Busuk, Bising n Bodoh

Yup, BUSUK! BISING! BODOH! These 3 words best describe The Housemate n his other smelly, noisy n dumbass friends from the same country. I’ve never been racist or one who really groups people into stereotypes… but seriously!! This is too much!

There were two occasions when Ben n I were on the shuttle bus, and when one or two people of That nationality got up the bus, the whole bus would REEK of this awful smell. It’s really bad… especially since we ourselves are Chinese, just not from the same country. So it worries us that we might be mistaken for them, thus labelled as smelly, noisy n stupid too.

The smell is like… ayo… just really smelly lah. I said to Ben it’s like maybe they didn’t shower for a few days or something. But he said, even back in his army days when the guys were out in the jungle for days, they never smelled as bad. So we guessed maybe it’s their diet… but to smell that bad, one would have to be on a diet of pork ass and goat fart man.

So I was thinking, luckily The Housemate is one of ‘em “clean ones”. THEN, one evening, I was watching TV in the hall when The Housemate came back from work, and Damn! The whole hall started to smell! And to make things worse, he didn’t go and shower right away. He sat in the hall for a while, walked in and out of his room, cooked and ate dinner, lingered around some more, and only went to shower at around midnight. I felt I had to disinfect and Lysol the whole couch if I were to dare to sit on it again.

Now I’m so conscious that I might start smelling like them if I sit on the couch, and so conscious not to lean back in case my hair absorbs any smelly stuff from the sofa. Now this fella, he showers every night, but doesn’t in the morning before going off to work. Yes, Aunty Bernie has been doing her “homework” and studying this smelly character. But even then, he has a regular 9-6 office job, and eats at the hotel’s staff canteen where everyone else eats. What gets him reeking of maggot eaten dead rat by the time he gets home at 7.30? What gets all of ‘em smelling like that?

Of course I’ve never been to China, and I have relatives there so I’m trying my best not to be rude, but the kind of Chinese nationals that you get here are a real embarrassment to the rest of the Chinese anywhere else in the world I’m sure. So first is how they’re “busuk”. Now we go on to “bising”.

They’re so noisy, I have to use a whole lot of Hokkien n Cantonese vulgarities if I wanna complain about it to Ben ‘cos it’s really getting to me. But I can’t complain to Ben ‘cos he’s already disliked them even before I came here, and he can’t live without his iPod cos the noise drives him bloody mad. They’re LOUD! Especially the Chinese girls. Bloody loud and absolutely “hiao”. Stupid bimbotic noisy skanky @#$%*&! Think Zhang Zhi Yi, who on her own is already bloody irritating, multiply that by 10, with all of them talking in this really high pitch “nyeh nyeh” kinda voice, and squealing n screaming every now n then. You get this noise on the bus, and even worse, at home when The Housemate has his smelly friends over.

Sometimes he has a whole bunch of them. They come, stink up the place, cook in the kitchen and leave it in a dreadful mess, use my stuff like no tomorrow… From the start we were nice, share rice, oil, salt, pepper, eggs… Bought a rice cooker n electric kettle and let The Housemate use it too. But the @##$%* had a “party” quite soon after we bought our rice cooker. The aftermath of this Fellowship of the Smellies was awful. I found a DEEP scratch in the rice pot. Our NEW rice pot. And the stupid smelly bimbos also found a way to burn a Tefal non-stick spatula. What’s worse was that after the party, The Housemate didn’t bother to replace it with a new one, but simply washed this and kept it back in the kitchen drawer.

Now I have to resort to being some sort of spy or Scrooge, counting every egg and how much rice and stuff he uses, and waiting to see if he’ll take turns to buy this stuff when it’s finished. Damn smelly Housemate and his smelly, noisy freeloader friends. Ben already told him nicely twice, that if he has friends over, they have to keep the noise level down, and clean up after.

Ya he cleans up all right. By using up half a bloody roll of my kitchen towels. Now I even have to keep my kitchen towels safely in the bedroom wardrobe, and sneak out a sheet at a time when I wanna use it. And keeping the noise down? That’s like asking Paris Hilton to say no to sex, drugs n alcohol.

Sometimes The Housemate has just one girl over. If I thought the The Housemate was “bodoh” she’s worse. The Housemate sits in front of the TV even when there’s no reception and just a message on the blank screen saying “Service Disrupted”. The Housemate squats in front of the washing machine watching the laundry spin. And of course you know the one about him trying to grow taugeh in a tin. But this girl, she’s even dumber than him! And they’re both Management Trainees! Now when this girl is over, it sounds like there are 5 girls in the apartment. She’s @#$%* loud. And she just talks and talks and talks. No, she bellows. And this bimbo doesn’t know nuts. Not only does she not understand what I say when I try to speak as slowly as possible, she speaks in a bimbotic American accent thinking it’ll make her sound like she actually can speak English, and after I say anything, she gets The Housemate to translate it for her. She says she loves watching TV, but only watches MTV. And she doesn’t even know how to cook or clean.

