French Fries

Since Ben is more inclined towards traditional French cuisine and knows its history – stuff like why Opera cake is called Opera, etc, I asked him why French fries are called French fries. Like you have Penang Hokkien Mee which is prawn mee, and then Singapore Hokkien Mee which is something completely different. So why don’t we have Spanish fries and American fries? What’s so special about French fries when they don’t even come from France and are probably made from US potatoes?

Ben can’t sleep for days when I ask him these weird questions. And he actually goes and gets answers for me if he doesn’t have it at his fingertips.

Like once, I asked him if British royalty have a surname. Like y’know, Queen Elizabeth, Prince William… It can’t just say “Prince Charles” in his passport right… Does he even have or need a passport? So Ben actually asked one of the English boys, and he told him “It’s Windsor”.

Really? Seriously? So it’s Elizabeth Windsor? William Windsor? Hmmm…

Now since we’re on the subject of French stuff, did you know that before I met Ben, my friends were oddly eager to introduce me to French-speaking guys? I have no idea why! First there was Shan, who asked me to meet her for dinner. Then just before she picks me up, she says, “Wear something nice” which when translated means, “I’m introducing you to a guy against your will so don’t come in your jeans, rock t-shirt, without make up and with your hair looking like crap”.


So on the way to dinner she says, “Wah… He can speak French!” So what? He could be speaking Mandarin to me and I still wouldn’t understand a word. So this dude turns out to be a really nice and very Singaporean-ised angmoh, but he was like 12 years older and the only thing that seemed truly French about him other than his name was his Zidane-ish hairline.


Then after that, Shorbs and Raena tried to pull an “oh-you-must-meet-this-guy-thing” on me. This time, it was a Chinese fellow who speaks French, has a good job, is really nice and single (oxymoron?)… It’s a good thing their little plot fell thru ‘cos the only things French I like are French onion soup and French toast, and the only French-speaking guy who’ll ever get my attention is Johnny Depp. Ooolala…

Then I worked at GC, and the boss there said, “Ooooh… my Chefs are cute and they speak French you know” Enough already! These two “cute” French-speaking chefs she was referring to were Ben and David, who can’t really speak French lah – just a bit of cursing n swearing they learnt from Chef Julien.

They probably just said something like “Le mis en place escargot café au lait dauphinoise crème brulee thierry henri champs elysees…” to 'bedek' the ladies lah.


I remember when I had to do some food shots, and Ben was describing the starters that were on display. Pointing to the ratte potato with a ‘pekat’ French accent, “This is a rrrraahh potato, best potato in the world”. He only found out later that all he had to do was speak 'Yoda-ish' to impress this girl.


So the answer to why French fries are named so? Thomas Jefferson introduced fries to the colonies in the late 1700s, and the term French fries simply evolved from Jefferson’s description, “potatoes, fried in the French manner”. However, there’s no evidence that fries originated from France, with other countries like Belgium and Spain also claiming its origin.

Deliver Us From Dubai

Dubai is an evil place, I say. Eeevil! Eeeev-vil!! Not only has it turned me into a chubby, couch-surfer-potato, but I seem to have become a real bumbling idiot since coming to Dubai. First I killed my iPod. And just last week, I almost murdered my baby, Bob...

Bob is my Powerbook G4. Actually, I call all the Macs I've had before "Bob" for some unknown reason. So anyway, back to current Bob, who almost died in my clumsy hands... urm, feet actually. Being the typical short Asian, and wearing pyjamas that were bought from "angmoh-land", I tripped on my super-long pyjama pants, which then led me to trip over the power cord of my Powerbook, which then led to Bob FALLING!

Luckily, the power cord cushioned the fall a little, so Bob is unharmed and in good health, but in a temporary coma till I get a new power adaptor 'cos the needle part of it is a gonner.

So I headed out to the Mac Store at Ibn Battuta Mall, the ONLY Mac Store in the WHOLE of Dubai. As expected, based on Dubai standards, they were out of stock. Guy at the Mac shop says, there'll be new stock coming in on Thursday, so maybe the power adaptor will be here by Thursday.

I ask, maybe? What do you mean maybe?

--- Oh, we receive stock every Thursday, and this adaptor has been out of stock for more than two weeks already, so maybe it will arrive with this week's stock.
--- You mean you don't know what stock you're expecting?
--- No.
--- Are there other Mac stores in Dubai?
--- No.

--- Could you please call me on Thursday to let me know if the power adaptor is in?
--- Yes.

And of course, as expected, based on Dubai standards, he didn't call.

So I called the shop on Thursday and was informed that the adaptor did not arrive with the new stock. So how can I order it in? The guy quickly washes his hands of this "problem" by giving me the numbers of two Apple resellers in Dubai. These two did not have the Powerbook power adaptor either. One said new stock would be arriving next week, and another said maybe in two weeks.

