Sega Republic

While in Dubai on Friday, we were able to go to a place called Sega World in the Dubai Mall. Once again my wife and son couldn't join us and once again the 110 centimeter height restriction meant that I was relegated to watching her in the kiddie's corner. As with Wild Wadi, I felt the initial annoyance of my daughter having not grown two inches taller but was able to get over it quickly.


We were able to find a few games that she liked. Of course, there were a few games for dads, too.



Also, my friends were helpful in watching my daughter while I went on a few rides.



I thought that it was great that we were able to get a good deal on an all-you-can-ride pass that included 200 dirhams of game credits. That way I didn't have to spend a lot of extra money keeping her entertained. The rides were pretty incredible for game center rides. Because we went there about 1:00 on a Friday, the place was pretty empty and we had almost no wait. As with Wild Wadi, I think this is a great place to go, but make sure your kids are at least 110 centimeters if you don't want to spend all of your time on the kiddie rides.

Wild Wadi

Despite having problems with the Meydan Hotel, we were able get the Wild Wadi water park passes that we were promised. Unfortunately, my wife and son were feeling under the weather so they had to stay at the hotel. My initial feelings of the water park were mixed. I was looking forward to riding the slides, but soon realized that my daughter was about an inch or two too small to get on most of the rides. Unlike Dreamland, they were not as willing to look the other way. I felt stuck with having to stay by the kiddie part all day. I now have a better appreciation for what my wife has to do while she takes care of my daughter.
Fortunately, my friends were willing to trade off watching my daughter so I could go on some slides. With their having already done the exploring, I was able to maximize my time. First of all, you don't have to walk up a lot of stairs. There's an uphill water slide to take you to most of the rides. I had a short six-second video to show it, but it wouldn't upload so here's a picture instead.


Right by the entrance, there is a body boarding slide to do some surfing on.



Most of the park has a beautiful view of the Burj al Arab



and the Jumeirah Hotel.


Even though I was grumpy about it at first, I later realized that the kids park has some fairly decent water slides itself.


I ended up having a pretty good time. While there is a wave pool, a mini water park for kids and a lazy river for the kids to ride inner tubes on, the things for smaller kids to do is pretty limited. I would say that Wild Wadi has a lot to offer kids and adults over 110 centimeters. Otherwise, I would recommend waiting until they're tall enough.

Meydan Hotel

On Thursday night, we stayed in the Meydan Hotel, a hotel in Dubai attached a horse race track. We could see the track from our balcony and feel the excitement in the air. In actuality, it was a good excuse to drink beer on our balcony. We chose this hotel because as a member of the Jumeirah Group, guests are given complimentary passes to a great water park in Dubai called Wild Wadi. The night we were staying coincided with a horse racing festival on the track. Also, it was the cheapest hotel in the Jumeriah group, which we found out the reason why quickly.

First of all, I would like to say that the hotel itself was pure elegance and the staff were extremely courteous. I have very little negative to say in those regards. I felt welcome from the moment that the person doing the valet parking took the keys to my beat up Jeep and parked it 50 feet away across from the entrance of the hotel. The staff member who checked me in was very courteous, as was the woman who took us up to our room, the man who brought our luggage to our rooms and all the staff who greeted us with a smile.

There was a beautiful rooftop infinity pool which you can see me enjoying in the picture on the left. Our balcony was one of the ones in the background overlooking the race track. You can see the view of the balcony below the rooftop infinity pool through its glass bottom in the picture below. Our issues came with the cracks in the facade of elegance and the way that problems were dealt with.

On approaching the hotel, we noticed that all the exits to the various parts of the hotel were barricaded off. We had to actually pass the hotel and make a U-turn to get back. This wouldn't have been a big problem if there were signs stating this, but nothing was clearly marked.

When we got to reception and asked about the shuttle bus to Wild Wadi, the man checking us in informed us that the Meydan hotel is no longer part of the Jumeirah Group and passes to the water park are no longer complimentary. We had to show a printed out copy of the email I received to prove that it was part of the Jumeirah Group when we made our booking and that we wanted our passes. They quickly changed their position and arranged entry for us, but I resent that the onus was on us to prove our booking date.