So little miss epitome of busuk, bising n bodoh just comes over to the apartment almost every night, makes a HELL of a noise while The Housemate cooks, and he even has to clean up cos she’s so stupid she doesn’t know how to either. Sometimes if I’m watching TV, she or The Housemate will just pick up the remote and start flipping channels. And most of the time they end up watching MTV cos they say Grey’s Anatomy or Criminal Minds has too much “talking”.

The other night there were two bimbos. This same one, and another. I was watching Suddenly Susan, and they were discussing with each other that this show was Friends, and Brooke Shields was Monica... Duh!

Anyway, now that I've finally found time to publish this post, a big event has taken place... Budak Busuk just moved out a couple of days ago! Big drama... Will have a different post about that up soon.

Supermarket Aunty

Ben n I witnessed something the other day n realised that Singapore really isn’t the only country that needs courtesy campaigns. Apart from instances when people rush into an elevator even before u can get out, we also have supermarket trolley hoarders here! Yup, people wheeling trolleys from Géant hypermarket all the way home n leaving the trolleys in the parking lot or along the five foot way. I’ve always wondered if trolley thieves actually keep n use the same trolley the next time they go shopping, or they just take a new one each time?

One thing we don’t have here yet is the aunty-go-market basket-on-wheels-thing, so I can’t be a full-fledged market aunty. Darn!

Groceries are pretty expensive since almost everything is imported from all over the world. Unless you don’t mind drinking camel’s milk, most of the dairy products, fresh produce, etc come from other countries in the Middle East, and of course from all other parts of the world. Ben n I still haven’t found ok-tasting milk. Especially for me, if milk tastes too… uh, milky, it grosses me out. I prefer stuff like HL, which hardly tastes like milk! But of course, good luck finding that here.

Taugeh (bean sprouts) here cost a bomb! You either pay a lot for really pathetic string-thin wilted taugeh, or pay A LOT MORE, for really big taugeh. I bought ‘em big ones once… Wasn’t worth the price. Now I stick to buying ‘em bunches of green leafy stuff that they sell for Dhs.0.95/bunch at the Fresh Herbs section in Géant or Carrefour.

The Housemate just bought a pack of green beans today and plans to GROW taugeh in this butter cookies tin. Dumbass thinks he’s still in Standard Six doing an Alam & Manusia project or what?

There’s kangkung! Well, they call it Morning Glory and it’s a different variety, but kangkung by any other name still tastes as sweet… Then we have something they call Watercress which is definitely not the watercress we use for pork bone soup. This stuff is more like that “ti wan choy” stuff they sometimes sell at NTUC Fairprice. It has a weird aftertaste, but it’s nice and crunchy.

I’ve stopped buying the “paksoy” (pak choy) here cos it’s really limp n pathetic – no crunch y’know. So the other vege I get is something that looks like “chye sim”.

Other than that, we get potatoes n carrots from all over the world, depending on how much you wanna pay - cheap ones from Lebanon, India, etc, expensive ones from France, Australia… There’s also cabbage, brocolli, capsicum… So ok lah, at least I have lots of veggie to keep me happy.

The only seafood I buy is whole pomfret for steaming teochew-style (substitute kiam chye with rice vinegar), or Kingfish cuts (batang fish) for curry or asam pedas. Fish n seafood isn't very fresh though. Prawns here are called shrimp no matter how huge they are. And the white sotong here… I dare not buy man. It’s huge! Sometimes they sell it whole, and it looks like it was just fished out of the tank at Sentosa’s Underwater World. At Géant they pack your seafood nicely in these paper/foil things.

Thai fragrant rice costs about Dhs.8 for a 2kg packet. And at least there’s stuff like soya sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, etc from brands like Kikkoman, Lee Kum Kee, Maggi, and this Blue Dragon brand that seems to be the popular brand sold here for South East Asian and Japanese sauces and foodstuff.

Now we go on to meat… I’ve mentioned before that the chicken here smells very… uh, chicken-ny. Whole “fresh” chicken is actually frozen n thawed, sold as fresh. My Mom keeps reminding me to wash meat properly before cooking, cos cows n pigs don’t get bathed before they’re slaughtered… Now who would’ve thought of that huh. So anyway, I don’t buy whole chicken cos by the time I’m thru with cutting it into pieces (with a pair of scissors!), the chicken-ny chicken is pretty “nuah” n gross, and I start to smell really chicken-ny too. So I buy parts. Unfortunately, they don’t sell mixed parts, only packs of all wings, all drumsticks, all breasts… I wash it thoroughly of course. Perhaps too clean… especially since the taps here are heated so “C” gives u really warm water and “H” stands for Hot as Hell.

