Today we went for a hot air balloon ride over the desert. After all the rain we've had here recently the desert is quite green and the oasis are gorgeous. Brilliant experience despite having to get up at 4:30am!
A couple of weeks ago the UAE won the Arabian Gulf Cup in soccer beating Oman 1-0. In Bur Juman, the big mall next to where I work, there's a huge TV screen which is on all day and usually shows weird things like Scandinavian handball and Japanese cartoons dubbed in Arabic. On the night of the soccer final we had dinner at one of the restaurants in the mall that had a view of the screen. The whole area was packed with locals and when the UAE scored their goal the place went mad. At the final whistle everyone was jumping up and down screaming and cheering and then for the next four days Dubai went mad. Virtually 24 hours a day there were people in their cars driving round town tooting their horns, this carried on well into the night, a friend was still awake at 3am the first morning as the cars circled her local roundabout cars music blaring and horns tooting. Cars were spray painted in UAE colours with flags hanging off them (Mercs, Lexus, BMW nothing was sacred). Traffic would grind to a halt while impromptu parades took place and seeing guys sitting on the roofs of cars waving UAE flags while travelling at 50kms down the street became quite ordinary. It 's quietened down now thank goodness.
I went out to see Cirque de Soliel last week with some of the girls from work. Brilliant show.
Its taken me 6 months to find out that everyone has their private mail sent to their work PO boxes. Seems to be no big deal and everyone does it. Its due to there being no home delivery of mail and apparently all companies allow it. Our office driver picks up the post every day and hand delivers it to our desks, beat that Australia Post.
A friend of Colin’s won 2 VIP tickets for the Formula 1 Festival held last weekend in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is another of the seven emirates that make up the UAE and is about 1.5 hours drive from Dubai. The friend has no interest in motorsport so he passed the tickets on to Colin. We were sitting in the VIP stand only a few rows behind the ruler of AD and next to him was Bernie Ecclestone the boss of world Formula 1. The UAE soccer team were driven round the course on the back of a truck to a rapturous response and then were escorted to their seats at the front of the VIP stand. The main F1 teams were represented and while it wasn’t an actual race more of a demonstration, the drivers drove round the streets individually and did doughnuts right in front of the VIP stand where we were sitting. It was good but for me nothing beats the V8s. The V8s are coming back to Bahrain again this November. Yaah! Anyway, at the conclusion of the F1 Festival an Ethihad jet flew over the city very low and very slow (and very spectacular) so we could all see “Abu Dhabi 2009” written on the underside. Afterwards we went up to the Emirates Palace hotel where we watched the sheik of Abu Dhabi and Bernie Ecclestone sign the agreement that will give Abu Dhabi a round on the F1 circuit for seven years starting in 2009. The Bahrain F1 race will continue so there'll be two rounds in the Middle East each season. The Abu Dhabi government are not just going to build the track, but they are building an entire island to put it on. If you're interested, check out <http://www.abudhabigp.com/english/ > .
Last Friday was the combined Waitangi Day/Australia Day celebrations in Dubai. Normally it is held out on the lawn overlooking the marina near the Mina al Seyahi hotel for those who know the area, but this year, to everyone's shock, it was rained out. And it wasn't light rain, it was serious Auckland type rain that flooded the car park and had the down pipes overflowing. Naturally it took more than a bit of serious rain to stop the intake of beer and food, though they had a typically convoluted Dubai system for buying the beer. We had to stand in a long queue to pay Man A for a little ticket for each drink. Man A then handed the ticket to Man B standing next to him. Man B's job was to yell out the drinks order to Man C who was standing right next to *him*. Man C then produced the drinks from under the counter and handed them over. This system did not survive the onslaught of thirsty Kiwis and Aussies for long and had to be adjusted fairly quickly to the standard 'pay your money - get your drink' system. There were some gourmet treats for us Kiwis, pineapple chunks, Jaffas and they even had Afghans! No pork and puha but that would have been difficult for some many reasons!!
