The general expat sentiment towards driving in the UAE revolves around a few of the following words – aggressive, dangerous, horrendous, rude, etc. But having been on the roads for a little over two weeks now, driving here feels rather alright (maybe because it's not too fantastic either in Singapore), save for the unlucky day when you meet a driver who woke up on the wrong side of bed or another that fancies himself to be Lewis Hamilton. It is also true that UAE has the dubious honor of having one of the most lethal roads in the world, and even boasts of oddities like this woman who has racked up a million dirhams worth of traffic fines. With all that said, our Mini adventure has been safe, to assure our loved ones back home, and quite interesting to say the least. A list of top 5 of the quirkiest here:

1. Asking for Directions
*Honk Honk*
*Winds down side window*
“Marina Mall, where?”
“Turn right, then turn left”.

If you find yourself at a traffic light, and a neighboring car honks twice at you, chances are he is asking for directions. It is widely assumed that all taxi drivers know where everything is (not really, from my experience) and so, it becomes commonplace to see this double honk happening to them. Somehow, either I look like a taxi driver (not) or looked like I was local (NOT), and got honked at once. Fortunately, it was a mall I knew how to get to. Achievement unlocked.

By the way, red lights are notoriously long waits, and apparently young people take to making use of this wait to exchange phone numbers when they see someone that sets their hearts a-racing.

2. Salik Sticker / Mawaqif
Well done, Singapore. First the Londoners adopted your fine little invention called the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system, now Dubai has done the same too. Very soon, NYC, Shanghai, Beijing, and god-knows-where-else will have this ERP-like thing too to ‘reduce traffic’. Salik means clear in Arabic. To use, simply buy their prepaid RFID chip orange sticker to affix it on the windshield behind the rear view mirror. As the cars whizz past the gantry (looks eerily similar to the ERP back home), AED 4 (~USD 1) is deducted automatically from the account. Honestly, it doesn’t seem like anyone cares about the charge, at least in Dubai. Salik allows for one to top up online and even helpfully sends an SMS whenever the balance runs low. Everything is electronic, tres convenient.

A cure for homesickness..not.
Image Credit: Construction Week Online

Same thing for the Mawaqif, which is Abu Dhabi’s parking system. Compose your SMS > Premium or non-premium parking > how many hours > Send! THAT’S IT! No need to worry about anyone coming to fine you with a ticket because everything is electronic and linked to the car registration. And when your time expires, you get an SMS to ask if you wish to extend. Easy does it. All those countries still poking coupons, time for a change (especially if your residents have >1 cellphone on average)!

We honestly far prefer this way of letting people top up themselves upfront through reminders rather than enforcing rules via the threat of fines. Just sayin'.

3. Petrol Kiosks
Kate has mentioned it before. Petrol is incredibly cheap here in the UAE (about a third of the price in Singapore). Also, there’s a certain luxury attached to the petrol kiosks as a consumer:

• There's no need to step out of your car - someone will do everything for you;
• He even offers to wipe your windscreen, if you are so inclined, and finally,
• Pay by simply winding down the side window and handing the cash/card over.

It’s very nice, but at the same time, culturally uneasy.

4. Zebra Crossings
Cars here Just. Do. Not. Stop. The road sign may read 60km/h but speeds will usually traverse in the range of an additional 20km/h. So little wonder why few, if any, care about the zebra crossings. It has gotten to the point when pedestrians are actually surprised that our little Mini actually stopped for them at the crossing, and just today, a pedestrian actually waved for me to go first! Maybe I am not supposed to stop. I’ll figure this out.

5. ‘No-Address’ System
If you haven’t already realized, everything that is posted to the UAE is sent to a P.O. Box. This country somehow found a way to function without a proper address system (there is a system in the works, but wow, it's already 2014!) Even when you order tens of thousands of dirhams worth of furniture, the instruction is just to just send it to Abu Dhabi, ABC Building, Apartment 1234. Likewise when driving, one has to rely on road intersections (which I have yet to master) and more importantly, landmarks (e.g. “opposite or next to ABC Building”). That’s when my fellow passenger’s eyes come in handy – she keeps her radar wide and open when we approach our destination. :)

This is also why we have yet to find the elusive Chinese grocer which is somewhere.. at some intersection.. of some roads..

