Dibba

With having a week off of work for the Eid holiday, I wanted to go somewhere. The problem that I have is in paying loads of cash to go somewhere to do something that we could do around our home. While the idea of traveling to exciting new cities appeals to me, the idea of dragging two complaining kids around an exciting new city fills me with dread. As much as I'd like to tell myself that we'd be organized enough to plan around the kids, I know that we wouldn't and that traveling out of the country with our kids would be hell.

A few weeks ago, a student of mine suggested that we go camping in his hometown, Dibba. (To see where Dibba is in relation to Abu Dhabi, have a look at the map below.) He told me that he could show us a secret little beach that he knew that wouldn't be be busy. I've had similar offers before and they tend to come from students who are the biggest pains. I tend to just ignore them until the students forget. This guy mentioned it a few times and since he's a genuinely nice guy, I thought we could take him up on his offer.

I was slightly worried because I wasn't sure whether he'd be available like he said he would. Also, we had friends who were coming with us who hadn't been camping in the Middle East before who were relying on us. My wife and I made alternate plans in case things didn't work out, but since I'd never led a camping trip before, there was added pressure.

We left on Saturday morning and got to Dibba at about 12:30, just in time for lunch. I called my student after we ate lunch and he took us to the combination internet cafe, gaming center complete with Playstation 3's, a pool table, and table soccer. We were able to relax and enjoy my student's hospitality before heading off to his secluded spot.

When we got there, we were a bit disappointed to see a lot of broken glass by the rocks near the beach. While the beach itself was fairly nice, there was the worry of the kids cutting themselves. on glass. To be fair, it was cleaner than a lot of beaches and camping spots that I've seen in this area. In addition, with the speed that my student began helping us clean the area up, I could tell that he was a bit embarrassed by the state of things. Once we did a quick check of the beach area to make sure that there weren't any surprises, we were able to reason that as long as we kept the kids away from the rocks where the broke glass was, we'd be fine.

Camping went well with the kids having a blast splashing around in the water and digging in the sand. As the tide went out, we had more and more places to spread out. We built a fire, had our dinner and roasted marshmallows. Once the kids were all riled up from the sugar, we put them to bed and ended up going to bed around 10:00 pm.

Around 2:00 am, my wife woke me up to say that the waves were getting within a few feet of our tent and we had to move it. Both families dragged the tents with kids inside further up the beach and moved everything to a safe distance. Satisfied that we had taken care of the problem, I went back to sleep.

At 4:00 am, my wife woke me up again so we could move our tent again. This time we had to move it to the edge of the rocks and move all the chairs and other camping equipment onto the rocks. We debated whether we should move the tents onto the rocks with all the broken glass in the 4:00am dark, but decided to take our chances with the tide. Fortunately, our gamble paid off with the waves stopping about a foot from out tent.

Although we had originally planned to go camping two nights, our friends' tent broke. We figured that it was probably best just to head back and go to Dreamland water park for the day instead. We got there at about 11:30, ate our picnic lunch in the parking lot, and had the whole afternoon for the kids to splash around. Because Sunday is during the work week and the holiday doesn't start for most people until Tuesday, the park was almost empty. After a quick stop at the best liquor shop I've seen in the UAE (conveniently located next to the water park), we headed home.

While we didn't get to go camping in Musundam, Oman like we'd planned, we had a good trip. We had a day to relax at home before we head out to Musandam for another two days of camping tomorrow.

Sports City

Yesterday, my wife and I took the kids to Zayed Sports City, a complex of stadiums, playing fields, and various other venues for sports. We went there for the kids to use one of the practice fields to play Australian Rules Football before a club match then to watch an actual game. I thought it would be a good opportunity for the kids to see a real match and to play on a big field.

The name doesn't lie; it's about the size of a small city. While I've been to Zayed Sports City before for bowling, I didn't give much thought to all of the stuff there. There are soccer stadiums, a tennis stadium, a full-sized running track, a baseball diamond, practice fields, a huge bowling alley and from what I've heard, a nice ice-skating rink. The facilities available for public use are reasonably priced, too.

As we arrived, the UAE Japanese community was playing baseball on the field next to us. My son saw a classmate of his whose father was playing baseball. From that point on, he spent the whole time playing baseball with his friend instead of playing and watching Aussie Rules Football.

After that we went to the bowling alley where there is a full Chinese restaurant inside. The restaurant is good enough that the people I know who recommended it, go to the bowling alley specifically to eat there.

Things looked fairly well maintained, though the running track looks like it's suffered under the Abu Dhabi heat. With a over a week off for Eid, we will probably take the kids back to Sports City for bowling and / or ice skating. It's nice to have a place to go. It looks like it's well-used, though I don't know how many Emiratis go there.

