The Arabian Wilderness

We just commemorated our 13th Anniversary. Yup, Anu & I have completed 13 years of our union! Time flies, huh? Didn’t really celebrate. Had a drink in our balcony. Last year it was spent at home. Just some private time together. I love you, Honey. I wouldn’t want anything to change.

On the work front, I am super busy, now that I am back at the blasted ITS2020 Project. And I bloody lost my alternate Saturdays off!

I think I’ll post some pictures of our picnics in the Emirati countryside, since 2 years ago (2017), we actually spent our anniversary camping, with the kids, on Jebel Jais, UAE’s highest peak! November is also the start of the picnic season in the Arabian Peninsula, so some picnic pictures coming up!


Forest fire!?! NOOOOO! What forest? It's a desert... Just boiling some water, hehe


Cooking up some instant noodles! Here, we can start our own fires! Unlike NZ and many other western countries… On the E102 Road, in Ras Al-Khaimah territory, just before the turnoff to Hatta Road – Feb 2018 (CNY)


Arabian countryside – on the E102 (Sharjah to Kalba Road), which has incidentally become the main road to Hatta, now that only UAE and Omani residents can use the old direct route from Dubai to Hatta that cuts across Omani territory!




Jayden and his mommy – Sharjah-Kalba Road, UAE – Feb 2018. (Check out these posts for more pictures of Jayden and Justin at this place)


I don’t like this sun!!! Justin, somewhere along the Hatta Road, the connecting road between E102 (Sharjah-Kalba Road) and Hatta, looking for a suitable picnic spot – Nov 2018


Let’s stop here… Picnic at Hatta Road, at an area belonging to the Ajman Exclave of Masfout – Nov 2018


Kids! Stop mucking around with the thorny trees, OK?! It'll friggin prick you!


Now, what did I tell you?!?


Hello Honey, I love you




Hatta Dam (the lesser one), UAE – There’re 2 dams in Hatta. The larger one was jam-packed with people when we visited in Nov 2018, so we skipped over to the smaller one

That’s all for now.

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)

Cross-Border Reunion

Family Reunion Dinner, Middle Eastern style, on Chinese New Year’s Eve, at a Seafood Joint in Sharjah

When the going gets expensive, skip over to the next Emirate. Sharjah, in this case.

That’s what we did for our Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner this year (err, last year if you’re using the Chinese calendar. Reunion’s held on CNY eve). Did it the lazy way. Ditched the cooking and all the preparation. After all, niece Karishma’s just got a nice pay rise and a friggin bonus! So it’s her treat! (I’ve worked for nearly 4 friggin years in the Company and all I got were some nice pats in the back, and some smiles. Now, if only I can pay the friggin school fees with pats and smiles, that’d be wonderful!)

Went over to a seafood joint at Sharjah Beach, one we’ve gone before which wasn’t too expensive and was pretty nice. (That’s what cheapskates in Dubai do. Just hop over to the neighbouring Emirates, like Sharjah, Umm Al Quwain or Fujairah for a cheaper outing. Dubai’s getting too good at sucking up money!)

This time, the food wasn’t that nice. Maybe it’s the crowd, …or maybe it’s just the friggin cook, having a bad time. The last time we were there, for lunch, there were only 3 tables occupied, and we were the first customers. Anyway, here’re the pictures until I find more inspiring stuff to write about.


Our first visit to the Shathi Al Amwaj Restaurant, Sharjah – Jan 2017


That’s what you get for 99 dirhams – a small baby lobster, a couple of prawns, mussels, crabs, squid and a fish, + rice (or chips if you prefer), Arabic bread, pickles and dips…


On our first visit to the restaurant, there was a friggin sand storm under way – that's the beach opposite the restaurant, partly flooded and off-limits to visitors (there’re police patrol cars going up and down the beach that day)


The same Sharjah Beach in calmer times, Feb 2016 - (Sharjah has many beaches, this is the one at Al Muntazah)


Having a blast at the beach – if you like sand and sun, this is the place for you. After all, that’s about the only thing the beaches here have. Don’t expect coconut palm trees and rocks, they don’t exist in this part of the world, save the ones planted by the government or some holiday resorts built along the beach


Jayden and Papa at the breakwater, Al Muntazah Beach, Sharjah


A view of the tiny Emirate of Ajman (those high rises) from the beach in Sharjah


A Good Samaritan Syrian couple at the Shathi Al Amwaj Restaurant, who stopped Jayden from venturing out of the restaurant alone, when his parents were too busy to notice that he had sneaked out! Whew, close call! – CNY Reunion Dinner 2017, Sharjah


Happy Chinese New Year!!! In front of our home in Dubai


The kids on CNY, International City, Dubai – Jayden insisted on having his bhoo-ba (blue bus) with him