The incident took place here.

B was spending a couple days in Dubai last week working at her “paid-volunteer” job and staying at the Citymax hotel in Bur Dubai. The company I work for has two offices, one here in Abu Dhabi and the other in Dubai. She’s been working since early January and splits her time between the two cities with a promise of a contract and a salary but continually being put off with various excuses as to why she hasn’t been signed on or even paid. At least they reimburse her expenses.  I will force the rotating blades of the air cooling machine to receive a fermented load of excrement next week if this situation is not resolved.

Anyway, B calls me from the hotel room in a bit of a panic telling me there had been an incident at the hotel.

“A voice came over the loudspeaker in the hall way stating there had been an incident in the hotel and we were to stay in our rooms until further notice,” she stated.  “I’m really freaking out.”

My first thoughts were terrorist attack or a murder in the hotel but not to make B worry even more I decided to play it down.

“Well, look outside the window and see if there is anything unusual looking in front of the entrance,” I replied.  Her answer came back negative.  “I’m sure it’s nothing. Why don’t you call the front desk and ask?”

About twenty minutes later B called back. “It took me forever to get through downstairs. The incident is over, we can leave the room now,” she informed me. “Someone lit a cigarette in a non-smoking room.”

Will smoking in the hotel get you this?

Relieved that no one had died, I wondered if the culprit had been taken away in shackles and jailed for a few months.  How did they know this had happened? Are there security cameras in the rooms? Did everyone stay in their rooms as instructed? Was the culprit’s room locked from a central security station so he couldn’t escape? I have a lot of questions. The safe and secure feeling you have living in the UAE is countered, I’m afraid to admit, by a really Big Brother in the room.

Liquid Sunshine in Dubai

I saw the first signs of the changing season here with a small rainstorm today.  Dubai has two seasons; a really hot and humid summer and a mild summer. We were in the Ibn Batutta mall having lunch at the Lime Tree cafe (our favorite restaurant so far) when the previously impotent cloud cover opened up a bit and showered the open terrace with a refreshing light shower. The cloud cover has been a bit threatening over the past few days but this is the first official wet spot I’ve noticed. I hear that early next year to expect a few heavy downpours that will flood the poorly engineered street culverts and identify all the holes in the roofs on the uppermost floors of most buildings.

You Are Here

Stating the Obvious at the Dubai Mall. Of course you are here, or you wouldn’t be reading the sign.

I was invited to the birthday party for the office manager of the company I will shortly be working for.  A small gathering of at least 50 people. Just the staff and spouses from one of the clinics the company owns. We took up an entire room at the Lebanese restaurant and had an exquisite meal. It turns out most of the wait staff is Syrian, and when the birthday cake was delivered, they sang their version of Happy Birthday. I thought the Portuguese had a great version of this song.  This one tops that.

The tallest building in the world.

Today I took a break from my routine and decided to play tourist for the day. The last time I was here I tried to take the elevator ride to the observation platform of the world’s tallest building the Burj Dubai. It turns out that the elevator was closed for repairs (6 weeks after opening) due to electrical problems and no one was allowed up to the observation deck. Today, however, it was open.

 The Burj Dubai had a name change, curiously, on the very day of it’s opening on January 4, 2010. It is now known as Burj Khalifa in honour of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Abu Dhabi. This mammoth structure was originally heralded as Dubai’s crowning achievement but the cash-strapped emirate was forced to swallow its pride on January 4th and rename the world’s tallest building after its financial rescuer – the ruler of its oil-rich neighbor. Why you may ask? My friend Mohammed, who has lived here in Dubai for the past 30 years is trying to get me up to speed on the real Dubai and tells me all the real stories behind the government approved and sanctioned press releases.

If you are impulsive and just show up at the ticket counter to ride to the 124^th floor where the observation deck is, you are going to pay about $125 for the pleasure. However, tickets for a later date will cost you only $27. I must have looked like I was strapped with C4 under my clothing because the hostess came right up to me and asked if she could help me. It must be the large bag I carry these days to hold all my essentials: camera, reading glasses, mini laptop computer, phone, wallet and a few books. OK, it’s not much different than a large ladies handbag, but with a masculine flare, just large enough to hold a few kilos of explosives. I stated that I was looking at the schedule to see when I could make a reservation for a $27 ticket. She ushered me around the corner to a “special” area manned by two really thick and unhappy looking security guards ticket salespersons. Asking what time slot was available to reserve a $27 ticket, he said, “How about right now?” He’s probably thinking he’s thwarting my plans to sabotage the building at a pre-planned time by offering to let me go now. These guys are always suspicious.

Abandoned construction project in Dubai

It turns out that when the cash rich, financially stable Emirate of Abu Dhabi financially rescued the over extended and debt ridden Dubai with an infusion of money, the ownership of the Burj Khalifa switched hands. That’s right, Dubai gave the Burj Khalifa to Abu Dhabi, and they also got half of the unfinished Metro system in Dubai as well. I guess if you are going to “give” money to your financially irresponsible cousin, it’s going to come with some strings attached. Cousin Khalifa got to choose what projects he wanted to rescue, which ones to ignore, and the pick of the litter to take home.

