Thursday Thirteen #24
Posted in Thursday Thirteen on 12/27/2007 12:49 am by Grace 
Thanks to Samulli for the T13 banner
13 EVENTS THAT HAPPENED IN 2007 (Part One)
1. I bade goodbye to my life in Japan. After more than 10 years there, half to study and half spent working, getting married and having kid, I said sayonara to my second home.
2. My family and I relocated in Dubai. I accepted the job offer and got on the plane with my trailing spouse and daughter who will be fully dependent on me. That was probably the bravest thing I did.
3. I started to work for the new company right only a couple of hours after we landed!
4. I started to blog about our desert life, all because I had nothing else to do in my first few weeks at work. I did not even have a PC for three weeks! I had to write posts with pen and paper and later transfer them.
5. We transferred to our own flat after spending two months in the company guesthouse where we are not allowed to cook (we ate out) and there was no washing machine (we washed by hand). Most of our things are left in Japan so we had a very barren home.
6. Our daughter is enrolled in school here (British curriculum) when she was not equipped with the English language. I worried much but that did not last long, now she is fully conversant with the language, even adding Arabic to her conversations! She is in KG1 class since September (was just a listener at the same class last March-June).
7. My mother came to Dubai to stay with us. She had some terrible experiences with the immigration section at the home country. She is still here now taking care of P after school.
8. Dubai’s skyscraper, Burj Dubai becomes the world’s tallest building.
9. The first palm island is completed and residents move to their homes in Palm Jumeirah.
10. Justin Timberlake performed in the UAE for the first time; not that I was there, just sayin’. (and on a different date, Shakira did some hip shaking performance, too)
11. Cyclone Gonu visits the UAE and the neighboring gulf countries.
12. The construction of the Dubai Metro is in full swing. They are giving a really optimistic completion date on March 2008 so everywhere you could see diversion roads, closed roads and a helluva traffic.
13. It rained again in November. The first was in March.
