A slender band of fog covered the tops of surrounding buildings this morning, and by the time I returned from my workout, it had evaporated into the heat.
Sunprints
At the International Center of Photography on the Avenue of the Americas in NYC, I finally found some long sought sunprint paper for sale (along with a pinhole camera kit, hurray, I can't wait to try this!), and in Vancouver, I started to experiment with it.
First, I collected some leaves, branches and pine cones on a walk in Lighthouse Park.
Later, while hanging the laundry outside the backdoor, enjoying the cool breezes and the chirps of hummingbirds alongside the buzz of seaplanes over the harbour, I saw some fluffy dandelions and wondered what they would do to the sunprint paper. I left them out in the sun for a few minutes to see what happens. Pale shadows of the dandelion fluff.
Still working to perfect the sunprint, in Toronto I found a perfect maple leaf and placed it atop the paper in the sunshine, where I promptly forgot about it instead of dunking it in water after the prescribed 1-5 min.
Happy mistake, however, as it was the best one yet, the perfectly outlined maple leaf shape standing out crisply against a nice dark blue background.
Back in Dubai, the sunny locale that first inspired the sunprint purchase, I collected some of the fragrant flowers that we see around the apartment, and placed them out for a longer-than-recommended amount of time (this seems to be the secret, 1 to 5 minutes is what the instructions say, whereas 10 minutes results in good, sharp images).
I love how you can see the overlap of the petals, it's like a subtle watercolour painting. Such a favourite. I will spend the summer looking for other little goodies that can make for interesting sunprints, what a fun project, just how I hoped it would be.
Two Weeks Later, Lots of Little Changes
Settling back into the routine here in Dubai, there were so many noticeable changes in the landscape during our few weeks of vacation. New billboards, new signs, new improvements on our usual driving routes.
A little too blurry to read, but there was a) new graffiti on the perimeter of the construction site, reading "The Plot Always Thickens" and b) a circular cricket field had been traced in the sand (you can see a portion of it in this photo as well).
In the photo below: An older photo, showing in the upper right-hand corner a portion of an entire set of buildings, the headquarters for construction, the parking area for the managers, and a place where the ubiquitous white buses would line up to pick up the labourers at the end of their shifts.
And now, it's just GONE.
Elsewhere, construction has continued to quickly rise in the sky.
And a bulb that was just sprouting when we left has also shot higher in the sky.
Also, note in the garden photo the Venus flytrap that I planted in my garden today, a sudden stroke of inspiration at the Garden Centre, as it will no doubt be well-fed in our window.
(We came home to a confetti scattering of little tiny gentle flies, dead along the windowsills, having hatched somewhere in our air conditioning ducts during our time away and flown into our apartment towards the beckoning glorious sunshine in the windows. They're not annoying like mosquitos or common houseflies, rather they're little softies. They fly like little seaplanes, apparently struggling to take off and then quickly coming in for a landing. Easily swiped with a hand, they are easy to clear away, but now we'll see if our Venus flytrap can take care of the task. It's like getting a cat in a mouse-ridden apartment.)
Dubai Diaries, Month 18 (April 2012)
The month of April began with an Easter weekend trip to Munich, which had been sparked after an email from Fred asked if we felt like meeting up somewhere. We opened the laptop, checked out appropriate places halfway-or-so between London and Dubai, and Munich was the best/most affordable option. An amazing weekend, relaxed and leisurely, with snowfall and journeys in the belly of the A380.
Here are the Easter egg hunt winner.
Just before our Germany departure, there was an Easter egg hunt at work and a really run Mexican lunch that same day. There have been more weekly fun lunches this year, which are always a fun way to have some laughs with friends.
Lunch setting
There was a funny story at one point where everyone was sniffing the air, "is something burning? is someone smoking?" and a while later, the office coordinator guy goes walking by with a burning waste paper basket, smoking thanks to a sneakily discarded cigarette.
We read a number of descriptions of Koshari, an Egyptian street food, in guide books and regional magazines this month, and then finally ordered it from one of our favourite places. Tasty!
Another funny story, people at work were passing around this piece of trash this month. Look at that description!
I heard something about how there are no cinema ads in Saudi Arabia because there are no movies in Saudi Arabia, and James & I couldn't believe it. No movies? What do they do for fun then? A Google search soon revealed crazy videos (do the search yourself, it's hilarious and crazy) of bored Saudis "drifting" their cars (like the MIA Bad Girls video), doing high speed skid outs in traffic, hanging from the propellers of overhead ceiling fans to spin around, driving through the tight courtyard of villas, driving on two sidewheels and CHANGING THE TIRES ON THE TWO TIRES NOT TOUCHING THE GROUND.
I had a mini celeb sighting at Dubai Mall, seeing the guy who sparked Tahrir Square last January.
We went to the Gulf Film Festival, which shows local film makers' works.
There were sandstorms and rain in the night (which we didn't see since we were asleep). One hazy/overcast afternoon, a colleague comes into the office and says to everyone, "hey, you know it's raining outside," and everyone's heads whip to the windows and there's an eager "really?!" and then she laughs and says she was just kidding, hahaha you guys all reacted so funny.
My faith in the postal system was restored as I sent out a bunch of letters to family & friends. I wrote to one favourite blogger, who sent me back a neat photo of cherry blossoms and then posted the picture below of the stamps from my letter on her blog.
A new cafe opened near us, rising from nothing in about four weeks, and we decided to try it one weekend morning for breakfast. Many points earned for serving a little stroopwafel with the tea I ordered, and a falafel as a standard side item with eggs.
