Our new neighbourhood

We finally moved into our new apartment at the end of January. We are waiting on the pool and gym to be finished, and the metro station (soon soon I hope). There is another station about 20 mins walk from here but it's pretty much too hot to walk there now. A few weeks ago we snapped these pics on our way out to the pub. The station is in Downtown Duabi and it services The Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall. The first pic is of our apartment, there are 12 towers altogetner I think, all with about 40 floors, give or take. Joined in with the tourists taking pics of the Burj for the second one!

Back in Dubai, Back at Work.

I have been back in Dubai for 2 weeks now would you believe! Nepal certainly was an interesting experience, I'm not quite sure what to say when people ask me about my summer! i haven't started blogging any photos yet, trying to work up some momentum to start.

I am back at work, I've hd a week with no children and a day with the children. They all seem quite nice. I have a big class of 27 and one little girl with special needs but she is a sweety and comes with her own assisstant so that should be ok.

Dubai is a bit of a drag this month, it's hot hot hot, so not much to do outside, it's also Ramadan so no eating or drinking in public during the day, and restuarants and bars are quieter in the evening. The only thing that is not quieter is our neighbourhood, we live amoungst lots of locals and due to the fasting in the day, they are up late at night... Having all sorts of gatherings.

Mr. and Mrs. MacDougall!

On the weekend we had the pleasure in celebrating with Kat and Iain their long awaited wedding. It was a delightful day, starting for us girls in the salon, moving on to the church at Jebel Ali and then to the One and Only Royal Mirage. Just a few pics here to give you a feel for the day.

Mr. and Mrs. MacDougall cutting their cake.

The girls plus 1/2, sex as yet unknown (sorry Mum it's not mine).

Later on down on the beach. Looking quite merry I must say.

Some more of the girls having a quick dip...

A head for Heights

I just recieved this in my morning trawl through my emails, it's a photo from the top of the current tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai (It's not finished yet so some would say it doesn't count but I am not picky). It is currently 629 meters tall, the only other structure to reach this height was the Warsaw radio mast which collapsed in 1991. Apparently office space is selling for $4000 a sq ft. The Burj is currently schedules to open in Sep 2009, 9 months late (and counting).

If you look on the far left you can see a patch of green, it's Safa Park. I work just to the left of this and live just above it near the sea. Also on the left you can see a group of buildings, this is where I will live, sometime, when they hurry up (?) and finish our apartment. Hopefully before I am 60....

My Beach

With our apartment still not ready, we are still living in a villa in a lovely suburb of Dubai. There may be others living with us... (sharing a villa outside of family members is illegal in Dubai).

It's going really well and we are very lucky as we have a beautiful pool (I'll post pics when I think of taking them) and the location is great, near my work (20 mins) and the beach (5 mins if you walk slow...). I often stroll along the beach in the evening and enjoy the sun set.

And another one....

Yesterday morning I was in my classroom chatting with Julia when we heard a MASSIVE boom and the whole (rather large) school shook to it's foundations. Now you can imagine, although we all feel very safe living here there are moments when you think, 'What was that and what's it going to mean to me and all the others that take up the space of my life?'

We dashed outside and saw a huge mushroom cloud hanging about 5 kms frome the school, closely followed by this thick grey smoke. Turns out to be an illegal firecracker factory/paint factory (depending who you believe) and the smoke is toxic. SO we get the kids in and shut all the doors and the AC goes off. An hour later the word comes that the school is shut! All kids to go home! This is the same term as George Bush day, remember? And the 2 days off because of flooding? We wont forget it in a hurry. Last day today.

Up, Up, But Not Too Far Away!

At Ibn Battuta Mall there is this large balloon, tied to the ground that goes up about 150 meters into the sky.

It's attatched to the ground by a thick metal rope and affords views over Dubai, particualrly of the Marina, Palm Jebel Ali, Palm Jumeirah and Sheikh Zayed Road (car park).

We've been meaning to avail this attraction for some time, but either the wind is up or I forget the camera. Anyway, The Other Weekend (read: sometime in the last few months I just haven't got round to blogging it yet....) all things worked together and up we went!

I thought it was going to be scarey but getting off the ground was the worst bit, then it was quite tame. It was a good laugh, and another 'We Must Do That' crossed off our list!

Only in the Middle East Number 2....

