Jeanie in Dubai

Corin passed his driving test!!!! We have a UAE licence between the 2 of us now!!

2009-02-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

YAY!!!!!

We have a UAE licence now!! One of us can drive around! We can get a car! Liberation! Life will improve!!!!

:-)

I've been back for almost a week now - rather sobering - but this is the best piece of news yet! And just in time! Cos Summer's coming and it's getting hawwwt!!

Meowza!

I am the luckiest girl in the world right now

2008-12-24T22:02:00.000-08:00

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world on this christmas day, 2008.

I've been really busy the past 2 weeks at work, putting in OT and all. Christmas was creeping up on us all then, but i didn't notice anything. When the thought flitted past my mind I always thought, 'well, i'll go try scout around and rustle something up for corin as his christmas present when i'm not so busy'.

Christmas 2008 descended upon us all now and up till christmas eve i was still dashing about like a mad person [as mad as you can get in dubai anyway]. Corin seemed to be keeping the same late kind of hours as I am, as I pick up him from work as I head home in a cab, quite often. The joke between the two of us became - 'christmas present? what present?'

So I thought we weren't exchanging gifts and I prepared nothing. I didn't have time to prepare anything anyway.

And this morning after we woke up and i was dressing for work, he went out of the room, and then swept back in with a BIG bag. and a longish box.

There was a lovely toy kitty called 'Mittens!' !!!

There was a book that was the sequel to the book on Queen Nefertiti of Egypt that we both read and we loved.

There was a bunch of girlie-movie DVDs that i was always whining about wanting to watch and he not letting me watch them - Sex and the City The Movie etc, even The House Bunny!! And House MD Season Four!

There was an assortment of beautiful scented candles, some floating candles....

And he bought me a very expensive steel easel, for my oil painting.

Each and every one of his presents are things that I really wanted but never got round to getting for myself. He has been so thoughtful in this whole venture. And apparently he sneaked out during lunch over a few days to go to all over dubai to amass these presents. and he hid them in the office and then brought them back home without me knowing and hide them in our spare toilet.

I am so touched.

And I got him nothing.

I feel so lucky.

I hope everyone else's Christmas is as magical as mine this year.

Merry Christmas to you all!

I'm going off to panick now and try to rustle something up.

We went to Egypt and windsurfed.....

2008-12-20T11:46:00.000-08:00

It was the happiest week we've had since we've left singapore - windsurfing every day for a straight week. We went to Marsa Alam in Egypt, along the coast, to a hotel called Shams Alam, and went half board, meaning breakfast and dinner buffets were provided everyday. The hotel had a Club Mistral on its grounds, a windsurfing club where you can rent boards and sails and have courses and stuff - the great thing is that although you only rent one board, if it doesn't fit properly or if the wind conditions change you can switch boards if there are any available. The equipment was in spanking good condition mostly and the winds were lovely - on one of the days there was completely no wind so it was a total bummer - but we had 3 full days of 15-20 knot winds! I wasted one day being a wussy hiding out on the beach cos i thought it was too strong winds for me to go out and play - but by the 2nd superwindy day i couldn't stand it and i asked the Club Mistral instructor to give me a quick course on the harness - plus everyone else there was giving me tips on how to do my beach start - i did it!! and i can hook in and out of my harness now - except i keep unhoooking soon afterwards - or i fall backwards into the water with my sail on me - think probably cos my sail was too small - cos of the strong winds i was using a Mistral Screamer 133 with a 3 metre babysail - so embarrassing, but such very good fun!!!Almost fell on coral a couple of times which freaks me out - and also almost floated off to Sudan! but otherwise it was a total blast. Corin really enjoyed himself as well - there was absolutely nothing else other than windsurfing to do, and watching tv n stuffing your face at the buffet and sitting in your room aching all over - but we are SO going to do this again!

And oh, as for the rest of Egypt - saw a little bit of the old temples and stuff when we drove around Luxor at night the night before flying back to Dubai - looks quite lovely - but one thing, egyptians are really annoying little buggers - touting and touting and naggin you and flying towards you like flies to garbage. tsk. Was quite glad we elected to hide out at Marsa Alam for the entire duration of the trip.

But now, sigh, its just back to reality.

Egyptian Pounds.

They were selling "100% real papyrus" at the hotel lobby of Luxor......

Lobby! Luxor hotel - i think it was one of the Mercure chain hotels - quite funny, straight out of a 80's movie set.

Egyptian countryside - woman walking towards bus. I was very surprised at how poor Egypt seems to be. Driving around Egypt, it reminds one of rural Malaysia.

The Egyptian local bus - they really pile it on in there - whoever who can grab a hold of something will hop on....

The said bus.

Locals hanging around on street corners at night with nothing much to do...

ditto.