Canadians

The UAE government is generally pretty amiable and tries to remain on good diplomatic terms with the rest of the world. Recently, however, one country has been difficult to deal with and has strained diplomatic ties to the point where the UAE government has had to take action. That's right, you guessed it: I'm talking about Canada.

It seems that the "peaceful" nation of Canada has been stirring things up in the Gulf. Even though the UAE helps Canada out by importing more Canadian goods than any other nation, Canada has selfishly refused to allow more Etihad and Emirites flights to land in Canadian airports. Also, in a recent tour of the Gulf, the Canadian trade minister visited most countries except, you guessed it, the UAE. Naturally, the poor UAE government had no other recourse but to close Camp Mirage, Canada's military base in the UAE. In addition, they refused to allow a Canadian plane with Canada's defense minister to land in Camp Mirage.

Sure Canadians would like to think of themselves as the U.S.'s cool-headed neighbor to the north, but if that were the case why would the UAE have to lobby against Canada's bid for a seat in the Security Council of the United Nations? After that, Canadian officials were such poor sports that they required Emirati's traveling to Canada to get a visa. In retaliation for this uncalled for action, the UAE embassy in Ottowa (the Canadians won't even let the UAE have an embassy in their capital, Toronto!) announced that from January 2nd, Canadians will have to get a visa to visit the UAE.

I think that the diplomats and trade ministers of Canada could learn a thing or two from their U.S. counterparts. If people are buying your stuff, you let them do what they want. In times like this, the only thing you can do is shake your head and say, "Oh Canada..."

Lecture

Yesterday at about 1:40 pm we were given notice that Dr. Enrique Garcia, a prestigious figure in the world of international trade, was giving a speech on Economic Development and challenges of the Latin America at 4:30 pm that same day in our very own auditorium. This intrigued my co-workers and I so much that anyone who wasn't already teaching made sure to be there.

Because I got there just before 4:30, I was worried that I wouldn't get a good seat. Fortunately, someone led me to one of the open seats in the second row, so I had a good view. My seat was just behind the speaker, the Director of our college, and the Vice Chancellor of all of the Higher Colleges of Techlology, Dr. Tayeb Kamali. I was glad to be nicely dressed in a suit because of all the photographs and video being taken for promotional purposes.

I could see that some of the students in the class I had just taught were in attendance. I'm sure that they too heard about Dr, Garcia's lecture and felt compelled to attend. Dr. Garcia was a fine Keynote speaker to Global Entrepreneurship Week at the Higher Colleges. To paraphrase what he said in his speech, "It was a lucky coincidence that [he] happened to be in the country while the colleges were having Global Entrepreneurship Week." What a coincidence, indeed.

Traffic Violations

Recently the Abu Dhabi police have been fairly aggressive about cracking down on road fatalities. Changing the speed limits was one such measure. Now, with the recent addition of cameras all along the roadways of Abu Dhabi, the police are issuing fines based on video evidence. Whether or not the police will consistently enforce the fines remains to be seen, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Here is some video evidence of some reckless driving. Some of it is pretty minor, but the last clip is a good example of why these cameras are a good idea. Click on some of the other videos to see examples of some of the stellar driving that I have to deal with on a day to day basis.

Phone Comparison

As is common here, I saw a student with several phones on his desk. I've seen this before, but assumed that each was for a different group of people, like business, family, and friends; or something like that.

Seeing three distinct brands of phone aroused my curiosity so I asked my student which one was the best. He hesitated and said that he couldn't really say. Why I asked him why not, he replied, "I use the Blackberry for messaging, the i-phone for playing and the Nokia for calling."

With all those features, who can blame him for being indecisive?

Fan Zone

With the Formula One coming to Abu Dhabi next weekend, there are a number of events the weeks leading up to it. They have a number of free concerts, a Brazilian parade on the corniche as well as a newly constructed temporary place at the plaza on 30th street called the Formula One Fan Zone.


There are a lot of things to do for kids like driving motorized cars around a city course.
Inside the building, my kids got to go into a wind tunnel.
After that there were slot car drag races powered by CO2 cartridges.
There were also remote controlled cars on a race track with cameras mounted on the front so it looked like you were driving on the track. For people 15 and over, they had a driving simulator that gave you a chance to drive an Formula One car on the Yas Marina Grand Prix track. Even though I know the track fairly well from the times that I went cycling there, I still had a hard time controlling the car.


The attractions are open from 5:00 pm Sunday to Thursday and from 2:00 pm Friday and Saturday. I would recommend getting there right when they open to avoid the crowds. While we were in the Fan Zone, there were hardly any people so we didn't have to wait for the attractions. It was pretty good value considering the whole thing was free.