Sandier Pastures

From now on, I shall check every Malayalam (Indian) film released. It would be a very strenous thing to do but maybe worth it — because I might just see myself in the silver screen!

I was out today looking for another nursery for Pristine. At the end of the street, so many Indians were standing and seems to be fussing over something. The traffic even stopped. Hmm, really unusual. I was thinking of an accident scene, or someone trying to jump off a building or something or fire? but it was not, everyone was smiling as I walked nearer.

They had cleared the front of the restaurant where I always have my lunch. In the middle of the clearing was the beautiful Indian heroine!

It was a movie shooting.

Cameras rolled and I, together with a bunch of crowd became movie extras and instructed to ‘pass through’ and back and walk normally. It was a funny experience. The other foreigners walking with me enjoyed it and gamefully did their part as extras.

I have never seen a movie shooting in my entire life and once dreamed of going to Beverly Hills to actually see some, haha. Hollywood would just have to wait.

Dubai is teeming with nursery schools offering various curriculums: montessori, international, English or American. With more than 80% of the population are composed of expats from over 200 countries, Dubai schools caters to different student’s needs. Or so I thought.

It’s been almost two months since I started looking for a nursery school to enrol my daughter into. Some are good but too far, some offer transport services but only if I could get my child to wake up at 5:30 a.m.! some are highly acclaimed but with sky rocketing fees (most expats have school fees included to their package, I don’t), and then there are really trustworthy nurseries with loong waiting lists! Imagine, I met a  pregnant mum registering her unborn child just ensure a place to the nursery!

Yesterday, we went to see two schools, around 30 minutes away from where we live. I fell in love with the first one. The children are happy — a really good sign. Pristine instantly loved the place and started to mingle with the kids and sang songs. The school is located in a residential area where most of the people living are British. What a lovely neighbourhood. The fees are steep but sacrifice-able, they have buses with child seats — only that, the transport service don’t go beyond that residential compound! I was so devastated.

The principal says we can send our daughter to that school if we have a car and would list her name to secure a place but! how can that be possible? I mean, getting a car is simple but picking her up at the nursery at 1 p.m. is impossible if both me and hubby are working. And what will Pristine do after that?

Majority of the nurseries here in Dubai are only until noon or around 2pm (with extra fee of course). I visited two nurseries who accept children and care for them until 7pm but in return, you have to tip most of the contents of your wallet to their counters. Plus, these nurseries are too far away from where we live or where I work.

I really find it very silly for nurseries here to be operating only half day. Most moms here are trailing spouses and just stay at home so maybe they could  not be blogging about this dilemma I have. Dubai nurseries don’t cater to working moms. Or maybe if working moms hire house helps/maids (which is very common here), the nursery setup would work out.

Pristine had atttended a nursery for two weeks and stopped going there since falling very ill. I was sick last February 13 and stayed at home and waited for her school van to come. When it did, I met my daughter feeling so weak and looking so unhappy(!) and burning with fever!! Pristine would have febrile convulsion even at the onset of a mild 37.5C fever. She has her medication for that and it should be administered at once when she is warmer than usual. If she is lying in bed and having convulsion at home with me, I can manage that. But my daughter is always oblivious of her high fever and would normally do her running and playing even with a 39C…so what if she suddenly have the seizure and collapses to the hard floor!? That thought really freaked me out big time!

The former nursery did not even inform me Pristine had fever or whatsoever. They did not give her medication when I left meds there and instructed them to. So disappointing. I am glad nothing worse happened and so that nothing will, I called them up telling them I will not send my daughter there anymore. The decision was very costly as they did not refund anything I paid but I could not work properly thinking I am risking my daughter’s life to some incompetent people.

I am loving the new skin wordpress just released. Fell in love with it at first sight and no doubt, this will be the blog theme I’ll have for a while — until maybe another cool release.

Why I am loving it? Simply because the image header is a lot like the beaches here in the Arabian Gulf! Simply stunning! The columns are narrow but I can handle that, for now.

I am too sleepy today. M and I were discussing about a thousand and one things last night, talking for more than three hours (!) in the dark.

