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A Taste of Abu Dhabi

Saturday, November 8^th, 2014

Post by Kim

In the UAE, food is abundant and diverse.  The Taste of Abu Dhabi Festival is just an example of that statement.

Before leaving Al Ain on Friday morning for the festival, Adam and I had a delicious breakfast at La Brioche, a French restaurant next to our residence complex.  Nothing like eggs benedict to start off what would be another great day!

Then we hopped in our friends’ car and off we went to Abu Dhabi city!  The festival took place at Yas Island -- the very same island where we enjoyed Yas Waterworld (October 27th, 2014 post) and visited my relative from Canada (October 19th, 2014 post).  At the festival entrance, we were greeted by men on stilts… Adam now knows what it feels like to stand next to him :)

The Taste of Abu Dhabi is essentially a festival featuring foods from different vendors and cuisines.  There were a multitude of kiosks under tents.  One of the first ones we saw had Chef Reza Mahammad from the Food Network TV channel, cooking in front of a crowd.

Other famous chefs and sous-chefs, including one of Gordon Ramsay’s sous-chefs, offered small-group cooking lessons.  For instance, some of our good friends from our residence were shown how to make cucumber ketchup.  They said it was pretty tasty!  Adam and I chose not to sign up for the lessons though, because the waiting line was about one hour.

The festival had many food kiosks.  You can see a number here:

Many of these kiosks featured free food samples such as lemon sorbet, sausages and meat pastries, caramel popcorn, and soft drinks.  Other food items could be bought with cash or with vouchers.  In our case, we had VIP tickets to the festival, so Adam and I each had 3 food vouchers and 3 drink vouchers.  With cash and with our vouchers, we enjoyed wagyu beef sliders, French fries, fried shrimp and also:

Chicken shawarma wrap…

Grilled sea bass with couscous + tuna tayaki…

Lobster lasagna…

Beer (of course)…

And coconut water.  Watching the vendor chop up that coconut like it was a breeze was a spectacle.

 Of course, food is best enjoyed with music performances and the company of friends.

The sun came down, but there was a still a large crowd at the festival, as you can see here.

As the evening progressed, we ran out of food vouchers but still had plenty of drink vouchers.  One of our good friends, Youcef, was given many drinks vouchers by another individual who had left the festival earlier.  Try as we might, we couldn’t stomach another Tiger beer (the only beer that could be purchased with a voucher); if only we could have traded someone a drink voucher for more food vouchers!

Nevertheless, we left the festival quite content from the good food, atmosphere, and company.  We then headed with our friends to a shisha bar in Abu Dhabi city.  It was a WONDERFUL and relaxing venue, with mostly local people.  We sat outside on a terrace, enjoying shisha, Turkish coffee, Moroccan mint tea, the cool shore breeze, and the night skyline of the city.

Most of all, we enjoyed being among great friends and our great conversations with them.  Our awesome buddy, Mehdi, took these beautiful pictures of the night.  (By the way, for anyone in the UAE who is interested in getting really good family pictures, MEHDI IS THE MAN!  You can check out some of his other photography and contact him through his Facebook page: <https://www.facebook.com/mehdiamaniphotos>).

I particularly like this picture of Youcef, after discovering in his pocket that he still had a food voucher from the festival!  With his new mustache, doesn't he look like Wario from the video game Super Mario Land 2 ?

(Wario picture source: < http://www.mariowiki.com/User_talk:Purity_Essence/Archive_2>)

Despite this, I think that everyone had a good time.  That night we discussed, among other things, loving life in the UAE and wanting to stay longer past our two-year contract.  Not every ADEC family feels this way, but we are very happy here.  Among other advantages, we have very good pay here (better take-home pay than back in North America), shorter work hours, good lifestyle (safe and comfortable environment, cheaper everyday costs), great opportunities for travel (with long school/summer breaks, cheap airfare), and great friends/support network from the expat community.  How much better can life be?

15 Differences between the UAE and North America

Saturday, November 1st, 2014

Post by Kim

With the push for modernity here in the UAE, sometimes the country just feels like another version of the USA.  You can find practically any modern convenience (e.g., malls, air conditioning, new cars) or chains here (e.g.,  restaurants from Chili’s to Papa John’s).  After living here for a couple of months though, there are a number of small differences – a lot of them quite mundane – that I’d like to share, especially to readers from the Western world who may wonder what it’s like to live here.  (Sorry for you readers in the UAE; the following might be a snooze fest considering that it’s old news for you).

