Then There Are Our Friends

How can I miss out our friends here in Dubai? Here’re some of them. Of course, there’re more, but …sometimes we just forget to snap photos. Moreover, these are photos from a year (or 2) back … photos which I have had the time to sift thru when free. The newer photos… there’re so many of ‘em I dunno where to start. Maybe next year, hehehe.

(Ahem, we’ve just returned from a hectic trip to Central Europe, and I’m all drained, and have a whole load of work to catch up… So, posts like this will have to do till, I recharge… Plus, I’m sick, down with the flu I think. Have been coughing for the past 1 month, …including during the holidays. Got worse since we came back. Delayed seeing a doctor coz I friggin lost the Health Insurance Card! Finally saw the doc last Thursday, and he said bronchitis. Now I’m most of the time drowsy from that killer cough syrup he gave me… 3 times a day he said, and what? No friggin leave? Note: In Dubai you have to pay AED 60 to get a sick leave certificate. So it’s pay up, or suck up and work. Hard luck!) Meanwhile… Enjoy the photos!


Friends from church, from left Pastor Alan, the pastor’s wife Estrella, Rose, Erwin


Pastor Alan and Estrella (he’s Indian and she’s Filipina, and the assistant pastor is Sri Lankan, this more or less sums up the demographics of the church). Pastor Alan is the cousin brother of my Malaysian ex-colleague, Joseph George

Church gathering at the Creek Park –

The Boys


The Girls


A ceremony celebrating the renewal of marriage vows of a Sri Lankan couple, Trivona & Maddock at our church


Justin with a church friend from the Philippines


Justin with another church friend… Trivona’s daughter. His friends seem to mostly be girls for some unknown reason…


Justin, in Pre-K, with his school mates, Reuben (left), Salama and Abdullah


Celebrating Justin’s Pre-K classmate Amira’s (the little girl in pink on the left) birthday


Amira’s Dubai house compound! Comes with tennis court, swimming pool, farm, horse stables, … Amira is half-Emirati and half-American


Another birthday party – Reuben’s, at a park in Mirdif, Dubai


At Uptown School’s International Day event, with Sri Lankan classmate Senan, and his sister


My work colleague Dong Weihong’s daughter Amy’s 5th birthday, at their home in International City. Dong Weihong & Li Lei, the girl’s parents, are on the immediate right and left respectively, of the shoe rack at the back. Another colleague, Jia Weimin is lighting the candles. The girl behind Jia is Zhang Xue (who works in the QAQC Dept in our office), and the bespectacled lady standing on the right is Li Jinsui, accountant, all from the office I’m working in.


Justin & his Foundation 2 classmates at a school concert in the Royal Dubai School

10 Years of Blogging

Yay! Looks like I’ve blogged for 10 straight years now! Not bad, a milestone of sorts for me. Longest time I’ve ever maintained a diary. Must thank the digital age for it. I’d never have gone far doing one on a traditional diary (tried many times, never succeeded).

For a celebration, I think I’ll put some photos of family gatherings here in Dubai. …Not that there’s much of it, since Dubai is seldom in any of our family’s list of places to visit… sigh!


We, at Creek Park, Dubai - 2013


With Hazel at Creek Park


Justin, with his granddad


Cactus at Creek Park, …just about the most exciting thing in Creek Park, in my opinion

OK, I’ll also take the opportunity to explain a few things about some common names I call myself or use in the digital world, for example, the title of the blog.

Cows, Pigs and Human Dung – the title is an extract from an earlier email to family and friends, on my initial shock of seeing the amazing variety of animals roaming freely on the streets and a humongous amount of umm …shit! in my daily site visits when I first started working in India. (“What animal made this?” I remember asking my Indian colleague. He looked down and said, “…animals like you and I”.) Like I always say, Incredible India! Love it and hate it. See my first picture post of India here.

Furient – no, it doesn’t mean friends. It’s a name I coined for my ship, in a computer game about the age of discovery (by Koei if I’m not mistaken) in the 80’s or 90’s, …ya, it’s that long ago. Yeah, I was a seafaring explorer and badass colonial overlord! Furient comes from Fury, which I tried to make to sound powerful. Its sister ship was Rageance, from Rage.

Prahnago – is the name of my country, if I ever become king, heheheh. It’s a corruption of the word Peranakan, straits-born Chinese (i.e. Chinese born in Malaya and Singapore who had more or less adopted Malay customs, in food, clothes and language to some extent).

More photos: -


Justin with his granny and aunt, near the Meydan Racecourse, Dubai


Cousin sis Emily, and her husband Martin, near the Burj Khalifa, on their one night stop in Dubai, en route to Sydney from London


Our niece Karishma, posing with the Burj Khalifa


Justin & Karishma at the Souq Madinat Jumeirah, with the Burj Al Arab in the background


Justin with his other aunt, Kim, at the Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai

And I think it’s about time I improve my outdated blog, …as lazy as I am, ahem. But don’t expect much. I’ll have to do this by stealing a bit of office time (shhhh…) and my IT skills suck, so if nothing happens, it’s just because I don’t have the friggin time to do it, or I have no clue on how to go about doing it.

Till then, here’re some photos of places outside Dubai…


Justin & Hazel, at the Abu Dhabi Corniche


Justin & his granddad, Abu Dhabi Corniche Beach – it sez photography not allowed for some reason, but why make a beautiful beach and not allow photography?


Anu & Kim at the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village


Finally, how can we have family photos, without a photo of our newest addition? Little Jayden, at the Khor Fakkan Beach, Eastern UAE