Zayed

His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the man who was basically responsible for creating the country the United Arab Emirates. He was able to unite the seven Emirates into one country. I think that having Sheikh Zayed be the last entry on this list is very appropriate considering how revered he is in not just his home Emirate of Abu Dhabi, but in all of the U.A.E. I think that the closest thing an American can come to understanding the average Emirati's feelings towards Sheikh Zayed would be if George Washington or one of the other founding fathers had died within the past ten years.

Throughout my blog, you will read a lot of snide comments about the U.A.E. and Abu Dhabi, but that's just my writing style. Sure there are things that happen that can make living here a trying experience, but overall, this is a pretty nice place to live. Almost everything nice about this place is due to the infrastructure that Sheikh Zayed set up initially.

There are oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia, that took the oil wealth and gave it to a privileged few, leaving the rest of the country to fend for itself under oppressive laws. Sheikh Zayed, on the other hand, saw the need to not only spread the wealth around, but to create institutions of higher learning that anyone could attend in order to create an educated population. He also looked to the future, investing the country's surplus wealth in long-term investments for when the oil eventually dries up. He created parks and loads of public green space so families could relax outside when the weather is nice. He was actively involved in the construction of the Grand Mosque, a beautiful landmark where he is laid to rest.

Sure, not all of his plans panned out the way that he'd hoped, but he did a very nice job of founding a country when other countries in similar situations have failed. For that, His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, is rightfully revered. I don't think you'll get a lot of argument from anyone on that, least of all me.

Yas Island

From what I understand, there has been a sort of rivalry between Dubai and Abu Dhabi for a while. Even though Dubai has been in the lead for a while, Abu Dhabi seems to have overtaken. In my mind, building the Formula One track on Yas Island and bringing the race here was the point where Abu Dhabi really surpassed Dubai.In this image, taken from this website, you can see both Ferrari World and the Formula One track next to it.
Here is a closer view of the Yas Hotel at night taken from this website. The Yas Hotel is the only hotel in the world with a Formula One track running through it. They run things like production car races, and a racing school. In addition, there has been a weekly cycling event run on the track since March. Recently the organizers have been extending the hours and turning on the lights for the cooler (?) evening hours.

Next to the track is a large concert and event venue. During last year's Grand Prix, there were a series of concerts held there: Beyonce, Aerosmith, The Kings of Leon, and Jamiroqui. In that same venue, they held UFC fights.

Yas Island is being built up as an entertainment island and they're working on the infrastructure to make that viable. Right now, it's mostly vacant apart from a few hotels, a Formula One Track and an amusement park set to open later this year. The track itself is a pretty good draw and has loads of events. Hopefully in a few years it will be developed enough to make staying in one of the hotels at any time of the year worth it.

X-pat

Sure this is kind of cheating, but when you consider that 80% of the people living here are non-Emirati, x-pat (short for ex-patriate, or someone who lives outside their native country) is kind of obvious. One of the things that struck me initially when I came here were to variety of nationalities that I worked with. Sure in Japan, we had a lot of people from various English-speaking countries, but even that mostly four countries: the U.S., Canada, Australia and England. Sure, there were a few Kiwis (people from New Zealand) and maybe the occasional Irish and Welsh, but not really a lot of variety. I'm not saying there weren't a lot of people from European, African, South American, or Asian countries, just not that many that I saw.

Here, that's completely different. Now, not only am I a minority among English speakers (I swear there must be more Irish living in the U.A.E than in Ireland), but among other nationalities. I work closely with French, Turkish, Lebanese, and Scottish. One of my closest friends is from Syria. They're all wonderful to work with, but it's funny to work while various languages are being spoken around me.

When I go to events for my kids' school or birthday parties for one of their classmates, I feel like one of the only Americans around. Most of the families seem to be Canadian or Australian. There are a lot of European families. In addition to my kids' school, each country seems to have its own international school. Britain, Canada, Australia, the U.S., France, Germany, Japan, I'm sure there are plenty of others that I don't know about.