A couple of weeks ago the UAE won the Arabian Gulf Cup in soccer beating Oman 1-0. In Bur Juman, the big mall next to where I work, there's a huge TV screen which is on all day and usually shows weird things like Scandinavian handball and Japanese cartoons dubbed in Arabic. On the night of the soccer final we had dinner at one of the restaurants in the mall that had a view of the screen. The whole area was packed with locals and when the UAE scored their goal the place went mad. At the final whistle everyone was jumping up and down screaming and cheering and then for the next four days Dubai went mad. Virtually 24 hours a day there were people in their cars driving round town tooting their horns, this carried on well into the night, a friend was still awake at 3am the first morning as the cars circled her local roundabout cars music blaring and horns tooting. Cars were spray painted in UAE colours with flags hanging off them (Mercs, Lexus, BMW nothing was sacred). Traffic would grind to a halt while impromptu parades took place and seeing guys sitting on the roofs of cars waving UAE flags while travelling at 50kms down the street became quite ordinary. It 's quietened down now thank goodness.
I went out to see Cirque de Soliel last week with some of the girls from work. Brilliant show.
Its taken me 6 months to find out that everyone has their private mail sent to their work PO boxes. Seems to be no big deal and everyone does it. Its due to there being no home delivery of mail and apparently all companies allow it. Our office driver picks up the post every day and hand delivers it to our desks, beat that Australia Post.
A friend of Colin’s won 2 VIP tickets for the Formula 1 Festival held last weekend in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is another of the seven emirates that make up the UAE and is about 1.5 hours drive from Dubai. The friend has no interest in motorsport so he passed the tickets on to Colin. We were sitting in the VIP stand only a few rows behind the ruler of AD and next to him was Bernie Ecclestone the boss of world Formula 1. The UAE soccer team were driven round the course on the back of a truck to a rapturous response and then were escorted to their seats at the front of the VIP stand. The main F1 teams were represented and while it wasn’t an actual race more of a demonstration, the drivers drove round the streets individually and did doughnuts right in front of the VIP stand where we were sitting. It was good but for me nothing beats the V8s. The V8s are coming back to Bahrain again this November. Yaah! Anyway, at the conclusion of the F1 Festival an Ethihad jet flew over the city very low and very slow (and very spectacular) so we could all see “Abu Dhabi 2009” written on the underside. Afterwards we went up to the Emirates Palace hotel where we watched the sheik of Abu Dhabi and Bernie Ecclestone sign the agreement that will give Abu Dhabi a round on the F1 circuit for seven years starting in 2009. The Bahrain F1 race will continue so there'll be two rounds in the Middle East each season. The Abu Dhabi government are not just going to build the track, but they are building an entire island to put it on. If you're interested, check out <http://www.abudhabigp.com/english/ > .
Last Friday was the combined Waitangi Day/Australia Day celebrations in Dubai. Normally it is held out on the lawn overlooking the marina near the Mina al Seyahi hotel for those who know the area, but this year, to everyone's shock, it was rained out. And it wasn't light rain, it was serious Auckland type rain that flooded the car park and had the down pipes overflowing. Naturally it took more than a bit of serious rain to stop the intake of beer and food, though they had a typically convoluted Dubai system for buying the beer. We had to stand in a long queue to pay Man A for a little ticket for each drink. Man A then handed the ticket to Man B standing next to him. Man B's job was to yell out the drinks order to Man C who was standing right next to *him*. Man C then produced the drinks from under the counter and handed them over. This system did not survive the onslaught of thirsty Kiwis and Aussies for long and had to be adjusted fairly quickly to the standard 'pay your money - get your drink' system. There were some gourmet treats for us Kiwis, pineapple chunks, Jaffas and they even had Afghans! No pork and puha but that would have been difficult for some many reasons!!
On 6 Feb one of the lawyers at work made a Waitangi Cake for Kathryn and I. Kathryn is the other Kiwi in the office she's from Christchurch. Only here for 3 months but its been great to have another Kiwi around the place.
I heard the most brilliant comment about the Burj al Arab recently. It was described as “looking like a place that Elton John designed for Michael Jackson”. Yep! It really is that bad!
I heard the most brilliant comment about the Burj al Arab recently. It was described as “looking like a place that Elton John designed for Michael Jackson”. Yep! It really is that bad!
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