15.  Juice

In my opinion, one the delights of being here are the juices that the restaurants offer here.  Typically, when you ask for any juice back in the United States or in Canada, you can expect some kind of syrup mixed with water or something made from concentrate.  Here in the UAE, what you get is the real deal; there is a wider variety and the fruits are actually juiced, almost no matter the type of cuisine/restaurant (e.g., whether Middle Eastern, Italian, French, American-style burger joint).  For example, we had:

Pomegranate juice (the muddled/fibrous stuff, not the clear stuff from the USA)

Orange and carrot juice

Iranian cocktails (with strawberry, banana, mango purees)

Avocado juice, pineapple juice, and lemonade with fresh mint are also very common.

14.  Water

In the UAE, practically everyone we know drinks bottled water and/or water from the cooler.  I researched the safety of drinking tap water on the Internet, but found nothing really conclusive.  Nevertheless, all I can say is that drinking bottled water is the norm here; restaurants don’t serve tap water (you have to pay for the bottle) and residents usually get their water delivered to their homes.  For example, in the Hili Complex (where Adam and I live), a man delivers water cooler jugs to your flat in exchange for vouchers that you buy from him.  You can leave the empty water jugs at the door with the vouchers, and later you receive the new full jugs there.

13.  Laundry

From what we have observed in many flats in the UAE, the laundry machine usually goes in the kitchen (as opposed to a closet or separate room of its own).

Furthermore, though dryers or washer/dryer combos can be purchased, the majority of people we know hang their clothes to dry.  Considering the heat outside, it’s a really good option.  Clothes often dry in around 30 minutes in the sun!

Personally, I choose to hang my clothes indoors because, on my first day of laundry in our new flat, I had the misfortune of getting sand all over our sheets; the wind had picked up prior to the 5-minute rain – the ONLY time it has rained here since we’ve moved here two months ago!

12.  Grocery Shopping

There is an abundance of food here in the UAE.  You can buy it from local markets.  You can also buy it from hypermarkets (or what you would call “superstore” in North America) like Lulu, Carrefour, and Geant.  For the most part, the hypermarkets here look like your regular superstore in North America, with isles and isles of products.  You can get almost everything that you get back home in those hypermarkets; the difference, though, lies in the variety of products.  Because Filipinos and Indians make up a large segment of the population, you find foods at the hypermarket that you would normally find only at Asian or specialty stores back in the USA or Canada.  Adam and I are often unfamiliar with many of the fruits and vegetables in the produce section:

Here are types of meat you would not normally see in your average American/Canadian supermarket:

And here are some Indian treats:

11.  Virtual Private Network

Due to government censorship of the Internet, some sites (such as Skype, Netflix, or websites that they consider sexually lewd) are not available unless you have a Virtual Private Network (VPN).  For those like me who didn’t previously know what a VPN is, it is a secure network connection that you download and that makes it look like you are located in a place of your choice (e.g., Canada, USA, Europe, etc.).  That way, you can bypass the censorship.

10.  Arabic Reading Conventions

In Arabic, you read and write from right to left as opposed to left to right.  This convention actually makes it convenient for English/Arabic documents, like entry visas and restaurant menus.  On the entry visa, for example, you have your English text on the left margin; the Arabic translation is written on the right margin.  If you open a restaurant menu from left to right, you would get appetizers, main entrees, desserts, and beverages in English, followed by the mirror image in Arabic (i.e., beverages, desserts, main entrees, and appetizers in Arabic).  Here is an example of where the English part would meet the Arabic part of a menu:

The right-to-left Arabic convention also made me do a double-take when I saw the follow ad at a nutrition supplement store at a mall:

9.  Female Dress

There is a variety of clothing for women here (both with Non-Muslim and Muslim, as I have learned from a person who made a comment in one of my earlier posts).  They do recommend though, that women cover at least their knees and shoulder in most public places.  The following is not a picture that we took ourselves (its actual source is <http://7daysindubai.com/please-dress-respect-public-places/>), but it is a pamphlet that Adam and I saw at the Dubai mall:

Here's another interesting picture from BBC News.  It's a common sort of sight in the UAE, especially in Dubai.

 

8.  Driving and Navigating

Differences in driving in the UAE as opposed to North America include: roundabouts, crazy behaviors from people White Nissan Patrols, interesting cargo in pick-up trucks, and the absence of addresses.  I think Adam has described this comedy pretty well in a prior post (“Driving in the United Arab Emirates”, October 25^th, 2014), so I won’t get further into it.

I would like to mention, though, that another aggravating aspect of the UAE is the absence of yellow pages.  Searching and locating particular stores (e.g., music instrument stores or picture/frame stores) on your own is very difficult.  Everything is so new here that when you do an Internet search to find a type of store, you don’t find anything (especially in Al Ain).  Most of the time, we find out from talking with other more seasoned expats or from asking fellow expats on Facebook groups.