When I booked the hotel, I spoke to someone and clearly stated that I wanted the rooms to be next to each other so the balconies would be touching. The room numbers were adjacent, but there was a stairwell in between our rooms and the balconies were 50 feet from each other. We asked them to move us and kept getting the response that they would call us. Since we were anxious to get to the water park, we asked my wife who was staying back with my son to take care of it. She called several times and was told that they would call her. She sat in her room for several hours waiting. Finally when we arrived, I demanded that we be moved right away. The staff offered no explanation and only gave a series of very polite apologies. We were offered nothing. Keep in mind that at the Intercontinental when staying in a room paid for by hotel priority club points, we got an upgrade to a suite because the room they put us in hadn't been cleaned.

Lest you think that I'm being picky, this is a five-star hotel and all I was asking for was to be moved to an empty room that was "almost ready" when I talked to the staff at 12:30. This was to complete a request that I made over a month prior and in a hotel that was almost empty on what should have been one of the biggest nights of the year. There were the telltale signs of a hotel in trouble: the uncompleted bridge to the hotel, the fixtures in the bathrooms coming loose, no mention of the Imax screen that was touted in the hotel literature prior to opening. This is less than a year after its opening. Clearly, this place was conceived in the Dubai building boom and almost reached completion around the time the money ran out.

My feeling on why it was so difficult to move my friends and I into adjacent rooms? The rooms aren't completed. I think that this hotel, miles from Jumeirah beach and in the middle of nowhere, was kicked out of the Jumeirah Group. I recommend that you visit and have a meal in one of their fine restaurants so you can see the hotel and track up close before the owner files for bankruptcy. Just don't wast your money on a room.

Balloon Ride

My friends are still in town an still having me drag them all over. Yesterday we had to get up at 4:15 so I could drive them out to the desert for a sunrise balloon ride. The price was a little expensive at 950 dirhams but the ride itself was fantastic. The staff was friendly and they made the ride enjoyable. I would highly recommend that if you're in the area and don't mind spending the money, that you try Balloon Adventures Emirates.

Ferrari World

Yesterday, we went to Ferrari World on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. I've been past it a few times, but it took having friends come to the UAE to finally get there. Seeing as how it's only been open for about two months, I guess I haven't been too lax.

We were able to get on the Formula Rossa, the World's fastest roller coaster right away and even ride it again within about 5 minutes. The coaster has a great big acceleration followed by a few twists and turns.

The other roller coaster, The Fiorano GT Challenge was also pretty good. For this one, the coasters race each other while going above and below each other's tracks. We were able to ride this one a few times with no wait and at one point I had my own coaster and my friends had their own.

The V12 water ride is supposed to be a tour of the inside of a Ferrari 12 cylinder engine, but it was just a spooky ride in which the stinky raincoats don't keep you dry. Here is a picture of one of my friends after the ride looking like she peed her pants.

The simulators were incredible. The thing is that you have to sign up for the next available time. My suggestion if you want to ride these simulators is to go to them right away and get a time because they are very limited. You can pay an additional 70 dirhams to ride one of the professional level simulators, but my friend who rode one said it wasn't really worth it because there was a safety feature that kept stopping the ride every time he hit the brakes too hard.

There were a lot of rides for the kids, too. There were little street simulations that the kids could drive around on. While there weren't that many rides, I could see the rides they did have keeping my kids entertained for hours.

The food was pretty reasonable, too. There were a number of restaurants serving a variety of food. You could go the cheap option, but if you wanted a nice meal, you could get one. I got a freshly made 12-inch pizza along with some really nice bread for 55 dirhams.

The shows and simulator rides were really well done. The 3D movie ride we went on after eating made me a little queasy, though going on after filling up with pizza and bread probably wasn't the best idea.

I would have to say that for the 195 admission, it is well worth it. First of all, we got there at 1:00pm, an hour after opening. I thought that it would be a good idea to go on a weekday, but according to the staff, it hasn't been busy in the new year, even on the weekends. They said that in December there was a 3-hour wait for the Formula Rosso. I would wholeheartedly recommend Ferrari World and would even say that it would be good, if not expensive, for small children.

Burj Khalifa

Yesterday I took my guests on the Big Bus Tour of Dubai which culminated in us going to the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Keep in mind that by top, I mean to the observation deck which is on the 125th floor out of 140. The tour was changed around from last year which was confusing for us as what I remembered about the Dubai tour conflicted with what their map said.