I wasn't very upset about all this 'cos I already expected not to get a positive reply from any of these dumbasses. I mean, even Customer Service managers here can promise to call you back in 15 minutes or the next day, and then you don't hear from him or her ever again. This is the incompetent service standards that we're forced to bear with here, so I really wasn't expecting much. People here have no sense of urgency and no initiative whatsoever. The answer for everything is "Insya Allah" (God-willing). Like, Oh, I'm just gonna chat on the phone while speeding and running red lights. Insya-Allah, I won't get caught. Or, Hmm... 38 people have asked for the Powerbook Adaptor but it's out of stock and I'm just an employee. Insya-Allah someone from HQ will order it in with the coming new stock.

So if I actually ask the guy at the store, Is the adaptor arriving with this week's stock?, it's very normal to get a reply like, Insya-Allah, it will. Must be amazing to have so much faith huh. Apple Middle East does not have an online store, so if I was impatient, I could order it from Singapore n fork out a shitload of money to have it shipped over to this region. So I've decided to have a little "faith" and wait. Ben refuses to assimilate into the lepak-bo-chap culture here, so he was pissed.

So what did he do? He got a new baby! Here she is, a HP Pavillion dv6000 series.


I don't know if he actually has a name for her, but he definitely has a name for this other uber babe he drooled over at the computer shop. He wanted to get the latest iMac G5! Dubai has changed Ben too. From technological luddite, he's transformed overnight into this Mac-crazy, web-savvy techie! So Ben's like, for just a little more we could get this baby!

The one that got away...

Unfortunately I had to peel Ben away from the line-up of iMacs and he had to settle for the HP. Poor thing... His eyes still light up each time he goes on and on about how "sexy" this babe is.

After more than two weeks, waiting for a bloody Powerbook power adaptor to find its way to Dubai is like waiting for a miracle to happen. There are three shops that confirm that they've ordered it in, saying, call again on Monday, so when I do, they say, It didn't arrive this week, call again next Tuesday, and so I wait some more...... Ben and I are still waiting for Dubai to deliver. Or at least we pray, deliver us from Dubai.

How a Taitai Passes Time without Mahjong n Gossip Kaki

Many of you are curious about how I manage to pass time at home every day, without a job or friends. As you know, Ben works from 9am till midnight or 1am on most days. His weekly roster is usually made up of 1 or 2 early shifts (8am – 5pm), 1 or 2 late shifts (3pm – 1 or 2 am) and mostly split shifts (9am – 3pm, 6pm – 1 or 2am).

They usually work throughout their split shift, although once in a while, Ben uses that 3-hour break to go for driving lessons, and if he’s really tired then he comes home for a short rest. Recently, he’s also used this short break to come home to work out in the gym. Ben gets about 6 days off a month – 1 day off this week, 2 days off the next week, and so forth.

So anyway, here’s what I do on most days while the husband’s at work…

On ‘good’ days, I wake up some time between noon – 1pm. Some lazy or down days, I’m up at noon but continue lazing and daydreaming in bed till 3 - 5pm! I usually sleep at around 3am, and often also stay up till around 6am. And once in a while, I stay up till morning if I have an ‘outdoor-jalan-jalan’ day planned, and just zombie around on "low-batt" till evening.

So I’m up at noon most days, have my first cuppa and later have ‘breakfast’ – usually toast loaded with cold slabs of margarine, sometimes a banana and Herbalife Formula 1 with orange juice, if I’m a really good girl. Sometimes I skip ‘breakfast’ and have a plate of Indomie for lunch. Indomie Pedas is the only edible instant noodles here, and it’s pretty good.


I do the laundry at least 3 times a week. Ya, it’s unbelievable how we have so much laundry to be washed when I’m in my pajamas all day and night most of the time. But Ben wears a clean pair of pants or jeans every day, and there’s his pajamas, shirts, socks, towels, etc too. The floor has to be swept every 2 days because it gets dusty and my hair falls a lot more in this dry weather.

It doesn’t help that if I stay in all day, it means I’m living in an air-conditioned environment 24 hours a day, with no chance of fresh air… Not that the air outside is what one can call “fresh” or clean. Then there’s mopping to be done once a week, and washing the balcony, about twice a month.

I hardly watch TV during the day ‘cos you get a 2-minute portion of Oprah, followed by a 5-minute ad interval, then 2 minutes of Oprah again, then more ads… Other than Oprah, daytime TV is made up of other talk shows like Dr Phil, Rachel Ray, and soaps like Fashion House and The Bold & The Beautiful. Towards evening you get more interesting stuff on TV like The Tyra Banks Show, Pimp My Ride, a very censored screening of Desperate Housewives (1st season)…and they've just started showing Newlyweds! Like Hallo? They broke up dudes!

