Sandier Pastures

This week’s theme: Part of me

My daughter took this photo, with focus on my arm, cutting my face/head in the picture so you can see only a part of me.

I was curious so I tried henna body painting (for free during our desert safari) - - women in Dubai have this on the palms of their hands or at the back or just anywhere on their bodies. The henna artist finished her work on me in less than a minute. Fast, painless and comes off after a week or two.

I found this meme at Are We There Yet Mom and I tagged myself.  

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4. from Wendy Walker’s Four Wives,
“She slept in short segments, dreaming then waking, dreaming again.”

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
I can touch the top of my computer screen.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
No TV at home but we watched School of Rock in DVD.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is?
2:20 pm

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
2:16 pm

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
The construction of Dubai Metro outside (think drilling machines).

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
3 hours ago - I went to another building, 10 minutes away from my building.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Someone’s Wordless Wednesday post.

9. What are you wearing?
A black trouser, blue shirt and a black blazer.

10. Did you dream last night?
Yes and it was very morbid - I saw M died in my dream!

11. When did you last laugh?
An hour ago during lunch.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
(I’m in the office) A clock, a filing cabinet, telephone directory and a world map.

13. Seen anything weird lately?
Not really.

14. What do you think of this quiz?
Like it!

15. What is the last film you saw?
School of Rock starring Jack Black (I’m fast becoming a fan of this guy).

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
I’d pay every debt, mine and my parent’s. Then I’ll take all my siblings and parents and my family (M and P) to a great vacation, preferably in Europe.

17. Tell me something about you that few people dunno.
I am insecure with my appearance…

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Close the gap between the rich and the poor and wipe out the middle class.

19. Do you like to dance?
I LOVE to dance.

20. George Bush.
Enough already.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
My first child is a girl, and I named her Pristine.

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
We never imagined to have a boy but IF we’ll have, hmmm, too difficult! But I love the names Daniel, Richard or Will.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
I am living abroad!

I’m tagging Melba, Stephen, Claudia, Susan, Kelsey, Jenny and anyone who would like to play!

Julian Beever is an English artist famous for his art on the pavements of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium. What makes his talent and his work extra special? Beever gives his drawings and anmorphosis view, meaning, the images are drawn is such a way that it looks like 3D when viewed from the correct angle.

See this and be amazed!

1.  Sony Vaio Laptop: see the brick lines on the monitor.

2. A yacht in the pavement

3. Don’t miss Julian on top of the bottle! (The girl is real)

 4. Watering hole: notice the fake water and hose!

5. A cute seal poking out of the pavement

6. All that glitters is not gold!

7. Water springing out straight from the pipes

8. The fall of the politicians

9. Which beer and guy is real and not?

10. Newspaper boy

11. Wanna be saved by Spidey?

12. Batman and Robin to the rescue!

13. Don’t dare dive or you’ll crack your head - this is a flat pavement!!

… and telling me to rent, buy, get hold of it, whatever means I can. I told her I’ll try and on the first day, she never asked me about it. On the second day, she asked me again and days after that.

Today, she’ll be happy because I’m bringing it home. Finally we can have peace in the house and on Friday on our dayoff, we can all stay home and have a nice quite time.

Any idea how many hours it would take to watch all three Indiana Jones movie?

Dubai Municipality is cracking down on families sharing living quarters in villas across the city. The news says villas (single detached houses or compounds) housing more families than legally allowed will have water and electricity cut at the end of the notice period. Notices have been given to these families to vacate.

But where will they go?

People from all over the world come to Dubai to work. Workers from the sub-continent of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and people from Asia (mainly the Philippines) are increasing each day. The rising cost of living and unreasonable climb of house rents have forced residents old and new to share accommodation with other  people to lessen their monthly expense and send money home.

It is not uncommon for a family to rent a two-bedroom apartment, have one room for themselves and rent out the other room to other families. With the demand of affordable apartments so high and supply too low, many families are forced to send their family members home.

“Service amenities like water, electricity and sewage are provided according to the affection plan of the buildings. When the residential unit is used by more families against the plan it becomes difficult to manage resulting in the accumulation of waste, affecting public safety and environment,” said the head of Building Inspection Section, Buildings Department, Dubai Municipality.”

Yeah the people know that but, shouldn’t the government implement a just and clear system to control the rent cap and supply affordable housing to the people first?

“The Municipality had notified the building owners and real estate companies not to rent out these premises to bachelors and to allow only one family to stay in a single residential unit.”

What thoughtless move from the government. They are obviously blinded (or playing blind) by the current situation of these people living in shared villas, the household income vs. the present outrageous house rents. The real estate bubble economy condition continues to inflate making landlords to fatten their pockets more and more and forcing people share accommodation never mind the lack of privacy in order to survive.

