Saturday, April 21, 2007

Recent pics

My brother Andrew was here in Dubai again a few weeks back. His stop-over was for less than a day, so Ben n I met him at his hotel in Deira and had lunch at the Chicken Tikka Inn nearby. Here we are at the lobby of Radisson Hotel:


Two weeks ago, my friend Merey and her son Reef visited Dubai with two friends, Chi Lin and Mabel. Chi Lin n his wife Mabel are moving to Dubai in June, and were here to look for an apartment, settle paperwork, etc. Chi Lin works for IE in Singapore and will be posted here for 3 years.

I met Merey at Mall of the Emirates. She was skiing with Mabel n Chi Lin at Ski Dubai and since I don't ski, I was able to accompany Reef to the Snow Park as he's 4 and too young to enter the Ski area. I didn't take any photos 'cos my fingers were pretty much frozen from all the ice n snow. Here's one place I won't bring any of my relatives, or even Ben, since we're too "Asian" to appreciate the cold. My Mom would say something like "qua ka kee kee choon" or "qua ka bar ki" ("cold till body quivers" or "cold till frozen").

Reef had a fun time on those tubee-donut thingies. We had to wait our turn n queue for the tubee, then travel up this flimsy escalator carrying the huge tubee to the slope. Then the Ski Dubai attendant would push Reef (seated in the tubee) down the slope as I ran down the steps to meet him. Then we'd queue again... We repeated this about ten times!

The "local" kids at the park are pretty nasty, ill-bred brats. I guess, just like they're parents, they are brought up with the notion that they have the "right of way" in everything. So there was a lot of queue-cutting, tubee-stealing, pushing... There was a bunch of "local" young ladies there, all dressed in black, doing the same too. Not malu, just cut other kids' in queue and hog the tubees. And the Ski Dubai attendants couldn't do anything about this 'cos they're "local". The 'men-in-white' n 'ladies-in-black' are like The Untouchables here man.

There wasn't much Reef could do in the Snow Park as some of the obstacle courses were too difficult for someone his size. We spent about 2 hours in there and met Merey n the rest outside afterwards. Mabel had a fall just as they were leaving the Ski park, and suffered a hairline fracture to her foot. So she had to be sent to Emirates Hospital by ambulance. Merey, Reef n I had dinner at Chili's next door while waiting for Mabel n Chi Lin to settle the hospital stuff. Reef was so tired that he fell asleep while eating a french fry. It was so cute!


Mabel has to go about in a wheelchair or with crutches, but she should be up and about the next time I meet them when they return in June. The next evening, they picked me up from home and we drove to Abu Dhabi. It's a pity we didn't get there earlier 'cos according to Chi Lin, the sea is so clear that you can see the underlying reefs during the day. We visited the Emirates Palace Hotel, and drove back to Dubai after having dinner at an Arabic restaurant there.


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