more bits of dubai…

1. the people here don’t keep their appointments. they don’t come at the time they said they’ll come and they don’t bother to inform us about it! below is an sms relay between me and my colleague, regarding an event involving one of the local socialite here.

colleague: hey, not sure if you’ve heard, but the event for this evening is canceled. hope you didn’t miss your camping trip!
me: nope, on my way to camping now. event canceled due to what?
colleague: no reason given. welcome to dubai!


2. contrary to popular belief, not everything here is expensive. i bought this can of coke for only 1 dirham! that’s about RM 0.85! it’s the same price at any supermarket or vending machine. of course, if you order it in a pub/bar/restaurant, then it’s a totally different price range altogether!

3. one challenge for me here is to learn to recognise the money!

not sure if you can see the faint red circles on the top left hand corner of each note, but they’re all in arabic!

lucky thing they have it in “normal” numbers on the other side! i’m missing the 50 dirhams note here but apparently, they’re rather similar in colour to the 5 dirhams note. i’ve been warned about this by a few well-wishers already…

and here are the coins, in 3 denominations…

but we’re not as lucky with these coins, coz they’re only in arabic… the top one is 1 dirham, bottom left is 50 fils and bottom right is 25 fils.

4. one thing i find freaking expensive here is the taxi! maybe i’ve been driving for too long and have been out of touch with the market price for cabs, but i still can’t get over paying 18-25 dirhams for a one way taxi ride of about 4 km! i better not miss the 8am staff bus to the office every morning, or i’d be broke by the end of the month!


5. even though i have a spacious balcony, i can forget about sun-drying my laundry out in the open. the amount of fine sand that collects on any open surface in just one day can be really mortifying! and i’ve also given up trying to clean my balcony… no point going against the elements!


6. it’s either there’s something wrong with the taste buds of the people here, or my taste bud has gone bonkers, but i find the food served at the staff canteen are extremely salty! the salty dishes are still ok, coz we eat it with rice. but the soup are something else. they might as well call it salt soup, instead of french onion soup or fish soup or chicken cream soup or whatever soup. at first i thought it’s just salty for that day… maybe the chef has a cold and can’t taste properly. but after a few days’ of trying out the different soups served, i’ve given up having soup from the staff cafe. just stick to plain water!


that’s all for now. stay tuned for the next episode of “bits of dubai”, brought to you by “bits and pieces of me”! :P