It rained on Sunday, drizzled on Monday, and on Tuesday, it rained all day from morning till night. That's really not much rainfall if compared to the cats n dogs we get back home, but by Dubai standards, 24 hours of light rain equals flooding throughout the emirate.
People in Sharjah probably had to swim to Dubai, and many roads in Dubai were accessible only by big vehicles like 'em Hummers that the locals love to drive. Ben said he saw a Ferrari stranded near our home, left to "soak" by the roadside. Imagine the earful he gets when this dude explains to his wife why he came home, sans-Ferrari. "Lah illah ha illallah... How many times have I told you, Limo on weekdays, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati on weekends, but take the H3 out on rainy days, habibi".
The weather has finally caught up with the rest of the northern hemisphere, with temperatures dipping to as low as 1 degree Celcius in places like Al Ain. I'm now thinking of nice yellow Phua Chu Kang boots to keep my feet dry, and gloves to save my fingers from icy petrification.
Along with the cold, comes colds - the dreaded winter sniffles. Luckily, unlike the usual flu, most of us just have a runny/blocked nose and slight cough, minus the fever and phlegm by the bucketloads. The best remedy is, as always, lots of liquids, and keeping warm. I've been cooking soups and stews a lot. Nothing like a warm and hearty stew or soup for dinner during winter. I even managed to find "kiamchye" (sour mustard) here, so we had the usual post-Christmas turkey bones with kiamchye soup recently.
All we did last Christmas and New Year was eat... Actually, all we do most of the time, any time of the year is eat! We baked a lot in November and December - cheesecakes, lemon pies, sugee cake, cupcakes, cookies...
And Ben says Christmas isn't complete without a lorry-load of chocolates, so we stocked up on chocolate biscuits, caramel-filled chocolates, fudge-like chocolates, mint chocolates, praline- nougat- semisweet- assorted chocolates... even chocolates shaped like Santa Claus... You get my drift.
This last Christmas however, we had something really special, brought all the way from Singapore - two loaves of Gardenia bread!
Our friend Jac had her parents over just before Christmas, so she asked Ben if he wanted anything from Singapore. "Gardenia! Gardenia!" Ben's been craving for Gardenia sandwich bread since he heard that Chee Lin and Mabel brought TEN loaves over when they moved to Dubai, cos the bread here is terribly dry... It's so dry, you could wipe your nose with it when suffering from winter sniffles.
In fact, local bread is so dry, they should line the streets with it to solve the flood problems. "Yulla, yulla, throw the roti out the window, habibi... Khalas!"
People in Sharjah probably had to swim to Dubai, and many roads in Dubai were accessible only by big vehicles like 'em Hummers that the locals love to drive. Ben said he saw a Ferrari stranded near our home, left to "soak" by the roadside. Imagine the earful he gets when this dude explains to his wife why he came home, sans-Ferrari. "Lah illah ha illallah... How many times have I told you, Limo on weekdays, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati on weekends, but take the H3 out on rainy days, habibi".
The weather has finally caught up with the rest of the northern hemisphere, with temperatures dipping to as low as 1 degree Celcius in places like Al Ain. I'm now thinking of nice yellow Phua Chu Kang boots to keep my feet dry, and gloves to save my fingers from icy petrification.
Along with the cold, comes colds - the dreaded winter sniffles. Luckily, unlike the usual flu, most of us just have a runny/blocked nose and slight cough, minus the fever and phlegm by the bucketloads. The best remedy is, as always, lots of liquids, and keeping warm. I've been cooking soups and stews a lot. Nothing like a warm and hearty stew or soup for dinner during winter. I even managed to find "kiamchye" (sour mustard) here, so we had the usual post-Christmas turkey bones with kiamchye soup recently.
All we did last Christmas and New Year was eat... Actually, all we do most of the time, any time of the year is eat! We baked a lot in November and December - cheesecakes, lemon pies, sugee cake, cupcakes, cookies...
And Ben says Christmas isn't complete without a lorry-load of chocolates, so we stocked up on chocolate biscuits, caramel-filled chocolates, fudge-like chocolates, mint chocolates, praline- nougat- semisweet- assorted chocolates... even chocolates shaped like Santa Claus... You get my drift.
This last Christmas however, we had something really special, brought all the way from Singapore - two loaves of Gardenia bread!
Our friend Jac had her parents over just before Christmas, so she asked Ben if he wanted anything from Singapore. "Gardenia! Gardenia!" Ben's been craving for Gardenia sandwich bread since he heard that Chee Lin and Mabel brought TEN loaves over when they moved to Dubai, cos the bread here is terribly dry... It's so dry, you could wipe your nose with it when suffering from winter sniffles.
In fact, local bread is so dry, they should line the streets with it to solve the flood problems. "Yulla, yulla, throw the roti out the window, habibi... Khalas!"
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