what hundreds, maybe even thousands of people deal with here every day. I re-found the joy of screaming obscenities like “What the fuck are you doing?” and “Pick a fucking lane, asshole!” Luckily noone here drives with their windows down, unlike having pedestrians on the streets of Sydney city either laughing or looking at you being so rude.

I planned to head to the stone factory to pick up some samples before work, which allowed me time to sit in my room and eat some toast casually. I drove up to the Barsha overpass and just as we got over SZR I was stopped in traffic. All the way around the bend and up to the first set of lights. 400m in 25mins

I ended up having to go to the main factory up in DIP and on my way back I got caught up in a couple of of the huge roundabouts, but that’s nothing unusual because theres so many big trucks travelling on Emirates Rd. Instead of going back through Barsha, I decided to keep going and cut back up to one of the other roundabouts.

I missed the turn off for Defence Roundabout, but saw the one for Trade Centre Roundabout. So I took that and BAM! Traffic. It ended up being backed up all the way from Dubai-Al Ain Rd to Trade Centre. Thanks stupid Citiscape exhibition. 2kms in 1hr 10 mins

After work I was off to the gym and on my way out after 8pm, I hit it again! This time out of DIFC to Defence Roundabout. 2kms in 45mins.

I can walk faster than that, seriously.

I was just sitting here minding my own business when Inga noticed that her chair was wobbling. So was mine. Earthquake!

We had a bit of a laugh and got on with it.. next thing you know, Aditi has called me freaking out with a lot of "get out of the building!". Apparently everyone else in the whole building was evacuated and we were all just sitting here.

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Tremors from an earthquake registering 6.1 on the Richter scale 60km south west of Bandar Abbas in Iran were felt in Dubai today, prompting the evacuation of high-rise buildings on the Sheikh Zayed Road and in the Dubai Media City...

The earth tremor hit a triangular area between Ras Al Khaimah, Al Ain and Dubai. This follows warnings from local UAE academics that earthquake faultlines in Iran could have serious implications for building stability in the UAE.

Summary:
Magnitude Mw 6.1
Region SOUTHERN IRAN

Date time 2008-09-10 at 11:00:37.9 UTC
Location 26.95 N ; 55.78 E
Depth 30 km
Distances 57 km SW Bandar-e 'abbas (pop 317,946 ; local time 15:30 2008-09-10)
42 km W Qeshm (pop 16,691 ; local time 15:00 2008-09-10)

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6.1 magnitude is pretty massive, especially as a 5.6 was able to devestate Newcastle in 1989.

We noticed on another Seismological Centre website that there was another 4.9 quake about 1/2hr later in the same spot

Summary:
Magnitude mb 4.9
Region SOUTHERN IRAN

Date time 2008-09-10 at 11:33:14.0 UTC
Location 26.93 N ; 55.89 E
Depth 30 km
Distances 50 km SW Bandar-e 'abbas (pop 317,946 ; local time 16:03 2008-09-10)
31 km W Qeshm (pop 16,691 ; local time 15:33 2008-09-10)

My sister arrives tomorrow night.

Yay!

We are going to eat horrendously expensive food at (Gary) Rhodes Mezzanine because Verre (Gordon Ramsay's restaurant) isn't open on a Saturday night - outrageous!

ABU DHABI: The Ministry of Presidential Affairs on Tuesday announced the death of Shaikh Nasser Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Shaikh Nasser died on Monday night when the helicopter carrying him and his colleagues crashed over Gulf waters.

In a statement, the Ministry of Presidential Affairs announced a three-day mourning period starting on Tuesday.

Offices in the government, public and private sectors will continue to work as normal, an authorised source at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs said.

Inga, our resident ex-pat brat, said that when a relative of the Sheikh dies, we usually get 3 days off for the mourning period. This is probably the first time (in her knowledge) that people have continued working (not to sound insensitive). All the radio stations are playing opera music or instrumental tracks. Apparently it should be dry too.. so there goes drinks with the boys on Thursday night.

I posted new pics in my Do Buy.. album.

I have quite a collection going on..
Look and laugh!

Your love lifes D.O.A!!!



/me lookin all casual hanging out at the local Central Perk Cafe.

( The goings on past week.. )

Near the end of last year, I went to a party that had a dress up theme of ROME.

This time around, the theme is ROCK and I'm wondering if you have any ideas?

They made a movie clip [mp4](Rupert is a video producer), that I have yet to see because EVERYTHING IS FREAKING BLOCKED HERE.. or I'm not allowed to load the appropriate software.

