Camping

I'd intended on writing more and trying to make it more interesting but the longer I wait to write this, the less I feel like writing about it. I would've done it last night but I couldn't connect to Blogger. I figure that for this entry, the pictures are more interesting anyway.

Well after all my crying about not being able to go camping in Oman a month or two ago, we were able to go this past weekend. Now that we have a four-wheel drive truck, we could load it up and follow a caravan of friends. One of my friends used to live in Al Ain, a city on the border of Oman so he knows a lot of good places to camp in that area.

The drive to the border was a couple of hours and we drove a another hour or so in Oman. Normally, we have to get a visa for Oman which costs about 100 dirham ($27) per person but if you cross at a certain point and don't go too far into Oman, you don't need one. If you keep going in Oman, you eventually hit another checkpoint and then have to pay for a visa. Having someone with us who knew this kind of thing was helpful.

We had a little bit of off-roading which was fun. I've never had a truck before so have never had the chance. I'm assuming that the four-wheel drive was helping but since I've never had a truck before, I don't know what using only two-wheel drive would've been like. I was tempted to switch while we were driving to see if I could feel a difference but didn't want to risk getting stuck.

We arrived just a few hours before the sun went down and parked in the shade of the wall of a canyon. After the sun went down, we were expecting it to get cold, but it was really nice weather, in the 60's Fahrenheit. The kids ran around in the wide open area while we got the tents and everything set up. We cooked our dinner on the fire and relaxed. Basically it was how you'd expect camping to be but in a wide open space with not many trees around. The next morning, we packed up and drove a little way to a narrow canyon where we hiked for a little bit and looked for fossils. It involved a little climbing which the kids loved.

Overall, it was a great time.

Festival of Thinkers (part two)

I was hoping to give daily updates on my escapades with the Nobel laureates, but things never work out the way we planned. I started this entry a few days ago and had intended on finishing it later in the day. When I tried to come back to it the Internet wasn't working. Apparently in this backward country, if you sign up for a wireless Internet connection but never actually pay any money,they cut off your service after a few months.

Monday started out with us being bused to the Emirates palace where the opening ceremony was held. Before the ceremony there was coffee, juice and pastries available. I started talking with a friend and the man he was shadowing, the inventor of a deep-sea diving suit. He was a really nice guy and I had been talking with him for about 10 minutes before I even realized that he was one of the Thinkers. The most notable thing about the pre-ceremony reception was a seven-foot man by the name of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar walking past me. I didn't have a pen on me or would've asked for his autograph.

The speeches in the opening ceremony were pretty good. The main speaker was Dr. Sirin Ebadi who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. She is notable for being the first Muslim woman as well as the first Iranian to win a Nobel prize. As soon as she started speaking, a majority of the audience got up and left. It was then that I realized what the devices that were sitting on the tables as we walked into the hall were for. They were headsets broadcasting translations of what she was saying. I sat for as long as I could but after a few minutes, I got up to get a headset. She must've been speaking Farsi because both Emiratis and English speakers were running to get the headsets.

After a few more speeches and a few performances, there was a panel discussion about the financial crisis onstage with Mike Moore (former Prime Minister of New Zealand), Cherie Blair (wife of former Prime Minister of Brittan, Tony Blair), John Nash , a former ambassador of the U.S. and the head of the U.K. Atomic Energy commission. It was fun watching Cherie Blair and Mike Moore go at it a little, but I was disappointed that there wasn't more fighting.