We had booked our reservation time to go up the Burj Khalifa over the internet. Our reservation time was 5:30 so we made sure to get there by 5:10 to allow plenty of time for any problems. We went to the counter and sure enough, we got our tickets that were booked for 5:30 February 7th, two weeks from the day that we wanted.

We were dumbfounded. We explained that it must've been a computer error but then we were directed to the voucher that I had printed out saying the date. We tried to exchange our tickets. We tried to ask for our money back but we were told that we had to try to sell the tickets to someone else. The most infuriating thing about the situation was the staff member's self satisfied smirk that he was giving us as he was being as unhelpful as possible.

Doing the only thing that we could do, we went to the counter to try to buy more ticket for the following week when we'll be back in Dubai. Sensing our frustration, another member of staff asked if he could help. When we explained our situation, he had a quick chat with a woman, who gave him a nod and then he escorted us through the gates.

When we got back to Abu Dhabi we checked out the web site and found the problem. The day that we wanted was booked so we clicked the "next day" button on the website. When you click that button, the system spits out a random day. I urge you to go to the website by clicking on the above link Then click "next day" at the bottom of the page. Sometimes it will actually give you the next day. Other times it gives a random day. Ours was February 7th. Granted we should have checked the date more carefully, but we didn't expect a date two weeks in the future.

In the end it worked out thanks to some helpful people who have probably encountered this situation before. It's a shame that this had to be contrasted with the staggering level of unhelpful staff. Lesson learned. If someone won't help, ask someone else.

Dubai

My friends and I spent a few days in Dubai. While there we went to a few beer bars and explored the city. We took a ride on dune buggies through a tour group called Explorer Tours. I would highly recommend them. Here is some footage of the tour that we took. While this may not look all that exciting, keep in mind that I was driving a dune buggy while I shot it. The more exciting, bumpier bits are somewhat unwatchable.



Initially, we arrived in the Intercontinental hotel paid by my friend Craig's Holiday Inn points. Once we got to the room, we saw that it hadn't been cleaned and they upgraded us to a suite immediately. For all the staff knew, we walked up to the room trashed it, then went down to complain. (We didn't, but there's nothing saying that a person couldn't do that.) The difference in rooms was phenomenal. I had my own room on the sofa in the living room and my own bathroom, while my friends had their own room. When the hotel bar kicked us out at 2:00 am because they were closing, we went to our room to finish watching the NFC Championship game and promptly emptied the minibar of all it's beer.

By far the biggest high we had during our time in Dubai is the Packers beating the Bears in the NFC Championship game to be in the Superbowl in two weeks.

Visitors

Some friends of mine from the States came to visit me. Since they arrived, I've taken them to a bar in the Hilton, taken then to the camel races in Al Wathba, taken a walking tour of the Emirates Palace Hotel, taken them to Marina Mall to wander around, gone swimming in the pool on my roof, gone to a bar to ogle at some prostitutes then spent all evening playing Wii Golf with them. All in a 30 hour span. After having carted them all over Abu Dhabi all I have to say is: Jerks.

Bond

The newest James Bond novel will be set in Dubai. Jeffery Deaver, the author who has taken over the franchise from Ian Flemming at the request of the creator's estate, was in Dubai on Tuesday to discuss the book (click here for the article). There is a book signing scheduled in March sponsored by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Unlike the Sex and the City 2 movie, I'm assuming that this means that the film version will get the thumbs up for being filmed in Dubai.

Hot Cars

According to this article, last year in Dubai there were 85 calls to the police to come and rescue children in parked cars. This constituted 21% of the calls answered by the Dubai Police's rescue department. Fortunately there were no fatalities. This was no doubt due to this miracle invention.