After I give the chicken a “clean bath”, I still marinade it with lots of pepper or whatever sauce, and clean, marinated chicken is then used for almost anything – chicken stew, chicken curry, chicken rendang, ayam pongteh, ayam masak merah, chicken kapitan… My choices are running out though, cos the pre-packed sauces I brought here with me are running low. What Ben n I are rationing really slowly is my Mom’s homemade kapitan sauce and Desmond's Mom's power sambal.

Beef from India is of slightly cheaper than New Zealand. This also goes into stews, curries, rendang… Oh, talking 'bout rendang. They don’t have Kara coconut cream here man. Just cans of coconut milk from Philippines and Thailand that’s quite watery. They also sell “freshly” grated coconut that's really roughly shaven, with bits of husk in it.

And then, supermarkets like Choithram have a small, secluded Pork section, selling “fresh” pork, or imported bacon, sausages, pork products. It’s damn expensive of course, so Ben n I treat ourselves to bacon and cheese sausages just once in a while. A pack of just 4 precious slices of streaky bacon costs Dhs.14, here, take my arm! And 10 really yummy “cheese dogs” (cheese-stuffed pork sausages) cost Dhs.17, and there’s my leg!

Last week, The Housemate excitedly showed me a pack of frozen pork leg that he bought at 40-over dirhams. I thought, being Chinese and all, we’d be seeing a pot of authentic “tauyu” vinegar pork leg stew. But alamak, our friend just dumped it in a big pot full of water and boiled it as soup. Here’s a pic but u can’t really see how gross it was cos this was taken after it was kept in the fridge, so the soup turned into an even gross-er jelly-like thing. It looked so gross Ben almost threw up when he saw it.

Dunwannabe

I just realised I'm a dunwannabe. Never wannabe this or that, always dunwanna be this and that.

I’m turning 29 tomorrow! Ben managed to get this Sunday & Monday off, so it’s our first birthday together. A HSBC rep who handled Ben’s banking stuff insisted that Ben must cook for me… Don’t you think that’s so expected? Like, “oh, your husband’s a chef so you probably get to eat really nice food huh” or “oh, your husband’s a chef so you don’t need to worry about cooking huh”…

If that’s the case, then I wonder what people say to Ben? Like, “oh, your wife’s a housewife who was a graphic designer and who’s in limbo between graphic design, early childhood education and 'tai-tai-hood' so you probably get really creative lectures about how to wipe your nose while keeping the kitchen clean?”

We've realised that time, or the day, passes real quickly here. We figured it’s cos since you get more hours of daylight here (it’s bright n sunny from 6am till 7.30pm), your body automatically works on “daytime mode” right up till sunset. Ok, firstly I wake up rather late lah… Say about 11.30am or sometimes even later in the afternoon! Then I either prepare cover letters to fax or email out, get something to eat, do laundry or house cleaning when necessary… By 5-6pm I may go out to the nearby shops for grocery shopping, faxing or internet surfing till 7-9pm… Then by 10-11pm it’s time to prepare dinner, read the papers or Dubai guide books, wait for Ben to get home, have dinner at 1-2am, sleep.

I’m still looking n applying for graphic design jobs, cos the teaching jobs require you to be British, American or “western educated” – their way of saying “we only hire angmohs”. Like out of 5, I get a call back from 1, and find out that the company is located far from our Timbuktu home. So what I do now is go for the interview anyway and ask them if I can do freelance work for them… which is usually no cos most employers of course want someone whose neck they can breathe down all day.

Ben n I have sorted out our monthly budget and hope we can stick to it cos based on how much we have to send back to Singapore to settle bills, etc, and the amount we spend here, it’s quite alarming that Ben doesn’t get to save much. That’s why I’m still hoping I’ll get a job soon so we can at least have a bit more to save (and splurge…). But it’s a good thing I was jobless last month or the Summer Sales would have killed me! So tempting… It’s like 80% of the stuff goes on sale at 50% discount, and the last week of the sale (that was last week), it gets slashed another 50% so it’s 75% off the original price.

So back to our monthly budget… We spent like about Dhs.800 on groceries (foodstuff only) last month! I guess it’s hard to calculate how much we actually spend/need cos The Housemate and I take turns to buy stuff like rice, oil, eggs, etc, and even though I use it more regularly than he does, when he has his “China Parties” he uses up a lot of stuff at one go, so I’m not sure exactly how much foodstuff Ben n I need a month. Right now I’ve set the budget at Dhs.500 and hope I can keep it to that or less.

We also spent damn a lot on cabfare, so now I’ve downloaded all the routes, maps n timetables for the public bus service so that we can budget our travelling expenses a little. But Ben doesn’t really like the idea of me travelling by public bus here. I guess I’ll try it out at least a couple of times first to see how “convenient and efficient” it is and whether it’s considered “safe” by Ben’s standards.

There’s a restaurant/café in Ibn Battuta Mall that is equipped with wi-fi whatever-you-call-it and I tried it out a few weeks back. In the end, it’s still better to pay Dhs.10 an hour at the nearby shops, cos connection at that wi-fi place was really slow, and to take a cab back from there costs me Dhs.30, plus another Dhs.10 to buy a drink and sit there… So even if I sit my butt there for 5 hours, I can’t get much done due to the slow connection.