Later into the night we get some rather decent movies. I’m guessing people in the Middle East sleep at around 2 or 3am ‘cos the local English TV channels show good movies only at around 11pm or midnight. They provided me with 4 hours of Harry Potter fun, but the marathon started at 11pm so I was up till about 3am. Then they showed the Matrix trilogy, one installation a week, at 11pm. But even then, I don’t watch much TV ‘cos there are only three English channels (movies & sitcoms) and BBC World, to choose from the eight hundred plus free-to-air local (regional) channels (all Arabic).

So most of the time, I’m glued to my computer. If I’m online, I’d be reading/sending mail, uploading pics onto my Flickr album, updating my blog, checking out favourite sites like Wild Singapore, the Wildfilms & Reefwalk blogs, and other Singapore sites like Channel News Asia, and food stuff for Ben. Sometimes I get curious about something, it could be anything, like say… molecular gastronomy. So I surf all day gathering info about it. I’m at a loss without the internet for my daily dose of info and my virtual connection with the rest of the world, beyond the walls of this empty apartment in this distant and grey land.

But of course, I still can survive without the internet at home… for about one week till I can’t tahan and fork out lots of money at an internet café! I still do lots of stuff on my laptop without having to surf. True to typical Virgo attributes, I can spend hours making lists, organising stuff, planning, sorting, updating calendars and address books, designing stuff, and being an anal perfectionist when it comes to all the above.

I record our daily/monthly expenditures and amend our monthly/annual budgets accordingly. Come up with new stuff for my blog to entertain the rest of u :) If I have new photos from a recent trip out to the beach or town, etc, I can spend the entire day or days, just sorting and touching up photos, saving them into three different file sizes for archiving, blogging or uploading/emailing.

Then there's the stuff I do for Ben. If I download any info from the Net for him, I've gotta resize and re-layout the whole document, whether it's just one page or a hundred page document ('cos Ben falls asleep if reading stuff with a point size of less than 12). So this is really leceh if it's a PDF file 'cos then I've gotta cut & paste the text into Word, and edit each of the pictures in Photoshop 'cos they can't be exported directly into Word from Acrobat Reader. And I'm really anal about layout and type, so I have to make sure each sentence is double spaced, make sure the leading and kerning is just right, etc.

I've also just started the initial layout, designs and pics for Ben's website (akan datang...), so I've gotta figure out my way around Dreamweaver again and keep abreast with the latest internet tools and gadgets...

Some days I’m reading and completing assignments for my Diploma in Montessori Education which I have yet to complete after 3 years! I can’t sit for my Final Exam in Singapore till I’ve submitted all my assignments two months before the exam date, and they only inform students of the exam date about one month before. So even if I submitted all my assignments and projects now, I wouldn’t know when the final exam is until a month before, giving me just a month to prepare for it and plan a trip back. My Montessori diploma is turning out to be like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - something I look forward to attaining, but......

My parents are of course worried that I’ll waste it, just like how I got my Higher Diploma in Mass Communications but didn’t pursue a Degree after that or put it to good use. But I really do make full use of what I learnt every single day. I learned a great deal more about the world, society, culture, the media, government, etc and have honed my writing and analytical skills since graduating. This in turn has helped me a lot in my Montessori course ‘cos the readings and assignments are really ‘chim’ man, and it being a self-study course, I wouldn’t have been able to cope if I didn’t have my Mass Comm background.

So don’t worry, I’ll get my Montessori diploma (one day) and even if I don’t end up teaching, I’ll know a heck of a lot about child development & child psychology. So future kids in my family may be able to save on kindergarten fees... Or they’ll just be very afraid of psycho-anal-aunt Bernie.

BEN OR BERNIE’S RELATIVES OR FRIENDS
Let’s go to Uncle Ben’s & Aunty Bernie’s house for the holidays.

SFX: DARTH VADER’S ENTRANCE MARCH

KIDS
No-o-o-o-O-O-o-O!!!

Anyway, back to my taitai life. Once in a while, if I pick up a book and it’s good, I’ll be hooked on it for the next 2 or 3 days till it’s done. Sometimes if I’m really bored then I’ll pick up my crossword puzzle book and work on puzzles for a while… till I get bored again. About once a month, I meet Jana for coffee at a nearby mall. Jana lives in Gardens too, with Manfred, Ben’s colleague.

Once a month I usually look for a new place in Dubai to explore on my own too, so this gives me the opportunity to take more photos and come up with more interesting blog entries instead of what I do on a daily basis. Now that we have a gym on the 6th floor, I follow Ben to the gym once in a blue moon (he goes more often of course), but I spend not more than an hour in there.


By evening/night or the time I get hungry, I’ll cook dinner. Sometimes just something instant like noodles or porridge, and if I’m preparing it for Ben too, then something more elaborate like rice with dishes or one-dish meals like pasta, curry, stew or “deconstructed Sheperd’s Pie” (sautéed minced beef, peas, mashed potatoes & gravy, minus the hassle of actually baking the darn thing).