Figures:

A studio room in Deira (city center area) : Dhs. 50,000 (US$13,600) per year.

Two bedroom apartment in the same area, new building: Dhs. 90,000 - 100,000 (US$)24,500 - 28,000) per year.

A two bedroom villa in Springs (a popular expat community) - Dhs. 140,000 (US$38,000) per year.

Bedspace (one single bed space in a bunk bed, shared by 6-8 other people in one room!): Dhs. 800/month (US$220). Don’t say it’s cheap because the buildings are usually old and unhygienic!

The rents increase EVERY year. A two bedroom flat located 20 minutes away from the city proper that was Dhs. 66,000 (US$18,000)/year last year is priced at Dhs. 75,000 (US$20,500) to new tenants moving in this year.

At of this moment, Dubai Municipality said they will start to raid Rashidiya area and will expand through the other middle-low class communities in the next few days. How many other families, including small children will be forced to live in a tent in the middle of summer!!?

Last weekend, we went to Fujairah, one of the seven Emirates of the UAE. The UAE is composed of seven (7) Emirates namely: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah. Of these seven Emirates, only Fujairah is situated in the east coast, fronting the Indian Ocean so the color of the sea is different than in Dubai!

All the other Emirates are located on the west coast and are largely covered by desert but Fujairah is almost totally mountainous.

~ Hajar Mountain range in Fujairah ~

~ tree less mountains ~

The road going to Fujairah looks like this:

~ road less travelled ~

Just after crossing the border of the neighboring Emirate, the road is narrow with only one lane for each way making driving a bit scary. You know all those people who overtake without thinking and end up crashing with the car on the opposite side!

We stopped by to take photos with the Hajar Mountains on the background and to let other cars (the speedy ones) go ahead and not honk or flash their lights behind us.

It’s been almost a year and a half that I’ve not seen mountains!

~ can you believe I’m still smiling even if it’s 110F outside! ~

After almost two hours of driving from Dubai, we finally reached our destination:

~ Hotel JAL Fujairah Resort & Spa ~

The hotel is a resort type hotel with its own private beach:

and a very big pool:

The private beach view from above. At this time of the year, the sand becomes too hot it could scorch the soles of your feet. No kidding!!

On the way to Fujairah city proper, there are some interesting roundabouts:

~ a giant lamp ~

~ huge jars of clay ~

~ a traditional dhow and some dolphins ~

We also saw an old mosque along the road thought to be built around 500 years ago.

Explanation of the historical site and a well the people used for ablution before going inside the mosque for their prayers:

On the way home, we spotted a public beach and braved the hot, hot summer sun. Just like in the private beach at the hotel, the sand was scorching hot and if barefoot, unless you run like the road runner going to the water, chances are you will want to wear your slippers.

The public open beach in Fujairah is not well maintained as the ones in Dubai. Clearly, Dubai is exerting so much effort to keep it a tourist attractive city. There were no lifeguards, shower areas and picnic areas in Fujairah’s public beach. The grounds were also dirty of garbage from picnickers.

It was more than 110F at 2 pm. Even the beach babe did not dare swim.  

We stayed on the beach for maximum 5 minutes and ran for shelter.

***** 

If anyone is interested in visiting Fujairah, I highly recommend the Hotel JAL Resort & Spa, that is, if you don’t mind the long drive from the city of Dubai. It’s a great value for money than other beach hotels in Dubai (read: it’s much, much cheaper!). It has its own private beach, pool, spa and diving center.

The Diving Center offers classes in diving and snorkeling and will take tourists to the nearby island for diving. The photos of the diving sessions are so enticing I would go if only I can swim.

I recommend checking into a resort hotel (there are plenty in the area) than going to a public beach because of reasons I wrote above.

We went there because of M’s work. He was invited to inspect the hotel and since it’s a weekend, we joined him.

I saw Indy on screen again! I saw Indy on screen again!

We squeezed ourselves into the pack of moviegoers on a Thursday night - somewhat like catching the first available flight in the middle of a holiday season. Friday is dayoff for most working people in Dubai so Thursdays are usually mall shopping and movie flocking days.

I felt we will not be able to get any tickets at first, but so surprised that there were seats left for the four of us (me, M, Pristine and my mom). The movie rating was PG15, meaning the movie is suited for young audiences if they are 15 years old or above. Our babe is just 4.5 years old so they must have assumed she had the mental age of 15 because they still sold the tickets to us. I won’t complain though, I badly wanted to get into that movie house!

Movie will start at 7:30 pm and by 7, we finished eating dinner, unloading our bladder and already snickering in our seats with popcorn in hand. Oh, I know why we got the tickets despite the huge premier night hype - the only seats available are front row seats and we are seated on the 5th row from the screen! The horror. Talk about gigantic people and blasting ear-damaging sound in front of our eyes.