That, of course, isn't taking into account all the people I see on the street or working in the shops or driving the taxis. It really isn't taking into account all the people working to build all the buildings. Looking on Wikipedia and other websites, I've found that of the approximately 6 million people living in the U.A.E., 1.75 million are Indian nationals and 1.25 million are Pakistani. Yes, that's right, half of the people living here are from India or Pakistan. An additional 600,000 are Bangladeshi. About another million are from other parts of Asia (Iran, the Philippines, Sri Lanka). So far that gives us over 75% of the U.A.E. population. 5% is from other Arab countries as well as North American, Oceania and European countries (100,000 British nationals). This leaver the remaining 20% or so which is Emirati.

These numbers give the U.A.E. the highest net migration rate in the world at 21.71. If that number means as little to you as it does to me, consider that only five countries have a net migration rate over 10 and of the countries in the top ten, eight of them are city-states or tax havens for offshore holding companies.

The upshot of this statistic-heavy entry is that once again I find myself outnumbered as an American. Unlike Japan, it's the other nationalities rather than the natives.

Water

Sure this is a desert, but why should that mean that there can't be a huge fountain on every intersection? Also, while I've only been to one, there are some amazing waterparks here. Abu Dhabi is a modern city and as a growing modern city, needs plenty of water. Every morning I drive past the sprinklers watering the lush, green grass.

All drinking water is either bottled or provided by water coolers. Every home has its own. a container of 18 liters (about 5 gallons) is 7 dirhams or about U.S. $2 so it works out to not be that bad.

The natural question is: Where does Abu Dhabi get this vast supply of water? The answer is desalination. According to this site, Abu Dhabi gets 72% of its water from desalination with efforts to expand its groundwater wells. In addition, there is an effort to get people to conserve water at home. While I agree with the sentiment, and admire the effort, I have a hard time believing attitudes will change anytime soon.

Vehicles

People here sure do love their cars and trucks. At least, they love buying expensive ones then beating the crap out of them. I've seen more expensive cars and trucks in the past year than I probably have the whole rest of my life. I've never really paid attention to car models and types, but after seeing so many top-of-the-line cars and trucks, I can't help but notice.

I also cant help but notice the ridiculous paint jobs on some cars. Here is a link to a previous post with some pictures of a Bentley painted pink with a Sonic the Hedgehog design. Below is another wonderful paint job that I saw on a Toyota Land Cruiser. While it's not an especially expensive car, I should point out that you can't see from the picture that the pink paint job is glittery.
It's also hard to miss how my students will rev the engines of their expensive trucks in the parking lot of the college until they backfire. As mentioned in previous posts, young Emiratis will drive around the city during times of celebration revving their engines until smoke comes out of them. Hence the first bit of advice that you'll get when you state your intention to buy a car: NEVER buy from an Emirati.

With all the expensive vehicles on the road, you'd think that people would be fairly cautious of how they park. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I've seen some amazing parking techniques. Here is a photo of how someone parked their truck in front of my building. Keep in mind that this isn't running in to get something for five minutes. This is overnight.In addition, there are so many trucks and SUV's on the road combined with so many crazy drivers that you need an SUV here to have any hope of surviving a crash. And crash they do. According to this site, there are 600 auto fatalities per year, 24 per 100,000 residents.

For the people who don't want to brave the roads of Abu Dhabi behind the wheel, there are tons of taxis that are dirt cheap. The only catch is getting one when you really need it. Near where I live, it's getting harder and harder to get one. Initially when we got here, we didn't have a vehicle for the first few months. We were surprised at how cheap and convenient taxis were until we tried getting one at peak hours.

Previously, I'd mentioned that the bus system wasn't worth figuring out. Well, I'll go back on that. It's worth it to me for my wife to figure it out. My wife loves public transportation and it didn't take her long to figure out the bus system. It costs one dirham for adults and kids are free. She's worked out how to get where she wants and pretty much has the whole system figured out by now. Of course, now that we have two vehicles, none of that matters now.

Overall, I'm pretty used to the driving situation in Abu Dhabi. I've also gotten over some of my squeamishness of parking if I know I'll be right back. The real question is: If the traffic situation is that much worse than last year as people say, what's it going to be like next year?