After 45 days in Dubai, the cosmopolitan desert life has seeped into me slowly and constantly and I am finding myself complaining of every little thing that gets to my nerve, thus the three hour night discussion with my better half.

But today while riding the bus and looking at the city around me, I thought: Life is what you make out here in Dubai, the added bonus is that you can do anything you want 365 days of the year because the sun is always shining. Now, you can even go skiing, sledging or snowball fighting even when the weather is 40C outside! Where else can you do that?!

Yep, the summer is going to be horrendous but, let’s face it, I’ve had to spend most time indoors in Nagano (Japan) over the winter, so it will be the same thing, just for a different reason. But, reading across the internet, Dubai has a lot to offer in the summer for kids and adults alike. There are lots of events to keep everyone entertained inside temperature/climate controled places. So, no need to fear of being trapped in the four walls of the bedroom answering to toddler’s unending questions.

I have a good job (so far, so good!) that requires no overtime and I don’t need to report every exit I make. Time is flexible and no one complains just as long as I do my part. Sometimes when I walk to work and look at all the labourers who toil under the heat of the sun earning a minimum wage, big part of which they have to send to their families back home, I feel luckier. I should stop complaining about getting my shirt wet with sweat while walking to work. That problem would stop once we have a car. Does not mean really that I am so rich to buy one, it is a necessity here in Dubai, a need not a want.

Also, I should stop thinking about Japan and the life that we would have if we opted to stay. Things are different here than anywhere — not necessarily better or worse, just plain different! Have a mindset that life will be what we make it…no matter where we live!

Well it might be very true when they say that things are changing everywhere, that Dubai is not the same Dubai two hours ago, prices are going up, things getting worse, services getting worse, but that’s happening EVERYWHERE in the world!

A country itself cannot make you happy.

Unbelievably cold today morning when I went out at 8 a.m. Humidity coupled with sudden plunge in early morning temperature down to at least 17C and the whole city is enveloped in fog! 17C is pretty cool, refreshing really. I didn’t have to sweat while walking for 15 minutes to work.

Emirates Twin towers engulfed by fog (photo for reference purposes only)

By 7 am, visibility in Dubai was just 100 meters although by 8:30 am it had improved to 1,000 meters and by mid-morning, the fog had largely cleared. At lunchtime, the searing 27C is on again and I am back walking in the street armed with my umbrella and sunglasses on.

It’s been exactly 44 days since we arrived in Dubai. I entered on working visa, my trailing spouse and our daughter came with me with visit visa. Being Japanese nationals, they are entitled to automatic visa on arrival valid for 60 days only.

So, 60 minus 44 = 16 days left before their visit visa expires and we are starting to panic at the ugly turn of events. 

My employer has arranged for the transfer of my visa from employment to residency. Until then, I can’t sponsor any of my family members. Who would have thought that a simple process as that would take more than two months!?

Most people I know got their passports stamped with resident visa just after a few weeks! Trailing spouse and Pristine need to make a visa run preferrably before March 12.

The ‘visa run’ or visa change basically involves exiting and re-entering the country to gain an exit stamp and new entry stamp in your passport.

 Looks like we have three options:

1. At the Immigration Department - Pay AED500 for a 30 days stamp. This method can be used only once before you must physically leave the country in order to renew the visa.

2. Leave the country - You can simply fly to a neighbouring country and back into Dubai. Tell the travel agent/airline you want to do a visa run and they will find the quickest flight back for you.

Visa run flights are usually to Doha (Qatar), Manama (Bahrain) or Muscat (Oman) and you return an hour or so later, usually on the same plane.

New visit visa — good for 60 days.

3. Drive to the Dubai-Oman border at Hatta - Driving over the border into Oman is also an option as you can get your passport stamped at the border near Hatta, but this is possible for those on the list of 33 exempt countries. (Japan is in the list)

This route takes 4 hours total (It is roughly a 120 km drive to the Omani border).

New visit visa — good for 60 days.