7.  Sheiks

In the UAE, it’s essentially a monarchy system.  The country is ruled by the sheik – Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan -- who assumed his role after the death of his father and founder of the UAE as a nation, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

On buildings, billboards, and in most stores, you will find the pictures of the sheiks.  From the left to right here, you see a picture of: Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (current ruler), Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (previous ruler, father and founder of the UAE), and Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, son of current ruler).

6. Halal and Alcohol

Due to religious beliefs, there is no pork or alcohol in UAE stores and restaurants; foods that follow Islamic law are said to be "halal".  There are exceptions though; you can find pork and/or alcohol except in hotels and specially designated Western shops.  Here's a picture of the famous Spinneys in Al Ain, where they sell alcohol (on the far left, but they have no sign), and Abela, where they sell pork and other Western products (Picture source: <http://thedesertdiva.com/2012/08/02/life-in-al-ain-part-1-shopping/>).

We have seen, though, Muslim people who are either breaking the alcohol rule or who have different beliefs about consumption.  For instance, at a hotel restaurant, we have seen men in kandooras (Muslim robes and head coverings) drink Heineken; to my knowledge, this would be considered “haram” or sinful in their religion.  Fellow expats have also reported seeing Muslim people coming out of alcohol stores with bottles!

5. Calls for Prayers

Muslims are called on to pray five times per day: once at pre-dawn, then at midday, then in the afternoon, then at sunset, and finally at night.  The times for prayers vary everyday; they are based on the position of the sun and geography.  Outdoors and in the malls, you hear a man chanting on a loudspeaker, as a reminder for fellow Muslims to pray.  Here’s an example of a call to prayer at a mall in Al Ain:

There are specially designated rooms for prayers in any public building, and the rooms are segregated by sex.  Muslims pray in the direction of Mecca, a city in Saudi Arabia, where Mohammed was born and had his first revelation.  In some locations, like the Grand Millennium Hotel, you could see on the ceiling a sign (Qibla) pointing to Mecca.  I wish I could show you a picture, but somehow lost the one that I had.  Sorry!  Here's one that is similar, from a different source <http://vijainqatar.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/dubai/>.

Another artifact that I wished I had taken a picture of was a clock that Adam and I had bought at a local store when we first arrived in the UAE and stayed at the Grand Millennium Hotel.  This clock’s alarm had the “option” of turning on at the times for prayer.  We figured that we had the option of turning off this feature, but no matter what button we pressed, the clock kept chanting and waking us up at around 4 or 5am!  Needless to say, we left that clock behind at the hotel.

4.  Low costs

There are no sales taxes in the UAE, so the price that is listed is the price you pay at the cash register.  The only exception to this are items for tourists, like maybe a drink at the hotel.  Because of the absence of sales taxes, things generally come out cheaper here in the UAE than in North America.

Another contributing factor to low costs here in the UAE is, as Adam mentioned earlier in our blog, that gas is very inexpensive here (about a dollar a gallon).  Also, because the UAE is very centrally located in relation to most continents in the world (e.g., Europe, Africa, Asia), airfare is relatively inexpensive from here.  For instance, one can easily fly to South East Asia from here for around 600 US dollars, round trip.

3. Weekends

In the UAE (and other predominantly Muslim countries), weekends are on Friday and Saturday, as opposed to Saturday and Sunday.  Friday (instead of Sunday) is the holy day here, so Muslims attend mosques on that day.  Because there is work on Sundays, Christians here attend church on Fridays as well.

I am still trying to get used to the difference in weekends here.  When I’m getting to get back to work again, I keep thinking it’s Sunday as opposed to Saturday.  Or whenever it’s the end of the workweek, I keep thinking that it’s Friday, as opposed to Thursday.  I suppose that, here, the correct term should be TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday) instead of TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday)!

Picture source: <http://www.keepcalmandposters.com/poster/keep-calm-and-thank-god-its-thursday-11>

2. Paperwork

One of the main things that expats rant about here is the paperwork that is required here in the UAE.  Soooooo many steps are required to get the sponsor’s residence visa, then to get the spouse’s residence visa.  Adam and I have been living here for over two months, and I am still in the process of obtaining my residence visa!  Emiratis love getting every document stamped, translated, and attested.  They also love making you resubmit the same document multiple times, at various steps of the residency application process.  They are also very nitpicky about details – electronic copies of documents must be in jpeg, copies must be in color, the seals on the copies of the documents must show completely (even though they can see the original in front of them with the stamp), etc.  Multiple trips to departments are often needed, because you find out that your copy is not up to par, or that you are missing X, Y, and/or Z.

What makes matters worse is that, oftentimes, you are not informed of what you need to do next.  You essentially hear everything through the grapevine; most often, expats know what to do only because fellow expats are telling them in person, through Facebook groups and or through blogs.  Here’s an excellent blog post (entitled “The Residency Visa Run Around”) from a previous UAE expat, which describes in detail the frustrating and confusing process of sponsoring your spouse: <http://audrarayeabroad.com/2013/11/>.