I’m not an expert in the kitchen like Ben or my Mom, so sometimes I take several hours or even half a day to prepare and cook a proper meal! Thanks to ready-made sauces from my Mom and Brahim’s, I don’t have to spend an entire day cooking, unless I’m attempting to make something complicated from scratch. If I’m in the mood, I bake cookies or brownies for Ben.


When drystores and fresh produce are running low, I head out to the mall to buy groceries (Ibn Battuta Mall is a 15-min brisk walk away, and the Geant Hypermarket another 15-min walk away at the far end of this huge mall). So sometimes I have dinner at the foodcourt in the mall, since I no longer cook supper for Ben n myself ‘cos we’re getting a little too chubby.


The hypermarkets in Dubai (Geant & Carrefour) are so huge, and with nowhere to rush to, I can spend up 3 to 4 hours just supermarket shopping.

Now you know how Ben developed such a sweet tooth since coming here. Supermarkets are stocked with chocolates, sweets, snacks and everything else, from all over the world.

Apart from groceries and household stuff, I hardly shop (for clothes, shoes, accessories, the usual ‘girlie’ things). But if I’m feeling particularly down, I conveniently forget it’s Ben’s money I’m spending and go ahead and spoil myself a little. Like recently, I spent 55 Dirhams on a book, The Green Guide to the Emirates, to help keep me sane because we didn’t have internet and TV in our new home yet.

When Ben’s off the next day, I usually call the DVD shop (back at Courtyard near Ewan) or take the shuttle bus to Ewan, and borrow 2 or 3 DVDs. On his days off, we either stay in watching TV and DVDs ‘cos there’s really nowhere to go in Dubai. Movies at the cinema are ridiculously expensive, not to mention outdated. But Ben enjoys window-shopping, so quite often we have to go to Mall of the Emirates or Ibn Battuta Mall for him to stretch his legs and ‘cuci mata’.

I’ve always been quite a hermit, opting to stay at home doing “my own stuff” rather than go out, unless it’s to a nature spot. There’s a Bird & Wildlife Sanctuary at the Dubai Creek/mangrove, but it’s not open to the public and you have to get special permission from authorities to visit. Then there are the beaches that are partially man-made on reclaimed land. So I’m quite starved for forests and bugs and rocky shores and slugs and such. When I go shopping or window-shopping, if ever, I usually like to go alone.

I’m not anti-social but I am a loner. Not narcissistic but enjoy spending time by myself, doing “my own stuff”. I don’t ‘party’, don’t drink, and got used to missing nights out at the mamak with friends when I lived in Singapore. So adapting to a quiet life here isn’t that difficult for someone like me as compared to your regular, city girl.

Then again, a ‘city girl’ might really like it here, what with all the big brands at the malls, the nightlife, and rather happening dating scene (Guys chat you up all the time - on the bus, at the mall, at nightspots, by the beach…). Conversations always begin with a stranger saying “ in a very gatal way and asking, "So you work here?" --- “Oh I don’t work. My husband works at the Burj Al Arab.” --- "Oh…" --- Silence. Most effective ‘lecher repellent’ so far.

So that’s about it lah. By the 3rd month I was here in Dubai, I did get really bored and depressed, what with no buddies, horrible housemates and the inefficient, incompetent service standards here. I even told Ben that if I didn’t get a decent job by early 2007, I’d move back to Singapore for good in May, ‘cos I was really unhappy here. Then we got the internet set up at home in November and I’ve been alright since!

Little red dot among the white

Funny how it is when you watch movies like The Last of the Mohicans, or The Mission, you think this kinda stuff only happened back then, or happens only in the furthest and most remote part of the Amazon or whatever. You know, like, white man come, take everything. Or even in movies like Braveheart or 300, where a bigger or more developed nation tries to conquer a smaller one. You know, like, they can take our lives, but they can never take away, our FREEDOM...

This kinda shit still happens now man. Right before our eyes. I guess that's why movies like these, of legends or folklore, are still so relevant today. Call it what you want - the representation of masculinity re-presented, hegemony at its sneakiest, or simply, escapism for the man of today (and perhaps a little voyeurism for us girls!).

We watched 300 at the cinema again last week. Guess it's one of the only movies we'd be willing to pay 30 Dirhams to go watch.

If Ben's life in Dubai was a movie, he'd be the victim, left to fend for himself among all the angmoh aggressors. Poor dude from the tiny island country in the Far East has no chance against this army of white dudes sitting high up on their pedestals. So we always root for the underdog right? I would of course... he's my husband.

Many find it extremely difficult to accept that a 28-year old "Asian" is a Sous Chef at such a fine establishment. Especially the mat sallehs. Ben has a mat salleh colleague who's terribly threatened by Ben's presence, and goes beyond what can be deemed "healthy competition" to get ahead. He takes credit for Ben's work all the time. I told my parents once that Ben cooked for Michael Schumacher, Tiger Woods, Laurence Fishburne, etc. They asked me excitedly, so did he get to meet them? Well, if you have someone famous dining in your restaurant, would you get the coloured guy to go out and speak to them, or one of your own white guys?

