Last 10 Months Updates...

This post is to update friends whom I have not met over the past year... (Thanks David for reminding me to constantly update this blog - Will promise to keep going when I get to the UK)

I've got gold fish memory. 3 seconds. Gone. So the following is what I remember of my last 10 months. Using my facebook uploads as a basis... so here's a little more words and a few random pictures. For more pictures, check my FB pictures. If you are not on facebook... then JOIN!

Oh... for those who I have lost touch for a loooong time, I will be leaving Dubai this September (on the 30th) and up to UK... So if anyone is stopping by London, or visiting Cambridge... drop me a note!!

JUL 09
I reckon, it's one of the best month of my working life. 1 whole month of holiday!! Whee... But it never seems long enough. Currently in Melbourne writing this, but I reckon by the time I click on "Publish Post", I'd be back in Singapore... or even back in Dubai

Over the last 3 days, I was down in Tassie with my 2 cousins and housemate. The 3 days felt sooo long. Took another visit to see Dave & Jackie's home and 3 dogs - Brooke, Bella & Piper... Ooo, love it there! (and Dave, if you are reading this, remind Jackie I'm coming back for the book classes!).

Also visited Tim and Lauren at Otago. Home with an extremely nice night view... The picture below is of Mt Wellington from Otago. Twas freezing up at Mt Wellington. Blizzard. But we still made it.
Within the 3 days and with only 9 hours of daylight (sun sets at 4:30pm, complete darkness by 5-ish)... and dinners at 6pm, pubs shutting at 8pm... all we could do was the Freycinet National Park - Wineglass Bay and its surrounds.


Earlier in the month, my cousin Rachel got married.. This world is too small. Her husband's cousin happens to be a classmate from Trinity College in Melbourne... and another cousin is Jeremy's best friend. It was a simple and elaborate wedding. Nice.


Jun 09

One of my worst nightmare months... It was days and nights of stressful packing to get out of the apartment.... and selling the car.

Yes I will be in Dubai till end September, but my lease on the apartment was up, and the landlord wasn't willing to extend it for another 3 months. He said I should renew my lease for a year and break the lease... Hence the early move. As for the toyota... annual registration and insurance was coming up. Did the sums, didn't seem quite right. So I sold it, and renting till I leave.


May 09

May was a quiet month... except for a short 5 day trip to Maldives... and down to one of the island called Maalhos. Went there with a few friends for some English lesson teaching - something which I don't think I'm good at!! Living on the island was quite an adventure... with the cockroaches, crabs, and mosquitoes.

Apr 09
This was another month of long-ish holiday... Was back in Singapore (no not specifically for my bday - though Yujun always seems to think so). Did the usual celebration with the girls - Cheryl & Jun. And also had a surprise (too much of a surprise) from the Melbourne gang. Thanks!

Travelled up to Siem Reap with the family. Short holiday, and another chance for me to play with my new toy - the 10-22mm wide angle lens! Did the whole Angkor Wat thing... Tonle Sap and the surrounds.



Jan - Mar 09
No recollection of what happened. I guess I was stuck in Dubai... doing the routine thing. Work, Eat and Sleep... and the occassional picnic in the park...




Dec 08
Was in Melbourne. Didn't do much except for entertaining some of dad and mum's friends. Oh yes, it was my little brother's graduation (a graduation i missed - just by 2 days... at least we did take some family photos!). Finally... after 3 long years.

I did get some nice shots of Melbourne whilst playing with the 450D. Was experimenting with my new (at that time) camera.

North Bank, Melbourne (Opposite Southbank - duh)

Federation Square, Melbourne

Flinders Street Station

iMiss Marples, Dandenong

Oh, and I couldn't resist uploading this picture. Liming has got a hungry hippo site... so I shall not compete with her. Below: Ibuki @ East Bentleigh. They're opening a legal one along Lonsdale St. So this illegal join will shut for a while.

Nov 08
Hiaks, could not remember much... except that I went to New York and Boston. Caught up with Joy, EeMing and her friend in New York... and the three of us trotted together on Jet Blue to Boston. Man, there were airport dramas. We nearly missed our Super Shuttle bus to JFK. Why? All because we were busily admiring Grand Central Station... What fun. Literally had to run after the van to stop it from leaving. Like olympic sprint... RUN! (Actually, it's probably one of the first time I see Joy running).

