Ski Dubai!

I love Skiing!!!! (well sliding down a gentle slope without poles). On saturday night I had a one hour group ski discovery lesson at ski Dubai (booked by a couple of colleagues snowboarding on the next slope). It was brilliant. I was the 2nd person allowed to take the moving runway up the slope (because we had learnt how to stop rather than crash) and at the end of the lesson the instructor (a stern Tunisan who shouted a lot) said I was the best one in the lesson. I don't know if this said much though considering taht one of the group (there were 8 of us) consistantly tried to walk directly up the slope however many times he was told to go up with skis parallel. Anyway the fact that the instructor clapped and shouted perfect while my colleagues were watching was nice. :-) Now I would like to have a proper lesson at the beginners school. 

The view from my sunlonger up to the hotel

The only downside coming here rather than the park is that when swiiming in the sea your view is of a construction site (outside of this picture) whereas at the park you can't see any buildings except a really good view of the Burj. 

Last Saturday

From 10 am to 2pm I was at the Oasis Baech Hotel (shuttle bus from my hotel). It cost 160 DHS as opposed to 5 DHS at Jumierah Beach Park but I wanted to check it out to see if it was a place that would be good to take Sat to. (Friday was supposed to be a recce day as well but it didn't work out so well). Not suprisingly Oasis Beach was really nice. This is the view from my sunluanger down to the beach. It is much cooler in the garden as you don't get the reflection from the sand and yet you still have access to the sea. I think this will be good when Sat is out as it is getting hotter. 2pm was rather early to leave I thought as I didn't even have a chance to use their pool with the swim up bar! 

Last Friday

Had quite an enjoyable day with a few mis-timings. I took the hotel shuttle bus to Jumierah Beach Park again and had a very relaxing morning/early afternoon. Instead of rushing off into town when I got back to the hotel I decided to go to the gym and had a very good workout. I also decided to go into town later as the last time I was there on a Friday the Souks didn't open until late afternoon/early evening. After gym/shower etc I took a taxi to Lime Street Cafe on beach road as it sounded really nice in my liitle guide book. Unfortunately the traffic was awful and it took me over an hour to get there. When I arrived they told me that it was take away only as they were closing in 5 minutes! How dissapointing! The fresh fruit smoothies and big slabs of quiche and carrot cake looked amazing. But I had to forgo these and bought a bottle of water and 2 chickens kebabs as they were the easiest to transport. So, with the water tucked into my handbag and the box with kebabs under my arm I sdtarted walking along he beach road in the direction of downtown looking for a taxi. None passed ever. I also realised that even if they did there was no place to pull over and the traffic was quite intense and going really quite fast. It is a main road with with I think 3 lanes of traffic. I then reached the end of the pavement or rather I got as far as the pavement had been built and reached the paving building works. Using my little map I walked into the back streets to find the other main street that crosses through beach road. All the while I am gettimg hungrier and hungrier but with no place to sit and eat. When I finally reached this other main road (via surburbia) I almost considered sitting on the roundbout as at least that bhad some grass. Finally I found a bench on shopping street in another residential area and sat and ate my cold kebabs and drank my warm water while feeling quite hot and bothered. 10 minutes later I found a taxi but that had been after an hour of walking!! and it had got dark. He took me to Dubai Museum as this what I had planned to do after the cafe. I'm sooo glad I got the taxi as there was no way I could have walked so far. Dubai Museum was really interesting - showing the life of Emirates over the last few hundred days up to the modern day. No photos I'm afraid but maybe I'll take some when I go with Sat. As I was so behind on my scheduke though it meant I had missed the opening times of the Heritage House, Almidya Schhol and Majlis (meeting room). I took an abra over the creek, which looked great at night, and wondered round the gold souk and got annoyed with the traders at Deira old souk who were practically throwing pashminas at me. Bargaining in a souk is something I usually enjoy but today I was just not in the mood. Instead of eating at a cafe my the creek I decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel where I had a mezze at the rooftop bar with 2 cosmopolitans (the 2nd one being very strong).

On a whim last night I decided to get my haircut at the hotel hairdressers and this is the result. 

Creekside Park

 

View of creek and park from cable car

 

View of the creek from a cable car at Creekside Park

I spent the afternoon at the Creekside Park which seemed very popular with Indians. It was full of families playing ball games, having picnics ot BBQs with their folding chairs, rugs (and shishas if an arab family). I was really envious. The warmth of the air and the smell of charcoal from the BBQs took me back to our family holidays camping in France. Now they were fantastic holidays - I have such wonderful memories of them. I'm also so glad I come from a family that may decide to have lunch at 3.30pm of pernod poured over fruit salad because that's what we fancy and not from a family like one we had once next door who would promptly have tea at 5pm - often of beans on toast bought from home. 

Jumeirah Beach Park

 

Jumeirah Beach

 

What I Did Last Friday...