Bonus Round: Ribbon Glory
When we first collected our keys to the car, we were bemused to find our little new car embellished with red ribbon as part of the showroom's delivery protocol:

Final touch ups

And once we are done oohing and aahing and taking pictures, the ribbon is promptly removed. For the next car to be delivered and the next.

Take a photo now and forever hold your peace

A History of the World in 100 Objects

The first real cultural touristy thing I did here that does not involve eating or shopping or watching 22 grown men fight over a ball, it is A History of the World in 100 Objects, an exhibition at the Manarat Al Saadiyat(on Saadiyat Island, where the Louvre and Guggenheim are under-construction), imported from the British Museum / BBC Radio collection.

It felt wonderful to be back in a museum, finally, a place to walk around and look at items without any pressure to buy them. And being here on a weekday morning means no crowd, yay!

It also makes me feel a little more clever than when I woke up in the morning, lol.

Arranged chronological order, the items were well curated and a fine representation of what it was supposed to showcase, starting from early human stone tools at least a million years ago, classical antiquity (which some may feel is the highlight of human civilization), and finally, a credit card of the modern world.

The human race has come a long, long way... It sometimes sure feels like we are regressing though.

Image Credit: British Museum

I understand that not all the objects from the original British Museum collection [the BM website showing the full list of the original here] were able to be shipped over to Abu Dhabi and so substitutes were used in place of those, but the meaning is in no way lost. Ultimately, there are so many objects out there that one can come up with another few sets of 100 items and can still fit the theme. (This is not meant to say that the curators had an easy job by the way.)

The exhibition has received great reviews on TripAdvisor and beyond, so I'll let the more eloquent write the reviews instead, but what this exhibition does excellently is the rich description made of both the object and tying it to its significance to history. Where possible, some background information is also provided to the visitor – such as the story of behind the carvings on this sarcophagus (it can be said that anyone interested can easily wiki it but that's not the point). I didn't use their audio guide but still felt enriched by the material, whereas there are some museums I can think of that are inadequate EVEN with the audio guide. Hmm.

If you are interested, the wiki link is here.
Image Credit: British Museum

The curators have also been careful to select pieces that come from a great variety of geographical locations and cultures, as opposed to the oftentimes Western (Europe)-centric way of treating every other non-European culture as some inconsequential sideshow.

Photos were not allowed to be taken, but while the memory is fresh, here are some of the exhibits I found quite compelling:

Afghan War Rug
When local tradition meets the harsh reality of war, the result is heartbreaking. This rug depicts a convoy of vehicles going through a mountain pass during the Soviet invasion in 1979, with helicopters and planes above. Seems especially sobering as we going through the somewhat frivolous(?) activity of shopping for rugs for our new home. During the US invasion following 9/11, rugs were also made to depict the war theme.

Image Credit: British Museum

Counterfeit Drogba shirt
To communicate globalization - this fake jersey was made in Indonesia, sold on the streets of Peru, worn by an Ivorian soccer player who grew up in France, played/worked? in an English football club owned by a Russian (subsequently China and now Turkey). Apparently, there was a lot of controversy of how such a mundane shirt could have possibly made it into the 100, but the theme of globalization in our time is highly apt, and fascinatingly represented by the backstory of this shirt.

Image Credit: British Museum

War shields from Papua New Guinea
Beer labels on shields used for real battle between warring tribes in PNG. Imagine using these to block out spears, arrows, even bullets. This page describes it far better than I can ever hope to.

Image Credit: TheNational

If the standard of this exhibition gives us a glimpse of what the new Louvre and Guggenheim will be like, certainly exciting times for the Abu Dhabi cultural scene ahead. And should the man feel like going to Manarat Al Saadiyat after reading this post, I don't think I'll hesitate to repeat the visit.

How To Furnish A First Home

The past week has been hectic, with our slowly shifting our luggage over to the new place. The Mini is mini, and so can’t fit many things, so it has been one bag at a time.. starting with the winter clothes,.. non-essential stuff. Then there is the furniture shopping, which can be described in the diagram below. (I may not be the McKinsey one but I can still try. He shall make the next chart-thingy.)

