cocktails 2007

You know youre in Dubai when...

• When a 2 lane road becomes 6 lanes.
• You wake up in the morning and open the balcony door because its cold inside.
• The cold water tap is so hot that you burn yourself.
• You walk out the front door of your apartment at 4.45am and catch a passing taxi within 5 minutes (and you think that is too long to have waited!)
• Govt. flower beds are dug up regularly at night just to change the colour scheme.
• Market vendors offer you 'genuine' fakes!
• You will only swim in chilled pools.
• You see another advert for the 'worlds largest building', or worlds largest advertisment sign etc
• Your 3 yr old tells you its time to go home after 5minutes at the park!!
• Your taxi driver has only been here for 10 days and you have to give him directions, (same driver who when he asked me how many children did I have and I replied two he enquired loudly... " your husband have problem?"!)
• When the salesmen offer you cups of tea while you browse !
• You realise too late that you cant wear lipgloss in a sandstorm!
• Two minutes of rain causes the streets to flood
• A car with it's hazard lights on can mean:

a) the car is coming to a sudden stop because of traffic
b) the driver is reversing (usually into you're car)
c) the car is stopping at a random point to pick up / drop off passengers or just have a chat on their mobile phone d) it is raining / foggy / poor visibility / generally any change from sunny weather
e) some team somewhere has won a football game. Usually accompanied by honking and passengers hanging out of windows

• You can call your local grocery and order 3 cans of coke to be delivered to your door, Same said delivery arrives, and they give you 3 cans of soda water
• You sign the receipt and tell the delivery guy that your husband will come and pay later
• You see a camel walking along a highway.
• You move into a new house you get a huge sand pit for a garden.
• You go to a dinner party at someones house and there is staff waiting for you from a local well know 5 star hotel!
• When you drive past fifty cranes in one minute and don't even notice
• When you wake up the kids to tell them it's raining
• A husband and wife holding hands in frowned on, but nobody bothers about all the blokes that walk around arm in arm.
• Your children go home and their cousins/friends show them photos of a Lamborghini and you DD/DS says my neighbour has 3 of them in his drive way!!
• You hold the door for someone and they walk right through probably assuming that you are the door man/girl ( I WANNA SLAM THAT DOOR- I now no longer wait, I just let go!)
• When you ask anybody about things being "ready", "available" or "done" and they say inshallah, that the equivalent (NOT LITERAL) translation is NO....
• There is someone to fill your petrol tank, usually with a smile
• You get to meet really interesting people from all over the world
• You wear sun factor 100
• Everything at your local store is 'seasonal' - including deoderant and cat litter
• When you have a traffic jam because there is an accident on the road in the other direction
• When walking your dogs attracts a crowd
• You're in the middle of a desert, but even in 50 degree heat, public fountains and waterfalls never stop.
• When you find yourself asking WHY there is nobody packing bags at your aisle
• When you go to the bank and and they call you MISTER, even if you are in a dress and doesn't have a beard
• You have visitors coming in JUly even though you have told them a dozen times it like living in a sauna - ************ mind them they will know all about it tomorrow!!
• When you moan about it being freezing in the mall.
• When your Mother phones EVERY DAY to ask "what temperature is it today?
• When you see an accident and you look away out of courtesy, only to see people out with their camera taking pictures.
• You always manage to start talking to the people on the table next to you in restaurants, and end up knowing the low-down on where they are from and how long, when and why they came to Dubai! (or is that just me being nosey!!)
• when... Its cheaper to eat out than cook for yourself
• when you go to pick up the car you have arranged finance on only to be told that you can't have it till they have a security cheque for the full amount.
• You get fed up of telling people from back home that yes, you can drink alcahol here, and no, you dont have to cover up like an arab woman
• You know you're in Dubai when you are offered refreshments when carrying out any business fabric shops, insurance agency, jeweler etc I think it's really sweet.
• You wander the markets alone at night and despite being the only woman in sight feel quite safe
• You can have Christmas on the beach and go for a camel ride.

Analysis

the kids in fujairah

A video of the fujairah trip

new al bada house

AlBada_House

Moving House

Will miss the house in Springs 3, had gotten attached to it, but hey looking forward to the new one as well, les hope all works out for the better.

Cheers :)

Kumarakom, Kerala

Kumarakom 2006

Thekaddy & Periyar

Thekkady

Backwaters by Houseboat Kerala

Houseboat Allepy

Jordan Finally

Viperjazz in Petra

New place to move to yet again

Click here for the map

funny how things turn out

Strange sometimes how life teaches you things. Acceptance... i dont know if it is something we do out of choice or helplessness !? things we take for granted..dont turn out the way we would expect them to be. But i do know accpeting does cut down the rife a bit and makes it easy to take life one day at a time. Am i smart or what ?..chuck.. i am brooding too much i guess..snap out !!

bummer diwali

bummer !!! have to go to India for surgeries and then bedrest, its not the surgery that is scary, its the latter !!

Jordan

fantastic trip to Jordan. Petra and Dead Sea were really fantastic. Will post pics soon.

yikes!

Its terribelisssss, i am
running behind with 3 travelogues !! whats happening to me?..work,
house, money.....there is too much on my mind, AND another trip to
Jordan coming up, the hit count will go to 4 !!,..the more the merrier
i guess..sheesh

Nyhavn, Denmark

Nyhavn, Denmark
Originally uploaded by papiah.

Boy is Copenhagen beautiful in the summers or what ??? i could live here for ever, i can not believe i stayed here for 4 months in the winters and did not see any of this...jeeez!!! The country is completely changed, even if just for a few months.
watch this space toooo......

Berlin for the weekend

Berlin
Originally uploaded by papiah.

watch this space, have to write but i am still not back.yeaaaaayyyyy

Geeta Pe Haath Rakh Kar...

B and i got talking today about religion and then were talking about how Hinduism is basically  a philosophy and not a  religion per say. We got talking about the holy book and realised that we have none! The Bhagvad Geeta isnt really a  holy book for Hinduism, at best it is codes and verses talking about philosophy and takes.
I was wondering after that why do we use the "Geeta" in a  court of law and swear to say the truth based on it?? Technically it makes no sense at all.
It all boils down to the Brit hang over still, we follow a  judicial system based on theirs and since they use the Bible we use the Geeta. It does'nt make sense but we still do..why?? one wonders.
Keeping my hand on the Geeta and lying or telling the truth bears no significance to a  Hindu or anyone esle as it is not the significator in our case in India anyways.
Such inanity. So many years after independence and we still tow the line.. or do we??

My Japanese Table

my japanese table
Originally uploaded by papiah.

Yippeee,
I finally have a jap table, just before i become all practical and have babies and wont be able to have one like this, i hurried and did it :). We'll enjoy it while we can, and some others too.
Salman bhai made it to order and i drew it out for him. Except that it has deadly corners, i am happy with it.

Cocktail Remix Party June 06

cocktailparty
Originally uploaded by papiah.

It was pretty mad, most turned up and i think we had a good time, except for the fact that someone hid my smokes in the freezer which i found the next day! It wrapped up at 3 and we were dead on our feet, actually we just left all the stuff as was! when we woke up i didnt want to come down , but Naseema had done a brilliant job of cleaning up, thank god for her !!!
some photos on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viperjazz/
keep checking this url for what we are upto, as if you care ??!!