So any ideas much welcome.

Also, you have to remember that there is nothing here like Vinnies or op-shops, so I have to make use of what I got or buy really cheap crap stuff from something like Big W.

My response to Nick:


Terrible.

The first leg as alright.. because it had the new seats and the view-on-command tv system thing.. I watched 6 episodes of kitchen nightmares!

But there was this guy sitting next to me who kept sniffing (loud throat-al stuff he could almost hock a loogie).

At HK, by the time I walked to the gate, I only had to wait 20mins.. there was one of those dudes walking around to pick up rubbish.. he was looming around and I thought he was wanting my empty malteser packet, so I gave it to him.. and then he started using his hand to dust the chair next to me (there was noone else in nearby).. so I kept looking out the window.. then he stood back and was just staring at me.. so I said “what are you looking at?” then realised he probably didn’t understand english.. then he went back to dusting the chair and I noticed he was looking down my top! I put my hand in the way and he started to walk off behind me.. and I leant forward (bad move) to pick up my lap top to cover myself up.. but he quickly moved back so he could have a last look! I was so violated!! I think he was a bit “special” as he had this real docile look on his face.

The 2nd leg was just ugly.. it was delayed 1/2hr.. the seats were uncomfortable, it was the old tv systems.. the food was gross.. we touched down and was left on the tarmac for 1/2hr because “air traffic control gave us the wrong parking spot.. we’re currently stuck in the middle.. cant move forward, cant move back.. so we’re waiting for the tow truck to come and take us to a different parking position”

AND it was 28 degrees when I walked out! UGH!

You probably were expecting me to say something like “the flight was alright”

A couple of old weekends rolled into one..

The past 2 weekends have been relatively productive. I guess with work being so busy as well, I’ve been pretty lazy in keeping things up to date.. plus my internet connection (the dodgy leeching-bit) is playing up.. I hope my lappy doesn’t have a virus.

On Friday 7th, I had purchased tickets for the Dubai Tennis Championships. I had the choice of picking up semi-finals or finals day, but chose the semis because it was on Friday (ie. Had the option to kick-on and not have to worry about being at work the next day) and we’d get a couple more games for 50dhs less. The womens championships were separate which concluded the previous week.. so we got to watch Feliciano Lopez (hot!) beat Nikolay Davydenko in a very exciting final 3rd set.. wasn’t really paying attention to the Damm/Vizner vs Nestor/Zimonjic doubles match.. A fast match between Andy Roddick (who ended up winning the finals the day after) and Novak Djokovic. We didn’t bother staying for the last doubles match.. and after waiting over half and hour to grab a taxi, we all got dropped off at our respective houses most possibly suffering heat stroke.

On Thursday 13th, we had a new arrival to the J3 villa – Denis. So in the evening Erik, Emma, Ben and I went out to dinner. After admitting that he wasn’t a fan of Mexican (WHAT!) and didn’t want arab food (WHAT!), we went down to the Jumeira Rotana Hotel.. home to our office local Boston Bar and a german restaurant called Brauhaus. I was ready to get on some schniddy, but after being seated, the waiter told us about their Thursday night deal – the german buffet and all-you-can-drink. The boys went to check the food and gave it a thumbs up as it included steak, roast pork, other pork products and an impressive dessert table. Denis started off with 2 beers straight down.. then seemed to move on to vodka, bourbon.. next thing you know he’s doing shots with Erik and then the martinis come out. Amazing.

Friday 14th marked a couple of special occasions.. it was 3 years since I officially started working as a landscape architect, Wormie’s 3rd birthday and Tim & Carol’s wedding! To celebrate, I’d booked a snowboarding lesson with Emma at Ski Dubai. I was a bit nervous with remembering the carnage went when Tash & I were in Austria (bunged up knees, possible broken arms, soreness etc etc). Its meant to be a 1.5hr lesson, but because there were only 3 of us, it got cut down to 1hr. Our instructor, Emile, went through really basic things.. like gliding with one foot in, riding with one foot in whilst doing squats, riding up the slope on the magic carpet and sliding down on the back edge. Emma is a skiier, so she found it weird being on one board and I was pretty pleased that I remembered things. Theres 2 more lessons to be had where we should then technically be able to ride down the slope. I’m pretty keen to keep going with the lessons and doesnt seem as stressful as learning all these bits in 1hr and then placed straight on the slope to be mowed down by passing riders.