Now I know all of you never read the words and just look at the pictures on my blog so I've broken this bizarre week into 2 to make it less daunting for you.... Hehe. Back into work on Tuesday morning ready for the last 3 days of the week. Overnight something else bizzare has happened, IT'S RAINED! First time in nearly a year. When I say it's rained, it's a bit of an understatement, it had poured and was continuing to pour. I wondered if we would even get the little 307 through the masive puddles. The drainage system in Dubai is not world class. The kids straggled in and the rain continued. Stories of flooding throughout the city were told. Zadok's work closed due to flooding and noone being able to do any work. At about 1 it was announced the SCHOOL WOULD CLOSE the following day, and then at about 10pm the government announced ALL SCHOOLS WOULD CLOSE Wednesday and Thursday and reopen for the new week on Sunday!! Hurrah! Another 2 days off!

Weather cleared early yesterday morning after 100mm of rain in about 24hrs and now the sun is shining, most of the flooding has been attended to and I am enjoying a leisurely 4 day weekend!

Runour has it that more rain is going to fall next week.... We'll have to wait and see!

Photos borrowed from Gulf News

Only in the Middle East...

WELL, we have had a very bizarre week here in Dubai. We dragged ourselves into work like normal on Sunday morning expecting/dreading the first 5 day teaching week in quite a while due to various school and public holidays. Early in the afternoon there was a stir as emails started filtering through about road closures due to the arrival of George Bush. As the afternoon wore on some people wondered if they would get to school at all. Now rumours started doing the rounds that some schools would not open, and low and behold, at 4pm the goverment declared a public holiday for all of Dubai as most major roads and bridges would be shut, supposedly to ensure the safety of Mr. Bush on his first ever UAE visit. You can imagine the uproar that followed with those on the actual route being asked to stay in their houses and people not having the warmest feelings for afore mentioned politition. I however, am one to see the bright side, I got to stay in bed and read an entire Marian Keyes book (Watermelon, very entertaining...) and walk around my area as I often do but without the mountains of traffic that usually gets in my way!

Pic is of Sheikh Zayed Road (car park?) 12 lanes wide and usually choc-a-block with traffic... Just a few police cars zooming up and down and supposedly at some stage Mr. Bush himself.

Happy Merry Christmas Everyone!

We had a lovely Dubai Christmas this year, thanks to my good friend Mel really, she was so organised and had all our festivities booked up in October!

In the morning Zadok and I headed down to the beach, where we sat in the car and ate bacon butties... (hehe, ask a Brit) and drank coffee. We were on Palace Beach, so named because of the palaces at one end, you can see one just above our car.

I called home and chatted to Mum and Dad which was nice.

We headed to Al Qasr for lunch, I think I've blogged before about their delicious Brunch, Christmas Day was no different, all the usual seafood, meat, salad and desert aswell as endless turkey, ham, beef, beef wellington and rosat veggies with lots of bubbly!

As I've said befor the Al Qasr has the best setting in Dubai, the views are gorgeous, and despite the cold snap we've had (temp around 24 degrees c in the day) it was warm and for a Tassie girl, very summery feeling!

Up to the bar after for the must have Burj shot. Note to self... Take Burj shot BEFORE brunch next time.. Hehe.

So we missed our family and all our friends who were travelling and those back home, but we had a lovely day anyway and added some more happy memories!

The other weekend

Mel invited us all out to watch the polo, something I certainly hadn't done before.

The weather in Dubai is perfect at the moment, 30 during the day and a cool 15-20 overnight.

So the thought of sitting in the late afternoon with a glass of chilled wine, having a chat and watching the sun set was quite appealing.

The polo, what I saw of it, was interesting as well!

Julia is saying 'I love the polo dahrling! Why just look at those legs!'

And Mel is wondering how far this trusty horse will take her. Not very far is my bet!

Desert Safari

I've not posted so much from Jen's visit but I thought it was worth going back in time to put these on. We headed off on Desert Safari like any good tourist should.

Your driver comes and picks up from your house in the afternoon and we headed off to the red sands of the Dubai desert.

I've done a safari before but I must say this one was better, we had a great driver who was dtermined to hit the biggest dunes at the highest speed, much squealing was happening!

We atopped at a camel farm where there were hundreds of camels, lots of baby ones aswell! This camel was particularly friendly ad quite happy to have his photo taken.

When you get to camp they have shwarma and other arabic food, you can smoke shisha, we rode a camel and had henna on our ankles. It's a great way to tick a lot of your Arabian tick boxes! I had a go at belly dancing and we tried on the abaya etc.... It's very, very hot under there!

This is me signing off for a bit, Zadok and I fly for Australia early on Sunday morning. We should be back in Tasmania on Wednesday.

