Who's evolved?

Here's a thing. Yesterday we went to see a movie at the Mall of the Emirates, better known as the mall with the ski slope in it. Night at the Museum to be exact. They have pretty large two tier theatres, and, atypically for Dubai, there was assigned seating. A small hurdle, but it was enough to identify that the shallow section of the gene pool had set up a primitive fort against the assault of civilisation on the left side of the theatre. They seemed to be predominantly Grunt speaking, and they seemed to want 'Ug!' often and urgently. Now in the ten minutes before the movie started, this was fine, and stood as an interesting study of our anthropomorphic ancestry.

However, as the movie started it became clear that we had landed ourselves in the middle of a war. On the one side were the aforementioned Ugs, and on the other, a scattered but strong contingent of Shhhs. The Shhhs' battle plan is less than perfect, resulting in plenty of escalating friendly fire until at one point an apogee of Shhh settles into an uneasy peace. This process takes around 5 minutes, and it reoccurs regularly.

Hero suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? The Ugs awww. The Shhhs shhh.
Hero takes arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing ends them? Everyone erupts into rapturous applause. I did not see that coming. And the coup de grâce: at the emotional catharsis of the film, about 5 minutes before the credits, the Ugs take noisy leave, cheering and raising their arms in victory! V I C... V I C... V I C T Oh my god!

Friday Brunch

Friday Brunch is a long standing expat tradition in this country. Basically every non-muslim indivual is too hung over on a Friday morning (remember our weekend is Friday Saturday not Saturday Sunday) to wake up in time to make breakfast hours. This allows all hotels to basically put on extravagently expensive buffets with just the most ridiculous amount of food imaginable.

And I mean ridiculous.

Think shushi, salads, pasta, lasagne, pizza, shellsfish, fish, steaks, kebab, roast lamb, chicken wings, cheese fondues, naan breads and all the accoutrements possible that your gluttonous little tummy could possibly desire. And this on only 1 of the three restaurants that are included in the price.

They give you a wrist band when you enter. That's right. A WRIST BAND. Like you're entering a carnival or something.

And the desert table. Don't even get me started. Crepes, Pancakes, cakes, mousses, fruit and best of all ... a chocolate fountain!





















Downside... above mentioned wrist band is valid from 12 noon to 12 midnight so they expect you to return for dinner... BURP!

Global Village 2006-2007

So every year Dubai host what is called "Global Village" which is basically a collection of about 50 country specific stores that sell everything native to that country. So i.e. Romania you are surrounded by weird glass works and in Yemen you can buy every type of honey under the sun.
Each stall is then of course duly decorated with as much kitsch country paraphenalia as possible. Case in point - see the UK below.

















In fact the only countries not represented were Israel (no surprise there) and the USA (more surprising. Maybe they felt adequately represented by the 40-off baskin robins, hardees and applebees). South Africa made a stand - albeit lumped together with the rest of the sub-saharan region.

















The best part of Global Village is however definitely the (fekking expensive) rides. Being a woes I only went on the ferris wheel, the boat and some small speedy roller coaster thing. Given how high it was this picture seriously understates the fact that I was clinging onto the centre pole for dear life.































All in all my final comment is.... don't be a moron and wear heels. :(

Jingle all the way

As expected on Christmas I woke Geoff at sparrow's fart and demanded my presents. Since he had already given me the camera the night before pickings were slim. (Latest Marianne Keyes and some Perfume). After devouring half the Marianne Keyes we packed up a picnic basket and headed out for Al Safa Park. Obviously I made Geoff carried said picnic goodies :D






Al Safa is a HUGE park in the middle of Dubai (technically in the area of Al Wasl). It's circumference is 3.5km (there's a running track around it) so anyone feeling bored feel free to do the math to work out the area. Anyway it's basically a public open space with green lawns in some areas, big luscious forests in others and a very twee waterfall and lake with ducks and seagulls. (it's close to the beach.)

















All in all it was a great lazy way to spend the day - plus we still have tonnes of left over goodies for me to nosh while Geoff is at work! The highlight of the day has to be Geoff expression when I surprised him with his very own Daim bar. You must understand - the Daim bar is practically impossible to find either in SA or the UAE but is a chocolate that rivals all others... especially since the cadbury's here tastes like beacon. PTOO PTOO.



Hope you all had a great Christmas too!
xx

For her ladyship. Happy Chanukah :D

Score!

