Oh my god....!

Four Catholic men and a Catholic woman were having coffee.

The first Catholic man tells his friends, "My son is a priest, when he walks into a room, everyone calls him 'Father'."

The second Catholic man chirps, "My son is a Bishop. When he walks into a room people call him 'Your Grace'."
...
The third Catholic gent says, "My son is a Cardinal.. When he enters a roomeveryone says 'Your Eminence'."

The fourth Catholic man then says, "My son is the Pope. When he walks into a room people call him 'Your Holiness'."

Since the lone Catholic woman was sipping her coffee in silence, the four men give her a subtle, "Well....?"

She proudly replies, "I have a daughter, slim, tall, 38D breast, 24" waist and 34" hips. When she walks into a room, people say, "Oh My God."

Dubai's Quick Fix

You know how you enjoy the convinence of using a disposable fork and spoon, disposable plate, disposable chopstick just because of the ease of throwing them after use? Well, many of the people in Dubai are the same. You hardly find substance here. (before you people out there get offended, i said hardly, there are those rare gems around that you would need to filter through to find. Maybe, just maybe you guys fall in that catagory)

Why am I writing this post on a Monday morning you say? I have been chatting with this friend online for quite sometime, lets just call this friend A. A is part of an airline company that is situated in this part of the world. As an air crew, A flies around most of the time and its almost impossible to catch A in Dubai for lunches or dinner, hell, its almost impossible to catch A in Dubai at all!

A seemed like a nice person and a very suitable canditate to be a friend to keep in Dubai. A however, has this habit of calling off the meeting we arranged. We have had 5 failed appointments before we finally got to meet up. Once by me, 4 times by A.

Any normal person would have given up at the third attempt. You know the saying, "once bitten twice shy". So what does 5 times make me?  I really wonder sometimes. It either makes me a really patient person, or an utter fool.

When we met, it was nice. We talked about life, the world, travels. But due to a flight A had to catch, we had only about an hour to meet up. We arranged to meet up a few days later when A is back. Having met A, i thought that perhaps the failed meetings we experience previously is a thing of the past. Not so...!

This morning, when i woke up this Monday morning, I saw a message with , " I would love to meet up, however, I have to help my friends move on the date we're supposed to meet."

Friends at home always mentioned that I have lots of friends here. I said yes, that true, but many of them are just sustanance, not substance. As much as I try to be everything a friend is, you put yourself out there, you be nice, I feel that its almost impossible to really find proper friendship in Dubai.

After a year, this is all too clear, no expectations, no disappointment. People come and people go. Many of them just want a quick fix. Just like how you love your instant noodles, quick, convinient and settles your immediate need.

Like the junk we people hate to love. Like the junk we people eventually become.

Travel and living...

Being in Dubai has given me the luxury of time to reflect upon myself. What I want in life, how I want to live life and where I want to go in life.I have been blessed to be an expat at such a young age and to explore a new country with a whole different culture as compared to mine.

However, I have to confess, I have been quite a tv junky in Dubai watching Discovery Channel Travel and Living. I always dream of a career in traveling. Like how they do it on discovery channel. I hardly see any Asian hosts doing these crazy around the world travels and I akways dream do fill that position.

I love watching Nat Geo as well, having crazy hosts do out of the world things , traveling to dangerous places or seeing things that you can only see though your tv screen.

I did photo journalism in school and journalism having a dream of being a travel journalist or a travel host. However, I'm now in one location, in middle east! Ahhhh! Well, that's quite a dream job yeh?

If only....

Dubai through my eye

Dubai Though My Eyes

After taking a 9 month sabbatical slumber from blogging, I decided to get back to where i  have left off. My excitement of exploring this new city wore off after two months and I fell into a slight withdrawal from Dubai.  All I wanted was to get out! The first year is always difficult,like everyone says. I'm not saying that living in Dubai is easy for me now, it's not, it's getting eas-ier. 

If we compare Dubai to a lady, she isn't that French super model that you'll fall head over heals over, she isn't the Italian bombshell that make you breathless and weak in the knees, neither is she the Spanish babe who stole your heart. Let's just say that Dubai is akin to Durian, blue cheese, caviar. I'm not saying it's a tough pill to swallow, but its grows on you, slowly but surely. Dubai is this lady below the Arabian veil that doesn't show you it's charm, however, if u take some time to get to know her, you'll slowly fall in love. 

There's a million and one things you can do in Dubai and the sky is the limit. Hell, you can even conquer the skies if you wanted to! Choose between taking a hot air balloon or sky diving close to the tallest building in the world.

I'm not about to write an advertorial for Dubai, however, as I'm penning my thoughts  on a flight home from Dubai, I realized that I'm reaching my one year mark in Dubai before I even noticed it. I've given myself 2 years in this city. It's either that I like it and live through it happy, or suffer the next year which was what I did for the past 7 months. 

The last two months I'd say, was when I picked myself up again and started to look at this city again through a different set of lenses. The friendship I forged here helped me tide over troubled waters.

Dubai, guess what, I'm ready to take the plunge for one more year! 

P.S: I don't like crying babies on planes......

P.P.S: 3M needs to improve on their ear plugs. It isn't cry baby proof yet!