Corin lugging his gigantic sail back up to shore

Sunset by our usual beach spot

We get one of these huts and deckchairs everyday, in the vicinity of the Club Mistral, and then just surf and suntan/relax repeatedly throughout the day.

The red rescue boat that brought me back off the path to Sudan a coupla times.

Me and my sweetie cosying up while drying off from windsurfing.

Me on my way to a beach start! This was a successful one!

beachstarting...

This was on one of the slow days when we weren't really surfing n had time to goof around taking pictures... .

neutral position - the sail is heavy ok.

Overview of the beach n coast.

Oh this is funny - the hotel staff are quite sweet - after they got to know us a little they keep folding our towels into something cheesy funny when they make up our room - this is one of the swans.

Club Mistral Marsa Alam proudly flying its flags!

Club Mistral close up

Driving to Marsa Alam..

Egypt is really Africa - desert landscape, similar to our Oman trip.

Egypt sidestreet.

Aside from the above we really didn't take any other photos much. Nothing very interesting cos we didn't visit the ruins i guess.

Merry Christmas everyone! Have a good one! Yuletide cheers!

Sorry for the long absence - been up to too much lately....

2008-12-04T10:19:00.001-08:00

We have been up to too much lately - and i've just had no energy left to sit around at home and then sit down at the computer to attend to matters such as updatin my blog =p - apologies! Shangli started complaining - so tonight, as i sit before my computer slightly sozzled and totally hungry and waiting for corin to dish up some grub for dinner, i upload some pictures for the edification of you all - my dear friends, who are very much missed! [Although i still can't bring myself to constantly do this blog thing. The power of love... haha]

The below is what i've been up to - pictures in reverse order, so just imagine going back in time. Tada!

I went to Abu Dhabi [90 minutes drive away] for the George Michael concert! Corin loved it! I went wild when he did "Careless Whisper" in his encore - so retro!! It was really kinda cool, but the above is actually a picture of his opening act - which was Alecia Keyes. Honestly, sad to say - i was not blown away by her act. George was much better! Despite him being caught soliciting for sex in a public toilet, my verdict is: George rocks!

This was towards the end of the Dubai Rugby 7s [yes we went to the Dubai Rugby 7s -apparently the best attended rugby 7s ever] - we were waiting for the exciting final game beween England and South Africa.

Rugby in action! Very exciting to see it live - some very good play ongoing [not that i know that much, but i shall just wibble my way through this]

Utterly sozzled English fans cheering the team on - they're all about the place when they're in their cups.

Watching in excitement.

The pitch!

Rugby chicks in costume! For some strange reason, these bee-shicksas were supporting NZ All Blacks with their costume.

uh, pitch again. oops. didn't realize there were so many repetitive pictures. I must be more gone than i thought.

Agh! Afro Gang!

Jason, Corin's colleague at Al Tamimi, coming along for the 7s. Good chap.

Ooh - the night me and my new-found singaporean friends dropped by an institutional Iranian Sweet Shop. That's what Singaporeans do, even when overseas - drive around looking for food.

They were selling this in the Sweet Shop - no, i didn't buy any.

Sumei and Junwei - Junwei is a lawyer with DLA Piper in Dubai. Apparently there's another girl lawyer my batch coming to Dubai to work as inhouse for Macquarie as well [courtesy of Shangli and Janet's twittering]

Ooooooh we watched KYLIE MINOGUE in concert! I think she's the coolest! Totally hot.

Kylie in her police womanish costume

Yodeling away

40! And smashing in a pink cheerleader's costume!! I just realized that all my captions have a "!" trailing the end - very unglam, like excited 14 year old teenager.

Apparently 14 000 people turned up for Ms Minogue's concert.

Me and my babypie darling =)

Prior to the concert.....

The concert venue....

And that's it for the Jeanie Beanie Show & Tell today - Tune in next week for our next episode! Lala!

Oh yeah i'm going to Egypt for windsurfing - 5 dec to 12 dec - update you all soonest!

The Real Dubai

2008-11-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

My friend Preeti saw the earlier posts on the blog and asked for a real depiction of dubai - as opposed to nice pretty pictures of hotels. Well, actually, dubai is still pretty much an on-going construction site, really - life here essentially revolves around going to hotels to eat & drink and while an evening away, shopping for groceries and fashion takes place in mega-sized shopping malls which defy all imagination in terms of size and variety on display and audacity of price-tags [!!] - everything's one mile apart at least from everything else cos this is the bloody desert - and the lesser mortals of dubai congregate alongside the creek - which is old dubai - where things first happened, before some rich sheik came along and developed places like the DIFC, where corin works and is basically the buildings you guys saw on my first blog post. With the DIFC development, economic happenings shifted away from the creekside and spread across the areas near to the DIFC and towards Dubai Marina and an area even further up called Jebel Ali.

