Leaving International City

Our apartment block – Building Z-03, England Cluster, International City, Dubai – our trusty home from April 2015 to the beginning of this month

We’ve shifted! We’re no longer staying in International City. Shifted to a more upscale locality (Motor City), into a 2 bedroom apartment. (The kids are growing up, OK?) (No, we’re not rich, and I didn’t get a friggin pay rise!) Main reason is to be near the school, and this new apartment is right smack beside a school! (We’ve bitched to Nakheel, the developer, about not building any schools in International City for years, and they’ve still not done anything). Also the old apartment’s getting a bit crammed. Our second bathroom (which had thru the years, been slowly converted into a storeroom), was piled up to the ceiling with odds and ends – bikes, trikes, go-kart, gym ball, shoes, etc.

After 6 long years, we kinda miss International City… So much so, that for the past 2 weeks or so, we still find ourselves going back to our old place (thanks in part to Du, our telecommunications provider who took all the time in the world to transfer our line to the new house. They know bloody well we have no alternative). So we basically lugged our router back and forth on every trip (can’t live without internet nowadays unfortunately).

Now that we’re all settled (nearly), where the hell are we gonna get cheap neighbourhood grocery shops which are within walking distance (groceries are a dime a dozen in International City, and all compete to do friggin home delivery!) Where are we gonna have our haircuts? (They’re also a dime a dozen, and cost as low as 5 dirhams in International City, but we usually go for the 10 -15 dirham ones). Where can we find the local laundry man to come and collect our clothes for ironing? Isn’t there an odd job worker at the car park that can wash my car as and when I like it (and not thru that monthly arrangement thing provided by the car wash company in the new place)? How the hell are we gonna find cheap and good meals and snacks (we have a myriad of choices in International City! We usually order from the local Bengali food shop, Khaja Baba when we have no time for cooking, and the local tea shop, MyTea, just for tea and snacks …it costs like 10 dirhams for 4 cups of tea and some fried pakora!) But the worse must be the bloody electric stove. Why can’t they allow gas stoves? Electric stoves just plain umm… lousy compared to gas stoves when it comes to food quality and speed. Those are just a few of our ongoing conundrums…

Anyway, I believe we’d get use to the new place soon. Haven’t taken any decent pictures of our new house, though. Here’s a little something from International City for the time being…


Our apartment from the car park – Z-03 is the building on the right, and our apartment is the top most two windows on the left of the building


Sunrise from our apartment – Notice the messy grass grown trenches in front of the parked cars beside the telecommunication tower? They’d been left open for ages!


Sometimes, it gets bloody foggy!


Sometimes, it's flooded. Yes, it does rain! Please someone, tell that to the engineer who designed the drainage system for this place


And when it rains, IT RAINS! See water tanker deployed to pump out flood water behind?


Most of the time, it's just hot and sunny – see flowers growing nicely in May, just before summer. In summer, it’s usually burning hot and dusty …and sandstorms are common. No, I’m not putting any pictures of summer. (Wanna see a sandstorm picture? Check out this old post)


Here’s a nice day to be out – Anu at the apartment grounds, Nov 2017


Here’s how our kids turn our apartment into a warzone, which would happen every friggin day, if we didn’t ‘take action.’ Here, you can see Jayden, in a box, busy with a tab, while the whole apartment is just the way it should be… according to the kids


Here’s our apartment in festive flavours – Durja Puja 2018


Diwali 2018


Chinese New Year 2019 – Anu went ballistic, 13 dishes for our little family!?! I bet you she wouldn’t be able to do that now, with the friggin electric stove


Anu really knows how to keep the romance alive, …surprise rose petal path from the bathroom to my birthday cake! I LOVE YOU HONEY! You’re the bestest!

That’s all from our old apartment.


Oh, here’s how the developer’s office look like – Nakheel’s Office at Al Sufouh, Dubai near the Palm Jumeirah. This is where I come to lose some hard earned money. Yeah, no choice, gotta pay maintenance fees and register my name (which also means more fees). No wonder the office compound comes with beautifully landscaped gardens and fountains and even has peacocks roaming freely around!


And this is Ajman Bank, my trusty mortgage provider for the apartment. They’re wonderful for their no-disturbance policy, unlike the other banks here, who will bombard you with phone call offers of loans, credit cards, etc at the worst possible time, all the time. Ajman Bank on the other has never called me in the 3.5 years since I took a loan from them. They just send automated sms messages every month, no emails, no internet banking for your friggin account, no relationship manager, nothing. Heck, the only way you can get a proper response from them is to visit a branch, and they have only 2 branches in the entire city of Dubai. For anything important, visit their main branch in Ajman! (photo)

Mosques from a Soviet Oil City

It’s Eid season again! Bliss… 5 days off this time! Happy holidays everyone! Eid Mubarak! Selamat Hari Raya!

Here’re some photos of mosques from a Soviet, …I mean Ex-Soviet oil city – Baku, capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Baku seems pretty rich, well-maintained infrastructure and facilities, nicely tended gardens, skyscrapers and iconic buildings all over the city, some completed, some under construction. But why not? It’s an oil city after all!


Heydar Mosque, Baku, Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is somewhat unique. Azerbaijan is 97% Muslim, but it is officially a secular country and only 21% of its population say religion is important in a survey in the mid-2000s (check it out on Wikipedia, mate). This makes Azerbaijan the least religious Muslim-majority country in the world. I was actually surprised to see flights to Tel Aviv (Israel) shown on the flight status board in Baku’s International Airport, and the airlines flying to Israel was none other than Azerbaijan’s own national airlines, AZAL!