Photos:Mishmash of Weekends

Emma and I went for a walk around MoE then headed out to Karama for souvenirs.
We ended up meeting Erik at Barasti for a couple of drinks in the evening. I haven’t been back there since NYE, but it didn’t seem so bad that night.

On Saturday I ran some errands during the day and then went to meet Ben at the Jebel Ali club to hear about his aussie adventures and eat steak, which was perhaps just as good as the steaks at The Meat Co., but at half the price!

There was a massive accident this morning on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi Highway just near Ghantoot.

Gulf News

The photos are pretty horrifying. The zone up there is 120km/hr and people are pretty much going at an average speed of 150kms. One of the witnesses (an Aussie at that) was quoted to saying "What really got be irritated was when I saw some of the motorists busy clicking away pictures on their mobile phone instead of helping the injured."

I remember when we were on a girly weekend at Tuppy's and we played this boardgame which was about 'What ifs..' and they all agreed that I'd be the one standing there with a camera if something happened. Does that make me a bad person..?

Some more information about driving in Dubai from K.Doyle
( REAL FACTS TO KNOW, IF DRIVING IN DUBAI )

Just as London isnt built for the heat.. Dubai isnt built for the rain. As I checked out the kerbs on my way into work, I noticed that some of the roads dont even have a kerb, the roads dont gutters nor do they have drainage outlets.

Its been raining on and off for the past 4 days now, with the heaviest down pour waking me up this morning. Most of the streets are flooded (especially the residential roads leading away from the villa).. I have discovered a new fear I have of massive puddles on the road. I imagine the car driving into it, then suddenly falling into a deep hole. Its from a movie or tv show.. can't remember where. All the other drivers are freaking out, with everyone driving slower, increased usage of hazard lights and generally taking longer to get anywhere.

What shat me this morning was when I was driving away from the villa and following a 4WD.. the stoopid thing decides to slow down to almost a stop to go through the flooded bits. Umm, you're in a 4WD and I assumed you'd go through at relatively breakneck speed so I could drive behind you and not fear my engine would flood. The same morons go over speed humps and the same speed.

I actually dont mind the rain.. its a welcome change. I still miss the seasons though.

With the Islamic New Year long weekend just gone.. and then the suprising Pres. Bush holiday, I realise that I have never seen so many movies in this space of time. The closest was probably when Alison and I used to skip Tuesday lectures one term and went to Belco Mall for tight-arse Tuesday movies. I've watched:

I Know Who Killed Me
The Ex
Ratatoille
American Gangster
You, Me & Dupree
The Kingdom (not really, slept through most of it)
Waitress
The Weatherman
The Lakehouse<

9 movies in 5 days. The first 5 were watched within 20hrs.

I was just flicking through the office music server and found this:
( Top 100 Dance Tracks 1990-1999 )

It really sucks that I forgot my headphones today.

The LJ Edition.

President Bush is currently in town and similar to when the APEC Summit was on in Sydney last year, theres been road closures.

They have closed ALL the main roads (Al Khail, Sheikh Zayed, Al Wasl and Jumeira Beach Rd) that gets anyone anywhere in this town. So we got a day off.

We made our way down towards SZR.. just out of curiosity to see what it would look like with no cars (unlike the night before where we got stuck for almost an hour and a half on a stretch of maybe 2kms). I just went down Umm Al Sheif Street to the roundabout (which was a mini mission in itself).. Ben and I casually strolled towards the SZR service road when we got stopped by a national guard (police, whatever) who told us that we were not to get any closer to the main road.

"What, we cant just walk over to that side of the road to have a look?"
"No.. sorry"

I guess a photo would've been out of the question, surely.

So we did some more back street driving and ended up a bit further down along the service road

Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 1:37 PM
Subject: FW: Road Closures due to Tomorrow's Government visit

Please note there will be several closures tomorrow as a result of President Bush's visit to the UAE. You should make generous allowances for travel time to and from work.

According to one report the following roads are expected to be closed between 6 am and 5 pm

Al Khail Road closed
SZR closed from Salik to Salik
Jumeirah Beach Road closed from Al Thanya to Jumeirah Corporate office (far side of Madinat)
Al Wasl closed from Al Thanya to Dubai Police


That is pretty much every main road that will lead you anywhere in Dubai. I wont even be able to get into work from the villa 5kms down Al Wasl. I could walk, but its raining and I dont own anything waterproof. We're currently searching around to see if its a hoax. Theres already word of some offices closing because people cant get in. I told them all about APEC holiday and they were jealous. He's staying at the Burj Al Arab. LUCKY. Although I just found out on the weekend that the hotel employs a range of high-class hookers to hang around the place.. just in case.