New York - Love it each time i go there. Can't remember how many times... but it's never enough.

From Empire State - Twas freezing....


Times Sq

Central Park

Boston - Oooo I love this city. It's like the Melbourne of Australia. No offense to New York.

Joy and her "hate Yale" T-Shite

Seriously, there is a starbucks at every corner - AND... it's not even good coffee

In Boston, Joy and I went to some super atas (meaning really high-class, up market - you get the gist) high tea. Pay peanuts, get monkeys... so we decided to fish out our Macadamia nuts, so this was what we got... Not bad... not my cup of tea.




Earlier in the month, we had our season opening of desert camping.... This is what I will miss when I leave Dubai.

The starry starry camping night


The night when we play "Star Wars" with the torch

The Sunrise over the Dunes

And.... the Camels

The Day Janice Painted...

Today was fun... We had KJ and Jaslyn helping out with the gardening at home....
I did my bit too... We ran out to Bunnings, bought some wooden planks and some paint - pretty paint - purple and pink.

Oh yes I did paint the rocks in the garden....

The Veggie Patch. We tried to grow snow peas, cherry tomato, garlic, spring onions, corriander, and an attempt was made with pumpkins too... all in out little veggie patch.

Oh... this wa sanother sign I made... It is really hard work sawing the wooden planks... (especially the arrow bits)...

Sanity Rejuvenation

Sanity Rejuvenation..... Being back to civilisation... where people don't do the "give-me-5-mins" sign on the road, where people queue (though you still see the odd sheep), where tail gating is not a national hobby, where it is possible to walk more than 200m, where sand storm only occurs on that little sandy patch around the trees on swanston street....

Janice is in Melbourne now and loving EVERY single bit of it...

Food, freezing weather, family and friends!

Ramboll Knowledge Experience - Denmark

Was up in Denmark last weekend for the Ramboll Knowledge Experience. It was one of the longest and best weekend of my life.

It was a long long flight via Zurich on Swiss Air to Copenhagen. All well worth it though!
We roamed around Copenhagen city. Did the city bus tour and all the touristic stuff.

Saturday was spent @ Gisselfeld Castle for the Ramboll Knowledge Experience! Super duper! Excellent organising for 5000 people!

It was all activities and fun and party!!! Woo hoo! Did some fencing, painting...

The huge map with flags of the offices for Ramboll!!

The dinner party!

Cheryl & Kenneth Wedding

Took me a while to post pictures of Cheryl & Kenneth's wedding... Better late than never!!

New Dubai Traffic Regulations

New Dubai Traffic Laws have come in place recently... Some are a little over the top.... Reasonable I guess for the idiots on the roads...

Dubai Speeding fines

Kindly note that the traffic fines starting today 17th July 2008 will be as follow:
Radar : 500 Dhs (approx USD$140) instead of 200 Dhs
Cutting a red light: 1,500 Dhs (approx USD$410) instead of 500 Dhs for the first time & 3 days in jail for the second time.

All Dubai except Jumeira:
All Dubai radars have been reset to catch if your speed is 10 Km/Hr above the street speed.
If the speed limit is 100 Km/Hr (like beginning of SHK Zayed Road ) you shouldn't exceed 109 Km/Hr.
[Before was: if the road speed limit is 100 Km/Hr , the radar only was to catch if the speed is 120 Km/Hr]

Jumeira (Main Roads only) : The speed limit is 80 Km/Hr and radar will catch on 81 Km/Hr
Jumeira(Suburb Roads only): There are hidden radar cameras. The speed limit in these villas areas is 40 Km/Hr.

Crossing the Yellow Line (Driving on the shoulder of astreet)
1. Impounding of vehicle for six months.
2. Applying the laws concerning fines and ancillaries thereof.
3. For those working as drivers, they must be deported and proof of deportation must be provided.
4. Six black points are given. (12 points before you lose your license)
5. The driving license shall be withdrawn in case of committing this offence twice, and shall not be returned to its owner until he/she passes a difficult test and pays a fine of 3000 Dirham(approx USD$1000).
6. After all of the above procedures have been completed, the vehicle will be released.

