2: Dubai Wanderings & Ponderings - 19 Oct 2007

(Mall of the Emirates exterior - includes a snow planet.)

DRIVING AROUND OUR AREA IN DUBAI

Today was a good day. Sleep, rest & food put me right. We went by taxi - that fast, unpredictable, driving that leaves your stomach weak & hands sore from holding on for dear life. The only way people drive here. I don't know how long it will be before I have the courage to drive amongst this. I'll have to be in a truck to feel safe.

Cars are all left-hand drive, driving on the right-side of the road. It does feel a bit weird, even as a pedestrian & getting into taxis. Cars always suddenly appear from directions you don't expect, Cole especially got a few surprises with close & sudden cars. It doesn't look like a fun place to be driving. I won't be in a hurry to take the 5 hour drive back here to Dubai from Muscat, Oman where we'll be living. I'll be passed out in panic by the end of the journey.

There were no accidents, excellent defensive driving by everyone if not overly aggressive. Just like in Asian countries. Car seats for kids aren't big. I've seen a few small kids with no car seat, no seat belt, playing merrily on the front seat of cars going around 130km/h plus with all the aggressive, defensive driving happening around them. Very different from the super safety west.

CONSTRUCTION ON A MASSIVE SCALE

We went for a little tiki tour around a suburb called the Palm. It is reclaimed land built in the shape of a palm tree & has hundreds of apartment buildings & villas built. The whole complex has gone for a unique architectural feel too. They are also just building something called the world or similar where they are reclaiming land shaped as the continents on the globe. These reclaimed suburbs are like fingers surrounded by water, edged by beaches & marinas. It is quite impressive to see.

Construction here is on a massive scale. It kind of looks like a ghostlike city with sky scraper after sky scraper after sky scraper. Hundreds as far as you can see, & hundreds more being built. I wonder how there could ever be enough people to fill them. The Dubai marina area we have been staying at is not at all crowded, but I'm sure that's because its new. The taxi drivers have been saying it was all just sand a few years ago. Now its a major construction zone around water ways, as far as I can see.

IMPORTED LABOUR

Cheap labour is imported from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & the Philippines. I suppose I will get used to seeing this as it is the same in Oman also. It's a little sad as I don't think they are paid a lot, but for them it must seem like an opportunity. I've seen where the construction workers work, in these 30-50 degree C temperatures, way up high doing hard, dangerous, construction work. They seem to live on the construction sites in those metal shipping containers, stacked on one another. Seth saw the same makeshift living on tv once; there were 3 men bunks stacked inside the containers. Not a lot of space.

During down times there are men just milling around on the ground trying to find a bit of shade for a sit down. They humbly leap out of your way immediately, as you come their way. Our kids, especially Siena loves waving and yelling hello at them. She gets such a great reaction she's started doing it all the time wherever we go. The men love interacting with the little ones.

It seems most of the workers live & work for a year & then get a trip back home to their families. The apartment & taxi workers we've spoken to have been working for many years; eg 6,9, 10, 21 years. One guy even told me his father & grandfather also had worked the same way in Dubai. It seems workers send most of their money home & once a year they visit their wives & children. Quite a sacrifice!

A lot of hand holding goes on by men here, not just the immigrant workers either. Reminded me of the hand-holding girls in Japan.

I don't think tipping is convention, but it seems that they often are tipped a bit. I know the taxi drivers are on a percentage commission system, one that probably doesn't favour them too well.
Once you start chatting, they are really very friendly. And the Pakistanis in particular really like cricket & talk about the NZ cricket team.

A SHOPPING MALL - MALL OF THE EMIRATES

As expected it was impressive. Huge, beautifully made, an air conditioning haven, and many many beautiful, top quality shops. We went to Pumpkin Patch to have a look & saw that they had the winter seasons clothes in store, in fact all the kids shops did. They had woollen beanies & jumpers, heavy fabrics. The coolest it goes is down to is about 28 degrees C. You'd have to live in air-con bubbles to cope with wearing that. We were dressed as skimpily as we could get away with inside the mall & weren't even slightly cold. Pumpkin Patch prices seemed the same possibly a tiny bit cheaper than NZ when we did the conversion.

They had a snow planet type place inside the mall with a glass wall. So shoppers can stand & relax looking into the indoor snow slope. It was surreal to see people in snow suits, with skiis etc & a chair lift. The slope was really steep. We have to come back some time & try it.
Not really a big shopper, but I think I'm convinced it is a pastime to take up here. It was so nice & cool, and many different, beautiful shops. Found a yummy organic, grainy bread shop that was also a cafe. They are a chain. Hope its in Oman! The bread we've seen elsewhere was like in Japan, white, tasteless cardboard. Amazingly we managed to avoid a two storey, block-long, toy shop that from afar had some great displays. The kids were so busy with so much to look at they didn't spy it.

There was a great indoor jungle gym type playground, colouring-in room & merry go round that we spent ages at. It was only when we were leaving that we passed a sign to some monster playground - meant to be the biggest in the region. It looked like it had its own entire floor. I think this is one of the newly built malls, & reasonably opulent. On the map of Dubai there are many, many malls & shopping areas marked. This was just one.

Strange thing was, no teenagers, except at the snow planet park. It also didn't really appear very crowded & today was their first day of the weekend, equivalent to a Saturday. Although I think I read somewhere Dubai might have just changed from their traditional Thurs, Friday weekend to western Sat/Sun weekends. Oman still follows the traditional way however. At one point we heard the call for prayer, but only once during the 3 hours we were there. Not one of our kids asked what that sound was when it came over the loud speaker. They're very good at spotting obscure lolly dispenses placed in unlikely shops.

THE LAST STAGE

In the morning we get up early, return with glee, to the airport & take a 1 hour flight to Muscat, Oman where we are going to set up shop for the next while. It's the last leg of the journey. Not sure what to expect from Kaija, hoping for better as it's only a short trip. And we get met by a company rep once of the plane who escorts us through all the processing. If Kaija does her tantruming it's going to be quite humiliating for Seth. Not a first impression he wants to make.
At the moment we're thinking we'll have to be seriously homesick to want to try doing a journey back to NZ. Once we finish this last leg, I don't want to go near another airport or aeroplane for a long, long time.