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Monday declared holiday for public and private sectors in Dubai
Last updated: January 13, 2008, 16:00

Dubai: Monday, January 14, has been declared a holiday for public and private sectors in Dubai due to the closure of some main roads, bridges and tunnels.

Residents have been urged to avoid using main roads on Monday.


Am I being a party-pooper for hating on public holidays at the moment? Arent I glad I purchased Greys Anatomy: Season 3 dvds yesterday!

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Justin Verco wrote on your wall.

Just found out then, yeah... it seems that everywhere he goes George W just brings a public holiday! He's like Jesus!!

Dubai is a western colonial outpost in the middle east, whose function is only to serve the wealthy western elite and oil magnates. It is a garbage dump of western vices, and a playground for the vicious. It's the Las Vegas of the east, built by slaves, for the amusement of slavedrivers, while the 10% indigenous population is held hostage by a foreign patrician class amused by shiny rocks and arab-kitsch architecture. And its fast growth is reminiscent of a tumor, whose sociopathic greed devours the body and kills itself in the process. This forced, inorganic "growth" itself is a flawed goal. It's not sustainable, unless we manage to build another planet. In fact, it's simply imperialism wrapped in newspeak.

eikongraphia

For the past week or so, we've been hearing stuff about bars and clubs having to ban outdoor music and dancing (!) here in Dubai.. which doesnt make a lot of sense as a lot of the bars have outdoor/rooftop facilities especially for this time of year where theres a 4 month window where the weather is actually comfortable enough to spend outside! It sounds ridiculous so I had a bit of time to look some articles up:

( Outdoor Dancing Banned )

And there was also this article in TimeOut Dubai that says there'll be a one-night lift of the ban for NYE, which I will be spending at Barasti at Le Meridian.

Because it always lumped together anyways..



Happy Sunday meal at Maria Bonita's Taco Shop with K.Jax, Benny and Erik.


For Christmas, I decided that I would entertain some of the orphans at the new villa.
Come Christmas Eve when I finished work, the stove top in our kitchen STILL didnt work. Luckily I was able to use the boys' kitchen out the back. So I made 2 batches of brownies (one test version, where I forgot an ingredient) and the 2nd batch for Kate to take for her Christmas luncheon. I also prepped some other food and was in bed by 1am.

Christmas morning came with text messages and phonecalls from Nicass, Tash and the fams.
I finished prepping all the food, showered, did a tidy up and had the food in the oven after 130 to be ready when everyone rocked up!

Jiin hung around the villa, Erik came up from J2 and Ben came down from Jumeira Islands.

On the menu I had:
Roast chicken with lemon and thyme (x3)
Pork chipolatas wrapped in bacon (Pig in Blankets?)
Roast potato and pumpkin
Broccoli, green beans and baby asparagus
Sage and onion stuffing balls
Mushroom and onion cream sauce
Garlic bread
Brownies

I didnt take all that many photos which is a bit sad. I think I'm losing my touch? I forgot to take photos of the finished product food and only got to snap the leftovers! (before people got in for evening seconds)

We ate. We drank red wine and brazillian rum. We listened to Christmas CDs. We sat. We smoked cigarettes. We lay down. We talked shit. We drank tea. We had cheeky naps. Ben played slo-mo beach volleyball in the atrium. Jiin stood infront of her mirror in her room. Erik told us about Pepparkakor biscuits. I ran around.

Photos: Birthday/Christmas DXB

The second round of Eid (Big Eid) started on Tuesday 18th of December for 3 days. So we ended up having a 5 day weekend which was really right on.

The 17th was Ben's birthday and he had his best mates in town (Scott and Emma) so we went down to the Madinat for dinner. We headed to LeftBank for a pre-drink, only to be reminded that because it was the eve of Eid, the whole town was dry! (ie. not serving alcohol till the following day after sunset). Forlorn that this was maybe the first birthday in 10 years that Ben was sober, we headed to The Meat Company to get our doses of steak and a glass of cola. My 300g medium Australian fillet steak was pretty amazing.

Tuesday was left running errands at Mall of the Emirates and generally spending too much money.

Wednesday, Erik & I followed Kate up to Ghantoot beach, but she didnt have a kite surfing lesson because there was no wind! Disappointing.