Yas Hotel

While I did the Yas Triathlon on Friday, my wife and kids checked us into the hotel and were cheering me on from the hotel balcony. Because they checked into the hotel while I was warming up for the race, I had no idea where the room was. A couple of times I thought I heard them cheering but was unsure of where it was coming from.
The hotel itself is beautiful and has great aesthetics to it. We were able to get a pretty good deal of 553 dirhams (US$150) for a night before tax and service charges. The only drawback was that with the triathlon starting midday, it was difficult to arrange check-in with warming up for the race, but having my wife there made things easy. It was nice being able to take a five minute walk to the hotel, drop my bike off, have a shower, and come back for the awards and post-race food.
The room was stylishly decorated, but all the walls within the room were made of frosted glass, including the shower and toilet. In the shower, there were two knobs to turn on the water. One of them turned on the water on the adjustable shower head. The other turned on the rain shower that came out of the ceiling. When my wife went into the shower to wash my daughter's feet, guess which one she turned on. I'll give a hint: it was the one that surprised her with a deluge of water from the ceiling.

Because the track goes in and around the hotel, there were a number of great vantage points from our room and the various bars, restaurants and common areas. I went for a walk around the hotel and saw the rooftop pool with bar and various other outdoor restaurants and cafes. We'd had some food provided by the triathlon organizers and weren't that hungry so we chose to eat in the room where the kids were comfortably watching television. There was one bar overhanging the track, that would be really cool to watch races from. I was planning on going there for a drink with my wife, but by the time the kids were asleep I was pretty tired from the day I'd had and just wanted to go to bed.I was glad that we stayed, though I don't think that we got everything out of staying in the hotel that we could've. Having the room right there during the race, was a huge plus but I wish I'd had more energy to do a little more exploring or enjoy a drink in the bar.

Yas Triathlon

Yesterday was the first Yas Marina Triathlon. The event was completely contained in the F1 circuit. The swim was in the marina area where the boats are moored, the cycle was on the Formula One track and the run was around the drag race strip. Transition was in the pits. There was a choice between the Olympic distance (1.5 km swim, 40 km cycle and 10 km run) or the Sprint distance (750 m swim, 20 km cycle, 5 km run). Assuming that I would train for it, I signed up for the Olympic distance months ago when it was announced. While I didn't do horribly, I did notice the effects of having not swum for the past few months.

I really liked the idea of running the triathlon on the track. Considering that they run a weekly Tuesday night training session on the track, it was a natural next step. I felt that the novelty of location was one of the biggest draws to the event. There were only one or two things that I felt could be improved on.

The actual distance of the cycle was only about 38 km. Because the track length is 5.55 km, it would either have to be around 38 km or around 43 km. For me having the cycle distance be a little off from the official Olympic distance was preferable to having two transition points. The other thing that I think they could work on is bike security. Sure, they only let in people with green wrist bands, but there was no system in place to make sure that people went out with the correct bike. Or that they only took one bike. My bicycle is a mid-range one so I'm not all that worried, but I'd hate to see a top-of-the-range bike get stolen. I suppose that it was a small enough race that there wasn't the worry, but I think that is an issue that need to be addressed eventually.

In addition, there was a disabled athlete who did the race. (You can read the article about him here.) I didn't even really see him around, but I did see his bike.

Overall, I thought that it was pretty well run. If it is held next year, I'd like to compete, though I think I might make sure that I do a bit more training for it.

Fog Fatalities

Sunday and Monday we had pretty heavy fog in the morning. It usually dissipates by mid-morning but Sunday it lasted most of the day. Ordinarily, it's not such a big deal but with the way people drive here, I get a little nervous being on the roads. Some people drive a little more cautiously but a few don't think that reduced visibility is any reason to slow down or refrain from tuning across three lanes of traffic.

Sure enough, there were six major accidents Sunday. One of them was an 18-car pile up with two fatalities. For details, you can click here. When I hear about things like this, it makes me not care about driving in stop-and-go traffic. The car in front is always visible and careless drivers can't get enough speed going to do too much damage.

Speeding

Yesterday while driving home from work I saw a familiar scene. The stoplight in front of me turned green and a guy in an expensive car in front of me took off speeding. The guy in the lane next to me sped into the open spot in my lane, following the car in front of me. The unusual part is that the second car turned out to be an undercover policeman who pulled the speeding car over. I was tempted to take a photo, but I didn't think that was a good idea. The thing that I was most impressed by was that the driver was Emirati and he didn't look very happy.

