A trip to Fujeirah

We jumped in our car and decided to drive over to Fujeirah the other day. It is on the East coast of the UAE (Dubai is on the West side - sort of). We passed through the Hajar Mountains and after about 140km we reached the coast. Wow. The scenery was spectacular and one of the best we have seen in Dubai. Wow again. The mountains stretch all the way down to the sea. The Illawarra coast road still craps all over it, but this was still pretty cool! We grabbed some fruit from the roadside stalls on the way through and had a great old time. We then looped around along the coast and came back through the mountains on a different road, through tunnels galore! Anyhoo, the pics tell the story. Enjoy. Oh, and Fujeirah is into all things big in their roundabouts! (clearly)

Exercising in the park!

This is from the April trip to London.... a blast from the past for us...we thought we should share it with you. This is one of the many wonderful sites of London. Filmed by Winny in Hyde Park - this guy is really showing off his figure and interesting positions.

Finally, a catchup with friends!

The most recent trip away to the big apple was in September. It was the best trip yet!! The plan was to arrive on the Saturday. However, i then learnt that the Monday was a public holiday so it was better to hang back in Dubai to spend the weekend with Winny and head off on the Monday morning. Anyhoo. I arrived at JFK airport, went through customs. Oh, and customs is a dream - organised and fast. LA is a mess. I checked in at the hotel at about 3PM and then headed down to meet Paulie and Melissa!!! Awesome! They were on holiday break to check out the US Open for a few days. It was great to catch up. We had a fantastic meal and shared some stories It was so nice to see some familiar faces from home - and a great way to have it happen!



It was then work in the showrooms for the next 6 days. Mind you, one of the showrooms is in the Empire State Building which is a bit of a tripout.

Off to London, I had the Sunday all free. I caught up with Amanda and Anthony - they are from the Gong and living over there. Again, it was a real boost to catch up and see some close friends from home. We had yum cha for lunch and talked the afternoon away.



After ten nights away - with two of those in the air, it was nice to finally come home to bed. It was also nice that there are no more long work trips away for the rest of the year! Just overnight regional ones. woo hoo.

Enjoy the pics! :)

Has Your Blinker/Indicator Finger Fallen Off?!?!?!

When you hit the roads in Dubai as a driver or passenger you will notice there's next to no car blinkers being used when changing lanes or turning. It must be a syndrome people suffer when moving to here. People must think "You can clearly see I'm changing lanes, isn't it obvious! So there's no need for me to use the indicator. Plus no one else is using their indicator so why should I?"

If you hold a driving license from certain countries like Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and Europe you license can be automatically transferred to a United Arab Emirates license without retaking a driving test. If you are not from a country on automatic driving license tranferral list

The car accident statistics all begins to make sense when you spend 30 minutes on Dubai's roads.

Here are some wonderful pics of Dubai's roads....enjoy

New York, New York!

Aidan is all travelled out. In the past five weeks he has plane hopped all around - he was in New York and LA for nine days at the beginning of August, then over again to NY, London and Riyadh for ten days this month. There is some catching up to do on this blog, so here we go:

Let's start with the New York trip Aidan went on in early August... 3 nights in LA and 5 nights in the big apple and it was a rushed trip. It all started with an initial question from the lady at the Emirates Airlines counter at Dubai International Airport - "Sorry sir, Business class is full, do you mind travelling first class". I thought to myself... 'hello, hello!!!! are you crazy?? Do i mind??'; but I said to her a simple "not a problem, thanks". Boarding was a breeze!

Stepping onto the plane and just about ready for take off, I had consumed all of the olives, caviar and other wonderful condiments offered to me. I was itching to change into my Emirates first class pyjamas to really finish off the nuttiness. Looking around though there was only one other passenger who had changed into them. They looked horrid and very hugging in the downstairs compartment. Let's save that for next time (maybe).

After 14 hours and consuming breakfast, lunch, four movies and a number of campari and sodas, I touched down in NYC - knowing there was another 6 hours to go to hit LA. Mannnn......why?!

Anyhoo... after personally taking my baggage off the carousel at JFK airport and rechecking it in at the American Airlines counter, I hopped on the plane. AA Business class is a little LESS roomy than Virgin Blue ECONOMY in Australia. Yep, crappola.

6 long (very long) hours passed and after waiting at the carousel for one hour for my bag to come out at LA airport, I eventually gave up and headed to the long line of about 100 people at the lost baggage counter for AA (services by 3 people). This is now 23 hours since I left Dubai and I am tired and grumpy. Now 10PM Sunday night.

The bag had been lost, I fill in a form, they tell me there is a 90% chance it will be on one of the next two flights out of NY. I waited for those two flights. No bag. Now midnight.

Checking at the hotel I had one set of clean clothes in my onboard! The Emirates pyjamas! Woo hoo! Style plus. Now 1:30AM Monday.

After hitting the shops on Rodeo Drive the next morning to buy some clothes with my generous $50US compensation voucher, I soon moved straight on to the Beverley Centre where things were more affordable. Long story short, I wore my jeans for 3 days and had the luxury of changing shirts throughout.

Checking in to take the flight to NYC, my luggage was sitting in the unclaimed luggage section. Nice. Not one phone call telling me that. Nice. No point complaining. It would mean waiting in the line again. sheesh.

On to NY to spend the Sunday wearing fresh clothes and relaxing at Liberty Island and Ellis Island. It was a nice, long walk down from West 44th Street to the ferry. I rocked up and went through the three security check points (each with an x-ray machine...hmmm....) to get on the ferry. The two islands rocked!! Enjoy the pics. The first and second are of Gumby's wife, the third is the men and women immigration levels into the US during the time Ellis Island was working, the fourth is a pic of an entrance to a building on Wall Street (big balls, hey!). Nice day all in all! (the next five days were all work - true!)

A day in Kuwait

Looking up at the arrivals and departures screen at Dubai International Airport paints the picture of where in the world Dubai is. 90 minutes to Riyadh - KSA, 2hrs flight to Baghdad on Iraqi Airways, Tehran, Damascus, Fez, Oman, Yemen, Somalia. It's pretty surreal. I was looking up for gate info to board Al Jazeera flight AJ615 to head off on my first.

Let's face it, Al Jazeera is a dirty name in the media-exposed Western mind - not to worry though!

After a three hour delay, we eventually headed off. Customs was a breeze and I was in the express line thanks to Australia being on the list of 'preferred dealings'. People from the sub-continent weren't so lucky and had to wait literally hours for a visa to be issued.

The visit was good and there was a couple of hours to spend out on the waterfront. To think that I was only 80km away from the Iraqi border was pretty cool!

Kuwait is quite green and the people are friendly.

Enjoy the photo :)

A Little Aussie Addition To Dubai

We would like to introduce you to the new little addition to our family. It's here but not here exactly, if you know what we mean.

We are 3 months into the exciting 9 month journey. Here is a mug shot of the darling at 9 weeks - pretty photogenic even if we do say so ourselves.

If he takes after Aidan then we won't be suprised if there's any monkey business going on in Quyen's tummy.

The little darling makes its grand entrance around the first week if February 2008.