Woohoo, I got a spanky new Sony CyberShot DSC-S600 (that's a digital camerafor those not in the know!) for Christmas! And it does swanky videos! Plus it's tiny and silver and super cute :D

Unfortunately now I have no excuse for not uploading photos .... damn!












Merry Christmas everyone!

Yuletide - the washing powder of wisdom

So, Christmas shopping is complete, and I feel a lot poorer. The shopping in Dubai will tend to make you overspend. The thing about Christmas presents for a woman is that you need to design them like a mall.

1. There has to be variety. Not just one present - many presents. This is because women don't scale points for big presents - 1 present = 1 point. And no-one shops at a mall that only has one department store.
2. There has to be an anchor present. Like Woolworths, or Pick 'n Pay, or Walmart, you've gotta get a good anchor in to provide the substance.
3. There should be bling. If your loved one cannot show off the gifts to her friends, it's not as cool. Names you can brag about - Armani, Vera Wang, Jimmy Choo - put you in the bonus round.
4. Finally, you must have pamper. Something to relax, to take the weight off after a long day of shopping. Bath salts or chocolate - the theme is spoil yourself.

Well, that's my 2 cents' worth. I'm pretty sure Helen will let you know how it works out.

The show that must go on

"Everybody say Cypress Hill, you fucked up!"

Ok, so I'm not Cypress Hill, but I did fuck up. Sorry if you've been trying to comment for the last day or two, since I accidentally excluded everyone but myself. Talk about a captive audience. Thanks to Gareth for pointing and laughing.

So, what is the purpose of the obscure non sequitur to introduce this post? Well it's a quote from Henry Rollins. If you don't know him, he's big and scary, but in a good way. He does spoken word tours around the world, and I have tickets to see him live on December 29th. So rare I get to see a show I'm really amped for. Dubai scores its first big points with Geoff.

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches,
I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Photos of Flat and City

Sunday we walked across the construction zone to visit Geoff's colleague Maseeh before they left for a holiday to Malaysia and Singapore.

Anyway - I managed to get some photos of our complex entrance:

















Our tower's the one in the middle. There's a pic below. We're on the 14th floor and our bedroom window overlooks the pool area.





















And here's a photo of Burj Dubai which is to the left of our apartment about 250m away. It's going to be the tallest building in the world and will have the largest mall in the world attached to it. Currently it is 90-odd stories but is expected to top 170 by 2009/10.





















And lastly, here's a skyline of Dubai. The two towers on the left in the distance are the Emirates Towers which always shown in the Dubai City Skyline pictures.











The other one you'll usually see is the 6 start Hotel Burj Al Arab which looks like a ship's sail and is an an island just off the coast of Dubai. It very expensive though and you can only enter it if you're staying there or eating there so don't expect any photos of that anytime soon!!

The proof of the pudding is in the tasting

The proof is not in the pudding. People! The proof is NOT in the pudding. The only way the proof would be in the pudding is if it were a black pudding made with human blood in a bizarre episode of CSI directed by Quentin Tarantino. It would go something like this:

EXTERIOR DAYTIME

Fixed shot in front of suburban home. Police cars are everywhere. Police, medics and random extras mill about. Police tape is strung around the yard like toilet paper after Halloween. Cut to:

INTERIOR of same home, well appointed, immaculate except for the swathes of blood on every wall and all the furniture. Three heads - those of father bear, mama bear, and baby bear - sit on the kitchen counter. Baby bear's head is just right. On the middle of the counter is a gigantic strawberry jello in the shape of a gun. An actual blood-encrusted gun is visible set in the centre of the jello.

Grisholm and Sarah Sidle face each other across the counter.

Sarah: So much blood! What do you think happened here?
Grisholm: Well, I don't know, but I think that this time, the proof is in the pudding.

Ta-dow! Opening credits roll.

Arabian Safari

After living in a desert for a week one's thoughts stray to um well - the desert. This admittedly despite the fact that it was warmer in Cape Town yesterday than in Dubai...!

Either way on Friday we dutifully prepared ourselves at 15h00 to be picked up by Oasis Palm tours for some dune bashing. At 15h30 we continued to dutifully wait. By 16h00 I threw a hissy-fit and by 16h30 Farouk in all his splendid Arab-ness arrived. Think Oded Fehr from the Mummy. (actually girl's he was only splendid until he took his sunglasses off :( )

So off we set - at about 160km/h to meet up with the rest of the party in the desert just south of Dubai. This followed with about an hour of bouncing around in the 4x4 (it was a Toyota Landcruiser for any of you interested) a la tumble dryer cycle. Farouk was clearly the jock of the bunch.

