Happy New Year!

Happy New Year kids! Hope you all had a lovely time celebrating, whatever you did. What did I do, I hear you cry? WELL it was all go, let me tell you. The barby was lit in the garden, food was roasted, champagne flowed, and then at 11.50 we walked out of the villa and watched the fireworks from the Burj Khalifa amongst all of our Satwa neighbours. It was so joyful, and I’m not ashamed to admit I felt a little emotional about the whole thing. But that could have just been the bubbles.

So what news of resolutions? I’ve never been crazy about these. I’m on a constant quest for self-improvement, goal setting, list making (the best book ever for this is here) so I’ve rarely felt the need to write a list just because it’s January 1^st. I’m usually half way through two or three others!

That said, I will share a few of my thoughts with you here:

• Continue to take huge joy in the simple things in life.
• Get down to the running track on Jumeirah beach as often as physically possible (as per the previous point, it’s free, beautiful and oh-so good for the soul)
• Embrace change (I already have some huge and exciting changes planned for 2013, you’ll have to wait and see what they are!)
• Eat more egg sandwiches in the park.

That’s about it. I lead a life filled with many blessings. Here’s to many more adventures in 2013.

Pounding the Pavements

I’ve always been relatively active. Back in the UK I walked everywhere and hit the gym regularly – well it was only 500 yards from my city centre pad.  Fast-forward to Dubai and 12 hour days do rather eat into one’s exercise plan.  But given that one is in a bikini for 50 weeks of the year, it’s a constant and very necessary battle to stay fit and trim.

The solution?  Let me introduce an old Manchester staple: Monday night running club!  Yes, way back when I was thin as a whippet and had more time on my hands, E and I used to meet up every Monday and run around Chorlton Water Park.  Happy days!  It worked for a number of reasons: Mondays are not a staple of the social calendar so you’re unlikely to be tempted by offers of new bar openings or events, it was a regular date and it allowed for gossip and catch ups during the exercise.  Anything which tricks my brain into thinking I am not exercising is most, most welcome.

As Sunday is the Dubai Monday, we’ve decided to introduce this here. Let’s be clear, I’ve only been out twice so far.  But this is how good habits start, no?  Let’s also be clear: as long as the humidity is hovering around the 80% plus mark and the nightly temperatures remain at 39 degrees plus, we’re never going to be winning any prizes for speed or distance.  Quite the opposite. 

We’ve got a regular rhythm going: Let’s run until the traffic lights.  Or the roundabout. Or the ice-cream shop.  Or until we want to pass out (with the current weather conditions, this doesn’t take long.) 

I’m not going to lie, I’m not a natural runner.  My heart doesn’t sing as I pound the (marble) pavements.  But what I do enjoy is running past the beautiful buildings, sparkly palm trees and of course, the world’s tallest building.  And despite the oppressive heat, I’d take that over the cold wet driving Manchester rain.  And we ARE approaching winter.   I’m determined to go at least once a week.  Watch this space.

Jaw Dropping Burj Khalifa

It's big and beautiful!

I may have mentioned a few times just how close I live to the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.  It’s the first thing I see when I pop out of my front door in the morning and I can see it from my office window.  It’s an omnipresent feature of my life.  And I may also mentioned how much I adore it: the design, the scale, and OH the twinkly sparkliness of it each night!

I try never to take it for granted and this morning I had a little reminder of why I never should.  The metro station is just next to the office, and as I made my way into work I passed the usual crowd of people making their way from the station to work.  And this morning, a little unusually, there were a few tourists (they’re not usually up and about so early.  Come 7 pm when I’m leaving work, they’re everywhere).  

I watched as one of them walked out, stopped and looked up.  And up.  And up.  And then erupted into a roar of laughter and a giant smile.  It has that effect on people, the Burj Khalifa.  It’s jaw-droppingly, mind-bogglingly huge.  Already looking forward to seeing its effect on the next set of visitors… 

Freakshow?

Look further than the end of your own nose, hey?

In an unusual move, I found myself watching the Champions League final earlier this week.  Quite aside from being a really entertaining game (don't mention the result, ok!) it reminded me so much of happy times in Manchester, when I was a regular at Old Trafford, and could tell you all sorts of facts and figures about the team and the game.  Well, it was my job to know these things way back when.  Fast forward ten years and I've no clue who half the players are (is it a sign of age to think they all seem oh so very young?) and struggle to identify which way the teams are scoring when they first hit the pitch. Hey ho.

We watched it in our local sports bar, and being in the distinct minority as females, became the object of much male attention.  In the main it was harmless chit-chat about the game. One conversation stood out above all others.  After some aforementioned harmless chit-chat, the man to my left dropped his gem: "The thing about Dubai is it's just a complete freak show, isn't it?  The buildings, the hotels, everything."