I'm better with the picture-storytelling than with words [plus its a lot less tiring for the blogger - me - and a lot less longwinded]. So this blog is essentially going to be more show than tell. Well, more efficient, i say. I must also say that i quite like my pictures - they may not be the most technically accomplished. But they do capture interesting moments, i think.

Here goes.

Me n Corin in a cab - very hard to pin him down for a picture - he's always resisting.

Ooh - this is an interesting one - this is a picture of us in the cab - we were headed to Sharjah, another neighbouring emirate - to scour for windsurfing clubs to windsurf at - and a sandstorm happened. The picture, due to my excellent camera, looks a lot clearer than what really appeared to us travelling through the sandstorm - but essentially there's sand whirling around in the air everywhere, compromising vision. and lasting for quite a while. And causing the pool at my apartment to be shut down for 3 days for maintenance - apparent there's too much sand in the water.

The gorgeous restaurant we traipsed through at the hotel called, really, the One & Only Royal Mirage.

Dinner scene at one of the hotel pubs

Double Decker Pub - on a usual Friday night out [that's the equivalent of a saturday in Sg for us here in the UAE - weekends are Friday Saturday instead of Saturday Sunday.]

Big Fish surrounded by small little fishes eating their meal off him and cleaning him out at the same time - symbiotic relationship! Science class again! Oh by the way this was one of the gorgoues sights at the aquarium at the DUBAI MALL! Gwen this is it!

The Aquarium at the Dubai Mall - and all the throngs of pple crowding around to see the fish - check out the starry starry sky replication on the ceiling - the Dubai Mall is very impressive - didn't get to do any shopping as we were in a hurry and i was in heels and the bloody Mall is the size of a bloody island - u need a golf cart to get around that place its so tiring to walk about it. too big.

Me and my sweetie at a bar.

The bar.

A typical Lebanese meal of meat from the grill and chips and some mint and tomatoes on the side.

An interesting fat little kitty at the lebanese place!

The said lebanese restaurant at the outdoor area of the mall known as Ibn Battuta Mall. This was on a wednesday night. They all smoke shihshah here non-stop. plenty of interesting flavours.

This is the area near my workplace. Corin works in DIFC whilst my office is situated in the creek area of Old Dubai - its an old institution. This means i'm literally working in the centre of little india.

A typical lunch spot in Bur Dubai [the said old dubai area]

A typical side street

Bus station for the lesser mortals

Indian confectionary

shopfronts!

the ceramic tiling of one of the small mosques in Bur Dubai - i've always liked muslim architecture - very beautiful.

sidestreet.

police station.

funny sign.

typical character in bur dubai.

The usual suspects.

typical street.

view from the backwindow of a cab on my way to work in Bur Dubai.

my bedroom!

corin cooking dinner.

my living room!

local fashion magazine.

fabulous roast beef by corin the chef.

corin buying tickets at the waterpark at Atlantis Hotel - its about S$150 per pax to get in - but boy was it fun! highly recommended if u ever head here.

typically view out of a taxi on our way zooming around dubai.

the spot we have to stand at every morning to try to hail a cab to work

more of the same.

Barasti - pub restaurant thats our regular hangout now. filled with expats.

ditto. this is getting so tiring.

view from my cube at work!

my south african colleague sitting nxt to me!

ok end of story for now. *pant*. Cheerios till next weekend!

2008-11-10T05:42:00.000-08:00

After 2 long months of trudging along badgering everyone concerned, I just got issued my residency permit! I am finally legal in Dubai!

Our anniversary weekend getaway to a desert resort - Jumeirah Bab Al Shams

2008-11-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

Happy moments :-)

Isn't it just so pretty? The infinity pool looks out onto the desert.

2008-11-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

Our anniversary weekend getaway to the lovely desert resort - Jumeirah Bab Al Shams.

2008-11-04T09:55:00.001-08:00

Our sunbed for two by the pool - absolutely perfect.

We went horse-riding - the resort provided us with Arabian horses that are reputedly 'the best' and with great endurance - but they turned out to be cute darling little ponies. Very adorable. This was a surprise for Corin who's been talking about going horse-riding since we started dating but we never got round to it in Singapore. Now after this experience (we got to the 'canter' level with the ponies - very fun) we're thinking of going for equestrian training at the Jebel Ali Golf Resort & Spa - some 20 minutes drive out of Dubai.

Our lovely bedroom for the night - this hotel was supposed to be themed as an Arabian castle of yore.

Yay we finally put up curtains! Victory!

2008-11-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

Sunset at the Hilton Salalah - dandiest hotel ever with this perfect perfect beach.

Playing around with my digicam effects - desert shrubs in Oman

'There's nothing around nothing around!', Corin panicks.