VIPs and special guests have the liberty of requesting a special menu instead of ordering from the ala carte menu. So it usually has to be something that really wows them. This gives the Chef de Cuisine and Sous Chefs a chance to get creative. The boys in the kitchen are all too familiar with what happens when a special VIP menu is requested. When I say "boys", I mean the junior chefs and cooks. One of them says to Ben, "What's new? You - work, work, work, plan special menu, do special menu... Then white guy goes out, nods his head and says, Yes thank you, I did it."

On one occasion when Ben planned this really 'power' menu for some VIPs, the CDC insisted that Ben must go out and meet them before the meal was over. After the CDC left, and while Ben was busy with other orders, etc, guess who went out to take credit for Ben's work, as usual. Yup, there he was, the "green-eyed gwailo", nodding his head, Yes thank you, yes thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the meal...

One of the boys now calls "green eyes" by another name, "Tekele". He told Ben of the legend of King Tekele from Sri Lanka. King Tekele would walk about his country, see a statue or sculpture that he liked, and ask who the sculptor was. The sculptor would then be thrown in jail, his name erased from his creation, replaced with Tekele's name. So now, Sri Lankan boy constantly warns Ben, "Don't let Tekele see this" or "Don't let Tekele learn how you created that".

After a rather lengthy discussion with me (Ben would call it a "lecture"), Ben has been a bit more assertive when it's time to meet guests or take credit for his work. Of course it doesn't help that the restaurant managers are angmoh and racist too. So they usually just go straight to the angmoh chef and tell him that the customers wanna meet the Chef. But Ben has had more opportunities to meet guests recently, which makes Tekele feel even more threatened.

Guests are usually surprised when they meet Ben. Oh, you're so young! Where are you from? Etc etc. But at least at the end of each conversation, they would usually say something like, "I'll remember this. I'll remember the young chef from Singapore who cooked this amazing meal for us".

Perhaps this is what happens to all underdogs. They don't go to war with victory as their goal, but because it's the right thing to do. They don't always win the battle, but will always be remembered for what they stand for.

Day at the Beach

Missing seaweed, sea slugs and natural beaches, I decided to walk the entire stretch of Jumeirah Beach (from Jumeirah Beach Hotel to Mercato Mall) one day. It didn't occur to me that it was a Friday till I reached the beach and noticed the chaos there.

The stretch of beach next to Jumeirah Beach Hotel was packed with people. Young and old, Caucasian, Indian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern… There were kids picking seashells and building sandcastles...

Half naked men and bikini clad women soaking up the sun, and two men playing cricket, not bothered about the fact that the tennis ball they were batting might hit a child or passerby.

Then there were hunky surfer dudes, either riding the waves or checking out girls.

White sails dotted the horizon, with the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club not too far from this beach.

I walked to the far end of this beach and found nothing. There was nothing on the shore that was alive (except for the humans of course) – only scattered seashells plus a few seagulls soaring above.

The beach is divided by a marina, cordoned off by a rock wall and barbed wire. The rich and elite of Dubai were enjoying the ‘weekend’ too, taking their boats and yachts out for a ‘swim’.

The next stretch of beach I came across was deserted, as it was not as artificially flat and white as the one before.

However, I still did not spot anything here except for vacant shells and broken bits of coral.

After a while, an Indian couple came by, and to my wonder, performed some sort of Hindu ritual right before my eyes. The lady removed a large, wooden statue of a reclining Ganesha from a bag, placed it in the sand, and walked around it three times. Then she scattered the few flowers she was holding in her hands over the statue. The man with her then picked the statue up and threw it into the sea.

The waves of course washed the statue back ashore, so the man threw the statue back again, a few times, without luck. Finally, the couple climbed the rock bund at the end of the beach and threw Ganesha into the open sea.

After the couple left, an Arab couple arrived, choosing this more secluded beach to set up their ‘payung’ and do a bit of sunbathing.

This stretch of beach also ended with a man-made rock wall, separating it from another marina. So I continued, till I came to the next beach, and the next, and the next, till the sun set and my legs could not take me any further.


My finds for the day…

Sand collar of a moon snail

Sand Star (dead)

Limpet?

Cuttlefish "skeleton"

The beaches are so ‘clean’ that you don’t even see seaweed, so spotting an occasional sliver of algae became some sort of “Desperate Search For Weed”.

Sargassum sp.

Next ‘discovery beach walk’ - the other stretch of beach, from Umm Suqeim to Jebel Ali. I hope to find more there, as there used to be a marine sanctuary at the far tip of Jebel Ali (closer to Abu Dhabi). The Palm Jebel Ali is being developed at this same location (taking over the marine SANCTUARY itself), so this means more walls, barbed wire, tighter security, a lot of sedimentation and maybe even devastation of marine life.

