Welcome To Dubai Carmen!

We forgot to give mention to our first honorary visitor from Australia was another fellow Strandbagger, Jed. We had a great catch up over a beautiful dinner with him. He gladly granted us our Australian fix, after arriving in Dubai and not seeing a familiar face for four months!

Our second visitor from Australia, Carmen! Aidan and Carmen became good friends after working at Strandbags head office together. It was as if we were having our regular Newtown coffee catch up, except we were doing in it half way around the world.We took Carmen to the Emirates Towers to satisfy her handbag addiction at Juicy Couture, but don't tell Johnny! Then stuffed as much desert into our little tum-tums as we could at the desert buffet.

On the one day Carmen had off, we had big things planned for her. We had decided to take her to Hatta but lost our sense of direction and ended up in Al Ain, which is beautiful none the less. Before we headed off, we made a stop at the Dubai Land site office for Carmen to the site office to see the massive model for the project – but it was closed, instead we settled for spying on the beautiful sleepy tiger on the site.

Al Ain in a beautiful palm oasis town in the middle of the desert. When we went for a walk in the palm plantation, it was at least 5 degrees cooler but it felt so much cooler because of the greenery and hearing birds cheep everywhere.As like most tourists we covered more ground in one day then the locals. We visited:

- The Hili Gardens and Archaeological sight. The attraction was a round structure which is thought to be a temple, dating back to 2000 BC. It has relief decorations and carvings of animals and people.

- Giant teapots and tea cups to be found on almost every round about!

- Our final stop was at the live stock markets to see some very cute goats kept not in barns but on old utes that are used at permanent make shift as barns.

- The funniest thing was the local men who were tending the goats wanted to have their photos taken with Carmen for good luck!.....hehehe…..damn that girl is always popular no matter where is goes!

Growing More Ballsy In Dubai Everyday!

Man I had a bung hole of a taxi driver and I’m being quite genteel by using the word bung hole to describe for this guy. Judge for yourself, here's the story:

--- We have 1 car at the moment, which Aidan uses to get to work.

--- I finished shopping and getting groceries. It’s a short 15 minute walk back home but I had too many grocery bags and am not chancing it in the 45 degree heat at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

--- Got a taxi home. The driver didn’t hear destination correctly, didn’t bother to clarify them and started heading in the wrong direction. I corrected him and gave him the correct directions.

--- At the end of my trip I was determined only to pay him the usual payment for the distance from the mall to home and not pay for the extra distance he took to correct his mistakes.

--- First I got the shopping out of the boot, to avoid a delay get away should further altercations occur. Paid him AED10, the meter read AED15 but usual payment for taking the correct route home is AED10.

--- I handed him the payment and he look at me. I said if he didn’t hear me properly then clarify the destination and not assume.

--- He gave me the AED10 back and said take it, I looked at him and took it back……Oh well I at least I tried to give him the right payment.

--- As I picked up the grocery bags he turned the car around and he pulled the car up to me again and said give me the money.....I said what?! I tried to give it to you the first time and you didn’t want it and gave it back to me, why do you want the money now?

--- He said he was making a point by giving the money back to me, so I would give him the right amount, i.e. AED15. I said if you really want the payment then I’m only giving you AED10 because that’s the right payment for the trip distance.

--- He said if he had heard clearly the first time (YEAH THATS RIGHT!!! If you had heard me CORRECTLY the first time but you DIDN’T and didn’t bother asking me again!!) that I only wanted to go this short distance then he wouldn’t have taken me as his fare. That he, as the taxi driver, can refuse what ever fare he liked!

--- I said it was his choice to be a taxi driver and he shouldn’t do it if he didn’t take all different distance fares. I said to him, what do you want me do, move further away so I could make his fare bigger?!?!

--- He said he had been waiting 1 hour for a fare and wasn’t happy my fare was a short one. Basically my fare wasn’t worth his time.

--- So I gave him the AEA10 and he started muttering something to the gardener man who was walking past to have his case heard by a third party. Yeah right, do whatever's needed to make yourself feel better!

So that was my taxi episode! Stay tuned for more stories from Dubai. Getting more ballsy everyday in Dubai!

Say what? Free Local Calls In Dubai?

Yes, you read it right, local calls from landline number to landline number in each emirate (state) in the U.A.E. are free. How does that work I hear you ask, I don't know but questioning this free offer, just abuse it for all its worth!

For sale - Lioness.... what the?!

And the winner is...

Aidan continues his legacy of entering as many competitions as he can and this week he had his first win in Dubai! Check out the link - his name is in lights...!!!

http://www.ahlan.ae/competitions/details.php?mag=masala&id=1197

Happy reading...

I Am Getting Good At the Cooking Game!

Check this out, two new dishes in one sitting.




I am throwing caution to the wind and being super adventurous cooking 2 new dishes. They could turn out to be 2 big flops and we'll have to make a meal of the humble 2 minute noodles. But fortunately they were both successes, thank god!




We were to begin with an entree of green mango salad....perfecto-mundo! The green mangos gave the salad a zing to clean the palat and prepare us for the main. The piece-de-resistance was tomato sauce pipis on angel hair pasta, are you dribbling yet? Because when you see the photos you will be!



The successful meal was accompanied by our favourite home made lemon mint drink. Aidan is always my willing guinea pig!

Belal's Many Personalities!

We captured Belal's multi-personality attack on camera. We will use this as evidence in future should anything happen to us in the middle of the night while we sleep! You have been our witnesses!

Vermicelli Spring Roll Salad

Now that the weather is hotting up as we head into summer, it will be great to eat a meal without sweating!

Rolling the spring rolls made me think of home when I would help my mum make them. Those were the good old days! Next time I will have to con Aidan into being the head spring rolling boy.

I have learnt if I dont want to share a particular dish with our flatmate Belal, just tell him its got pork in it, even if it doesn't.......muhahaha.......evil I know but my tummy takes priority over anyone else!