United Arab Emirates

The chances are that if you're reading a blog about Abu Dhabi, you've heard of the United Arab Emirates. I've found that when I tell people that I live in Abu Dhabi, I tend to get looks ranging from confusion to embarrassment for not knowing where it is. When I tell them that it's in the U.A.E., most people are still not sure of where it is. Finally, when I say the full name of the country, I get mild looks of recognition. It's easy to forget that Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates, a country that a lot of people have never heard of, and not a country in itself. It's a young country, only 39 years old.

As a former British colony, oil was discovered in the late 1960's. A few years after that, the sheiks in the area formed a coalition. Britain read the writing on the wall and set December 1st, 1971 as the date that the sheikdoms were on their own. Both Bahrain and Qatar claimed their independence earlier that year. On December 2nd, 1971, the leaders of Abu Dhabi and Dubai got together and convinced the leaders of Sharjah, Fujairah, Ajiman, and Umm Al Quwain to join them in forming the United Arab Emirates. Ras Al Khaimah joined the next year to complete the set of seven Emirates.

The whole thing seems to have worked out for everyone, including the U.S., Britain, and Japan who remain close allies with the U.A.E., their reasonable human rights record, and their oil.

Temperature

I've had friends remark to me that when I first got here I didn't talk much about the heat, but by the spring, that's all I seemed to talk about. I guess, that once you get used to going out and enjoying the nice weather, you notice not being able to leave your apartment a lot more.

Before I begin with the complaining, I'd like to say that from late October to early April, the weather is beautiful. It is a joy to be outside and as I've mentioned in previous posts, there is a lot going on outside to enjoy. If the weather were like that year-round, I'd never want to leave. But what fun would that be if I only said nice things?

Towards the end of May when I was getting up early to go running or cycling (the only times of the day in which exercise outside is possible that time of the year), I would notice that the temperature on the bank clock would read 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) at 5:30 in the morning and would sometimes read 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) when I was coming home at 9:00 am. I was able to console myself by realizing that exercising in Japan or in Wisconsin summer heat would seem cool by comparison.

Most people who don't live in Abu Dhabi hear about the heat and assume that it's a dry heat. That is incorrect. In fact, the humidity is regularly in the 70% or 80% range. Admittedly, the humidity is only that high at night when it's a mere 30 deg Celsius (86 deg F). In the day when the temperature reaches the 100's or even 110's the humidity goes down to the 20% to 40% range.

The point when a lot of people determine that it is no longer possible to enjoy being outside is when you leave a building and your sunglasses automatically steam up. That or when standing outside is enough to make you completely sweat though a shirt in five minutes.

Shopping Malls

The number of shopping malls and shopping centers in Abu Dhabi is pretty impressive considering the size and population of the city. For me, shopping malls are a place to be avoided, only going there when I absolutely need to buy something. Here in Abu Dhabi, going to the mall is what you do on the weekend. In a country where it's nearly impossible to enjoy being outside for five or six months of the year, that makes sense.

Every shopping mall that I've seen has a family entertainment center with some sort of bowling alley, video arcade and rides including mini roller coasters and bungee-type rides. There are, of course, movie theaters and food courts as well. They're a place to meet friends in the cafe near the fountain in an outdoor-like atmosphere when going outdoors is impossible. They're a meeting point for young people in a society where meeting others of the opposite gender is very difficult. In other words, shopping malls in Abu Dhabi have become a center of socialization in Emirati culture.

That's not to say that shopping isn't important here. You can find some great stores here, be it Wollworth's or the Ed Hardy store. There's Victoria's Secret, Ikea, Toy's 'R Us, and the Ferrari Store. Also, pretty much any high-end store you could think of is available at a shopping mall somewhere in Abu Dhabi.

Unfortunately, Abu Dhabi's shopping mall technology is vastly behind that of Dubai, almost to an embarrassing degree. In Dubai, from what I could see, an aquarium was a requirement for any shopping mall to be considered legitimate. Then of course there's the gimmick. Dubai has developed the shopping mall inside a pyramid, the shopping mall with a 400 meter indoor ski slope and the shopping mall with a world's tallest building. Sure Abu Dhabi has shopping malls with scenic towers, tiny little ice skating rinks and, by the looks of it, seem to be trying to construct a mini indoor ski slope, but there is an obvious shopping mall technology gap between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Restaurants

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love going out and trying new restaurants. I'm always in for a bit of the local flavor. That's why when I came to Abu Dhabi, I was excited to see the variety of restaurants and to try them all. Rather than go though each of the different styles of restaurant and describe the local cuisine, I'll just give a list of some of my favorites and let those in the area try them for themselves.