The Doha-Dubai Derrama

Ben n I took a Qatar Airways flight back to Dubai from Singapore, via Doha on 12th March. We left Singapore at 6.35am (GMT +8) and arrived in Doha at 10.15am (GMT +3). We discovered that our connecting flight to Dubai was delayed, from 1.30pm to 8.00pm.

The guy at the Transfer Counter said that the delay was due to airport closure in Dubai because of a “crash landing” on the runway. Eerie images of the SQ6 wreckage flashed through my mind, but we found out later that the accident wasn’t as serious as the ground staff portrayed it to be.

I asked if Qatar Airways would divert the flight to Sharjah Airport, which is just a 30-minute drive from Dubai, ‘cos it didn’t make sense that we had to wait 10 hours for a 45 minute flight. However, the ground staff could only say “No, it’s not possible” or “I don’t know”.

I worried about all the frozen homemade kaya and sambal haybee left in cargo in some hangar or worse, the tarmac…

So Qatar Airways put the stranded passengers up in a nearby hotel, and lunch at the hotel was paid for too. We managed to get a nice afternoon nap, then took the shuttle bus back to Doha airport. The bus from the hotel to the airport was delayed for 20 minutes because one of the passengers made a call from his hotel room and didn’t have Qatari Riyal to pay for it. He needed 82 Riyal, so a few people from the bus helped to chip in to expedite his check out.

Airports in the Middle East are quite a mess with not just long queues at Immigration, but Immigration staff who take forever to clear each passenger. And bags are scanned at 3 to 4 different points, passport and boarding passes checked about 3 or 4 times too. Very ‘leceh’.

At the Immigration counter in Doha Airport, I was in the “Ladies’ Inspection” queue and noticed that a few angmoh men and an Arab man with his family were also in the queue. Because it was a shorter queue, I asked Ben to join me. However, the guy who was behind me in the line got aggressive when Ben came over.

He was like “Hey! There’s a queue here and I have a flight to catch!” and I said, “My husband and I are travelling together” and he was like, "So?!! You can bloody well move to the back then!" Ben was not in the mood to argue ‘cos he felt we were in the wrong, so I moved back behind this angmoh a**hole. Just ONE spot behind him. Duh…

Wa lau… wtf… Do you know who he was? He was the same guy that delayed the bus! He made 19 people wait 20 minutes for him, and strangers helped him pay 82 Riyal for his bloody phonecall (that’s about 80 Ringgit!). And now, just moving one place behind in a queue was a big deal? We’re all on the same flight, you bloody ungrateful moron!

I just kept silent and didn’t argue with him. “Budi baik dikenang baik. Budi jahat dibalas jahat.” What goes around, comes around.

Here’s a picture of him, rushing to join the crowd at the flight gate.


We waited another 3 hours till we finally left Doha. When we arrived in Dubai, clearance at Immigration took over an hour!

Dubai may boast that it has a huge airport, but it’s just that. Huge. Passengers have to walk for miles to get from their gates to Immigration, but the airport is chaotic at Immigration and at the departure & arrival areas.

You find you have to walk from one end of the airport to the other, only to be told that your gate has been changed, so you proceed to the new gate, rush to get in queue, for a bus that will bring you to a remote parking bay far, far away. Size doesn’t matter if you have only ONE runway and no aerobridges! Duh…

At the Immigration counters in Dubai airport, the ugliness of a few Caucasian men showed. First, there was of course the same guy who told me off. He was probably really ticked off that this little insignificant ‘oriental girl’ spoke back. And there he was in Dubai, pushing his way around, cutting queues to get ahead at Immigration.

When an Immigration officer opened up a new queue, all these lemming-like morons ran for it. Among them was another Caucasian man, who bumped into an Indian man. He started swearing at the Indian man, who let him get ahead of him. But ugly angmoh man was not happy and continued pushing and swearing, swinging his luggage at the Indian man. The Indian guy asked him to relax, and another Indian guy tried to break it up between them.

Later, in another queue, another Caucasian man started cussing the Pakistani guy in front of him. Apparently, when it was the Pakistani guy’s turn to proceed to the counter, someone from another line jumped the queue. So the Caucasian man got pissed off, “Hey! What the @#$%!! You’re just gonna let that guy get ahead? So we’re all just gonna stand here all night? Why the %$#@ are you just standing there? Aren’t you gonna move… blah blah blah”. The Pakistani dude just ignored him.

In a region where Caucasian expats are so highly paid and ‘kow-tow-ed’ and Asians are treated as lower class, you can really see how ugly class-conscious people can become. It’s more subtle in Singapore, where you sometimes see customers ordering waiters or service staff around like they owe them a living. Be nice lah. Waiters may wait on you ‘cos they need to earn a living, but they’re not inferior, and not slaves. Good manners usually begets good service… unless the waitress is having PMS or something.