Road to nowhere (but eventually leading to Muscat, I think).

The true Middle East - no water anywhere!

Some more pictures of the Oman trip :-)

2008-11-04T09:09:00.000-08:00

Corin against the lovely horizon

racing camel against the sun.

Driving along the Salalah coast - locals fishing whilst standing on top of fossilized blowholes - or so Corin tells me. To me they were just holes in the ground that made it difficult to trot around. Geography not mah strong point!

Salalah coast

Family of you-know-what.

Appreciation

2008-11-02T22:17:00.000-08:00

Just read all the emails you guys have sent me in response and the comments and all - it's just one big tug on my heartstrings.

It's so good to hear from all of you - all of whom i would dearly love to be able to have tea and a good chat with, right about now. I should have been more appreciative whilst i was still in Singapore. pffft.

I'll go home tonight and upload more pictures. Doing this from work now, illegally. Oops.

2008-11-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

Camels in Salalah - whole slew of them scattered all about the place - you drive along anywhere and there'll be a camel there, chewing grass thoughtfully.

Zen camel - this was my favourite.

Job's tomb - holy site, tourist spot.

Town of Salalah - old-school!

Hotel grub - u get lots of that here cos there just ain't eateries out there easily accessible, not like in SG.

Oman - Salalah

2008-11-01T14:10:00.001-07:00

Muscat Shangrila beach - me, smirking.

Corin checking in - muscat guys in what-i-guess-is-traditional-costume

View from hotel room balcony

Grand mosque in Muscat - very imposing.

Our plane! and the antiquated way of boarding it

Sigh. This Blog site is an awful pain in the ass to set up.

2008-11-01T13:39:00.003-07:00

ok pictures are coming out in the reverse order - this was supposed to be the last picture - picture of the beach in Oman - Shangrila Hotel. It was absolutely lovely.

Corin's fat lil paw reaching out for some more chicken with cashew nuts - this was chinese take-out night - the food boxes all look exactly as they do in American TV dramas!

This is my apartment pool - i love it!

My washroom

Cursory view of the kitchen

Hello, more pictures

2008-11-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Hello. It's been one month in Dubai, it's been frustrating, it's been trying. Good news is, things are finally coming together. We've put up curtains, drilled tons of holes into the apartment and put up shelves, bought a tv, dealt with burst sink pipes, figured out how to work the washing machine and dishwasher, found a nearby supermarket, started to cook [me - cook! Imagine!], settled into a routine at work, bought tons of furniture from IKEA, fixed up some mood lighting for the living room, and even found time to go to a weekend getaway and celebrate our one-year anniversary.

All i need now is a licence and a car to make my life complete. Traffic here sucks ass big time.

I hate to say this - but you come here, and you learn to appreciate the convenience and efficiency of Singapore. It's true.

Now i feel officially old.

Ok 'nuff said. here comes the pictures.

my apartment - empty. But you can see our view from our living room. It's partially overlooking the Dubai Marina - with all the fancy boats and yachts and whatnots.

Corin, taking pictures of the wall cracks so we can send it to the renegade landlord and hope to impact on his conscience - he's run off with our one-year's rent and we havent heard from him since - bastard!

Just so you know that yes, civilization has indeed reached Dubai. There's also Dior, Debenhams, and Harvey Nichols.

Ski Dubai - snow fun all throughout the year, even when it's 50 degrees outside. Quite funny to see.

Roads and roads - its all about them here.

Hello, I've reached, and I'm alive!

2008-10-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been MIA for so long - i have had trouble getting internet access - i have to take a taxi out of my apartment for anything, even insecticide, cos its far away from most civilization - n the apartment doesnt even have curtains yet [eeks! privacy!] much less internet - but now im sitting in a random hotel lobby leeching off their internet.

everyone's english speaking - n polite - n seems very honest n muslim as far as i can tell - and so incredibly rich - makes me nervous to my toes - i called my mom yesterday n spoke to her about it - i feel like a poor young kid in this place full of posh cars, women that look like they walked out of some perfume posters, and extremely fat, rich looking men/stressed but clever looking professionals. I start my new job tomorrow. i hope they don't find me a complete and underaged idiot.

The place is wonderful otherwise though. Obscenely expensive at the moment, but once my bf gets a car n licence n we can start cooking our expenses should come down tremendously. Cab fares are taking an enormous bleed at the moment. Weather wise it's cooling down very fast - surprisingly so. When i arrived it was sweltering at about 40 plus degrees in the day n hot n sticky at night - now the winds are actually bordering on chilly at night and the day sunlight is much more tolerable - almost singapore weather!

And yes, my phone is as per singapore number - at the moment no dubai number yet - but don't hold your breath - everything here seems to take 1000 years to process!

Miss you all, very very much.