Before I left Singapore, I applied online for a cabin crew position with Emirates Airlines. When I got here, I got in touch with my bro’s friend, Juline who flies with Emirates to ask her whatever I wanted to know about the job. She used to fly with SQ too, and comparing working with both airlines, with Emirates, much better pay, but shorter layovers and horrible passengers. Apparently the economy class cabin is converted into a dump after each meal service as the pax are really messy and demanding. It’s like an SQ Madras turn, but on almost every flight! And she said to be able to make it and enjoy the job, you have to be very “garang” and get your way with the rest, no need for the SQ “please go ahead cos you’re senior n I love your hair n nails” culture. It’s a dog eat dog world for Emirates crew.

So this kinda got me worried cos I totally cannot be “garang” lah so for sure kena bully by the big angmoh “girls”. And on top of that, Drew’s friend said that Emirates wasn’t hiring married girls anymore because of some maternity leave and benefits thing. So I decided to forget about “a rewarding career with Emirates”.

Then one day I get a call from them asking me to attend a group interview. Ben said I should just go, see-see, get free makan… So I went even though I wasn’t looking forward to working with “garang” people, but only cos they pay really well (like ten thousand dirhams a month including allowances, plus lodging, transport, etc) … It was supposed to be a whole day affair, from 7.30am onwards. Of course, it would be a whole day affair if you were lucky to get through the various rounds of “elimination”. My “whole day affair” ended by 10.30am!

There were about 23 of us “candidates”, about 4 guys, the rest girls. 80% Filipino and the rest a mixture of Kenyan, angmoh, and the “lain-lain” like me. So first off, they make you wait in the bloody cold reception area for an hour till your fingernails turn blue. Then in a room, two ex-crew tell you all about the airline, the job, life in Dubai, etc. Then each “candidate” goes into a room for the “Reach” test, where they test if you can reach a certain mark on the wall with your arm/hand, which is the minimum height requirement to access onboard safety equipment. I managed to reach it on tiptoes lah.

Then, we’re divided into two groups, do some icebreaking intro thing and given a topic to discuss in 10 minutes. The topic for my group of 12 was, imagine you have to create a new world. You have to name this new world and come up with 10 professionals who will belong to this new world. Professionals must be creative, not the usual engineer, doctor, etc.

So my group starts discussing, and waste probably 8 minutes with one guy giving a detailed bio of Lance Armstrong and why he should be in this new world, and the next girl stating why that Princess Di, Prince Charle’s “wife” (didn’t she mean late ex-wife?) should be part of this new world… only to be interrupted by the facilitator that we don’t have to name specific individuals.

So finally, based on one of the facilitators' suggestions and because we had only 2 minutes left, we came up with an imaginary underwater world called Sea World (oh wow, sungguh kreatif), and we have a king, queen, doctor, driver, etc, etc. I didn’t really come up with anything except stupid smart ass remarks which was probably the cause of my “elimination”! Like someone said that Sea World needed someone to keep the water clean, like a filter, so I was like…

Bernie: Ya, a sea sponge! We can name him Bob.

SOUND: WEAK LAUGHTER FROM A FEW PEOPLE JUXTAPOSED WITH THE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.

Then there was this girl from Lebanon, who at the start of the day had already told the room about how sad a state her country is in, oh war, war… I’m really not being a bitch, and we all feel sad about Lebanon and war-torn countries, but she just kept this sad and pathetic look on her face all day, and all her remarks were like, “oh my country war…” So when someone mentioned that our Sea World should have a warrior, she said “oh, no war, our world must have no war”. Which is of course utopically true, but smart ass Bernie then said…

Bernie: The only way you can have a world without war is if everyone was identical so that no one will envy each other…

SOUND: MORE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.

So of course, those who didn’t say a word during the discussion, and the insensitive smart ass one didn’t get through to the next round lah. And those who came up with creative suggestions like King, Queen, Warrior, Doctor, Driver, Consultant, etc, as well as Miss Lebanon got through. Some more, no free makan, man!

So now I wonder, if they don’t want smart asses as cabin crew, why does SQ now prefer to hire degree holders, and offer early promotion to cabin crew with degrees? I mean, all an airline needs is a stewardess who wants world peace. Now with SQ dropping in ranking for Best Airline, Best Cabin Crew, etc, I've come up with a solution for SIA to boost their image and re-invent the Singapore Girl - a Singapore Girl Search reality show.

An intense regionwide competition to see who can suck up to the seniors the best while eating humble pie till she pukes without messing up her super wayang make-up, and she should puke whatever she eats cos she has to make sure she's skinny enough for SQ standards, so stick thin that she can squeeze through two carts parked side by side but can hardly lift a fire extinguisher. Then she has to hold a degree in any discipline but ensure she entertains passengers with really intelligent conversation like how she wants to study 'law', and ponder before n after each flight why she's called a Singapore Girl when she's from Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China, Japan or Korea, and why people say she's "a great way to fly".