Ben n I get home at around 1.00am (5.00am Singapore/KL time), more than 24 hours after checking-in for our flight the morning before. So much for hoping that our return to Dubai would be a smooth transition after such a nice break back home. But NO… The Middle East once again had to prove how different they are from the rest of the world. At least I’ve learnt a lesson or two...

1. To be civilised doesn’t depend on where you come from. You may come from the most developed or richest nation in the world, but you’re uncivilised once you think that you’re the biggest fish in the sea.

2. We all have the same fate at the end of the road, so why turn ugly just to get ahead? Life is beautiful if only we took the time to appreciate the little things that really matter.

3. And next time, we’re flying Singapore Airlines.

Jeremy & Hui Chin’s Visit

Jeremy & Hui Chin were leaving London and moving back to KL for good. So on their extended journey home, they stopped by Dubai for 5 days (from 31st Jan – 4th Feb), followed by a 2-week trip to Cairo and Jordan. They then returned to Dubai for another 2 days before returning to KL on 22nd Feb.

They were hoping to get an inside view of the Burj Al Arab, but only hotel guests and pre-booked dining guests are allowed to enter the Hotel, so I advised them not to waste a shit-load of money on a meal at Burj Al Arab just to gain entry into this 7-star all-suite hotel.

We did however get a look of Burj Al Arab from the outside, as I brought them to the beach and Madinat Jumeirah. We had dinner at Japengo restaurant within the Madinat Jumeirah, where Chef Andrew works, followed by drinks at Bahri Bar for a nice view of Burj Al Arab by night.

They were to arrive at around 6.30am on the 31st, so I called Rana beforehand to get him to pick me up at 6.00am, then drive to the airport to pick them up. Rana however only arrived at 8.30am, while Jeremy & Hui Chin waited for at least 3 hours till we finally reached the airport. Instead of a van, Rana drove his small sedan which could only fit one suitcase in the boot, so Hui Chin & Jeremy had to squeeze in the back seats with another suitcase and bags.

Quite soon after we left the airport, a car hit into Rana’s from the back and the bumper fell off! So Rana had to hail a cab for us. Rana has proven that he’s not very dependable, but sometimes it’s nice to use a car-lift whom you know… I consider him a familiar face. He has since sold off the sedan and now has a permanent day job ‘cos being a car-lift is illegal and he’d be fined 4,000 Dirhams if caught.

We passed an Egyptian ‘skirt dancing’ performance while we were at Madinat Jumeirah

Ben managed to get 2 days off while Jeremy and Hui Chin were here, so we chose one of the days to go for a tour of the Hatta Pools in the Hajar Mountains. The guide/driver picked us up from Jumeirah Beach Hotel in the morning, and the 4 of us rode in his Ford Land Cruiser past Sharjah, into Omani territory, thereafter Hatta town. After passing sand dunes and small towns, it was great to get away from the dull sandy grey of the city and see mountains, greenery and wadis (rock pools).


The Hajar Mountains were once ocean floor millions of years ago. The rock formations here originated at the bottom of the ocean, and its dark brown and slate-coloured rocks are actually oceanic crystal rocks.

One thing they conveniently forgot to mention when advertising this tour is that the ‘Pools’ are usually dried up unless there has been significant rainfall up in the mountains. And if it’s raining, the SUV would not be able to take us up into the mountains for safety reasons.

Ben spots this tiny frog (or toad) (4-5cm), in camouflage

Luckily, the ‘Pools’ weren’t completely dried up, although it didn’t look as inviting as the deep and azure blue pools I saw on the Internet and TV. One couldn’t dive into the wadi like how the host on Discovery Channel did, but only wade about, if you wanted to. Even so, it was a pleasant trip and our guide, Anasi, was very competent.

After driving up and down the steep and rocky inclines in the mountains and making two stops at wadis to take photos, we enjoyed a nice lunch at the Hatta Fort Hotel. Back in Dubai, we got Anasi to drop us off at The One&Only Royal Mirage Hotel.

Jeremy took a nap on a deckchair while Ben, Hui Chin n I rested by the pool enjoying a drink, and much needed coffee. We took some photos on the beach as the sun set, and then headed to Hard Rock Café for dinner.

Ben enjoyed this REALLY huge burger

One of Hui Chin’s “Things to do in Dubai” was to go watch a camel race. I found out as much as I could about camel racing in Dubai before their trip, but the info on websites are very vague about it. Some say there’s racing on Tuesdays & Thursdays, some say Thursdays & Fridays, some say every morning throughout the winter months…

Most websites say Camel Racing takes place all over Dubai, but don’t pinpoint where, and some say it’s “near” Nad Al Sheba. If you call the Nad Al Sheba Racing Club, they only have info about Horse Racing, and give you another number to call, probably the camel stables or something. When you call this number, someone tells you in a not very convincing way that there “should be” a race on such and such a day and time.

