Living the Dream

Last weekend (which, of course, is Friday and Saturday here now) we went to a really good Chinese restaurant called Zheng He's to celebrate a friends 40th birthday. The food was the best chinese I've ever had and the location was spectacular. It wasn't cheap, but not outrageously expensive, although I was a bit upset at being charged 180 Dirhams for a bottle of wine which we can buy in our local booze store for 20 Dirhams. As our friend regularly points out when the bill arrives, 'that's the price of living the dream'. And, all in all, it's a price worth paying. Tomorrow evening the dream continues, at a cost of 800 Dirhams this time, when we're going to see Cirque du Soleil at Ibn Battuta mall. I'll let you know if it was worth it.

This is the view from my office (until next week when we move into a bigger one at the back of the building ovelooking Jumeirah and out to sea). It's called Emirates Towers and is a bit of an improvement on the view of the Manchester Ship Canal from my old office in Warrington. The hotel is very chic and there is a great bar on the 51st floor (in the triangular bit on the right) called Vu's. It's where I took Janet when I wanted to persuade her to come and live here. It did the trick (and she isn't normally easily impressed).

The UAE won the Gulf Cup yesterday beating Oman 1-0 in the final. It's the first time they've ever won it and the locals have all been very excited. This was my favourite pic from the newspaper coverage.


Often, it's easy to forget that you're not living in a western country and culture. Then you read a story like this from the neighbouring Emirate of Ajman.

Ajman: The Federal Supreme Court is looking into the
case of a man who was found guilty of having illicit affairs with his four stepdaughters and sentenced to death by stoning

The four women involved have already had their sentence of 80 lashes each carried out for 'allowing their stepfather to sleep with them' even though they were teenagers at the time, said he threatened them with a knife, and he admitted his guilt at all stages.