Of course the World Cup is still No. 1 priority. Our timetable revolves around the matches we want to watch.

Only a very slight exaggeration from the truth.
But in reality, we got a little bit from the other shops as well, the nicest stuff on sale. We love sales!
Even with bargains everywhere, the bank account is, in major depression mode.

And so we did. Throwing all caution from our parents anyone and everyone including ourselves that IKEA items are poor-quality to the Arabian sandstorms, and lured by the seductive promise of cheap Scandinavian chic, our dining room looks like …

an IKEA showroom contender sans styling

But we have windows. Ha!

The rest of the apartment are still being delivered/shopped for.

PS. To the inventor of Pinterest, you are a genius.

Joining the locals

We dropped by a cafe to see Uruguay play England, and it turned out to be, well, a more local experience than we realize‎d.

There are no expats here, only local Arab men (0 women - am cursing my decision to wear shorts.. feeling very self-conscious here) in their full traditional garb. ‎Naturally, the expats have gone to hotels or other bars that serve alcohol. While waiting for the game to start, one of the guys here took two selfies of himself. No culture is immune..

As we are riveted to the screens, it's a hectic time for the staff dealing with the orders - it may be 11pm but people still need to gorge on entire pasta meals, caesar salads‎ and drink smoothies and coffees exotica. Some of them staff are wearing football jerseys; Neymar was the usher at the parking lot..pity the guy who has to wear the Fabregas shirt..oops.

The commentary is in Arabic - we don't understand any of it but it sounds far more energetic and passionate than English. We are waiting for a goal to happen, we will then find out if the locals go wild too?? (edit - Uruguay scores! The whole room erupts into frenzy. The beautiful game does have the same power to everyone.)

Oh btw, we filled up our gas tank at ADNOC and petrol is 1.80 dirhams/liter. Oh my that's 60 Singapore cents we couldn't even believe the meter. And before that we went to by a liter of coconut water that costs 10x more. Ironic stuff.

A Tribute to Taxis

Having gotten the keys to our car yesterday it seems only fitting to pay tribute to the taxi - our only mode of transport in our time so far here.

A luxury back in Singapore, the taxi has been a necessity. There is no subway, the bus system too difficult, since we haven't been here long enough to know names of places and roads yet. (Frankly - taxis here are so cheap, with a typical trip within the city between 12 to 30 dirhams - approximately USD 3 to USD 8, that we find no incentive to learn how to take a bus.)

And pretty good value, too. Taxis are plentiful, taxi stands well supplied in buildings such as malls; drivers are super polite and understand English (for the most part), *generally* know their way around - if they don't they call their friends on their Nokias to find out, and turn on the meter automatically - no haggling.. take that Kuala Lumpur. Nor do they make a fuss when passengers need to go to a place with low likelihood of return fare - Singapore I'm looking at you. To add to the sense of structure, all drivers wear a standard uniform in the ubiquitous silver vehicles. Obviously, we are fans. What's not to like?!

It is on one of these days when the usually taciturn cabbies open up that we manage to take a glimpse of their lives here - and not all is as perfect as it looks.

We were in the Abu Dhabi Mall queue (no surprise there) when a girl cut right into us and entered the taxi we were supposed to get in. We actually didn't mind too much, for there were plenty of taxis waiting behind anyway, but to our raised eyebrows the driver stood up for us and kicked her out because she jumped the queue. Woah. This little incident made for a nice little start to a conversation with the driver...

Here, there and everywhere
Image credit: www.emirates247.com

Most cabbies, if not all, are foreign workers, typically from either the Indian subcontinent or East Africa. They work long shifts of 12 hours where at the end of the 5 AM to 5 PM shift, the buddy driver takes over the vehicle for the next shift. Our driver remarked that it was even worse before a recent reform, when some drivers each had a vehicle to themselves, many drive even up to 19 hours a day just to make more money, which is dangerous.

Under a commission based system, drivers must hit a threshold in net revenues each month before they start making any money, a percentage off the takings. With so many competing vehicles in the city, cabbies must hope their hours on the roads are well spent - i.e. meter turned on - and the best way to ensure that is a long journey.