Medical

Here's what I had to go thru to get my medical and visa done here. Went to Rashid Hospital again to get my Health Card done. Here, you get your Health Card before you get your medical done. Anyway, the Health Card Section has two entrances, one for Men and the other for Ladies. However, the door at the Ladies' Section was locked, so I had to proceed thru the "men's" door.


At the Ladies Section, there are about 4 or 5 counters, empty counters, no one there. Just one lady sitting at a row of seats under the air-con unit, busy sms-ing on her phone. When I ask "Health Card?", she approaches me, looks at my papers, then leads me to the Information Counter at the MEN'S Section.


Again, there's no one at this counter, and she just says "You, wait", and then walks back to her row of seats. Finally some guy appears at the counter, looks at my papers, clips and stamps some stuff and asks me to head back to the Ladies Section and wait at Counter #. So back I go to empty Counter #, and the same lady looks at my papers, leaves it at that counter and calls out to somewhere behind the counter for one of her colleagues, "Syarifa! Syarifa!" Then she turns to me and says again "You, wait".

After some time a lady appears at Counter #, takes my papers and money, returns some papers and a receipt, and asks me to proceed to Counter X. The sms-lady now ushers me to an empty Counter X, leaves my papers there, and calls out to the back again, "Mahmood! Mahmood!". Then turns to me again, says, again, "You, wait". After a long while, who I presume to be Mahmood appears at Counter X, takes my papers and gets my Health Card done. Then Mahmood calls out something that sounds like my name and I approach the counter. He says happily, "Oh, Malaysia? Apa khabar?" I say, "Ha... khabar baik. Itu saja u tau cakap, lain tak tau?" From the stupid blank look on his face I didn't need an answer.

With my Health Card, I now go back to Jumeirah "white house" HR, to apply for a medical appointment. It's scheduled for a Wednesday when Ben's off, so he follows me to Al Qouz (where there's more housing for Jumeirah staff). There's a "mobile clinic" at Al Qouz for Jumeirah staff to get their medical done. Here, a whole bunch of new staff wait in a small room, while some guy has 5 stacks of medical forms with staff numbers on them. The numbers are of course by Dubai standards, not in running order. So from morning, he just goes thru these stacks of papers calling out numbers, and if your staff number gets called, you go up, take the paper and the test tube thingie for your blood test. If you're in the F&B or Service unit, he hands you a small container and says, loud enough for the room to hear, "Stool test". If the staff at the table doesn't understand, he says, "Stool test. Ice cream!", and everyone in the room giggles.

Man at table finishes calling out all the numbers and he still doesn't call out Ben's staff number, so we go up and ask him, and he say, "Oh, Wife of such n such a number... no need to queue". He hands me the vial for the blood test, and my papers, and asks me to proceed to get my X-ray done. So we leave the small room and queue outside the X-ray clinic, a makeshift container on wheels. When it's finally my turn, the guy looks at my papers and says, "Oh, housewife. No need x-ray. Go for blood test".

So we go back to the small room, and by now, Ben's pissed and says we don't need to queue because he's of a higher staff grade. So we cut the queue and I go in to get my blood taken. I've never been afraid of needles, and usually just look away when the needle is being inserted, afterwhich I will actually look at the blood being taken from my vein. But this time, I looked, and hey.. no blood. So one would expect the nurse to remove the needle and try the other arm right? But No... with one inch or more of the needle still in my left arm, she moves it to the right, then to the left, up and down, looking for a vein. After a while, I say, 'maybe you should try the other arm". But she persists, digging the needle in my flesh up & down, left & right... So I say again, "MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY THE OTHER ARM" cos by now it was getting really horrifying. So she finally and reluctantly removes the needle and draws blood from my right arm.

Now here's the weird thing about medicals in Dubai. To save time and resources, they do "batch testing". Meaning, samples of blood from 6 people are mixed together and tested for HIV and Hepatitis. So if it comes back positive, all 6 of those people have to go back for individual tests! I finally got my permanent Residence Visa after my medical came back ok, so no need to meet Dracula from Hell again.

Of dragons n barbie-wannabes

On Wednesday Ben n I decide to go to Chinatown to look for stuff like rock sugar, barley, "liang teh", etc. We tell the cab driver "Chinatown"... He says, "China, at Battuta". We say "No, China-TOWN, market". He says ok, "China market... We go Hatta road...". Driver then takes us towards Hatta n I flip out my Dubai Street Directory (paid another Dhs.20 for this to exchange the useless Dhs.25 map I bought the other day). And I find that Hatta is way out of Dubai...near Oman! Finally the guy brings us to this place called Dragonmart.

