Visitor, Party, and Zoo, Oh My!

Sunday, October 19^th, 2014

Post by Kim

Another great weekend!  Adam and I are actually feeling a little sleep deprived from coming back home late at night from all the events that we’ve attended.

On Thursday afternoon and night, Adam and I went to a local bar for our routine get-together with Adam’s colleagues; it was “Teacher’s Night”, so the drinks were heavily discounted.  Good fun!  Then, we went over to one of our good friend’s place in Hili, lounging and having a stimulating conversation with him.  Time flew and we came back home at around 1am in the morning.

Next morning, we woke up at 7am to go visit Sonh -- the spouse of one of my cousins -- who was in Abu Dhabi city on a business trip.  Sonh was staying at the Yas Viceroy, another of the many modern and luxurious hotels of the UAE.  Here are some pictures of parts of the hotel.  The panoramic photo is from Sonh’s room.  What a view!

 

 

 

It was great to see our relative and to share our experiences and impressions of the UAE.  Among the topics was whether the country may be the new “Land of Opportunity”, with so many people from all around the world gaining employment and a much better salary (and/or lifestyle) than in their former nation.  We also talked about how architects probably love to work in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.  The UAE is a burgeoning country and like other countries that are trying to prove that they are becoming wealthy and modern (e.g., China), it is constantly looking to break new architectural records – whether it is in the form of the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa) or largest mall by total area (Dubai mall).  This new country has so much money and so much “empty” space that architects really have much more freedom to make their designs a reality.

Anyway, back to our weekend.  After this short visit, Adam and I returned to Al Ain early in the afternoon to join other friends for a party in the desert, organized by the Rotana hotel.  Unfortunately, Sonh’s flight back to Canada was the next day, so he couldn’t join us.

The party consisted of a short bus ride to the sand dunes.  There, we lounged on large bean bags in the sand and watched the gorgeous sunset.

 

  

 

 

A traditional way that people relax and socialize in the Arab world is through smoking shisha.  For readers who may be unfamiliar with this, shisha is flavored tobacco that is filtered through water through a pipe.  In this particular case, the shisha had a grape and mint flavor.  The fumes smelled good!

There was also an above-ground pool in the desert, but unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it.  We also enjoyed BBQ -- all kinds of barbecued meats, fried rice, sausages, cooked carrots, potatoes, and red cabbage salad.  All very tasty!  Here are the cooks at work.

Our tickets also provided us with beer and wine.  Actually, I (not we) had some drinks; I was the designated driver the night before, so Adam took his turn in being alcohol-free :)

There was a DJ and live music at the party as well – a mix of Middle Eastern music, salsa, modern pop music, hip hop, rock, etc.  Here are some people slowly gathering in front of the stage, before the crowd eventually began dancing.

A blonde belly dancer also performed that night.  Here is a picture of her and a video segment of her dance.

 

 

Her dance was very good, but honestly, we were just as entertained by the little kids coming up to the main area and showing their kinesthetic interpretation of the music :)

A fun and entertaining party – followed by more chatting and lounging at our friends’ home in Al Ain.  Came back home at 2am.  We were quite tired but happy!  You’d figure that this should be enough for the weekend and we'd stop the outings there, but this wasn't the case.  The next day, we went out again with our friends to the Al Ain Zoo.

It was a beautiful zoo with lots of green spaces and panoramic views.

Here are some of the various animals that we saw:

Camels...  

 

Sheep...  

 

Emus...   

Gazelles...  

Iguanas...  

Tortoises...

Hippos...  

 

Rhinos...  

 

Giraffes...

 

Mongooses...or is it mongeese?

 

At the end of our visit, we were quite exhausted from the heat (around 37 degrees Celsius) and went to a restaurant at the Al Ain mall with delicious Indian food.

So, to summarize, we had yet another great weekend!  We’re a little sleep deprived but very glad about the good times spent with friends and various interesting sights.  I’m not sure whether this blog sounds a little too much like a tourist guide for you readers (as opposed to describing the day-to-day basis of living in the UAE).  So, in the upcoming days/weeks, Adam and I would like to describe a little more the small and mundane things that are different in the UAE, yet permeate our lives.  We’ll give you more details.  Stay tuned!