"I pray that I get a passenger who wants to go to Dubai," our driver said. "Even if I drive an empty car back (note: it is illegal to pick up a passenger in Dubai), it is so worth it. My meter is on for one hour, one and half hours, and I will collect 250 to 270 dirhams. If I drive round and round in the city, there is no money in it."

As much as we are contributors to their livelihoods, we are in fact, the exact culprits of these "round and round the city" trips. After all, we have been holding out our Dubai excursion while waiting for the car keys, haven't we?

Since coming here, taking the cab all the time have made us felt very privileged and having scratched the surface a little more now we certainly feel even more so, and have a deeper appreciation of their trials as they come here to make a living, and contributing to UAE society here. I guess we have been trying to assuage our guilt by tipping them, knowing the change will go directly to them, instead of the taxi company; and! overcompensating with excessive thank yous when they sometimes aren't even warranted. With a car now in place, our opportunities to take a taxi are fast evaporating (not me, still need a license ho ho ho), and we are sure glad that we had a little taste of this facet of UAE when we had the chance to do so.

ID please

We got carded at the ripe old age of 28!

It was supposed to feel good especially for me but since we just popped over to the Le Meridien sports bar across the street to catch Germany v Portugal we really didn't want to be booted out of the venue.

We managed to convince the bouncer to let us stay inside, and were most amused when he said "All you Chinese-looking people - you face is very *small*" - maybe by small he means young.

I guess it doesn't help when we are in T-shirts and jeans/berms..

Moving, chapter two

For people who have barely lived in Abu Dhabi a month we certainly have visited Abu Dhabi Mall (ADM) a lot. In fact we have somehow managed to be there EVERY WEEKEND so far – the first time to look around, the second time to check out their co-op supermarket (and we found to our pleasant surprise that Yateem Optical was able to fix my broken raybans for free, hooray!), and the third time to pick up the repaired sunnies.

So it is not without irony that we have just moved yesterday to the Beach Rotana Hotel, which is adjacent to ADM by a connection at its basements. More Abu Dhabi Mall for me! Make that everyday since we no longer have to taxi nor brave the heat/UV rays!

All our life possessions here, and yeah the husband is also part of my possessions.

To be sure, we are not fans of moving around, packing and unpacking suitcases - not when we had done so less than a month ago. But when the lease at the Dusit Thani was up, we thought why the hell not , try as many places as possible.. big mistake. We miss DT already. The furnishings look right out of a movie set in the 90s. The gym/pool is a long walk away. Being adjacent to the mall means the temptation not to cook is too great, yet most of the food there is nothing to write home about. Case in point - I had KFC for lunch yesterday... 

First world complaints aside, the kitchen is well appointed, and a good kitchen makes me happy gal. Now, housing department, can we get the keys to our home quickly, please?

Double Celebration

I had to get prep done for dinner earlier today as we were visiting the Abu Dhabi Motors showroom after Kyle gets off work, but since it was Dragon Boat Festival yesterday I decided we should still try to commemorate the tradition somehow even though, it was impossible to make the traditional rice dumplings. That's when one of Mama Hu's comfort foods came to mind - a dish she makes occasionally when we needed to put together a meal quickly in a pot.

During this transitory period we're unwilling to burden ourselves by stocking too much ingredients and so we had to made do with whatever we have, for instance we could not possibly have glutinous rice yet so we used jasmine rice instead. Since we will be shifting to yet another apartment next week we have imposed a grocery shopping ban on ourselves in order to use up the existing stuff, so I dug around in the fridge and we had this for dinner:

Ba-zhang inspired rice pot: Dried shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, soy sauce and ginger for it to bear *some* semblance to the original, with rest being random veg that we had to exhaust. Oh yes, the meat is chicken..

For a side dish and to simulate salted eggs we made an Asian-flavored deviled eggs (basically hard-boiled egg halves with the yolk flavored and assembled back into the egg white "bowl"):

Soy sauce, sesame oil, black pepper, dried basil, topped with cayenne pepper

As I had pre-cooked the ingredients before I headed out all we had to do once we got home was to throw the ingredients into the pot where the rice was already soaked and waiting, and while the rice cooked we flavored the deviled eggs. The dinner turned out very well and the surest sign of a successful meal was when we started to eat the final bits out of the pot. This is one dinner we are sure to recreate again.