At last I made it to the beach!!! My hotel had a shuttle bus to Jumeirah Beach Park and I managed to get a nice shady spot under a palm tree. I caught up on some zzzzzzzzz, read my book, had an icecream and swam in beautiful pale blue/clear WARM sea. Sorry its taken a week to get these pics up - I've just been busy at work so tired in the evening (plus lost of Skype with Sat!!!). I'm not sure how well I could have done this without Skype. 

Halva!!

(For you Mick) 

Nuts!

 

Pyramid Roof of Wafi City

Looking up. 

The Next Day

Just a quick catch up blog re the day after the Big Bus Tour (now over a week ago). I should really have gone into work but I was soooooooo tired. Slept til 10 am. Then went to Wafi City Mall. My Big Bus ticket was actually valid for 24 hours, so I had planned to do the 2 stops I had missed out before,\taking the bus from Wafi. Explored Wafi - a mall with an Egyptian theme. Including pyramid rooftops. Shops were lebanese sytle - too gaudy for me. But the deli was fab. I didn't end up taking the bus again as a colleague called me up to go to lunch. Went to a funky restaurtant and had butter chicken. Really nice, but not as good as Dalbir's. Spent the afternoon watching Eternal Sunlight of the Spotless Mind in my hotel room.

View of the creek during supper

 

Supper near the Heritage Village

Arabic mezze followed by arabic coffee and a shisha (mixed fruit). Clockwise James, Max, Tina and me. 

Me on an abra

 

The Blue Mosque

Can you patch these three together Sat? 

 

 

A Wind Tower

An early form of air conditioning, this tower to trap the wind and the cold air would drop down. Laundry was hung on the poles so that the wind blowing through wet clothes would further cool. 

The Creek

 

An abra station

 

Entrance to the Textile Souk

This picture was taken opposite a Gurudwara so a few shops were open. The textile souk proper was still closed down when we got to it. On Fridays it would open at either 3 or 4pm. 

View of the Burj from Souk Madinat By Day

But of course you know it is by day.... 

The Big Bus Tour

What a fantastic day!

I got up rather later than I had anticipated, having got home about 1.30am last night. I had breakfast at about 9.45am, sitting near the most spolit child I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. I left soon after he started screaming "I want cake" (which his parents then got him). Thankfully that was the worst of the day.

I got to Souk Madinat a bit past 11am and wondered around there before catching the Big Bus Tour just before midday. The Big Bus Tour is a double decker London bus that travels around a couple of routes round Dubai and you can get on and off as you like on the various stops. I took the beach tour first as, being a Friday, many things in the city tour would be closed. It was slightly odd as it was just travelling down the main beach road with the beachside hotels being pointed out on the right and the hotels being constructed on the left. The beach looked fantastic though and I'm really looking forward to spending a day there.

On the bus I sat next to an Australian woman, Tina, who was spending a couple of nights in Dubai on the way to Syria on a goodwill mission. She managed to get on it as the Australian ambassador is a friend of a friend...... her friend is an anthropologist who spent a year living with the Bedoin. Anyway I got chatting to her so we ddi the tour together, getting off at the same places and having lunch together. We spent longer over lunch then we had envisaged so we ended up missing the Dubai Museum as we wanted to get onto the last walking tour though the Souks.

We walked through Dubai old souk via the Blue Mosque - Shi'ite is I remember correctly. Iranian anyway.

Took the abra across the creek to the spice souk where I bought a big bag of Frankincense and Myrrh. I hardly bartered at all but but got them for less than half price.........probably still overpaid though. It will keep the incense bowl that Chris and Anna got us from Dubai stocked up for a good while.

Bought nothing at the Gold Souk but I guess Sat's uncle and aunt bought my wedding jewellery in one of the Indian shops here.

Instead of catching the bus to the last stops Tina and I wanted to go back to stop 6 which was missed out on the walking tour. This was Sheikh Saaed Al Maktoum's house (founder of Modern Dubai). Two other blokes, James an Australian on the way back home having worked for Amec on an oil rig for a year and a half and Max a German on holiday from Bristol University, wanted to do the same so the four of us hooked up together. It was interesting in as much as it is quite a modest house for a ruler. I had seen a coupleof modern palaces earlier in the tour and they are of course huge. The house though I suppose would still seem quite magnificent compared to the barasti houses, made of palm fronds and palm tree trunks that many others lived in.

The four of us the looked round the Heritage Village (a mock olden time village for tourists) and then settled down for a Lebanese Mezze, Arabic coffee and shisha.......

Thursday Night At Jambase

My weekend started at my hotel bar with a few colleagues. The had already decided to go here after work and asked me if I wanted to come. I pointed out that in that I lived there it would be very easy for me. It was a good night and really good to get to know some of my colleagues outside of work. It ended up with 5 of us there until about 11pm then one colleague insisted that he take me to a Jazz club in order just to see some of the Dubai nightlife. It turned out to be a place called Jambase at the Madinat where I had gone last Sunday. The band was really good so all in all I had a really good night.

Blogging

People - semi ignore the dates listed on the blogs, these are the dates I blog not the dates I blog about. (In case you hadn't realised).

And again....