When I asked how much the ticket would be to go right now I was told $27. Great! I’ll go now. Walking from the ticket counter to the elevator doors reminded me of the first time I went on the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ride in Disneyland. Walt and his gang wrote the book on disguising the true length of the queue and keeping you entertained and happy while you wait one hour to take a 5 minute ride. This place must have taken lessons from them as the walk to the base of the elevator was through long corridor after long corridor, with an occasional circular ramp, and zig zaggy pole and elastic strap combinations – like you see at security at the airports. I was educated on the history of the building and the various architectural challenges encountered while building it. Media presentations complete with soothing music played on almost all the walls as I moved along. Had I not stopped to take in the media presentations, I could have made it to the elevator in 5 minutes. There were hardly any tourists here at all.

I should be fair to Dubai and not call them financially irresponsible. No one here thought the economic crisis would affect them. Yesterday, Mohammed told me that 75% of all construction projects in Dubai have stopped cold. The workers have all been laid off and the cranes have been dismantled from many of the unfinished buildings around here. Many projects won’t be finished for years. Apparently, the more overextended you were when the economic crisis hit, the worse it was for you. As much money as this place has, they still got caught up in borrowing more then they could handle.

Free telescopes to look in the windows for naked people

A British couple and I shared an elevator ride that could have held thirty people. I assumed that the elevator was glass enclosed and would be able to see outside as we shot up 124 floors in 60 seconds. Not so. The car was completely enclosed but the popping in my ear told me we were traveling upward at quite a fast clip. The observation deck was spectacular. The views were breathtaking even taking into consideration that we are approaching summer where the air is thick with moisture, giving the illusion that there is smog here. This adventure is definitely worth the price of admission.

Mohammed tells me that the Burj Khalifa is completely vacant. The Armani hotel occupies the first 9 floors but is not yet open. Several floors above the hotel are going to be (expensive) apartments and villas to purchase and above that, commercial space. The building currently enjoys a 0% occupancy.

Spectacular view from the top.

As I left the Burj Khalifa it occurred to me that perhaps life isn’t as dramatic as it seems in the movies and that ticket salesman wasn’t as suspicious of me as I had imagined. Perhaps they were desperate to take my money now, even at the reduced price. That’s a ton of elevator rides to sell in order to pay for a 1.5 billion dollar building.

I couldn’t help notice the friendly ladies as I walked to the supermarket today, the only sign of commercial life within a half mile radius of the apartment/hotel complex where I am staying.  This is a huge long term residence project and there are 10 apartment blocks in total, each having a unique and colorful name to highlight the ambiance and attention to detail I’m sure the architects had in mind when designing this place. I am in the appropriately named “Block #5”. The doorman of the building I am staying in told me the supermarket is just down the road to the right of the parking lot. “Go out the door and take a left turn at Block #3, take the next right turn at Block #7 and it’s a the end of the road. Not far.”, the doorman said. Although I will elaborate on the UAE definition of “Not far” in a later post, I found myself at the entrance of the Spinneys supermarket some 45 minutes later, after a very interesting walk.

The friendly ladies in Dubai

There weren’t many people out and about in the streets as I strolled down the road. As I mentioned before, Dubai is a very automobile friendly place and most people would rather drive 50 feet to their mailbox than drive. And, being in a concentrated densely populated Mecca of residential housing units, the taxi drivers were circling me like Africanized bees, sounding their horns trying to get my attention for a cab lift. “No thanks, I’ll walk” must translate from English to Arabic into something along the lines of “The zebra bit my cat” based on the looks they gave me.

There was also a scattering of people, mainly women, standing on the sidewalks trying to flag down these taxis while also talking on their cell phones. They smiled at me as I walked by and some even greeted me. What a friendly place.

One hour later, ladened down with four reinforced shopping bags of food weighing enough to cut the tendons in my fingers with their ergonomically designed twine handles, I decided that a taxi ride back to my temporary home would be a good idea. However, seeing how everyone else in the store arrived by car, I found that  the parking lot of the supermarket is not high on taxi drivers’ lead generating locations. There were no taxis on site as they were all busy buzzing around the residential complex, about a half mile away. By the time I walked back to the perimeter of the complex, having stopped several times to put down my bags and let the blood flow back into my fingers, I noticed that the same friendly ladies were still waiting on the sidewalk. This time they were extremely friendly, asking what was in my bags and apparently wanting more of my time than I had to give. Why they couldn’t get a taxi during the preceding hour was beyond me as I desperately rushed back to the room, playing “Beat the Clock” with the widening, ever weakening wet spots at the bottom of my grocery bags caused by the now thawed frozen pizzas and frozen orange juice containers. If I ever see them again when walking to the grocery store, I might stop and try to make some new friends, and show then how to hail a taxi.

My living quarters for the next 4 weeks.