Karama

Today is the day we moved to our new old offices. Rather... only the Sustainability & Fire Teams moved offices. We're back to the crappy part of Dubai - Karama to be exact.



Good and bad feelings. I was getting comfortable at the Oud Metha office... this office is our new old one. WB moved out a few months ago from Karama to the Oud Metha office... expanded too quickly, and had to kick a few teams back to Karama! Let's give it another 2 months, before we explode out of both offices!

New ceilings made it so much better. It was much worse previously. Got myself a pretty window spot...



And.... There goes my free parking. At least there's good lunches around the corner.

Booz @ Baraccuda

Haven't been updating in a while because I haven't been doing much at all!!! Just work and more work.

We had a glass factory visit at Ras Al Kaimah. Stopped by Baraccuda on the way back. Looks a little dingy. Small little store hidden away from the main streets

Baraccuda is this place that sells alcohol at ridiculously cheap prices... and where you don't need a license to buy alcohol. (By the way, in Dubai, licenses are needed to purchase - and there is a limit on purchase!)

As you would expect.... we did buy quite a fair bit.

How often do you go to the liqour store to get booz with your boss during office hours? It was pretty cool. Clearly... a photo for blackmail. Haha.

A little Whinge

Today was one of the few really bad days of my life where things just didn't seem to go right.

I got up at 7am! (Usually I'm already at work by then). I had a 9am meeting at Sh. Zayed Road, and had to swing by the office to get my stuff. Went into the office and made my cup of coffee. Water was not hot. Great. So I had cold coffee, with undissolved sugar. The milk was late. So evaporated milk it had to be.

Happily sipping my coffee, I didn't catch the time. It was 845am! My meeting was at 9am. On ordinary non-peak times, I could get there in 5 mins. But... there had to be an accident under the trade centre round about.

Nevermind. I got there in 20 mins. BUT... parking is a nightmare at that hour... I circled for another 10 mins, and decided to park in Satwa and walk! The walk from Satwa to SZR was 15 minutes. In the 40 degree heat and sand storm day, that is not funny at all. Wind was blowing the warm air and a million dust particles all over and on me... so not funny.

By that time, it was 930am. I got to SZR and asked for the Al Attar tower. It was the wrong tower!! I was at the residences block. Great!! Frantic and panic! I rang everyone I could think off. Jordan, Val, Matt, Heath, Elizabeth etc.... no one picked up at first. But thankfully these days, people do return missed calls. Only then I found out that Al Attar towers is on the other side of Sh Zayed Road!! If you don't know dubai, to get from one side of SZR to the other, takes ages. It's not a matter of turning right or doing a U-turn. You have got to get to the interchange, or the round about (where the accident happened) to get across.

I did get across in the end. It was 945am. I'm 45 mins late. Then it took another 15 mins to try find a park. In that process, I nearly ran over 2 indian dudes, and had a little fight with an arab guy. But I still didn't know which tower... because there are just so many Al Attar towers!!! what the.....

Hopping mad, i deicided to ring Val to let me into her carpark (she lives close by to my meeting venue). After parking my car... speaking to Matt to confirm venue... I had a return call from the other consultant. Apparently my meeting was the next day!!!

It was a long morning.... to end the day off.... I had a parking ticket outside the office (i forgot the meters), AND.... I got hit by a little green fruit that fell off the tree where I parked! What are the chances???? There are NOT that many trees in Dubai...

That's my whinge for the day.

To HK or Not?

I'm sitting here deciding if I should go to Hong Kong in July or not!!!

Hot weather - better than dubai though... and summer shopping (meaning i'll spend more money)...

Cheryl!! I can't make up my mind!!! I know you are reading this! (I'm definitely goin to Singapore though). Jun - what say you???

Crap + a whole load of bullshit = AustinWilliams

Today I read an article on the Age news paper which totally made me jump. Click here for a link to the article.

It's not because my work revolves around sustainability, but it's because it just doesn't make much sense at all to not be green. Look, rising sea levels, record temperature levels... do we have to wait till the earth gets flooded beyond recognition before we realise "oh... damn. that was global warming".