As if that wasn't enough, less than a minute later I turned the corner and saw another car pulled over by a marked police car and an unhappy Emirati woman arguing with the police officer. While I don't know for certain that she was pulled over for speeding, I'm guessing that it was for one traffic violation or another. I guess that Abu Dhabi is serious in the advertisements and news articles that I've been seeing; they really are trying to crack down on unsafe driving.

Unlicensed Drinking

This article was in The National a few weeks ago, but I felt that it was important to point out to anyone who may be thinking of coming to the UAE and drinking alcohol without a license. According to Abu Dhabi based lawyer, Khalid Mustafa, federal law makes it illegal to consume alcohol for both residents and tourists. "The penalty for not having one could be as much as five years in jail and a Dh5000 fine."

That's right tourists: stay home if you can't go ten days without boozing it up. That includes those of you who may be thinking of coming to the Formula One Grand Prix, the recent Tennis Championship, the FIFA Club World Cup, or any of the world class events that serve alcohol. That includes you Uma Thurman. Don't think you can come here for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and get special permission to drink.

Never mind that the only establishments that serve alcohol are in hotels. Tourists need to go to the local police station that is off-island in Khalifa City A, present a letter in Arabic stating your salary, and fill out the necessary paperwork. If you don't have the foresight to get a properly formatted letter in Arabic from your employer in your home country, then it's your own fault for not planning ahead. All I can say is after the first person tourist is arrested for drinking without a license, (lewd, offensive, or violent conduct aside) the UAE's reputation as a viable travel destination will disappear.

Optometrist

It finally happened. After over ten years of wearing the same glasses, they finally broke. I normally wear contacts and have been wearing the glasses only at night before I go to bed for the past eight years or so. Still, it was time to get a pair of glasses that wasn't too costly but that I wouldn't be embarrassed to wear outside the apartment.

While this is changing very gradually, when it comes to health services, I tend to be pretty picky. (I still go to the same dentist in the States that I've been going to since I was 13 years old.) I think I get this from all the horror stories I heard about Japanese doctors and dentists while I was living there.

When it was time to get new glasses, I was dreading the prospect of having to go through the process. I needn't have worried. Marina Mall, the nearest shopping mall had about a dozen or so shops. Unfortunately, at the time I went, before 11:00am on a Friday, only one of them was open. I refuse to go to shopping malls after 12:00 noon on the weekends, but from the looks of it, this shop was the only one that was open before 2:00pm. Because I wanted to have a better selection, I decided to come back.

My wife suggested that we go have some dinner there that evening and I could get my glasses. I reluctantly agreed because I didn't want to have to worry about it on Saturday. As we were circling around looking for a parking spot, my wife realized why I had my aversion: shopping malls in the evening on weekends are similar to holiday shopping in the States.

In the end, I looked at a few shops, found some frames I liked, and brought them to the original shop to have the lenses put in. I felt that the original shop, Barakat Optical, were really good about giving me advice about the lenses and had my glasses ready within 15 minutes. The shop I bought the frames at, Yateem Optician, had the virtue of having a specific frame that I liked, though the lens prices were a bit more expensive. Little by little, I am losing my fear of getting services done in Abu Dhabi.

Bicycle Thief

Living in Abu Dhabi, the first thing that people will tell you how safe it is here. Apart from the obvious danger of getting run down in the road by some maniac driving 100 miles an hour while sending a text message on his mobile phone, I would agree with that. Unfortunately, that feeling of safety can make a person complacent as I found out on Friday.

I went for a bike ride with my kids to a nearby park. For them the bike ride is the main part of things with the park just being a destination in mind. Usually we ride to the park, spend about 30 minutes there, and head back. We tend to go in the early afternoon, but got off to a later start so by the time we got to the park, it was pretty crowded.

After letting the kids play around for about 20 minutes, I decided that I'd had enough. When the kids went to get back on their bikes, we found that Tia's bike had been stolen. Even though I realized what had happened, something about seeing my daughter in tears over the loss of her beloved bicycle infuriated me.

Sure enough, after a ten or fifteen minute search of the park, I found the culprit: a girl about the same age as my daughter. As I suspected the girl has just taken the bike for a joyride with no ill intent. While I wasn't too hard on the girl, the sight of a man confronting her about the bike must've scared her plenty, because she ran away. After I thought about it, I felt bad. The poor girl was having a great time on this new toy without having understood that she did something she shouldn't have. Still, it was nice to be a hero in my daughter's eyes.