Next we got on a minibus to The Abu Dhabi Women's College and had lunch then round table discussions with the Thinkers. The discussions went fairly well and while I thought that the people were just being nice, I still liked hearing the Thinkers tell me that I was doing a good job. My original intention was to give a day by day account, but at this point, I don't feel like it. Instead, it will probably be much more interesting giving some of the highlights:

...moderating a discussion with Prince Nikolaos of Greece on Globalization of Culture and Language

...unintentionally choosing the Iranian student to give his thoughts on using nuclear power to reduce carbon emissions

...watching a panel discussion with a number of pro athletes and Olympic gold medalists

...getting a photo of myself with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (but not an autograph)

...leading a top neurosurgeon to a table discussion when he was clearly not feeling well and trying to escape the room

...watching a panel discussion with two Nobel Prize winners in Physics, the commander of the UK forces in the Gulf War, and the inventor of a deep sea diving suit

...plunking down some students at the table of the inventor of the diving suit while he was trying to eat lunch

...weaseling my way into moderating at the table where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was supposed to participate only to find that he had left early

...expecting to have Dan Clark at my table for a discussion only to have him leave so he could pass out DVDs of his daughter singing a tribute to the Festival of Thinkers


Overall, I had a great time and really got a lot out of it. Even though the discussions were mainly for show, I gained confidence through moderating them with some pretty important people. The onstage panel discussions in particular were really interesting. The main point of everything that I saw was an exercise in promoting the UAE and the school I work for in particular. Nothing was really accomplished apart from some excellent coverage and networking opportunities for the attendees. A few of the international students as well as teachers like myself were personally able to interact with people we never would under other circumstances so I can't really say much bad about it.

On a final note regarding my quest to get Kareem's autograph, I found out that he was being led around the school where I teach today (Thursday) around the time I was correcting some depressingly bad math tests. By the time I found out, he was long gone. I didn't feel bad because I had already met him. Also, it's nice to know that even though the students I teach aren't that great, I teach at a place that has the clout to attract such superstars as the ones I met over the past few days.

Festival of Thinkers (part one)

The Higher Colleges of Technology often has fairly high profile visitors come for a visit. Abu Dhabi Men's College, the school where I teach, is one of the main places that foreign dignitaries end up. I asked someone about this and was given the answer, "When business people or diplomats come to Abu Dhabi, they go to the Emirates palace. After that where else are they going to take these people?" The company I work for likes to have high profile events that give the school the appearance of a prestigious hall of higher learning. One of those events runs Monday to Wednesday this week and is called the "Festival of Thinkers." Basically, the school invites a bunch of people who are the top in their field to come and have discussions about contemporary topics such as poverty alleviation, health and obesity, cultural diversity and whatnot.

The thing about it is that they really do invite top names to come and discuss these points. There are a number of Nobel laureates including John Nash (the subject of the movie "A Beautiful Mind"), the King of Sweden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Steve Forbes, Mike Moore (former prime minister of New Zealand, not the film maker), just to name a few. It's a great opportunity for some of the higher level students, though some might argue the value of the exercise with all the effort and expense. For the most part it's a show to raise the prestige of the school.

The program includes some panel discussions of the topics in front of an auditorium then breaks into 30 different round-table discussions of ten people each. Each table has a moderator to keep the discussion going and a recorder to write down what's been said by whom. The moderator is supposed to keep people from grandstanding and to give everyone a chance to speak. I've heard that after a few years experience with this annual Festival of thinkers they choose people to be moderators. Somehow after being in the country for three months, I was chosen to moderate a discussion with a neurosurgeon and a former president of a top level architecture firm. To see the full cast, click here. I'm at table 30. You can click on the column heading for table to have it sorted by table.)

I'm not really nervous, just wondering what the heck the organizers were thinking by putting me in as a moderator. I volunteered late and they must've just had a cancellation by someone who was supposed to do it and just slotted me in the moderation position. If you want more details of the event, click on a few of the hyperlinks and it will kind of explain what I haven't. I'll keep everyone updated on how things go.

Parties

Yesterday, a friend of mine told me he had won tickets and a parking pass to see Jamiraquai and asked me if I wanted to go. Later that evening, four of us were on our way to the show with me driving. The show was part of the whole F1 celebration and they must've been giving a lot of tickets away because I knew a lot of people that had got free tickets. Thursday Beyonce played, tonight The Kings of Leon are playing, and tomorrow after the race Aerosmith is playing. In all honesty, I would rather have seen The Kings of Leon or Aerosmith, but you can't complain about a free concert.