Option #1: Why would we pay costly money and line up the whole day at the Immigration Department and face all the Dubai officialdom and get 30 days extension when we can pay the same using Option #2 and #3 and getting twice as long?

Option #2: Problem. Trailing spouse M and Pristine will be going to fly ALONE, I mean, together, without me because my I don’t have my passport with me, it’s in the hands of the Immigration officials already (resident visa application in progress and taking forever!). M, with his limited English, travelling with overactive toddler, facing visa-related stuff…no, we shall skip this one.

Option #3: We don’t have a valid UAE driver’s license yet. Hence, we can’t hire a car and drive all the way to the Omani border, although I am itching to drive to the vast desert! Wait, we can actually apply for a temporary driving license as we are entitled to (Japan is among the privileged to have easy, hassle-free access to getting an automatic UAE license) but we are not familiar with Dubai roads, yet.

I spent the whole morning walking around town looking for options to solve our problem. It was so hot when the local paper says it’s only spring here! I must have lost one dress size with that 2 hour walk I did.

We can hire a car plus accompanying driver, with extra charge of course but it seems kind of scary to trust your life with a stranger, no?

I spoke to people in the head office about my dilemma and they said it’s my personal problem. (But he will talk to his supervisor about it, no promises of course!)

Someone give me a large dose of Tylenol, please.

A colleague here in my new workplace looked at the picture of the snow-capped mountains I posted previously and asked me with a blank face: why did you choose to live in a rural place like that?

At the mention of Japan, you could imagine the bustling Tokyo area, or the ever alive Osaka, full of bling lights and all or the eye-piercing lights at downtown Akihabara where thousands of shops selling every technological gadget you can imagine. Busy subways, millions of people on the streets. But mountains? and an almost solitary valley with some agricultural area? That was not the Japan that was in his mind.

Matsumoto is surrounded by mountains acclaimed for its beautiful views. People come to this city in crowds to get away from the hideously hot and humid urban summer. They get into trouble with the traffic and expensive hotels just to get a slice of cozy laid back life and there was I living in the heart of the place they desire!

Matsumoto boasts of very clean air, several historic cultures with the Matsumoto castle, a national treasure just 15 minutes drive from home, calm climate and abundant onsens (hot springs) that not only warms the body but also the soul!

Matsumoto Castle - one of Japan’s national treasure

This blog intends to write things about my new conquest, Dubai but I am reminiscing my beloved Japan.

Dubai is a heavy urban area with all the annoying details that comes with most cosmopolitan city. Heavy traffic and lots and lots of people and occassional crime. While big-city people hide behind triple-locked doors and fight commuter stampedes, there’s a lot to be said for life in the slow lane in rural Matsumoto and I can’t wait to visit there again.

Co-sleeping with my own child is the only child rearing style I know in terms of nightime parenting. We had no question about it when Pristine and I got home from the hospital four winters ago.  Where co-sleeping is controversial in some countries, it is perfectly normal in Japan and in the Philippines.

At three years old, our daughter is still sleeping with us, sometimes using my arms as her pillows. I do get cramps sometimes but I don’t mind, not at all.  

I admit that I enjoy the cuddling. The most love I get from anyone is the simple snuggling with a sweet smelling infant at bedtime. I’m reasonably certain that co-sleeping or sleep-sharing with my daughter will only happen one time and she would seek to transfer to her own room one day. I intend and I decided to enjoy this precious time, while it lasts!

But there are times when I do have the mental back and forth that I always do when faced with the advise from “experts”, including one of my favorite author, Zig Ziglar (Author of Raising positive kids in a negative world). Is it really a problem? Do I actually have the energy for it? Are there bigger things I should actually be attending to?

I have imagined attempting to get my three year old daughter to sleep in another bed, in another room. Although this is still all in my mind, I cringe at the fact that I am probably lazy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually care waking up in the middle of the night or in the wee hours of the morning to get her to go back to sleep when she has some sort of nightmare. I don’t care singing in the dark to calm her when she’s frantic and insecure. Also, I have to go to work in the morning and I’d rather get my rest. I don’t like to struggle at bedtime and sleep-sharing would mean I don’t have to get up and bump my head in some wall on the way to the other room where my precious sleeps.