We felt really bad after that cos the cab driver didn't have change when we paid the fare, and while trying to get change from other cab drivers around and with a line of impatient cars behind us honking away like mad (they do that here...just honk if they have to wait even 2 seconds)... The driver finally returned us our change, which Ben counted later to be something like Dhs.120 more than what he was supposed to return us. Poor guy...

So anyway, this Dragonmart place turns out to be a HUGE complex (what's new), not a mall, just a warehouse-like complex with shops run mainly by Chinese nationals selling stuff from toys to industrial machinery, bags to household electrical goods. We finally find a tiny shop selling some Chinese foodstuff. No barley, but we got our rock sugar n liang teh, and I spotted this, which of course made Ben all excited...


But our best find would be what we saw at a shop selling school bags... Nice pretty pink Barbie bag, and then next to Barbie...


It's Fulla! Shops also sell Fulla dolls, with different indoor and outdoor clothes. Outdoor fashion is of course, the trendy abaya with tudung, in chic black, or white.

Bride n Broom

Husband expects me to get down on all fours to sweep apartment with this device that he dares to call a broom?


After complaining, husband says, I gave you 600 dirhams... Buy a nice broom lah.

Wow...with Dhs.600, I can choose any broom I want! Let's see what Choithram has to offer...


Man! People here probably don't use brooms cos they only had these same sad mini brooms, and really hard brush-brooms for scrubbing, and even some made from something like "lidi sticks"! Finally found one from Carrefour that sort of does the job... And this pretty thing costs Dhs.24.90...


PS. Soon we'll have to get a new mop too 'cos since we don't have a big pail, The Housemate washes the mop in his toilet bowl!

Yesterday I got a small taste of the frustrations Ben had to deal with when he first got here. We took the shuttle to JBH. Waited for about half an hour for the shuttle to Lamcy. It doesn’t matter if you’re waiting in the shade or not, as long as you’re outdoors, it’s hot, hot, hot! It’s literally a sauna out there. Didn’t help that I didn’t get much sleep the night before also because it was warm n stuffy in the bedroom, so standing outside in the middle of summer even for 2 minutes feels like hell!

After we got to Lamcy, we walked in the sun towards Lamcy Plaza and took a cab to Rashid Hospital. At the information counter, alamak… a taste of home (Malaysia). You get the same type of “pow tau” moving in slo-mo, saying to you in that familiar lazy drawl that you hear in Malaysian immigration offices, “Health card…? … Today no health card… Closed today… You must come Saturday… The other building…”

So we left, waited in the heat again for a cab. Told the cab driver, Immigration, typing center. After driving for a bit he says “Immigration?” And Ben’s already pissed from the reception at the hospital, so he says “What now? Immigration also closed? In Dubai no one needs to work? All useless!”

And cab driver says “Er you want to go Immigration can. But I think closed. Thursday Friday, all closed…what you call ‘hukuman’? Is all closed… But you want to go, I bring you.” So we go back to Lamcy Plaza instead. Have brunch while Ben cools down.

We walk back to the Jumeirah staff residence at Lamcy, wait, again, for the shuttle back to Madinat Jumeirah. By now I’m like melted to a pulp. The pictures of the Madinat Jumeirah look really nice, but mind you, standing outside for those few seconds just to take a photo fries a few brain cells each time.


Inside the Souk Madinat, it’s just alleys and alleys of tourist-targetted shops. Kinda like an upmarket, air-conditioned souk.

Here we step out for a few seconds again just to get a few more shots of the Burj and the Madinat, then hop back into air-con comfort again.

Later Ben n I walk back to the entrance of the Madinat Jumeirah to wait for the shuttle to Gardens. So we wait, again, in the desert heat. Gardens is another accommodation for Jumeirah staff which is a little less “ulu” and closer to where Ben works. Ben’s on the waiting list for an apartment there. It’s not as quiet and peaceful as Ewan, but if we get to move there we’d at least have a one-bedroom apartment all to ourselves instead of having to share this 2-bedroom one with another staff.

Right now our housemate is Yang, a Chinese fella who’s a Management Trainee with Jumeirah Hotels. He’s a nice guy, but these Chinese nationals really stick together huh. Every now n then Yang will have one or two friends over, and he’ll be like “This is my friend. We just met at the supermarket or on the bus”!

So anyway, we reach Gardens, and walk in the bloody afternoon sun to Ibn Battuta Mall. By now I’m just dragging my feet… I’m like the opposite of solar-powered. I complain to Ben that although he’s been waiting 6 weeks to show me around, he really didn’t have to squeeze it all into two days, right in the middle of summer.

The mall is huge n we start walking from China Court, to India Court, then Persia n Egypt. There’s also Andalusia Court somewhere near Egypt, and I dunno if there’s one more ancient city here, but by now I’m too tired to take notice. We stop for ice cream at Baskin Robbins, then shop at Geant (like Giant hypermarket). Here, we are swarmed by salesmen like how you get attacked by those idiotic insurance or credit card sales or survey folk outside the MRT station or bus interchange. Men in suits approach you, “Sir, looking for a microwave?” --- “Good evening. Are you residents here? Have you heard of Showtime?”