The show was in a pretty impressive standing room only venue on a beautiful night. I wasn't sure if you'd be able to buy drinks but as it turned out, they had alcohol for sale on the premesis. Because I was driving, I couldn't drink so instead I had six Red Bulls which pretty much had the same effect. The Red Bulls got me in a wandering mood so while my friends stayed at the back of the venue, I pushed my way to the front and got a fairly good view.

Getting home was pretty smooth and surprisingly well organized. The worst part of it was the 45 minutes it took to drive the last kilometer home and get to where I knew I could park my car because of the concerts a few hunders meters from my apartment including lesser know artists like Ragheb Alama and Timbaland. Luckily, because I live right next to the Higher Colleges Central Services building which contains loads of parking for employees,, I could park there. The only problem was getting there.

Today after the Red Bull buzz finally died down, I started getting my part in the Halloween party organized for tonight. My friend, Gary organizes Trick-or-Treating, in my building. Usually there's a party afterwarts for the kids ao me and two of my coworkers were recruited to help organize it. We loosely divided up duities and were able to get a few games going. While I was happy with what we did, I didn't think it was anything extra-ordinary. Still, I had people say that they have been coming to this event for a few years and that we really raised the bar. Knowing that the kids had a good time made it worth the effort.

Cost

I've been asked to write about how much things here cost compared to Japan and North America. The short answer is about the same as the U.S. and cheaper than Japan. Of course, it isn't as simple as that. It depends on how you live and what you spend your money on, but I'm finding that things here seem pretty cheap. I'll do my best to give prices of things that I've found here and to compare them to Japan, but as for the States, I haven't lived there for a while and don't really know what anything costs anymore.

The obvious one for me personally to start with based on the past week is cars. I would say that cars and trucks are about the same as in the States, both new and used. Compared to Japan where you can get a decent 10-year-old car for free, they're expensive. Upkeep here is a different story. Parking is free if you can find a space. (Though I heard only today that there will be a charge for parking in the center of town. I need to find out more about that later.) Around where I live, parking isn't a hassle yet. Gas is pretty cheap with gas being sold for about $1.70 a gallon and unless I'm completely mistaken (I probably am) about 40 yen per liter. A speeding ticket is 700 dirham or $190 and I think that running a red light is the same. Considering that those seem to be the only moving violations that people are concerned with, overall owning a car seems pretty cheap.

One thing that I should have an idea of but really don't know is housing. The school I work for provides housing. After a year, I can apply for a housing stipend and move into another apartment. From what I've heard, due to skyrocketing rental costs it won't cover the cost of rent anymore, so we have to stay in the apartments provided by the school. Since no one I know in my building pays rent, I don't know what the rent is, but I did a search and for apartments in my area and found that 250,000 dirham ($68,000 or 6.25 million yen) a year for an apartment was on the low end. It's a good thing housing is included.

Unfortunately, utilities aren't. I've heard that they're not too bad, but no one can tell me exactly how much I can plan to pay. It's not the monthly cost that is the problem, it's the surprise lump sum that comes at random times. The housing company sends a bill every nine months or so, when they feel like it.

The next big one is alcohol. Depending on where you go, a 24-pack of standard beer like Beck's or Heinekin will be about 100 dirham ($27 or 2500yen). I think a 24-pack of Guiness is about 230 dirham ($62 or 5700 yen)A bottle of liquor can be about 90 dirham ($25 or 2300 yen) with not much difference between low quality and top brands. From what I remember, Vodka was the same for a bottle of Stoli as it was for generic brands. In bars, there isn't much beer selection with your standard lagers like Corona, Fosters and Heiniken or nicer beers like Kilkiney and Guiness. I think a pint of Kilkeney or Guniess typically runs about 30 dirham ($8 or 750 yen) so it ends up being a little more expensive with the current exchange rates.