Mamzar in a different light

Of course I dragged our visitors off to my fave spot, Mamzar Beach Park. I wouldn't bore you with more photos of this lovely location but when we got there we witnessed what we figured was the filming of an ad for some sort of soft drink.

There were lots of skinny girls prancing round in their bikinis (that is not one of them in the foreground....)

None of the buildings in the background are usually there, just clean white beach... The huts were just all part of the set. In the right photo you can see what must have been the star striding down the beach under the cover of an umbrella. We are watching out for the ad to come on TV!

At the end of the afternon even beach-despises Zadok and Lesa had to admit they had had a very pleasant afternoon... I knew I'd bring them around!

More Visitors

Zadok's parents Jack and Lesa made the long trek from Tasmania to Dubai to visit us in the first few weeks of April, got a few nice pics so I'll blog them.

Typical first day photo!!! April weather in Dubai is beautiful, the week before we had a storm but this week was perfect holiday weather... Maybe a little hot!

This photo is taken on the new side of Dubai Marina. The Marina is a major development area of Dubai (I say this but the whole of Dubai is currently under construction).

A few years ago there was absolutely nothing here, now there are about 200 high rise buildings completed, under construction or about to come out of the ground.

Jumeirah Beach Residence runs along the waterfront, it is the largest development of it's kind in the world with 36 buildings, nearly all of which are residential.

I've not posted about Karama before, it's a souq (market) that sells 'Real fake Rolex' and pashminas and rip off t-shirts.... Anything dodgy really. Karama is mostly famous for it's handbags, when you wwalk through the central passage the guys from the shops all yell at you to try and get you interested, we all got a few good bargains, it's quite the experience!

And of course we sent them into Ski Dubai to experience snow in the desert, throw snowballs at each other and have a o on the taboggon... They didn't last long!

Got lots more... Might put them on we will see. I am back at school for term 3. 9 weeks til summer, 3 reports written!

HOLIDAY!

So we have all survived another term arriving in the 'Spring' holidays with just a few bruises and squashed toes. The last day of term is always a half day for us, we finish at 12.30 pm (I do get to school early, 6 hours is not really a half day if you ask me!) The year 2 team headed off to Cactus Cantina for lunch and drinks. In true Dubai tradition all the drinks were free for women for 5 hours, I never can quite understand how they can do that!

This is Sara who works in Year 2 (she doesn't always have a 'come hither' look) and my Lovely new TA Sheila, she is making my life a lot easier! She is very organised and really loves kids.

After we'd been at Cactus Cantina (the food was good by the way, it's an inerestin spot, in Rydges Plaza on the Satwa round about. Worth popping in and they have lots of promotions) we went downstairs to Aussie Legends, which I have to say is just like a dodgy Australian bar.

The only reason I mention it is they were also serving free drinks. I think they were just trying to use uo this awful blue dye someone must have over ordered!

So that was the end of term celebration! Yesterday Zadok and I headed out to have a sticky beak at the Jumeirah Palm, the manmade island jutting out from Dubai's coastline. The JP is the smallest and most developed of 3 palms, Jebel Ali and Deira being the other 2. The Deira Palm, when completed, will be home to 1,000,000 people would you believe, twice the population of Tassie! Anyway we found you can drive out onto the JP now, just the trunk part. The outer fronds are still havin work done on them. There are people living all up the trunk already!

I am sure the apartments on the outside are very pleasant with their sea views. On models we have seen the trunk of the palm looks narrow, but there are 6 lanes on this road and as you can see 2 rows of apartment blocks. All built on artificial island, crazy stuff!

Dubai in Numbers

I 'borrowed' a copy of Gulf News 'A Day in the Life of Dubai' from the staff room last week, and as well as some marvellous pics it has fascinating figures realating to Dubai. Here are some!

• 1,241,000 People live in Dubai (officially... many more are here on visit visas)
• 500 buildings are under construction.
• 6,500 taxis operate on Dubai's Roads (beats me where they are all hiding!!!)
• About 1 million cars use Dubai's Roads daily!
• 9000 vehicles cross Garhoud Bridge per hour at peak times (it doesn't feel like it if you are one of them trying to make your way accross).
• 190,000 driving licences were issued in 2006.
• 1,433,989 traffic offences were reported in 2006!
• 22,279 children attended kindergarten in private schools, compared to 30,062 children in total in Dubai's public schools.
• 30,000 travel or work visas are issued daily.
• Dubai International airport handled 28,788,726 passengers in 2006... The airport is currently being expanded, and a new airport being built.
• 470,000 people visited Dubai Museum in 2006 (including Mum, Dad and I!). The building is over 200 years old.... I am sure they have done some renovations!