They installed a neat temporary exhibit of National Geographic Wild Arabia photos along my running route, so one weekend evening, we strolled over to check them out.
They had some of my favourites, including the hoopoe.
Honey badger
And this amazing aerial photo of camels, those are their shadows!
I also went skiing!!
A fun month, getting my last morning running in as the heat started to rise, and pretty much counting down to holidays the whole time.
Fun things to keep in mind:
- Palace Cafe breafasts
- Yo Sushi bar, sit at the conveyor belt of sushi
- Calabar for weekend evenings
- Good salads and sandwiches for dinner at The Pavilion
- Shoe repair in Satwa, who restored my sandals
- SkiDubai
YouAE Graffiti
Spotted in Satwa
Skiing in The Desert
Aside from the Burj Khalifa and the islands shaped like a palm tree, the one thing that most people hear about Dubai is that there's a man-made indoor ski hill. Anthony Bourdain skied it when he visited here for No Reservations (tipping us to the amazing Bu Qtair and Ravi with his visits), and that guy Matt who danced his way around the world chose the ski hill for his Dubai segment.
And so this Canadian knew, upon moving to Dubai, that I had to try this place at least once while we live here. James, seeing "Ski at Ski Dubai" on my wish list, made sure that Santa brought me a day pass for Christmas, and this past weekend, as the temperature outside started to bake for the 1st time this season, we made our way to the chilly interior of the ski hill.
Here's how it looks on the inside. The slope and lift curve up towards the left, out of view, so it's longer than you think. It also gets quite chilly after a while, and has that fragrance like an ice rink.
The lift ticket include pretty much everything you need for a day of skiing: free ski & boot rental, ski pants & jacket, apres ski hot chocolate...
...but toque and mitts are NOT included, so I brought my own. Go Canada!
It makes for an interesting sight, with almost everyone wearing the exact same outfit, although it was neat to see some locals wearing their ski jackets over their long white thobe.
I hit the highspeed quad to get to the top, although it requires a definite air-quote "high speed" indicator, because it ended up being faster to take the poma lift on the side. Right after James took this photo of me, I realized that the liftie was yelling at me to move to the middle of the seat. Seriously, they would yell at me if there was even a smidge of a delay in lowering the safety bar, every time.
One funny observation, at "mid-station" (note the airquotes again), the safety net underneath the lift platform had about three pairs of skis hanging in it. Like, did kids just kick off their skis and toss them in there and then download or something? "Mid-station" has bathrooms and a little cafe, but I proceeded to the very top, where I had the choice of a crowded gentle slope down to the bottom, or a slightly steeper "EXPERTS ONLY" slope. I took the latter. And got to the bottom 30 seconds later.
But seriously, it was really fun, and the snow was even better than expected, allowing me to get some nice turns.
Another funny observation, oh my gosh, I am so glad James took this photo. So there's me skiing, whee, awesome, but look in the background at the line of skiers riding the poma lift back up the hill. See how one guy appears to have fallen down? Well, this was actually a rather popular technique for getting up the hill with this lift, guys would topple forward onto their butts and then get dragged up the hill, clinging to the poma with both arms, ski-clad legs dragging behind them.
Another fun observation, there was a penguin show, with real penguins, happening in the snow park below the lift. I got in plenty of runs, and lots of nice turns, and really enjoyed my time back on the slopes. After 90 minutes (the passes are good for 2 hours), I was actually feeling chilly, so I packed it in and met James for that free hot chocolate at the mountain cafe. Last fun bonus, the hot chocolate counter had free candy toppings. When we walked up, the lady in front of us had a froth of whipped cream, pastel marshmallows and other candies atop her cup, and I said, "now *that* is a hot chocolate," because I expected us to be getting the basic ski hill whirring machine stuff. But no, they told us to help ourselves to the jar of speculaas cookies, and we got plenty of M&Ms and pastel marshmallows for our warm-up drinks. No whipped cream though, I mean we can show a *little* restraint.
So overall verdict: it's no Whistler/Blackcomb, but the novelty of the place made it a super fun experience. Check that off the wish list!
Evening View of the Burj Khalifa
The crowds were out last night, everyone enjoying the nice evening temperatures before thing soon heat up. (Like, this morning, first run on which it has been hot & humid -- summer's approaching!)
I also like the small crescent moon to the left of the Burj.
Garden Update, April 2012
I'm still enjoying the little patch of green that we've installed in our apartment, and the novelty of snipping a few green onions or sage leaves or rosemary springs for cooking.
Below, from left to right, our glorious basil plant that has flourished in this sunny spot and gives off a lovely pesto fragrance when I'm watering the soil. Then, lavender, also doing well, followed by the chives that I've trimmed a ton for meals, so they look a little mangy. And my little cute petunia, 2 dirhams to buy, and it's rejuvenated to blossom in some more flowers, how nice!
Check out that rosemary, reaching for the sun! And then a couple of bulbs that are growing green shoots, one is a hyacinth and the other a lily. Then the parsley, the original herb that we bought ages ago, still doing well.
Finally, the patch of sage and oregano, which are growing like weeds and getting all intertangled. And two more hyacinths, go bulbs go!
I took this last photo because I like all of these cozy Rie Munoz paintings, and it's one of my favourite nooks at home, with the little garden in the background, seashells from a neat beach in Oman, and a frankincense burner from Muscat, bright white like the buildings there.
Morning Visitor
I was sitting at our desk this morning, when I heard the distinct "hoohooooo hoot" of a pigeon, and looked over to see that there was a visitor perched outside. I was glad it chose our window to say Hi.