I bought a Starbucks coffee for the first time since coming here last night and paid 16 dirham ($4.35 or 400 yen) for a grande sized latte so that seemed about the same. We went out to eat a Chilli's and paid 32 dirhams ($8.70 or 800 yen) for a bacon cheeseburger which seemed expensive at the time but looks incredibly cheap now that I look at the converted price. I tend to have lunch at Subway and can get a footlong sub with potato chips and a soda for 28 dirham ($7.60 or 700 yen). For the most part fast food seems to be about the same as the States.

Soda and other western comfort foods are way cheaper than in Japan, too. A can of soda like Coke or Sprite at the hypermarket is 1 dirham ($0.27 or 25 yen). If you want to get fancy with something like root beer, Cherry Pepsi, or Vanilla Dr. Pepper, expect to pay 2.5 dirham ($0.68 or 63 yen). Pretty much any kind of cereal is available for a range of 10 dirham ($2.70 or 250 yen) to 30 dirham ($8.10 or 750 yen). That range can even apply to the same brand, depending on the store and whatever is on sale. Decent frozen pizzas will cost about 35 dirham ($9.50 or 870 yen). Bread is pretty cheap compared with Japan. You can get a really nice loaf of fresh baked bread for 6 dirham ($1.60 or 150 yen) and while I don't remember prices, freshly sliced deli meats and cheeses are cheap, too with a good variety. Pork products, on the other hand run about twice as much.

Electronics seem to be about the same as Japan, too. Blackberries are way more common than i-phones here. I didn't look at how much Blackberries cost, but was intent on getting an i-phone until I saw the 2500 dirham ($810 or 75,000 yen) pricetag for an 8 gig phone. Add to the restrictions they put on them and my miscalculating the conversion rate when I first got here, I couldn't justify it so instead bought a phone for about 600 dirham ($163 or 15,000 yen). We're planning on buying a Nintendo Wii which cost 1150 dirham ($313 or 29,000 yen) including Wii sports.

We just hired a cleaning lady to come in once a week for three hours. She charges 30 dirhams an hour plus 10 dirhams cab fare for a total of 100 dirhams ($27 or 2500 yen) a week. In addition, I hired someone at my school to wash my car every day for a cost of 100 dirham a month. Washing it every day might seem excessive until you see how filthy my car is after two days.

Lastly, Daiso has a nice presence here. For those from the U.S. who are reading this, Daiso is a chain of Japanese 100 yen stores. My wife can get her fix of cheap Japanese products there but instead of 100 yen, things cost 7 dirhams or 175 yen ($1.91). Still, that's not bad and it's nice to know that my wife and kids can easily get things that remind them of home, too.

Vehicle

I bought a 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer today. It has 25,000 kilometers on it (about 15,000 miles) and with buying it from a dealer included a year warranty. In the past, I've used the words "car" or "truck" to refer to the vehicle I've intended on buying. This has only caused confusion. I've been corrected on this several times, but I have a hard time saying "I'm buying an SUV."

I gave up on the car loan even though I was about a week away from qualifying. I had a bad feeling that even though I almost qualified for the loan, I was a few weeks away from actually having the money to exchange for the car. Instead, I transferred some money from savings. As it was, even that was painful with all the getting accounts set up for transfers and exchanging money. This was a process that I started about three weeks ago. The most difficult thing was the ridiculously short hours at the bank meant that I could only go on Saturdays. At least now my accounts are set up to move money easily.

The whole process leading up to me driving the car off the lot has been so painful that I was pleasantly surprised with how smoothly things went over the past few days. It seems that while banks will pretend that they want to give you the money for a car, they make it difficult to actually get the money in hand. Car dealers, on the other hand, will make it very easy and convenient for you to give them money in exchange for a truck.

First I had to call to arrange insurance last night. They didn't know what a Japanese gold license meant, but when I explained that it means no citations or accidents in the past five years, I was able to get a pretty good deal on insurance. (2590 dirham, about 82,000 yen or about $700 for 13 months) They checked it out then I was good to go.