A copy and paste of a few lines from the news reads:
" THE millions of dollars spent to make Melbourne more sustainable have all been a waste of money. Home owners changing shower heads, installing power-saving light globes and solar panels are wasting their time. Worse, they have inhibited creativity and the potential attractiveness and comfort of their homes and offices.

This will be the argument British author and architect Austin Williams will make when he delivers a speech at a State Government-sponsored forum in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Williams will tell the Alfred Deakin lecture at Federation Square on Tuesday that "sustainability is one of the most pernicious ideologies of our times". He's likely to receive a cool reception.
Williams will argue at the lecture, titled "Planning Cities of the Future", that sustainability is a dirty word, anathema to architecture and vibrant cities.

"To me sustainability is the first thing we have to get rid of before we can clearly have a vision of what the future could possibly be," he tells The Age. "

The statement came from the director of future cities project. Website to future cities is linked here. He will run out of a job if this world does not turn to sustainability.

What a jerk.

Cost of Living...

Standard of living are goin up and up and up.

The biggest hit - Rent. Dubai govt issued a decree that rental rates shall not increase in the 1st year of lease, and a maximum of 5% only in the second year.

AND... I got hit with an increase. Is it worth fighting with the landlords? I'll probably be booted out, and having to find another place, pack and vacate in the middle of 50 degree summer... I think I'll just pay the increment. Plus, I'll never be able to find anything like this.. They're all snapped up!

Next, Salik was introduced last July. They think it's the solution to reducing traffic along Sheikh Zayed Road and at the Garhoud Bridge. Wrong. Bottle necks happening everywhere! All a ploy to tax people for using SZR. AND... this September, another 2 more salik gantries on SZR! It's pretty much a 16Dhs (AUD$4.50) a day to travel to work, or anywhere down the other end of Dubai! Pretty much all the by-pass is gone!

And the worst I heard... within the next 2 to 5 years... income tax! What a rumour. Fingers crossed. If so... i think we're all outta here!

Taking it one step at a time....

Jordan

Made plans today for a 5 day Ramadan trip to Jordan - Amman, Petra and the Dead Sea.

Initially there were the 4 of us. Then Zach bailed out, bringing the group numbers down to 3. Then Jordan + Family who has never been to Jordan wanted to go to Jordan... so numbers went up to 7. Just over the weekend, Alan and Ann wanted to go too... so up again to 9 people. And again Son Chai + wife were interested... so now it's 11 people. Most recent additions (may not happen though) is Mum and Dad.... so now we have 13!

I hope this trip works out. It's usually quite hard to coordinate big groups!!!

To join or not to join

Been trying to get some excercise going over the last few months. I've beeen so lazy.
To get myself up and going, think I should join a gym. But it's sooo expensive. 550Dhs (AUD $160) a month to join a club.

It's got Tennis, Squash courts, Gym, Pool and a lazy river!!!! Plus discounts at Wafi Mall. I'm a sucker for freebies....

I think i'm putting the weight on with all my excessive work-time snacking! I should use the gym at home... but when it's free, you don't use it! That's me!

SHould I spend the money then!!!???

Misc + Gold Souk

Hung around with Mun Wah and Mark over this weekend...
It's nice to have friends around!!! But playing tour guide is always fun.... (I get to try new things too!!)

At the Irish Village with the usual gang.... plus Will...

Pretty Souk Madinat Shop!!

Starbucks.... Life saver of the day!

Night time hangout - with the WB gang
5 days a week @ work... and we still hang out on the weekends!!! That makes it 7 days a week.

Well... Mark was around in town for the weekend and we went to the Gold Souk with J & W for dinner and a bit of watch bargaining with the Indians at the Gold Souk. Will got ripped off buying his 400dhs watch (which I would only have gotten for like 100dhs).

WB Bowling

Had a work bowling social event... Did alright... 115 and 112! At least I broke the 100 barrier! Got to know a few more people at work... which was good!

New Job...

The new job is just fantastic. No regrets leaving at all!! Just getting a little stressed out with having to be busy and working again!! At least I have a real working team now... but it's fun working with Heath, Jeff and Will. I think sometimes we spend more time talking than doing anything else.

Anyway... the move has been so far so good... busy, but it's very gooood.