Our next stop was a camel farm where we all (20 cars worth of us) duly descended on the 30-odd camels making coo-ing noises to attract their attention for photos.

After another hour or so bumping around in the back of the 4x4, all 20 cars arrived at a communal "barbeque" area for dinner and belly dancing. The drivers set up a lavish buffet on the one side with salads, bread, kebabs & chicken while the other 3 walls contained a henna tattoo parlour, a shisha partition, the bar and various touristy stalls selling sand pictures in a bottle, abayas and stuffed camels. Also available were camels rides around the compund for the little ones. In the middle was a large floodlit stage while low tables and cushions flanked it from all sides.

After dinner a Lebanese belly dancer entertained us with her gyrations as well as the usual co-ercing of tourists to attempt to belly dance. Claire-Bear you would have kicked her @ss ;)

Generally a very fun afternoon. The sun setting over the sandunes is gorgeous and once the sun sets you can readily imagine how terrifying it would be to get lost in this area. There's no table mountain to guide you and you can't see anything beyond 5m in front of you.

Our furniture arrived!! YAY! Actually techincally 84 boxes arrived for us to unpack which is slightly less exciting. Wait sorry - 83 boxes. The dear old couch didn't make it. That's right, the 2.8m one you were all fantasizing about sleeping on when you came to visit.

A moment of silence please everyone.

Initial Thoughts

Just a quick note to let you all know that I have arrived safely and am now happily esconced in our 14th floor apartment in Burj Dubai. The apartment's divine but the view does resemble a sceen out of Mel Gibson's Thunderdome.... lots of sand :) Also - I have to say that all of those people saying that 5% of the world's crane's are located in Dubai are talking &&%*, it's more along the lines of 30%! I can see over 50 from my bedroom window right now.

Otherwise the city itself is very upbeat and cosmopolitan. Tonnes of high skyskrapers, 8 lane freeways, neon lights and a McDonalds and a Starbucks on every corner. The people are also an eclectic mix of Arab, Indian, European and Russian. Walking through one of the many malls here you are privy to at least a dozen conversations in varying languages. Overall things are less strict than I had envisioned. People in malls wander around in tiny skirts with tops down to their belly buttons with noone even doing a double take. Ironically the muslim teen girls wear their abayas but make up for it with false eyelashes and glitter eyeshadow that stands out a mile away. Smoking is the norm here with there being no designated smokers or non smokers section. People wander the malls ashing on the floor and no restaurants or bars would dream of separate seatings. Generally people are friendly and outgoing though. For many of them this is not their home country which creates a sort of bond amongst us foreigners.

Prices are good - generally groceries and clothes are significantly cheaper than back home. Restaurants however - with or without booze - are much more expensive. A basic sit down dinner with 1 main and a coke will cost you a minimum of R120 per person, while a dinner or lunch at a hotel is upwards of R400 per person. Strange really considering that meat and fish are so much cheaper in the supermarkets than back home.

The weather is also a bit of an anomally at the moment. Overcast with rain most days - seriously minimising my tanning potential!

So here's what we have so far...

Good:
No bees, bugs, spiders or other crawly things
Jimmy Choos, Cavalli, DKNY and Zara
Taxis

Bad:
Expensive booze
Current lack of furniture
Taxis

Thumb tacks in my toffee apples

I continue to be astonished by my embarrassing inability to deal with spicy food. I had lunch today at a restaurant in Deira called La Palma, which is Arabic for 'buffet lunch'. The buffet lunch was really good, and good value at three courses for 60 bucks. What follows is an actual conversation I didn't have with one of the waiters:

Waiter: Are you enjoying your food?
Me: Sweet Jehoshaphat! Are you trying to kill me? Seriously, how often do people's heads just explode on the first mouthful?
Waiter: Not very often.
Me: What is the flavouring on this beef? Super mega chili? I can't feel my tongue. Or my eyelids!
Waiter: It's barbecue, sir.

Where Kurt Vonnegut and Janet Jackson see eye to eye

So, here's an update. As if you care, you glib sods.

