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.

Walkie-Talkie Turns 5

Happy Deepavali! Happy Diwali! OK, it was 2 days back, but better late than never, right?

Anyway, our little kid, Jayden turned 5 this month. Anu calls him our walkie-talkie because he talks all the time (when not on a tab or phone that is…). He definitely talks more than his brother Justin, and he’ll use words he learns from the Youtube videos he watches, whether he fully understands them or not. “Whatever”. Anyway, here’re the photos.


Jayden 4 years 1 month – at Hatta Dam, UAE


November last year, was a month full of flu. Jayden visited the doc almost every week. Here’s Jayden being a Super Kid at his paediatrician’s consultation room at Apple Clinic, International City. This was also when the doc asked us to get a paediatric cardiologist to check out his heart for some irregular sounds (murmurs) heard. We didn’t check it out until we got to Malaysia many months later. He turned out to be super-duper OK!


Our NZ trip last December! Jayden with his cousins Jared and Skye, at Kim’s house, Auckland. This was where we started to get him to eat by himself, thanks to the cousins. He still bargains with us about feeding him though …Papa, I will eat 5 mouths, then you feed me, OK? …NO!


Jayden and Skye doing a Haka (traditional Maori war dance) – after watching a Haka dance at Whakarewarewa Village, Rotorua, New Zealand


Jayden, who’s that friend you’re with? Jayden is pretty fond of girls (he calls ‘em princesses) – 4 years 6 months with a random little girl at Dubai Festival City


With his favourite teacher, his Foundation 2 (FS2) Class Teacher, Ms Leila Borich on International Day, Newlands School, Dubai – Ms Leila is from Bosnia


Whoa! What sorta hairstyle is that?? 4 years 7 months


Why are you so cross? Jayden with his old Lego Ninjago friend – Jayden used to be shorter than his ol’ friend (we have pictures of him with this Lego figure from small till now)


Just kidding, hehe – Mirdif City Centre


His koko is still his best friend though – 4 years 8 months


Jayden graduates …from Kindergarten (yeah, his school has a special graduation party!) – Newlands School – it’s a cheaper school compared to Justin’s, and the services are a li’l slow, but when it comes to parties, this school rocks!


Jayden also can draw! (I’ve put photos of Justin with his drawings, now it’s Jayden’s turn) – 4 years 9 months, England Cluster, International City


Our Malaysia trip! Jayden petting a rabbit at Panorama Langkawi, Pulau Langkawi


Getting Jayden’s heart checked out, because of the murmurs (see second photo above). He’s fine after all, whew… – Penang Adventist Hospital, Penang, Malaysia


New house! New school! – We’ve shifted to Motor City! Starting school at GEMS Metropole School – 4 years 11 months


Jayden is 5! – Dubai Creek, Bur Dubai

The Adventures of Justin: Year 9

And here’re Justin’s Year 9 photos. And these are only umm… 4 months late, ahem.


Justin crosses a rope bridge, in a rope course outside the Sanctuary of Truth, Pattaya, Thailand – Dec 2017


Justin in the Arabian wilderness (he has picnic-crazy parents!) Somewhere along the new route to Hatta, in an area probably belonging to the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah (the internal boundaries of the UAE are mighty confusing…) – Feb 2018


Posing with a falcon at his school, Royal Dubai School – Feb 2018


Justin comes home! (From school camp in Kalba). The first time he spent a night outside home, without his family – Mar 2018


Yawn... When’s the wedding starting? It’s past midnight… Justin & Jayden at his aunt’s wedding in Rohini, Delhi, India – Mar 2018


Mommy gave me a go-kart! – Jun 2018
(Nearly lost it, he parked it beside a quiet road, but the road is used by construction vehicles, and a scumbag of a bus driver took it seeing it parked there. Spoke to some construction workers in the site, and managed to get it returned to us on the same day. Thank God!)


Justin builds the Burj Khalifa …the replica I mean (still, no easy task especially with Jayden around) – Jul 2018


Justin in Armenia, outside the Matenadaran (book repository), Yerevan – Jul 2018


In the city of Tbilisi, Georgia – Aug 2018


Justin with his Georgian friends, Ana (I hope I got the name correct) and her sister (her name escapes me), at the friendliest guest house we’ve ever stayed in, the Green House in Telavi, Georgia, run by the girls’ grandparents


At the walls of the old city of Baku, Azerbaijan – Aug 2018


Justin starts Year 4 at GRDS, with his class teacher, Mr Brice Dempster – Oct 2018


And this is his guitar teacher, Sayan


Justin finds a star! With a live starfish at Jumeirah Beach, Dubai – Oct 2018


Justin at the Hatta Dam (the smaller one, there’re 2 dams in Hatta, the big one is immensely popular, and crowded to the brim, so we headed to the smaller one) – Nov 2018


Brrr... "Papa, it's cold!" In breezy, wet weather …signs of winter starting in Dubai, a few days before his 9th birthday

On his 9th birthday, we visited the Miracle Garden in Dubai, …but I don’t have any interesting pictures of him there, so …that’s all folks! Till we meet again…

Dubai's Mountain Village

Hatta, UAE – view from the Hatta Hill Park

Hectic times call for drastic measures. Therefore, another short picture post haha.

Here’s where we go for picnics when we get bored with Dubai, the city I mean. Dubai has a little enclave (territory) in the Hajar Mountains far to the east of Dubai proper. I don’t really have time to describe the geography of the Hajar Mountains in relation to the Arabian Peninsula, and so on. Let’s just say it’s a range of mountains which runs along the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula separating the coast of east Arabia (the UAE and Oman) with the desert in the interior. Heck, just Google Map or Wiki it, will ya?

This enclave, Hatta, is about 90+ km from where we stay in Dubai (or about an hour and 15 minutes’ drive). But to get there through the shortest and most direct route, you’ll have to enter Sharjah territory, then Oman (yeah, that’s correct, Oman, the country), then re-enter the UAE into a tiny enclave that belongs to Ajman (another constituent emirate of the UAE), and finally Hatta, part of the emirate of Dubai. Complicated? Well, that’s the way it is here. The UAE’s borders are full of complications. Check out this post.


A picnic in Hatta – at the Hatta Hill Park. We made a couple of trips to Hatta last year, for picnics (obviously) and also to get Jayden’s visa done. Hatta is one of the popular exit points for Dubai visitors to get their visas extended, for those who can get a visa on arrival that is. (Example, Malaysians hehe). Exiting and re-entering is also required for conversion of a Visitor’s Visa to a Resident’s Visa (don’t ask me about how this works, I have completely no idea. If I’ve had some idea, I wouldn’t have blown a couple of thousand bucks on the darn process!)






More pictures from the Hatta Hill Park, UAE

Pictures from the Hatta Heritage Village: -




Those spotlights sure spoil the 'village' effects eh?


Now that’s more like it, an oil lamp


Posing with a dummy in the Hatta Heritage Village – they’ve converted the actual village into some sort of a museum




More dummies!






More scenes from the Hatta Heritage Village, UAE


The Hatta Dam – Was actually trying to get to the Hatta Rock Pools, which are located in Omani territory. Didn’t succeed, stopped by an Oman border guard. Later found out that we had to take a completely different road. Aw, heck, better luck next time.

Here’s another post on Hatta, …our very first visit there, the time we got our aunt’s visa extended in 2009. Justin was less than a month old then!