Once I had the insurance, I could go pick up the car. The dealer sent someone to take me to get it registered. Once there I got my license plates. I was even given a choice of plate size. While I was waiting for my plates to have holes drilled through them so they could be fitted on my truck, an Emirati asked me how much I paid and told me I paid too much. When I told him about the low mileage, another guy said, "Well then it sounds like you got a good deal because it's like new," while giving his friend a look to tell him to shut up.

I drove it home and wasn't used to driving on the right side of the road and really not used to driving a big car. I stopped for gas and had no idea how much it would cost to fill up so I gave the attendant all the money I had on me, 60 dirhams (about $16). I was happy to see that it filled it about three-quarters of the way. While the fuel mileage probably isn't that great, gas is only 5.75 dirham a gallon (about $1.55) so it won't be that bad.

When I got home, I handed my wife the key and told her to try to find it. Even though she had a general idea of where it was, it was funny watching her from the balcony as she walked in the opposite direction, then watching her jump as she pressed the alarm button and it started beeping at her. Then she couldn't figure out how to turn off the interior lights.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. I've had about three weeks since I put the initial non-refundable deposit on it to come to terms with everything. I'm just happy to not have to rely on taxis anymore. I figure if we did pay a little more, it was for the low mileage and the year warranty. I've had people either tell me I got a good deal or that I paid way too much for it. The worst is when people say, "Well as long as you're happy"

Neighborhood

I've gotten a few questions regarding the area I live in. Most people associate the name Abu Dhabi with "the middle of nowhere." Believe me, it is a big city. The other side of the island is pretty crazy, where I live is presently a nice area with a lot of green space and places to take the kids to do things. You can click here to get an map of where we live. The marker on the map is directly in front of our building (right of the marker if you're following the road to the beach). You can zoom out on the map to see our relationship to the rest of Abu Dhabi, the UAE, and the world. I'll be referencing it in this blog.

Last night we went to see the Pixar film "Cars" at an outdoor screening on the beach. All weekend they are showing racing related movies in conjunction with the F1 being held here next weekend. The beach itself is a five minute walk but because the beach and facilities have been under construction since we moved here, this was the first time we went there. It was about a 20 minute walk away on the beach walkway. When we got there, they had big bean bag type pillows on the beach. Before the movie, one of the sponsors of the event (New York Film Academy) gave a green screen demonstration with some volunteers. The organizers projected Lucas (in the blue shirt), Tia (in the pink and white dress) and some other kids flying on a magic carpet on the big screen. The weather was nice and it was a well-organized event. That was the first time I considered doing anything outside and made me realize that the weather is actually nice enough to take advantage of the things around the neighborhood.

Because of that, today I took Lucas and Tia to a park that is right across the street. Even though last night the temperature along the beach was just about right, today at 1:30, it was still a little too hot to be comfortable in the sun. We went to the grove of trees next to the main road on the map. I was impressed with all of the green space so close to my apartment. There are nice walkways, plenty of trees for shade and loads of benches and covered tables to relax by. The grass was landscaped well and there were fenced off ponds which I can only assume are meant to house wildlife in cooler parts of the year.

Unfortunately, the playground equipment was a disappointment. While there were a variety of things to play on it wasn't well-maintained. It looks like it was nice when it was new. In the picture you can see an example with the platform before the slide completely missing. I've heard that happens pretty often here. The government shells out big bucks for shiny new public works but doesn't maintain it very well. Maybe it's a seasonal thing. Hopefully, they just didn't bother trying to fix things when it was hot and no one was playing at the park and will do repairs now that it's cooler and more kids will be out playing.

The exception is landscaping. All the grass, trees, and shrubs are watered and groomed. I cornered a guy walking around with hedge trimmers under the assumption that he worked there and showed him the broken equipment. He said he didn't speak English but seemed to understand. I'm pretty skeptical that it'll get fixed on the basis of that, but you never know.