Years of media training and PR mean that I'm quite good at composing myself in situations like this.  I remained completely calm.  But my face froze.  My eyes glazed over.  My left eyebrow raised.  My temperature rose. 

I mentioned words and places like Satwa, the creek, Bastikya, the parks.  His reaction was like a pig staring at a wristwatch.  Blank.  Nothing registering.  After tossing this verbal hand-grenade he revealed that he was in Dubai on a two-day business trip.  Still  no excuse, especially as this wasn't his first time in the city.

I cast my mind over my weekend: exploring remote ruined villages in the desert, reclining on a sunlounger reading books, watching the boy wakeboard past on an azure lagoon, passing my friends relaxing at the pool, hearing the call to prayer from my balcony, watching the twinkling lights of the low rise villas in Jumeirah as the sun set into the Arabian Gulf.  Nothing freaky about any of it.

The verbal hand-grenade could tell something wasn't right.  "I've really offended you, haven't I?" he asked.  In the spirit of not flying off the handle, I smiled sweetly, said: "Of course not, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, whatever limited experience it is based on" and simply turned my back on him.

Freakshow? Dubai? Get a grip.  If you never leave your 5 star hotel to explore the city, you only have yourself to blame.  This commentator wrote one of my favorite pieces so far regarding 'Dubai Bashing."  I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

House Hunting

My beautiful pool. Be a dear and pass Grazia!

Ok, I'll admit it, I'm nosy (no shocked reactions?) so this week I've really enjoyed myself: I've been apartment hunting.  Not or me, which almost makes it more enjoyable, a bit like clothes shopping for someone else.

I think I have a pretty good grip on the various developments in Dubai; after living here for three years I've either viewed most of them as a potential resident or visited them through friends or randoms (the bathroom tiles at JLT with scenes of flying ducks were particularly offensive one confused hazy morning).  That doesn't stop me from loving a good root around other apartments though.

Things to consider when house-hunting in Dubai:

How many cheques? This won't make sense in any other country in the world, but here it's crucial. When I moved here 3 years ago, landlords demanded all your rent, up front. In one cheque. Crazy I know.  This meant that way back when, it was standard to hand over 25, 000 quid.  No wonder it took me a while to become a fan of this city!  Hello recession and this has changed, and thankfully, landlords are more reasonable. 4 and sometimes six cheques are the norm now. Not only does this mean you don't have to have such deep pockets, but it also means that you have some flexibility if you want to move.

What's the view like? Again, seems obvious, but it's building site central here and unless you live in a fully completed community, it's standard for an apartment to look onto a bottomless crater or neck-craning scaffolding. 

What's the finish like? I hate to sound like a princess, but we are spoilt here. Once you've had a brand new beautiful kitchen, and spotless gleaming bathroom, a shoddy tiling job or cheap doors just won't cut the mustard.  And don't even try to

How big is the pool and which way does it face?  After a 60 hour working week, sometimes a girl just doesn't have time to drag her sorry ass to the beach, so the pool/sun ratio becomes very important.  Likewise the number of sun loungers. Who wants to fight for a space when already wrestling with armfuls of celebrity gossip magazines and trying to maintain one's composure in a bacofoil bikini?

How close is the nearest mosque? I LOVE living in the Middle East and the call to prayer is one of my favourite ways of remembering where I am.  The sound of it wafting up to my balcony fills my heart with deep joy.  However, living right next door to one could be a problem - the first prayer is v early.  Luckily with ear plugs and modern windows, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The search continues.....

Art, Right on my Doorstep

I've mentioned before just how much I love living in Downtown, so I won't bore you with some of the reasons why, again.  Today I was reminded why, again.  When I first moved in three years ago there were huge piles of what looked like rubble lying at the sides of the roads.  They weren't rubble, they were scultures, lying in disjointed pieces.  Slowly but surely they started being pieced together and placed along the beautiful Boulevard.

A couple of days ago we spotted something new, covered in tarpaulin.  We mused as to what it might be, and had almost decided on a camel (it had what looked like two humps, ok!).  This morning on my stroll to work there were red velvet ropes cordoning off the area in front of them- a very Dubai thing to do - you're hardly likely to need to hold back a crown of thousands in this situation - so we knew thats something was happening, and soon.

Luckily for my nosy parker tendencies we could see the event unfolding from my office window, and J happily provided the office with regular updates. "People are arriving! People are taking photos! People are taking off the tarpaulin!"  It was hard to tell exactly what the sculptures were from a distace, but a quick look on the internet revealed them to be:

'Together' by Syrian artist Lutfi Romhein features two sculptures – that of an Arab man and an Arab woman, chiselled to perfection. Clad in a flowing white dish-dasha, the male figure has been sculpted in Carrara marble from Italy, while the kandoora-clad female sculpture is made of black granite from Sweden. 

They're absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to have a proper gander at them on the way home from work.  Who says Dubai is a soul-less cultural desert?!