So Ben signs up for Showtime, a cable tv company that gives us 52 English channels on top of the regular hundred and fifty over local n Arabic channels. He gets a 20% discount and installation fee waived cos he’s a Jumeirah staff, so once they can finally figure out how to install it in our “ulu” desert home, we have to pay about Dhs.170 a month for cable – movies, sports, serials, CNN, etc.

This place is so huge, they even have a bike showroom in the mall.

After dinner at some Lemongrass Thai joint at the food court, we took a cab home. By this time I was down with a sorethroat, runny nose n slight fever. Still battling with a sorethroat n sniffles now n trying hard not to let it develop into a full-blown flu. Doesn’t help that I can hardly breathe in the bedroom. Worst part is, here, you can’t just simply step outside for some fresh air!

The Start of Ben n Bernie's Dubai Adventures

Yesterday evening I took the shuttle to JBH to meet Ben after work. Caught my first glimpse of the Burj Al Arab from a distance. Although it’s really hazy here, just seeing the Burj for the first time in real life kinda gives you goose bumps. I guess cos each time I saw it on TV I’d think to myself, my husband works there, how cool is that? And now to see it for real…

Then we took the shuttle to Lamcy, and a cab to the Dubai Museum where we were supposed to meet Andrew. But due to miscommunication, Andrew was waiting for us at Deira City Centre. So Ben and I took another cab to City Centre to meet Andrew and had dinner at Japengo. Andrew’s one of the chefs at the Japengo outlet at Madinat Jumeirah.

After dinner we took a cab to Regal Plaza Hotel and had drinks at an English pub there. There were a few Chinese men at the next table conversing in Hokkien, so Andrew said must be Malaysian or Singaporean. But of course once you hear familiar phrases like “wa lau eh” and “k-n-n” you know for sure where they’re from lah. Before we left Andrew n Ben chatted with them a bit. They’re in the Construction business here, and come to this pub often for live soccer matches. They also said there was gonna be some kinda gathering or party the next weekend to celebrate National Day at the Singapore Consulate or whatever.

After that we got Rana to send us home. We dropped Andrew home first and had a look at his place. He’s paying 3,500dhs a month for a really crappy place. He lives in Deira, in a tiny one-room flat. It looks clean n new inside, but really cramped with only enough space for a bed, tv, small cupboard. The ‘kitchen’ is the same size as the bathroom… like ‘hobbit’ size, and even his laundry has to be hung at a funny angle in the kitchen or it wouldn’t fit. Poor guy’s still asking Rana to help him find a better place. Even the location is really bad. It’s like in some dark n dingy back alley, and it’s true that it’s like Geylang… just that those living n ‘working’ there are Nigerian ‘kai’.

Today Ben brought me to the “white house”, Jumeirah’s HR office, to get my paperwork done and apply for my medical check-up. So now it’s my turn for the big Dubai run-around. Apparently I have to go to Rashid Hospital to get a Health Card, and then to the Immigration Typing Center to pay 150dhs to get my visa application typed. This is after Ben’s crazy Dubai run-around plus a few hundred dirhams to apply for my visa that got me here in the first place.

The “white house” is located opposite Jumeirah Beach Hotel and Burj al Arab, so I finally got to take some pics of the Hotel. But this is the closest outsiders like me can get to the hotel – the security gate.

Then we headed over to the Mall of the Emirates.

Apart from being a huge-ass mall, Emirates Mall has this Star-Wars-X-Wing-Fighter-docking-bay-looking thing sticking out at one end. This part of the mall is actually Ski Dubai, an indoor ski and snow park.

Ben waited till I was with him to step into their posh “department stores” like Harvey Nichols n Debenham’s. You have salespeople dressed in designer suits waiting on you so it’s really quite intimidating to walk around the store. Then Ben n I had tea at Armani Café cos he says when ever or where else would we be able to have kopi at ARMANI café… Paid something like 80 dirhams for a skinny latte, a fruit cocktail, tiramisu and apple pie.

We bought some household stuff from Carrefour – electric kettle, laundry basket, foldable laundry hanger-rack thing, etc, then headed home. We watched a rented DVD on my laptop – Wicker Park. Really nice movie… Why was it rated R(A) in Singapore? Or is the stuff we get here really censored big time?

Anyway, how DVD rental goes here is, Ben pays the shop 300dhs. He gets to borrow 30 DVDs (no time limit). Each time he borrows a DVD, whether one copy or 3 at one go, he has to return it within 12 days. Once he’s completed renting 30 DVDs, the shop will return him 150dhs. So it costs about 5dhs a DVD lah. A movie ticket here costs 35dhs!

Ewan Residence

OK, this is where Ben n I live – Ewan Residence, located within the Green Community and Dubai Investments Park… somewhere in the desert near Jebel Ali. There's a place not too far off where you sometimes see camels grazing too! Seriously...