Azerbaijan is also unique in that it is a Shia majority country with up to 75% of its Muslim population being Shia. This makes Azerbaijan the country with the second highest Shia population by percentage in the world, after Iran. In terms of language however, Azerbaijan is a lot more like Turkey, than Iran. Azerbaijani and Turkish are mostly mutually intelligible, and uses the same Latin script (more or less). Heck, it’s something like Malay to Indonesian.

Enough of the boring stuff, here’re the rest of the photos…




Heydar Mosque, Baku – completed 2014. Yup, it’s a new mosque, built after Azerbaijan gained independence. (The Soviets weren’t really fond of religious structures. They tore down many mosques and churches during Stalin's early rule. In that way, he's a bit like ISIS, paranoid).


The kids at Heydar Mosque


Yours truly – this pic is too good to resist not posting, thanks to having a wife with good photographic skills. Can’t say much about my photographic skills though. I took a whole load of pictures of her, same view, hoping that some would turn out good. She took only 3, and all 3 came up fine. All 15 of mine turned out crooked, or with the tops of the minarets cut off…

Here’re some mosques in the old walled city of Baku – Icheriseher.


Anu, outside the Palace of the Shirvanshahs, Icheri Seher, Baku – The mosque / minaret seen here is inside the Shirvanshah’s Palace compound. Part of the iconic Flame Towers of Baku, can be seen on the top right




In the compound of the Shirvanshahs’ Palace, Baku


Walking the cobblestoned roads of the Old City – the small minaret behind the tree is part of the Muhammad Mosque. Far behind that, are the Flame Towers (more of that later OK? In another post, ahem…)


Juma Masjid, Baku – Azerbaijanis really love the colour beige huh? Everything is beige. Won’t be surprised if someone nicknames Baku, the Beige City…


Another beige building, but not a mosque. This is the Government House, Baku. The road we’re on is part of Azerbaijan’s Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit. Azerbaijan’s Grand Prix is on a city circuit, like Monaco and Singapore…

OK, that’s all. Have a swell holiday. Enjoy yourselves. Drive safely. Be polite. Make everyone happy. To all those celebrating Eid, may you and your family have a blessed Eid full of happiness and laughter! See you after the break. We will be busy shifting houses.

The King’s Highway

Jeez, why do holidays always seem to end too early?!? Just got back from a 2-week break back home (Malaysia). Now, I’ve gotta get my rusty brain and body working again. The jet lag is still bloody there. Meanwhile, what the heck, might as well send out a post while I’m recovering, hehehe.

Continuing on road trips (which is what we usually do on holidays), here’s a road completely different from the lush green (and friggin foggy) Grossglockner Road. Here’s the King’s Highway in Jordan. These are also from 2015, winter 2015 to be exact. 2015 turned out to be a really productive year for us in terms of holidays. If only every year were like that. If only…


The King’s Highway, Jordan – Mujib Viewpoint, Dec 2015

The first time we mentioned visiting Jordan to my parents, they were like… Are you crazy??? Aren’t there terrorists? What about ISIS?

Which brings me to my point. Why not Jordan? Now, when it’s calm and peaceful? Jordan is full of ancient ruins, Roman cities, Crusader castles, Petra, etc. But it lies at the friggin crossroads of civilization that has always been caught up in the wars of empires and powerful nations. For now, it is peaceful, and I hope it stays peaceful forever. But all around it, are crazy nutcases waiting to do something ‘great’ (I mean stupid), which Jordan would have no control over. (Just look at the mess across its borders in Syria, Iraq and Palestine! Syria used to be known as the friendliest place in the Middle East back in 2008 – 2010 and we would have visited back then if we had time, and see what a calamity it’s become now!)

Anyway, the King’s Highway is one of the 3 main roads which connect Amman, the capital which lies in the North of the country, to Petra and beyond in the south. Here're the photos.


View from the King’s Highway, between the towns of Madaba and Dhiban


Viewpoint of the Mujib Valley, King’s Highway, Jordan – this was where we stopped to eat our lunch we packed from a local restaurant teeming with people in Madaba – roasted chicken, good and cheap – There’re no trees or shade around, so you’ll have to live with being roasted yourself…


Hello honey! No luck with shelter, huh? …Luckily it’s winter


Local handicraft for sale, Mujib Viewpoint, King’s Highway, Jordan


The King’s Highway snaking down into the Wadi Al Mujib


Alright, we’re going up the other side now, looking back at the Mujib Valley

The Wadi (River) Al Mujib runs east to west cutting across the three north-south highways in Jordan. It empties into the Dead Sea.


Just for a contrast, this is the same Wadi Al Mujib on the downstream Dead Sea Highway side just before it flows into the Dead Sea. See how it’s narrowed down from a ginormous valley (above) into a narrow gorge?!?


The Kerak Castle, one of the many Crusader castles in Jordan. (The King's Highway can be seen far below the town and castle, to the left in the photo). The castle was featured in the movie, the Kingdom of Heaven. Like most of the Crusader castles here, it’s in ruins. What d’ya expect, with devastating wars between the Muslims and the Christians, and the land changing hands multiple times between empires? We made a short stop when passing thru

Incidentally, a year after our visit, i.e. in Dec 2016 (when we were in Isfahan, Iran), militants attacked Kerak, and hid in the castle. In the ensuing shootout, some locals and a tourist were killed. Just see how unstable the world has become, …scary, huh?


Here’s a nicer view of the Kerak Castle, ‘borrowed’ from Wikipedia, photo compliments of Berthold Werner


A view of the Dana Nature Reserve from the King’s Highway, photo taken on our way out of Petra, on a cloudy day – Nope, didn’t have time to visit

The bottom line is that Jordan is a nice place to visit and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Go, before it’s too late. That’s all for now folks! Gotta get some work done.