There's McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC, Dunkin' Donuts, Subway, Burger King, Sbarro, Krispy Kreme, Chili's, TGIFriday's, among others. There are also world class cafes like Starbucks. Lest you think I'm just trying the big names, there's an inexpensive Lebanese restaurant near my apartment where we go which I'm sure is a chain of some sort, but is a great place to get schwarma.

In all seriousness, I don't go out to eat that much but from what I hear, there are some wonderful restaurants in Abu Dhabi of any type of world cuisine that you could hope to eat. If you are honestly interested in restaurants in Abu Dhabi then a good place to look is Time Out Abu Dhabi. They review a lot of local places and have good things to say about them.

For those of you who wanted to hear about Ramadan for "R", I was going to write about that until I realized that I already posted about it in detail. If you would like to read that post, click here.

Quiet

My side of town is relatively quiet when compared to the rest of Abu Dhabi. We're on the side of town without major traffic or a lot of road construction. There are some buildings being put up around me, but I don't really hear the noise from that in my apartment. Occasionally, there will be some sort of event like an outdoor concert on the beach a block or two away. Usually those sorts of things are scheduled on the weekends, but they also spill over until late Saturday night, the night before most people start their workweek.

With all that in mind, the worst of the noise comes from various celebrations, usually due to some soccer victory. On these occasions, it's impossible to sleep with all of the horns honking, engines revving until they backfire and just general shouting. Here is a link to a video to give you a short idea of what it's like. This video is actually from UAE National Day which went on for three days but it's very similar to what happens around my apartment when there's any sort of major sporting victory. Or holiday. Or when a group of young guys just feel like being noisy at 2:00 in the morning.

Parks

For a desert, Abu Dhabi has a lot of green space. Most of the major thoroughfares have green spaces alongside them with playground equipment and barbecue facilities. As mentioned a few days ago, people will go to the parks starting from the early evening in Abu Dahbi. They are a wonderful place for people to socialize when the weather is nice (read that: from October to early April). Because there are so many around, you can often just pull your car over to the side of the road and find a place to take your kids to play.

The unfortunate thing is that they're not very well maintained. Some of the larger parks in the center of town have some wonderful equipment, but when you get closer, you see whole platforms missing on little mini forts and other maintenance issues that make it impossible to sit back and relax while your kids go play on the slide.

This is of course contrasted with the amazing landscaping with the immaculately manicured grass, trees and bushes. You will always see workers keeping the park looking nice. I mentioned the broken playground equipment to one of them once just to see what would happen (I knew what would happen) and the man nodded when I pointed out the obviously faulty and dangerous slide. I'm not sure if he didn't understand or didn't care, but nothing was done. I suppose the surprise to me is that no Emiratis say anything. I'm sure that all it would take is a word from just one person and it would be fixed.

Of course, there are parks nearby that have little attractions like an air-filled bouncy slide. Sometimes these are provided free of charge and other times they are in an amusement-park midway-like atmosphere that is charging. One near our place even has pony rides. I would have to say that there are some great places outdoors to go when the weather is nice. I only wish that the city wouldn't just put up equipment then forget about it.

Oil

Guess what? There's oil in Abu Dhabi. The Emirate of Abu Dhabi (which doesn't contain Dubai) has 95% of the UAE's oil and 92% of it's natural gas. That's right, Dubai may have more fancy buildings than Abu Dhabi, but who do they come to when the bill arrives? Not only that, Abu Dhabi has 9% of the world's proven oil reserves and 5% of it's proven natural gas. That's right. You want to fill up that SUV? There's a good chance that what you're putting into your vehicle came from Abu Dhabi.