We call Muhammed (a new car lift) and get him to bring us to Nad Al Sheba one afternoon. We pass the camel race track but don’t see any races going on, so I call the ‘mysterious number’ again. The guy on the line says yes, there ‘should be’ a camel race right now, but there we were, parked in front of an empty and deserted track.

The next day we find out from a hotel concierge that camel racing is temporarily banned (because of the use of kids as young as 9 or 10 as jockeys), until they introduce ‘robot jockeys’ sometime this or next year. Ben is against camel racing or any other kind of animal race ‘cos he thinks it’s cruel, so he was happy he didn’t have to watch a race.

Outside Basta Art Café, waiting for the weather to clear up

Hui Chin wants to check out the belly dancing ‘outfits’ and handicrafts in the Souks, so we plan to meet her friend Umica in Bur Dubai, hoping that Umica can help when haggling at the Souk to get the best bargain. Umica is a resident here, actually born here in Dubai.

It’s not a very good day to visit the souks as it’s raining, so we have coffee/tea and really yummy strawberry cheese cake at Basta Art Café while waiting for Umica to arrive. She gets lost as she doesn’t know where the Bastakiya is. When she finally finds her way to the Bastakiya, we follow her in her car as she parks it at a carpark near Shindaga.

We forget it’s a Friday, and Jeremy & Hui Chin are amazed at how crowded the area is. The souks, creekside and just every street and corner is packed with Indian men. Jeremy tries to spot a woman, any woman, in the crowd but it’s like trying to find ‘Wally’.

I spent my first month here studying the Dubai Explorer, Street Guide and TimeOut, so Hui Chin n the guys find it very amusing that I know the area so well whereas Umica who’s been living here her whole life is kinda lost. It’s still drizzling as we walk through the Textile Souk and the Old Souk. Ben buys some really shiok Indian deep-fried snacks, and we take the abra over to the Deira side of the creek.

We visit the Gold Souk and other fringing souks, and later find out from Umica that there are so many Indians in Dubai that Hindi is the ‘official’ language at markets and small shops instead of Arabic. Even most of the Emiratis speak Hindi.

The souks aren’t like what Hui Chin was expecting, as she thought it would be more authentic like those in Morocco or Istanbul, with local Arabs selling handicrafts and such. Instead, it was like Little India, but she and Jeremy did enjoy the experience, especially seeing so many Indians congregated in such a congested area.

We take the abra back to Bur Dubai and ask Umica to bring us some place where we can try authentic Arabic/local food. So we have dinner at a restaurant in Garhoud. Arabic cuisine is pretty similar to Lebanese food, with influences from the Mediterranean too. We enjoy stuff like grilled skewered meats (kebabs), shish tawouk, hommous, arayes and zatar bread, and local flatbread with this really yummy & creamy garlic spread.

Then Jeremy orders this really weird drink that he spotted in the Fruit Juice list, something called ‘Jalab’. He asks the waiter what it is, and he says it’s date juice with pine nuts. It tastes really gross and Hui Chin says it smells like insecticide, but Jeremy seems to enjoy until we keep seeing different waiters pass by, whisper to another waiter, then stifle a laugh.

We also try some shisha, which is pretty gross too. The waiter who gives us the disposable plastic mouthpieces for the pipe tells Jeremy that it’s called “biz” in Arabic. So Jeremy keeps saying “biz” till the restaurant manager comes up to him, telling him not to say it ‘cos it means “breast”.

Ben n I order Nescafe and the waiter brings us this:

DIY coffee

We also bring Jeremy & Hui Chin to the ‘famous’ malls, probably the only thing that Dubai proudly boasts – Mall of the Emirates and Ibn Battuta Mall. They’re not very interested and I can’t blame them. Like I said at the start, Dubai has nothing much to offer a tourist, or even a resident. Ask any Emirati what’s a good place to visit in Dubai, and he’ll say “Mall of the Emirates”.

Ben advises me not to encourage any of our family n friends to visit Dubai. Airfare to Dubai from Malaysia or Singapore cost as much as a flight to Europe, and the hassle and chaos at the airport is enough to make any visitor turn back. Although we now have a huge apartment to ourselves that can accommodate all my Ah Ees at one go, there’s nothing much to do in Dubai, unless you don’t mind parting with a lot of money at the malls and expensive restaurants.

My advice for a fulfilling getaway that doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket, visit a nature spot in your home country (Pulau Ubin or Bukit Timah in Singapore, or Taman Negara, Kota Tinggi, and many more in Malaysia), or take a ‘Glutton’s Tour’, savour the smells, sounds, sights, tastes, take lots of pictures, and share it with everyone you know ☺