It’s a nice and quiet place, and the apartment is spacious, clean and new. Ben really likes this area although it’s a bit “ulu” cos in other areas it gets pretty congested.


Funny thing about living here is that even though it’s scorching hot, you have to dry your laundry indoors because of the sand and dust. Here’s how dusty it gets even with all doors and windows shut…

This amount of sand/dust settles after a week

It’s actually not cold at night as Ben said it was. There are just two thermostats in the apartment. One in the hall and the other in the bedroom. How it works is it shows you the temperature of the room, and another button is to reduce the aircon temp. So the lowest it can be set at is 10 degress Celcius, which usually gets the room temperature to about 22 degrees. The aircon in the bedroom doesn’t seem to be working and so the temperature in the bedroom is always about 26 – 27 degrees, which really sucks cos I find it quite hard to sleep cos it gets really warm and stuffy.

There’s a half-hourly shuttle service to and from the Courtyard @ Marriott which is just a 5-minute drive away. It has a mini mall with a Choithram supermarket, eating outlets, money exchange thingie place where the guy can transfer money directly into our POSB accounts (at a fee of course), video rental store cum internet cafe, clinic, pharmacy, bookstore, etc. It costs 10 dirhams per hour at the internet café here, and in the city area some internet cafes charge 5 dhs.

The pharmacies here are well-stocked with everything from Tiger Balm to Actifed, tanning oil to contact lens solution, although Ben says anyone who wears contact lenses here must be crazy. The supermarkets cater mainly to locals, Europeans and East Asians, with lotsa instant or heat-n-serve meals like pizzas n pies, briyani n soups. Ben’s been eyeing the dessert fridge for some time now, waiting for a special ocassion to buy this really yummy looking apple pecan pie that costs something like 35 dirhams.

Whole fresh chicken here costs about 9-10 dhs per bird, and smells pretty “chicken-ny” if you know what I mean. Like how sometimes beef has a really strong “cow” smell or how mutton has a much stronger smell compared to lamb? The “fresh” pork here looks pretty pale, but they also sell a whole range of imported canned pork foodstuff like pork n beans that Ben says is yummy. Anyway, we get Indomie here, Kikkoman soya sauce, lousy Lee Kum Kee Panda brand tau yu n oyster sauce and a few other generic condiments.

Only thing missing here is vegetables! I miss my green leafy vege!! No kangkung, no kailan, no chyesim, sweet potato leaves, tauge… A small bunch of Holland “paksoy” (really sad-looking pakchoy) costs 18dhs! But for just 1dhs you can buy an even smaller n sadder-looking bunch of wilted, worm-eaten China ‘paksoy’ from the “fresh” herbs section. So we have to settle for cabbage, lettuce, brocolli n green beans… just cook everything with my Mom’s homemade sambal haybee can lah.

Ben insists we must ration our goodies from home carefully. His fridge, freezer n kitchen cabinets were full after I unpacked my bags. So far he’s had one small epok sardin, one ‘butterfly’, one serving of kaya toast, and chicken pongteh. The ‘butterfly’ really sucks after defosting n re-toasting, but he says at least he gets a taste of home. You should have seen how he looked at my tupperware of pandan chiffon cake… Like sayang-sayang. And when he had a sip of my instant chrysanthemum tea, he just closed his eyes, probably picturing himself sitting at 136…

Ben misses church a lot too, and I got him depressed when I played some of my Praise n Worship mp3s with familiar songs that we could imagine the OLPS choir singing. One of his Filipino colleagues told him that St Mary’s is actually a Protestant church but I’m pretty sure it’s Catholic since they say so on their website right. We’ve yet to check it out ‘cos it’s located somewhere near the city too.

I bought a map of Dubai for bloody 25dhs and it doesn’t show shit. How we get around here is either by shuttle, cabs or Rana. Rana is a 'car lift' (unlicensed taxi driver) whom Andrew met, and he can pick us up from anywhere in Dubai and send us anywhere, at almost half the amount a normal cab would charge us. And of course he’s nice and friendly. He knows Ben as "Ben", but on his handphone, Andrew is listed as “Singa Pur” cos he says “Ben name easy… Your name I cannot… So I call Singa Pur”.

The shuttle services that we take cater to Jumeirah staff or those living in the same residences as Jumeirah staff. There’s the shuttle from here (Ewan) to Courtyard. Then there’s an hourly shuttle from here to Jumeirah Beach Hotel (JBH), Burj Al Arab (BAA) and Madinat Jumeirah (MJ). From JBH and MJ, there are other hourly shuttle services to Gardens, Emirates Towers and Lamcy Plaza. So if we’re going to any part of the city (Bur Dubai, Deira, Dubai Creek), we take the shuttle from Ewan to JBH, then the shuttle from JBH to Lamcy, and then a cab to wherever. Most of the cab drivers here are rude so Ben says must be ‘kwai lan’ when we take cabs or else they’ll cheat us.