Maid's Quarters

When people think of classic late 70's, early 80's sitcoms like Dif'rent Strokes or The Jeffersons, the characters of Mrs. Garrett and Florence come to mind. Both of these characters were the households' live-in maids. If you were huge fans of these shows like I was, you'll have noticed that we never see where these beloved maids actually lived. That's because if their living quarters were anywhere near the size of the maid's quarters in my apartment, the American viewing public would have protested in horror.

While it is difficult to get a good idea of size from this photo taken from the doorway of this room filled with sporting equipment, I can actually lie down on the floor (when the room is empty) and have my feet and head just barely touch opposite walls. That's keeping in mind that I'm not very tall. Also, there are no windows apart from a tiny one to let some air in, so there is no natural light.

Pretty much every apartment in every building I've been to has a maid's room. The maid's room in our apartment is a little small compared to some of my friends' apartments, about a half to a third of the size. There is also a bathroom with a shower that we use to dry swimsuits and store cleaning supplies. Some of my female friends use this extra room as a walk-in closet and bathroom to get ready in the morning. Other uses are as a room for a cat litter box or as a room to dry clothes. As you can see, we use ours to hold bicycles, tents, and various other sporting goods.

A friend who lives in our building uses his maid's room to actually house his live-in maid. When I first met him, he told me that with coming from a modest background, the idea of having a servant working for him made him and his wife uncomfortable. They tried to give the maid one of the bedrooms so she could have a little room to spread out, but she was uncomfortable with the idea of their young son having a smaller room than her so they switched back. In addition, she never comes out of her room unless she's working, despite being told to come relax in the living room if she wants to. It seems odd to me to be cramped in one tiny room in your off time, but it must seem equally odd to the house help (at least in this woman's case) to be given the space to spread out.

Eclipse

It seems that there was a partial solar eclipse today. I knew that there was going to be an eclipse visible from the UAE in January, but I didn't realize until too late that I could have seen it. Here is a picture from the Gulf News. I did notice that this afternoon it was a little dreary compared with usual. (By a little dreary, I mean a sunny winter day in Wisconsin.) Also, the students were a little sluggish, but that's nothing out of the ordinary.

Opened Package

Some friends of ours in Japan sent our family some Christmas gifts that arrived just before the new year. On the outside of the package which had been opened was some tape that read "Found Opened and Officially Secured." I know that packages sent to Abu Dhabi are opened to check the contents which is why the phrase "found opened" seemed strange to me.

When we examined our gifts, we noticed that there were presents with gift cards to "Alex" and "Tim" from James, Johnny, Emma, and Tish Lawne. We were initially confused because based on the price tags on the gifts, they came from either New Zealand or Australia. We later figured out that the packages must have been opened by customs officials and part of someone else's package got mixed in with ours. If you happen to know Tim or Alex or any of the Lawnes, let them know that I have their shorts and Powderfinger DVDs.

New Year Camping

Happy New Year, Everyone! This year we decided to ring in the New Year with a camping trip near where we camped during the four-day weekend we had during National Day. We drove out to Liwa and set up camp in the early afternoon. We had a nice evening relaxing in the desert and saw in 2011 sitting by a campfire with champagne. Unfortunately, it got so cold that we were unable to sleep well.

As we drove to the area, we noticed a lot of dune buggies being towed behind trucks. As it turned out, it was the Liwa festival in which trucks drag race up a huge dune. (Click here to see a video sample of this.)

I was a little annoyed that we were camped about 5 miles from it and didn't even see it. However, when I talked to one of my students today, he told me that only about three trucks went up the dune and then the festival stopped for some unknown reason. At least now I know where the festival is and to make sure that I watch out for it.

On the way home we drove to the Emirates National Auto Museum which was closed. We could see some of the crazy oversized vehicles that were on the outside of the giant pyramid that houses the classic cars. In this picture, you can see the world's biggest two-wheeled caravan which includes eight bedrooms and bathrooms and has four garages. This is yet another example of a Guinness World Record held by Abu Dhabi. To give an idea of the scale, my son is standing next to the wheel.Hopefully the museum will be open the next time we pass through.