I found a place! To stay! And then paid a crazy sum of money to rent it. In SA I could almost buy it for the price. But it is nice. I'm living in the shadow of the Burj Dubai, soon to be the tallest building in the world. Outside my window, I can see the nascent Dubai Mall, soon to be the largest mall in the world.

My kitchen is pretty and fully fitted, such that if I had any pots or crockery I could fashion a crude meal for myself. I have a walk-in cupboard.

What I don't have is furniture. I lounge nightly (in surprising comfort) on a bed of air. Which sounds cooler than a blow up mattress.

Yesterday (after two consecutive days of no bathing and no going to the bathroom) my water was connected. However, for some reason the geyser didn't heat up, and I ended up with a cold shower this morning. Which would have been great if I hadn't set the airconditioner to icicle mode.

I have yet to test the badminton and squash courts in the building, mainly because I don't have my racquets here yet. Where are the table tennis tables?

I do go for a swim in the mornings, which is quite nice. The water is warmer than what currently comes out of my tap. There's a lifeguard at the pool from 7:30 to 22:30 every day. I spoke to him yesterday. His name is Edgar. He's from the Philippines. Back home he worked as a casting technician (setting bones and stuff) in a hospital for fifteen years. He came here to find his El Dorado, and instead ends up staring at his toes all day. That's the way it goes.

I ate camel at the company function the other night. It tasted like overspiced boerewors.

Fish oil for a whingey hinge

So my team of scientists, working night and day over the last week, have determined that moving to a new country is stressful. Perhaps I should publish a paper. But that would only add to the stress. Now usually I am a stress resistent super hero. I am cool and collected and happy, no matter what. But I have found my nemesis. I am taking strain the way people my whole life have done just before I laughed at them. Payback is sweet, mother-bitches.

I am stressed because of the following reasons:

1. I have nowhere to live. Life on the street is hard, and I am crap at blowjobs.
2. I am haemorrhaging cash. After tax SA cash. It's like I came to a construction site with a baseball cap and a plastic spade.
3. People who make me feel better are 6000km away.
4. People who make me feel worse (bureaucrats and daft call center monkeys who can't deviate from script) flock here like the swallows of Capistrano

Actually I'm not sure if any of that matters. I think the thing that matters the most is that where my sense of humour usually saves me, it now bounces off stoney faces like an echo that says quack!

But it's not all bad. The other day I went to the fish market. It smells of fish. One of the guys who works there took me to see some of his wares. He's from Pakistan. He listened to my iPod and then gave it back. He asked me to take a photograph of him and his friends. When I get a computer of my own, I'll post it. He was very friendly. He seemed happy, and he made me happy too. He doesn't let anything get to him. Hooray for the bulletproof!

Why Emaar call center operators remind me of stinky fruit

So here I sit in the hotel lobby of the Al Khaleej in Deira, Dubai. It is 1:10am, and the temperature is a chilly 29 degrees Celsius on this mild Winter's day. The space bar works intermittently, but I keep going back to fix it. I do this for you, my beloved reader.

I have been in Dubai almost exactly a week. In this time I have managed to do exactly nothing to further the cause of the bureaucrat. I have not got my residence. I have not got my health card. I do not have a place to stay. I have not even got an access card to the building I'm working in. I have bought two new ties, and tried on a pair of pants.

Yesterday I called a company called Emaar. Emaar build big blocks of apartments and then sell them. Also they rent them out to the poor or risk averse. I asked them to rent me a place. This is not the first time that I have called them, nor the first time that I asked them for a number or a clue as to how to rent from them. The phone call went like this:

Me: Hello. I phoned two days ago to rent an apartment. You gave me this reference number.
Them: According to my records, you called at 11:30 this morning.
Me: It is 11:30 this morning.
Them: It will take 48 hours for them to get back to you.
Me: That's what you told me 48 hours ago.
Them: According to my records, you phoned at 11:30 this morning.
Me: Also,I phoned you two days ago, and the day before that.
Them: According to my records, etc.
Me: Well, can you giveme their number, so I can phone them?
Them: Sure. (Gives wrong number)

I was unaware that Emaar call center uses the same method to get rid of men as a pretty blonde in a room full of balding fourty somethings, but it was pretty effective.

I like the supermarkets here. They have lots of cool food imported from all over. I swear I saw a durian the other day. Hmmm, that's some good garlic custard flavoured eating.

And so, to bed. Like sands through the hourglass...