Because Abu Dhabi is oil wealthy, gasoline price are slightly lower than they are in other regions of the world. That translates to bigger, oil-guzzling cars. In addition, fuel prices are set, so when there's an increase as there was a few months ago, people start complaining. The natural question is: How low is low? Recently the price per gallon went from U.S. $1.40 to U.S. $1.56. While not so cheap that you don't have to care, it's cheap enough that filling up an SUV doesn't seem so bad.

Night

The times that I've been out after dark in Abu Dhabi durring the summer, I've noticed a lot more people out than during the day.

As you can see, from these photos, there are beautiful parks and walkways. (The photo on the right is from my friend's website, Abu Dhabi Daily Photograph. You should definitely go to his website and have a look around. His photography is way better than mine. You can also click on the link on the right side of the page to access the latest photo. The photo on the left is of one of Abu Dhabi's many parks at night. It can be found on this website. I have no idea who that guy is.) What the photos don't show are the vast number of people out after sunset.

Whole families with young children will be out until 11:00 or 12:00 at night. I've been out with my family at a park on a day when I have to work the next day and no one will be at the park despite the beautiful weather. As we're getting ready to leave around 4:30, people will start arriving with their barbecues ready to start socializing. Sometimes when driving past these places on my way home at night, I'll see the whole place packed out and cars all over the place with all of the parking taken.

Also, I'll get up to go running at 5:00 am and there will still be people around sitting in the outdoor cafes chatting. When I see that, I have a better understanding of why my students are always sleepy in their 8:00 am classes. I guess that the mystery to me is why the UAE doesn't shift its schedule to a more nocturnal one. I understand the climate makes socializing and working in the evening hours more comfortable. I have to wonder why the students and employees are required to be somewhere at 8:00 am when most people prefer to stay up until the early hours of the morning.

Mosques

There sure are a lot of mosques around town. I don't live near any personally, but I can say that the architecture of some of them is wonderful. They can be something simple like a small building next to a gas station at a highway rest stop to the magnificence of the Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. This extravagant building rivals the cathedrals of Europe. While non-Muslims are generally not allowed in mosques, they are allowed in this mosque. In fact, there are daily tours from 10:00 am apart from Fridays, the main day of worship.I do have to say that having done the tour with my mother last January, I got a real kick out of seeing her in the abaya (black cloak) that all women have to wear in mosques. I also enjoyed the beautiful building and found the description of Islam very informative and interesting. Because few mosques will allow non-Muslims in, I don't have much to compare with. I would say that if you are in Abu Dahbi, the Zayed Grand Mosque is a must see.

Languages

While I've mentioned this before, it doesn't hurt to bring it up again: everyone here speaks English and if they don't, I would imagine that it is very difficult to function. The medium of instruction at all colleges and universities is English. It may seem unfair, but as I've explained to students who've asked me about why they have to study in English, when a country hires people of other nationalities to do their work for them, they need to communicate with the workers.

That's not to say that there aren't a lot of other languages floating around. At work, there's a constant flow of Arabic and French around me with a few smatterings of Turkish. In the break room I hear some languages from the Indian subcontinent that I can only guess at. On the street or in the shops among the shopkeepers, there are a number of Southeast Asian languages such as Filipino. On very rare occasions will I hear someone I don't know speaking Japanese. When that happens, my wife will make a new contact as was the case while out walking one day.

With all these languages floating around one thing remains the same. For lucky English-speaking monolinguals like me, the common language is English.

Khalifa

Not only is His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan the ruler of Abu Dhabi, he's the ruler of the whole United Arab Emirates. In addition to this all, he has the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, named after him. I guess that's what happens when you lend the people who built it the money to finish it.

He has been the ruler of the U.A.E. since his father, His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nhyan died in 2004. Sheikh Khalifa has been doing a wonderful job since then.

Japan

The longer I live in Abu Dhabi, the deeper the connection between Japan and the UAE I find. Considering that the UAE exports 62% of its crude oil to Japan, you think that Japanese would be much more visible. Of course, being married to a Japanese woman means that I have a connection to the Japanese community here. While the Japanese who work for the Japanese oil company keep to themselves, they do seem to be an influence. My wife is originally from the countryside in Japan and there are enough Japanese here to warrant a Northern Kyushu social group that meets every month or two.