Thursday, after a coffee from our local Central Perk, Kate + I navigated down to Bur Dubai in search of the Textile Souk. Which we found, but majority of shops were shut due to Eid. We needed a toilet so ended up at the Dubai Museum, where we paid 3dhs to find that Dubai doesnt really have much of a history (well, nothing dramatic anyways) besides building dhows (boats), pearl diving, bedouin tribes, finding oil and constructing a shitload of buildings. Came back to Jumeira for some Arz Lebanese and then made our way back to MoE so Kate could buy some presents, to find that we were still wandering when shops started to shut at midnight!

Friday was back to Ghantoot, with Jiin this time.. there was even less wind than the other day so I spent the afternoon evening up my tan.

Saturday was a trip to Festival City to grab some cooking things from Ikea and look around at amazement at the Panda Hypermarket. I saw Eug on MSN and we were using webcams. Mum and Dad called me and it all got a bit emotional.. I was a bit restless so walked to Spinneys to do a bit more Christmas food shopping and bumped into William (from Hort) who also lives in the area and was carrying a massive leg of ham. Jealous!

Photos: Eid al-Adha Weekend

Christmas feast is still looking like a bit of a pain in the arse due to the stove STILL not working. The oven should be fine, but its just the veges and my onion mushroom sauce. ARGH!

Monday 5:58pm

My weekend started with phonecalls.
I called the bank to complain about my credit card. My arguement being it took a week for a letter from my Mum to get here and a 6kg parcel less than 2 weeks (which included a UAE customs inspection). They have offered to cancel the card that is on its way and issue me a new one via courier and graciously offered to incur the cost (which would usually be charged to the customer) under the circumstances and inconvenience caused. Straight up.

I called my adults, which was cool. And then my sister called me back later in the morning, as I haven't spoken to her for over 2 months when she did her trip to Spain, and we marvelled at the cheapness of Louis Vuitton shoes and Christian Louboutins.

You know whats shitty. Losing your phone.
I slowly got over it though.. just putting it in perspective that I would've been hell more cut if it was my camera (although that would've given me the excuse to upgrade) or my wallet (which is what happened one month after being in LDN!). The phone numbers arent that bigger deal, as I have my aus simcard here. By chance I uploaded any photos that I'd taken the week before. The hurting was that i bought the phone just before I got here (so it was only 6 weeks old) and my tone alert for texts was little Murphy aying "Message? Suuuuuuuure". But I've paid my 50dhs to get a replacement simcard and now I'm looking to pick up a new phone. The same is going to set me back about 500dhs. Happy 4 weeks anniversary. I'd intended to put that money towards something
extravagantly designer.

So with some old school organising, we timed it perfectly that I had walked to the other side of Al Wasl Rd just as Ben drove into the designated side street with the taxi as we headed to down to the Radisson in Deira for YumCha buffet.

For all the yum cha aficionados from home.. it sounds like the best ever. But I'll tell you what was disappointing about it. The dumplings itself were tiny (but I guess the all-you-can-eat makes up for that), but the selection was severely lacking. I s'pose since pork isnt served in this country.. and whats yumcha? - PORK AND PRAWNS! There were 5 soups on offer, 5 noodles/rice dishes, 6 fried plates, 8 steamed baskets and 5 desserts. (all numbers approximate as I cant
really remember). Ben cut sick on the beef meatballs. He estimates to have eaten about 50 seperate dumplings all up!



K.Jax was meeting us afterwards to check out the Souks, so Ben and I took a stroll along Dubai Creek and saw all the tourists riding the abras across the creek and other boats waiting to get loaded up with boxes of food, furniture, electrical goods and big tyres. Kate got a bit lost, but eventually found us (after we'd walked along about 3kms) and we went around the Gold Souk (I'm more of a silver girl myself) and found a place to stop for juice and shawarmas (not that I could fit in any more food, but Ben suprisingly did!)

We stopped at the Mercato on the way home and I bought a Bill Bryson book.. hopefully I can knock that off before the year is out. That would bring my yearly book total to 3!

There was an offer from Matt to head over to the One & Only Mirage for a drink, but I wrote that off by falling asleep on the sofa during an E!TV Sexiest Actors list or something.

If the reports from K.Jax are true, it was 31 days after my arrival that it rained in Dubai.



Apparently it happened on Saturday morning as she was leaving for yoga and there were leftover big white fluffy clouds floating the sky (a rare sight!). It only rains about 4 times a year here, so the countdown starts again till the next time..