The movie started after 15 minutes of commercials and movie previews! It was not like this when we watched Harry Potter last year! Then everyone was silent when the much awaited movie started. Almost immediately, I can hear cries of babies and there were no babies in the Indy movie scene. I looked around.

There were infants and toddlers inside the movie house!! PG15!? The parents (including myself but Pristine is so mature and can sit down in one full length movie, trust me) must have thought PG15 meant for 15 months ?? I wished the mom took the crying baby out because the wails just kept going louder and louder. Then out of nowhere another baby cried.

All in all, despite some babies crying here and there, we thoroughly enjoyed the movie. My mom could not stop laughing at the Indy jokes, scream during breathtaking scenes - yeah she was screaming with excitement but let’s give her a break, she has not been into a movie house for more than 10 years!

My say of the movie? Despite what the critics say, you go watch it! If you liked the first three Indiana Jones movie, there is absolutely no reason for you to hate this one. In fact, I admire Harrison Ford for putting up with the physically challenging scenes despite his age. I am sure the critics who are much, much younger than him couldn’t even match even half his moves. 

This week’s theme: Shoes

It’s overwhelming to count all the shoes a toddler will have in her feet-growing-years - - these are just some of the shoes that she outgrew. I took a picture before giving them away to children who needed it.

ZAM tagged me to do this meme, which is called the Kind Fives and you have to list five kind things you do for yourself; five kind things you do for your closest friend, partner or child and five kind things you have done for a stranger. You then have to tag five people.

Five kind things things I do for myself:

1. I sleep whenever I can. I make it a point not to go beyond 11 pm.
2. I exercise regularly, at least 5 times a week. First is to be healthier and next, to have enough stamina to run around the park with my daughter!
3. I read self-help books.
4. I shut out negative thoughts - it won’t help any situation.
5. I try to live a healthy lifestyle. You know things like, keeping the ‘bad foods’ at the minimum.

Five kind things I do for my daughter:

1. I tell her I love you over and over again.
2. Smother her with kisses.
3. Sit with her when she does her home work or colors.
4. Listen to her even if she is repeating the same story the hundredth time during that day.
5. Be patient when she wants to do things by herself.

List five kind things I have done for a stranger:

1. Give them my seat on the bus/train.
2. Give them their way on a busy road.
3. Show directions when they are lost.
4. Give then the benefit of the doubt.
5. Translate things for them.

I tag Sabine, Meemax, Candy,  Kelsey, Kat, Melanie, Joyce and Desert Songbird.

Not the bespectacled boy with a wand and a broomstick. I’m talking about the real guy, Harrison Ford, the guy with the whip!

The 4th Indiana Jones movie is out and today is the movie premier here in Dubai and since I am a huge Harrison Ford fan, I’m not going to miss it for the world!

This week’s TT is all about Harrison Ford.

13 RANDOM FACTS ABOUT HARRISON FORD

1. Born in July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois - that makes him 66 this year!

2. Married to Melissa Mathison who wrote the screenplay for ET.

3. Divorced #2 in 2004. The divorce turned out to be the most expensive in the history of Hollywood.

4. Both his Indiana Jones jacket and fedora hat are on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

5. Was a master carpenter before becoming a movie star, a craft he still does as a hobby.

6. Lives in a white-painted ranch house that he built himself in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

7. Of all the characters he has played, he frequently cites Indiana Jones as both his favorite and the one he is most proud of.

8. Turned down roles for the following movies:

• Kevin Costner’s roles in JFK (1991), The Untouchables (1987), Dragonfly (2002)
• Alec Baldwin’s role in The Hunt for Red October (1990)
• Warren Beaty’s role as Dick Tracy (1990)
• George Clooney’s roles in The Perfect Storm (2000) and Syriana (2005)
• Liam Neeson’s role in Schindler’s List (1993)
• Nick Nolte’s roles in Cape Fear (1991) and The Thin Red Line (1998)
• Russel Crowe’s role in Proof of Life (2000)
• Mel Gibson’s role in The Patriot (2000)

9. Neither of his two most famous roles (Han Solo and Indiana Jones) were offered to him first. Tom Selleck was the first choice to play Indiana Jones and Christopher Walken was the first choice to play Han Solo.

10. Harrison is in seven of the top thirty movies of all times, including ‘Star Wars’.

11. Private pilot, single engine fixed wing and helicopter; regularly flies himself between New York City and Wyoming homes. Piloted his helicopter to rescue dehydrated 20-year-old hiker Sarah George from Table Mountain near his ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2000.

12. Has a species of Central American ant (Peidole harrisonfordi) and spider (Calponia Harrisonfordi) named after him in honor of his conservation work.

13. Engaged to Calista Flockheart (star of the TV show Ally McBeal).