There are two Japanese restaurants. There is even a Daiso, a kind of Japanese dollar store. The funny thing about this is that a lot of the products they sell only have Japanese writing on them so I have to wonder who besides Japanese people or people who have lived in Japan buys any of these things. In addition, the Japanese embassy was kind enough to sponsor Nobuyuki Tsujii, a renowned Japanese concert pianist and to give away 100 tickets to his performance to Japanese registered with the embassy.

Acording to the Abu Dhabi tourism website, Etihad Airways, a major airline in Abu Dhabi, sponsored a delegation of travel agents to visit Abu Dhabi to determine it's viability as a tourist destination for Japanese. It seems that they were impressed and I may be seeing more tour groups of little old Japanese ladies being led by a guide carrying a flag and snapping pictures along the beach in the coming years.

Not only do Japanese migrate here from Japan, I've met dozens of non-Japanese here who used to live in Japan. I know almost 10 people from Fukuoka alone who are now living in the UAE. Even the editor of Time Out Abu Dhabi used to live in Fukuoka around the time I was there. It seems like the UAE is for teachers and ex-patriots what Japan was 15 or 20 years ago.

Investment

Yes, Abu Dhabi is oil rich but the thing that a lot of people find surprising is that 64% of Abu Dhabi's GDP comes from non-oil or gas sources. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) was set up in 1976 to manage surplus money from all the oil that keeps spurting out of the ground.

The interesting thing about this is at the time every other country with a surplus was investing in quick-yield, short-term investments, ADIA was investing in low-yield, long-term investments. (Here is a photo of the AIDA building taken from my friend's blog, Abu Dhabi Daily Photograph.) To this day, they're still one of the only countries investing in the long term.

So to all of you who think all the U.A.E. does is blow their money on fancy new buildings, palm-tree shaped islands, and Formula One tracks, think again. They're busy buying up residential real estate in London, New York, Chicago, Milan, Paris, Rome and Los Angeles.

Higher Colleges

The Higher Colleges of Technology refers to the network of government schools that encompasses 13 different campuses across the U.A.E. It is free for Emirati nationals to attend. They only thing that each student is required to buy is a tablet computer. Even though that in itself isn't cheap, being the only thing a student has to purchase makes it a pretty good deal.

While the Higher Colleges of Technology may be throughout all of the UAE and not just in Abu Dhabi, the first campus opened 22 years ago was Abu Dhabi Men's College, the school I work for. As far as I've been told, it's the flagship school of the Higher Colleges of technology. If you're a foreign dignitary, businessman, or academic and visiting the capital of the U.A.E., you're going to get a tour of my school. As one of my co-workers put it to me: After showing people the Emirates Palace Hotel and the Zayed Grand Mosque, what else are they going to see?

There really are a lot of amazing facilities here accessible by the students. The library has whole rows of computers, a huge plasma-screen TV, mini sound booth-like chairs for watching DVDs, and a Starbucks right in the library. If that's not enough to impress foreign dignitaries, I don't know what is.

Garfield

Initially when I told people that I was moving to Abu Dhabi, most people thought I was kidding. I think for a lot of people, the name gives a connotation of being exotic while being in the middle of nowhere. One of my middle-school students said, "Hey that's where Garfield was going to send Nermal!"

For those of you who are agoraphobic, have no television, and haven't seen a newspaper comics page for the past 30 years, Garfield is the title character of a comic strip, cartoon, and two movies and can be seen stuck to the windows of minivans driven by middle aged housewives across the U.S. In this comic, there is a recurring storyline in which Garfield wants to send a cute kitten that he is jealous of to Abu Dhabi.

While it isn't necessarily a point of pride in Abu Dhabi, it has put the name on the map for enthusiasts of mediocre comic strips. It was enough of a news item for a local newspaper to write an article about it. In the article, Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield gives his reasons for why he chose Abu Dhabi as a place of banishment. They can be summed up as: It was exotic sounding and allies with the U.S.

While Mr. Davis expressed no interest in visiting Abu dhabi, he did hint at the possibility of things to come. Look for your Garfield-themed amusement park coming to Abu Dhabi in 2020.