Well here I am again in Dubai, this time to lay low and study, finally removed from the threat of the ever unpredictable volcano in Iceland. My studio apartment/hotel is quite adequate for my needs this month. It’s basically a hotel room with a kitchenette and refrigerator. There is a small washing machine, a two burner stove top and a microwave. A basic kitchen pack includes the bare minimum in utensils and plates for two people which means I only have to wash dishes every other meal and by hand on top of that.

The quality of the facility is good, not great; I’d say between a room at the Ibis and a room at the Holiday Inn. The shower tile is chipped and stained, the shower head is too low (what’s new?) and I can’t get the thermostat to turn off and it’s stuck at 65 degrees, which means there is a 24 hour a day stream of cold air blowing on me at all times. It’s actually too cold in the room. I turned the adjustable vents toward the ceiling but may have to resort to adjusting the temperature like they do in the apartment blocks in Moscow, Russia. There the apartment blocks have one central heating unit for the entire building and your heat is either on or off. Friends of mine lived there several years ago and I witnessed this personally when B and I visited them. They adjust the temperature by opening the window to let the cool air in. Here, I might have to open the window to let the heat in to compensate for the cold room. We’ll see what the front desk says when I call them.

View out my window.

As is true for most things in the UAE, and for MacDonalds cheeseburgers, what is portrayed in the advertisement is much nicer than the actual item. What you see is not what you get here. The workout gymnasium that is part of the complex has two treadmills and a combo weight machine with 4 stations. OK if there are only two or three people using the facility but this complex is about 500 rooms large.

Actually I should be happy with the facility as there are no luxuries to distract me from my real purpose for being here which is to finish studying for the big exam. There’s nothing on TV as its all Arabic stuff and CNN. I either watch something I don’t understand or listen to something that tries to destroy my ability to think for myself. The complex is not located near anything exciting. Let me rephrase that. The complex is not near anything. The grocery store is a half kilometer walk through a complex of parking lots and sandlots. There is an on site restaurant open 24 hours a day serving decent but expensive food – Denny’s quality if you were wondering. Arriving late last night I had dinner at 2:30 in the morning, the only customer in the place. It’s sort of the feel of being in a college dormitory but with maid service. I could hole up here like the characters at the end of the movie Paper Chase and never leave the building, forcing myself to study until my brain swells to the size of a creature from the Outer Limits.

My chattering teeth tell me it’s time to open a window. More later.

Cross species kissing would probably get you beheaded.

A British couple accused of committing a public sexual act by kissing on the lips will spend a month behind bars, after losing their appeal against their conviction in the Dubai Court of Appeals today.

Original article here.

AN, 24, a marketing executive, and CA, a 25-year-old tourist, were convicted in January and sentenced to one month in jail followed by deportation, and fined Dh1,000 for consuming alcohol.

The defendants were arrested after an Emirati woman with her family filed a complaint on November 28 claiming that the two had been kissing and touching each other in a sexual manner in front of her children at a diner in Jumeirah Beach Residence. AN and CA both admitted drinking alcohol but denied committing a sexual act, claiming they had kissed each other on the cheek.

The defendants’ lawyer, Khalfan al Hosani, told the judges that the 38-year-old Emirati woman – currently the only adult witness in the case – had presented two different testimonies to police and public prosecutors.

What a great way to promote tourism, an industry your country depends on.

Illegal flambé?

…and then quickly declares “Never mind!”  Original article here.  However, it’s already outdated.

As I am currently outside looking in at the UAE, it seems that there is a constant struggle brewing between the local Emirates who make policy over there. On one hand, they need the tourism income and need to maintain the image and feel that Dubai is more European (Western) than Middle Eastern. Underneath it all, however, it is still an Arabic country and the Islamic rules, morals and laws are dearly held sacred by most who are in control. Anyone outside of the UAE paying attention can see the struggle between traditional morals and standards and the necessity to keep the economy afloat. After all, isn’t it in the master plan to make Dubai “the” world’s top tourist destination? British newspapers are already making a big deal about the couple going to jail over a kiss on the cheek. You think that’s going to help tourism? Laws are made, everyone squawks, laws are recinded. It’s actually quite amusing.

Vegetable Market

Although I was thoroughly impressed with the local supermarket’s selection of food items, especially the spice island, I had the feeling that the produce was a little too good looking and large. I have noticed that a lot of the vegetables I have been eating in the local restaurants have no taste, like the vegetables in the USA. Portugal has definitely spoiled me with their organically grown local produce. After a few inquiries I realized that most of what I saw in the way of fresh fruit and vegetables was shipped in from around the world, probably full of pesticides and genetically modified to boot.

Organically Grown

Most health conscious locals take a thirty minute ride out of town to the open air vegetable and fruit market.  Here there is a much greater chance of getting organic foods and most is locally grown or brought in from neighboring countries. Locals bring in their crops and they are purchased by these vendors at an auction. These vendors pay rent for their space and sell them at wholesale to restaurants and to the public. This market used to be in town but was relocated as the real estate they used to sit on was too valuable for this kind of operation. A 20 minute stroll up and down the aisles with my suspicious eyes comforted me as I was able to tell that there are many vendors selling healthy fresh vegetables and fruits. And the prices here are much less than in the supermarkets.