While several reasons, mostly (west) cultural says negative info on co-sleeping,  in my family it has promoted bonding, more sleep for me and facilitated breastfeeding i.e., increased access to nursing with less disturbance of sleep for both mothers and infants.

Of course, where your child sleeps - whether it’s in your bed or a crib is a personal decision.

A dear friend sent me a surprise today. I thought I am in for an overtime when the mailer took time downloading one single email. I thought it was some stuff with huge capacity document attached for translation. It was not. Instead, the email contained this photo attachment:

Matsumoto, Nagano Japan — where I lived for 5+ years before relocating to Dubai. Just imagine these mountains greeting you everyday from November to April! Matsumoto is situated in a valley and we are practically surrounded by these snow-capped mountains that screams immaculate beauty. The scene looks so refreshing my desktop is sporting a new wallpaper right now.

While shopping alone in the nearby supermarket, my hubby came upon a woman from the Philippines who offered him a sample of some drink product. Then she asked him, “are you Chinese, sir?” — to which my husband replied that he is actually Japanese, not Chinese nor Korean as most people in Dubai would assume whenever we go out. (We get lots of nihao’s from people at the restaurant.)

What happened next was, the woman started to talk in Japanese! Hubby was thrilled and probably happy about it, he called me on the phone. Where there are countless number of Filipinos everywhere in Dubai, there is no single soul that can speak his language — I could totally relate to his feelings.

The other girl on the line talked to me: “Ate…blah blah…blah”

How can they always assume that I am older than them? Ate is a Filipino term meaning older sister, or a word used to refer to some female older than yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues about my age but still…

Anyway, as with most of the conversations I had with Filipinos when I was in Japan, they start telling me their life story in a span of any short-minute chat. She started telling me her woes, charged to my hubby’s telephone! She even forgot to ask my name first. She said she has a baby…”Ate,  naanakan po ako ng Hapon…” I have a baby with a Japanese father….(This is a more decent translation to the statement she just blurted out.) The rest of the conversation she continues that the Japanese who fathered her baby went missing after she went back to the Philippines to deliver. Went missing! This is probably a suited definition for men sent to war. They go missing, gone, poof, nothing. The Japanese guy simply ran away from his responsibility.

When she sensed that it was only her doing all the talking while I just stuck my phone in my ear (while biting my lips), she said, “ok I will give the phone to your hubby now. Pass by the supermarket tomorrow, I’d like to see you!”

So, yesterday as much as I didn’t want to go to the supermarket, I had to buy some necessities for my daughter so off I went. I met her. She was just 28 years old. Yes, it was rightful she called me Ate because I am two years older than her. Two years! just two years but her face was battle-ridden than mine. We had a talk. She asked me where I worked and if she can apply. Typical conversation.  Told her I can’t promise anything, I am new to the company and I am not the HR manager!

Then we’re back to her distraught love life. In between giving product samples and sobbing, she told me once again about how she fell in love and got duped. “Wala akong magawa, nainlab ako e…” I have nothing to do, I fell in love. 

Have nothing to do about the love you claim? As if life is some kind of game board you play with dice. Roll the dice in and you step 5 paces and land in a space that says MEET GUY. FALL IN LOVE. GET PREGNANT. No, life is not supposed to be like that! Whatever we do is a product of the decisions we make.

The Japanese guy she was dating was a man in her 50’s frequenting the pub she was working in Japan. The man who promised to follow her to the Philippines. The man who is not supposed to make such promises because he is MARRIED!

How she trusted a man, married at that who frequents pubs and cabarets is so beyond me. How she can believe him when he says he will leave his wife for her! How can she fall in love with a man who is committed and sleeps with another woman.

I despise the man that sperminated her, but hey, it takes two to tango. Please don’t tell me you can’t do anything about it because you fell in love.

P.S. — upon her insistence, she got my phone number…and she called me at 11:38 p.m. when everybody in my house is asleep. I should have known. Some people just call when they like regardless of the time and situation.