What is the double celebration you ask. Well why were we at the showroom for...

Spice up your life - we went for bold with the Mini Cooper S in Spice Orange

Today we have staked our claim on this baby! There are still some paperwork to be done (*ahem* money needs to be exchange hands, primarily) before we can drive her home. Of course I still need to find a way to get a driver's license but that's a problem to tackle another day..

And when it's all final, we should be able to take better pictures of her (instead of this crappy one taken hastily at the dealership.) Plus I'll let Kyle describe the car a little more as this is completely out of my department.

Whee! Vroom!

First Fortnight

We have been in Abu Dhabi for more than two weeks now. Settling down has not been too difficult, as most if not all modern conveniences are in town (in fact more luxurious than we expected, it is the emirates after all), but as we are still waiting for our Etihad Towers home to be ready, which is in around 3 weeks' time, we are still in effect living out of our suitcases at the Dusit Thani serviced apartment.

It has been a busy couple of weeks (yes.. I might not be working yet but still found myself quite busy) and soon our backlog of things to write about will overflow! To quickly summarize where we have been over the past two weeks we have:

• Chosen and seen our future home, here's the view from the window:

The Arabian Sea & the Emirates Palace

• Been to a couple of car showrooms, but haven't quite settled on our set of wheels yet, though we already have something in mind ;)
• Been to more malls + souks than we can count with a hand now, which Abu Dhabi has a lot of - yet I'm still hankering to visit another one of them which we still have yet to go just because Pottery Barn is there haha
• Been shopping, already, at the American institution of cheap fashion Forever 21, no less, and getting to know the supermarkets and hypermarkets here which we will rely on for every.thing.
• Lounged twice at where our future home will be at the Pool Bar and the Level 62 Ray's Bar 
• Spent a lazy weekend afternoon consuming sugary drinks and desserts at charming Cafe Arabia; they run a neat honor system bookcrossing here, which allows users to borrow books with practically no due dates and they can return the same or another book of their choice.

We have been trying to be more active and healthy, as Abu Dhabi actually has a lot to offer in this department, having been Go-Karting at the Al Forsan sports complex and Kyle went on to join his company's basketball team in a game yesterday. Not to mention lots of gym sessions. Gotta get rid of all that pasta and pizzas we ate in Italy yo.

Top Gear for go-karting. By the way, I sucked, but it was still fun nonetheless.

And we have probably managed to undo it all by having:

• Succumbed to Chinese (already!) at Michelin-starred Hakkasan. Proof that it is possible to make delicious Chinese food without pork, the primary protein of Chinese cuisine.
• Succumbed to Italian food (also a little too soon perhaps) with the now-famous transparent white coffee at Azzuro Restaurant:

"White Coffee" here is a Lebanese drink, a splash of rosewater into boiling water, plus the drinker's sweet poison of choice. To the uninitiated, as we were, it did have the Emperor's New Clothes feel about it. The staff were lovely about it when we expressed our confusion, and offered to change, but we decided to forge ahead anyway.

• Been to two very fantastic Japanese restaurants, the lovely Zuma and Tori No Su
• ... and not to mention a not-so-proud moment when we submitted to some Popeye's - fast food takes up the bulk of the stalls of the food courts here.

Yes we visited some rather amazing restaurants and so no wonder we think that dining out is expensive here, so we cooked a fair bit of meals at the kitchenette in our current place, and, can we say it?..not a bad effort considering how poorly kitchens in such accommodation are usually kit out, at least we haven't burned down anything yet...

Weather is also absolutely scorching with midday temps more than 40 Celsius and ever climbing as we reach peak summer in the next two months. We use copious of SPF protection - sunscreen did after all, take up more than its fair share of space in our precious 80 kg luggage.

Do we miss home? We suppose homesickness hasn't really hit us yet because of the items from home we have lugged over, and we are still in touch with whatsapp, facebook and the like. We did miss out on all of the Dragon Boat Festival ba zhang though which was a real shame.. perhaps time to make an inspired dish out of the ingredients in the fridge today..