Hmmm..
View from apartment bedroom – twinkling lights of Shangri-la hotel and all the fancy skyscrapers on Sheikh Zayed Road. Got into Dubai ok, 4am last Monday and the nice lady at Kuala Lumpur International Airport waved through my surfboard, excess baggage and the 15kg hand luggage. Luxe apartment, 5 minutes away from SZ road, security guard at each lobby, huge room, nice furniture. I hear the swimming pool is beautiful but haven’t had time to look at it yet. Yes, I am working hard. The luxe red leather sofa and cable tv is in the other apartment, but we’re gonna get cable and wi-fi soon (soon is a relative term :p)
Went to the dinner launch of the big project last week, it was good…huge 2 storey ice sculpture of the tower, although the big (and I mean BIG) ice sculpture is currently in Ski Dubai Dome for 1 week while it’s being measured for the Guiness Book of Records. Apparently carved in France, then the ice was flown in pieces and blowtorched together in the ski dome by the French carvers.
We had some dessert in the shape of the tower for the desert portion of the dinner ha ha…quite funny.Everything is so pretentious it’s quite amusing. But mmm Valhorra chocolate.
I’m still having fun drooling over the ferraris, porsches, hummers, chevys, benzes, BMWs, Bentleys…etc
Oh yeah, thanks to the lot of you in KL who met up with me upon the short 2 week notice that I got from the company that I was supposed to move?? Good that it has sorted itself out though but I had a stressful 2 weeks trying to get all income tax, banking etc sorted and got the flu and everything too. Still trying to get the phone line, internet etc sorted here but it will take a while so emails will be erratic…also @#$ dubai bans my flickr photo site?? So no new photos until I figure out a way around it.
Been joking about how I’m going to do the “Dubai style”: huge sunnies, lots of bling bling, kohled eyes, loud flashy clothes… and everyone I know will go “What the..??” when they see me next. Hahahahaha Well you never know. Oh what a laugh. I should get one of those black burkhas and wear it ala michael jackson.
A lot of tanned Europeans here, very interesting that I just attended a meeting where an European young lady was wearing a belly bearing strappy cotton top and jeans (looked more set for a bbq) and on the way out another European lady was wearing a strapless white sundress….they both looked very sexy, only thing was that we were in the middle of a suits and ties business area? Moral of the story, European ladies dress rather uhhhhh freely… very interesting. I guess that I find it strange because we’re in the centre of the muslim world here, but granted…dubai is more open-minded than the surrounding cities.
Speaking of clothes, I need to upgrade my wardrobe though, a lot of bling bling around so my duds look quite worn out, and helllooooo business suit! drats (No white sundresses or belly baring tank tops for meetings!!) Boss was quite amused by the hot pink runners I pulled out of my drawer to change into post-meeting. Shopping carnival is rather good so if anyone wants to visit Dubai J
Handphone number in Dubai is +97XXXXXXXX but smses are blocked from dubai to france, spain and T&T in the US (what the???)
Address PO box 7XXXX Dubai UAE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_al_Alam – the tower. Even I’m surprised that it’s in wikipedia.
Shi.
ps: photos: ice during the dinner (haven’t been to the big one in ski dubai yet), my living room with choccies in front and headlines of “crude oil prices break records” , crepe with burj al alam and folded in the tower’s shape (goodness gracious) and my bedroom post-Ikea (yes, its very red)
pps: oh yeah no home email yet (not even a phone line! still waiting for work visa approval)….so emails are going to be infrequent for the next month or so.