1.  Insha’Allah

A term that you HAVE to know if you live in the UAE is: “Insha’Allah”.  Essentially, Insha’Allah means “God willing”, and it is accompanied with any statement concerning getting something done.  For example, when you ask an Emirati bureaucrat when you should expect to receive your Emirates ID, they’ll tell you something like: “In one week, Insha’Allah”.  You know that this is code for “I really don't know” or “Probably much longer than one week.”  This is especially problematic for people with Type A Personalities, who are organized and efficient.  In the UAE, you just have to learn to go with the flow.

Picture source: <http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-insha-allah-4/>

The UAE Is Not Simply a Tossed Salad

Friday, October 31^st, 2014

Post by Kim

A few days ago, Adam and I had an interesting discussion about the population of the UAE.  It’s not just simply a tossed salad.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the idea of a “tossed salad”, here’s a little preface.  For many people, the United States of America is considered a “melting pot”; that is, a place where people come from all parts of the world and assimilate into American culture.  The goal for the immigrant from abroad is to come out the same as an “average American”.

While growing up in Montreal, I remember Canadians describing their society as a “tossed salad”, where newcomers aim to integrate into the majority culture, as opposed to assimilating into society. This allows immigrants to retain more of the cultural values and practices from their homeland.  By keeping your traditions, you get a population that is more of a “mosaic” or “tossed salad” than a well-blended melting pot.

I think that some may disagree on whether the USA and Canada are melting pots versus tossed salads.  However, Adam and I are certain that the UAE is a tossed salad.  As I’ve mentioned before in my blog, this country is made up of people from all around the world:  Emiratis, Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis, Tunisians, Omanis, Americans, Canadians, Irish, Australians, etc.  And certainly, there is no pressure to conform to a “majority culture”, because there isn’t really one.  Though this country’s official religion is Islam, certainly the Emiratis do not expect expats to convert to and practice their religion.  (All they want us to do is respect some of their views, such as appropriate clothing for women).  Everyone is free to attend their place of worship.

The UAE's version of the “tossed salad” is quite different, though, from Canada's.  As I’ve mentioned before in my blog, the vast majority of people in the UAE here are expats (e.g., from South and Southeast Asian and from the Western World), not citizens of the UAE.  People are here only if they are tourists, if they have a job here, or if they are related to someone with a job here.  Citizenship cannot easily be obtained unless you are already an Emirati by birth.  This means that, if you quit or if your work contract is up, you have to leave the country.  So, there is a high turn around here in the UAE.  Expats cannot come here and settle permanently, unlike newcomers in Canada or in the USA.

So, essentially, the UAE is an EVERCHANGING tossed salad.  Beside the Emirati citizens, no one truly remains here.

Discovering the Traditional Culture of the UAE

Monday, October 27th, 2014
Post by Kim

Over the weekend, the mother of my homeschool girls informed us of the National Traditional Handicrafts Festival at the Al Qattara Fort in Al Ain.  I was particularly excited to go see this event with them because, as I have previously mentioned, my sense of UAE history and traditions has been muddled with the modern buildings and conveniences of the country.

We went to the festival on Saturday night and found forts and lots of little outdoor handcraft shops, with walls made out of mud and roofs consisting of tree trunks and dried leaves.

We walked around to look at clothes, music boxes, weaves, pottery, and other miscellaneous items.

 

 

Oh and let’s not forget the animals!  Falcons and horses…

At one of the shops, a lady offered us a platter of some date treats (i.e., dates, coconut, and nuts rolled into balls); they were really delicious, so Adam and I had to buy a tin full of them!

At another shop, the girls had henna done on their hands – beautiful flowery ink patterns that usually last for weeks.

 

 

No matter where you were in the Al Qattara area, you could hear the men’s rhythmic chanting and tribal folk music.  As you can see in the following picture and video, they used tambourines, sticks and swords for their music/dance performance.

 

The rhythm was kind of catchy; here’s one of the girls dancing as she was reading a sign.  How cute!

In another area of the festival, there was a man making bricks out of mud.  To think about how this country has changed in around five decades is amazing!

It’s kind of a funny thing to say, but seeing something old and traditional in this country was quite refreshing – a nice contrast to the opulence and modernity that you often see here.  At the festival, we learned that Al Ain is actually a UNESCO cultural site.  In the Hili area – where we have been living the entire time – there are archaeological sites that show evidence of sedentary lifestyle since the Neolithic period!  So, contrary to my previous statement in the post “The Elusive Souq and Mysterious Emirati” (October 6^th, 2014), it seems that there ARE a number of location of historical significance in the UAE; you just have to look for them in the midst of the more “obvious” tourist attractions.  Discovering a country is a process.