Brand New Heavies @ The Lodge

Johan is enjoying the afternoon sun


Today during daytime we went to the beach at Jumeirah Beach Hotel and just enjoyed a relaxing day on the beach with some swimming in the ocean. The water is really starting to warm up and with water temperatures above 30 degrees centigrade it's almost to warm to swim in the ocean.

After the beach it was time to go home to shower and prepare for the evenings event. Today The Brand New Heavies were performing at The Lodge down by the airport. I have never seen the group live, but it's on of these bands that were big when I grew up and it was fun to see them live even though they seem to have past their expiry date.

The venue for the concert where as earlier stated, The Lodge, which is in old Dubai. I have never been there before, but it's a nice place with a big outdoor dance floor and couple of rooms indoor. The temperature outdoor was perfect today and a slight breeze swept through the outdoor venue which made it bearable to be outside. I think that a month or two from now it wont be enjoyable to be outside like this during evenings.



The Brand New Heavies

Posted at 04:00AM May 18, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Living  | 

Burj Al Arab

The tourist track continues today with a quick dinner at The Noodle Bar in Madinat Jumeirah (which is always good) before taking the golf cart (no one ever walks in Dubai) towards Burj Al Arab. The hotel it self is a amazing architectural icon here in Dubai (probably the most known building) and from the outside it is extremely cool looking. It's built on a small man made island just outside Jumeirah Beach Hotel.
Even though the most simple rooms are very quite expensive, the whole hotel seems to be booked full for the next couple of years (it's hard to verify if this is the truth though). So, apparently the whole hotel must running very well.
Once you enter the lobby though it requires a certain taste to appreciate... The best description I can give is that it looks like what we in Sweden would describe as a Finland ferry (lots of gold, brass and red colors).
Anyway, the target for the evening is the Sky View Bar. Entering the bar which hangs out of the building like a command central facing towards the sea it even strikes you that they even have tried to imitate this feeling with circuit board designs on the walls in doorways.



Burj Al Arab viewed from the beach at Jumeirah Beach Hotel


The not so good thing about going there when it's dark is that you don't get to enjoy any of the view that I think would be spectacular during daytime. So, the tip is to go to the bar for afternoon tea instead.

Posted at 04:00AM May 15, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Living  | 

Jesper arrives

Today Jesper arrived just before we were going off to work. He was really tired so we put him up in the spare bedroom and gave him some tips for the day. Since also Johan was arriving I went to IKEA the day before to get a extra bed. When I was at work the delivery guys called so I rang Jesper (who had just gone to sleep) to have him let them into the apartment.

Posted at 04:00AM May 14, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Living  | 

Dubai World Cup

The tickets to the event






Overlooking the crowd at the pre-event party






The taxi queue after the event


Announced as "The World's Richest Race" the Dubai World Cup attracts a lot of attention and the whole week leading up to the event has been filled with talk about different hats and dresses. The event is held at Nad Al Sheba race track and the weather was perfect as usual. There was a lot of people and a good spread between people who came for the party and people who actually came to see the races. We went there at about 5 pm to enjoy the pre-party. During the the whole event there where concerts and happenings and a lot of party. I have never been to a horse race before, but there seems to be a big difference between a real horse race and the horse races back in Sweden. It's more fun seeing jockeys ride the horses the normal way than looking at a jockey sitting in a chariot after the horse as they do in most Swedish races.

On the event the plan for a new horse racing city called Meydan was unveiled. To quote the description:

"The landmark development is the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and will span 76 million square feet and feature state-of-the-art dirt and turf tracks, while a world-class grandstand will boast a 55,000 to 60,000 capacity and span one kilometre."

"It will be a stone’s throw from the current Nad Al Sheba racecourse and other features include a world-class hotel, more than 10 restaurants, the relocation of Godolphin Gallery, the home of Dubai Racing Club, a museum, as well as covered car parking for 10,000 and a four-kilometre canal which will run from Dubai Creek to the racecourse."

I say, only in Dubai...

Posted at 04:00AM Mar 31, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Living  | 

Road trip to Ajman

Today we went on a road trip to the north. We passed through Sharjah on our way up the coast. In Ajman we found a interesting thing, the Hole in the wall liquer store. Here everyone is allowed to buy alcohol it seems. Looks more like a hot dog stand than a liquer store.



Hole in the wall

Posted at 04:00AM Mar 10, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Living  | 

Strike in the middle of the motorway

Looking out on Sheikh Zayed's from the balcony this morning one could see extreme queues from Abu Dhabi towards Dubai. Going to work and listening to the radio we found out the explanation. A group of unsatisfied workers had simply marched out on the motorway (6 lanes in each direction) and sat down to strike! Daring! Especially taken into consideration how bad the traffic is here.

Luckily enough this was just outside our apartment so we where not affected, when I came close to work the message on the radio was that they had been removed from the motorway (and the traffic was rolling again). This reason for traffic jams is something that you're not used to in Stockholm...

There seems to be quite a lot of unhappy construction workers in Duabi, something that you can understand given their salaries and the treatment they are getting. 25 AED (about 50 SEK) each day isn't so much money. Especially if you're doing 12h workdays.

Posted at 01:00PM Feb 28, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Living  | 

Matte, Frida and Fabian on a visit

Fabian




Fabian


This week Matte, Frida and Fabian have been to Dubai. We still haven't settled completely in the apartment and still don't have all the knowledge of what to see once your in Dubai. I was still working during daytime but I think that we managed to show them a ok time. It however took some time for them to get used to the fact that it's to hot here to do any walking around. Fabian of course enjoyed playing with the dogs.

Posted at 04:00AM Feb 18, 2007 by Tobias Karlsson in Living  |