Sunrise in the desert
I barely caught any Zs the previous night because my biological clock still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that Dubai was 4 hours earlier than Malaysia. Today’s plan was to finally meet the dude that’s been rocking my playlist insane, the maestro himself, Bashir Wahid, Rushdi’s cousin. Woke up around 6, watched some TV in the room. They had some pretty decent channels, a couple of channels that catered to the locals and others were international ones, like MBC Max, Star World and Star Movies.
Called up Rushdi and asked him what’s the plan to go see his cousin and said he had some business to take care of before anything so I decided to go out and take some pics. Breakfast came with the room so I went down to chow down 1st before stepping out.
My half-eaten breakfast
Pretty decent meal. Breakfast is ready at 7 usually and they’re usually showing the news in one corner and cricket in the other. Seeing that recently some brown dudes nuked some other brown dudes and kid guts are all over the streets, the news has been nothing short of gruesome and depressing. I therefore watched cricket every morning even though I have no idea what language are they speaking.
Finished up breakfast and dropped my key off at reception and trooped out with my camera and took some pics of the surrounding area.
Found this beautiful tree in the sandlot next to Panorama
Guess they use it to fetch guests from the airport
Panorama Hotel. Only got this place thanks to Rikaz and his dad!
Ramada Hotel, right opposite Panorama
Little shopping centre opposite
A huge supermarket chain called Choithiram's here. So was Suheil's place! How convenient!
Weather was kinda like air-conditioned cold, nothing you can’t handle if you were just out for a little grocery run but walking around required at least 2 layers and pants. Eventually Rushdi called up and we went walking to Bashir’s place which was pretty close to mine. 15-20 minutes walk in such fine weather was pretty decent. The residential areas around there were quite swank. You could see families walking around with strollers and little kids and some white folks walking around too. Nice place. Stopped by a little mart to grab a few drinks to try the milk there. Heard buttloads about how their milk is better than Malaysian milk no matter the flavour and brand. So I asked him to get me a strawberry milk. Popped it open and chugged it down.
Freaking hell. It was like melted Grade A Haagen Daaz strawberry ice cream that had rolled past my tongue. It was fucking amazing and way better than the milk here by a freakin’ lightyear. Best of all, no artificial preservatives and all that junk! Amazing…
So finally we reached Bashir’s apartment building. Halls gave the feeling that this was the minimum security level of an insane asylum. It wasn’t dirty or grimy like that, it was just the design, lighting and the cold wind bursting through, that’s it.
Well, finally met the dude that’s been giving me all these awesome riffs to headbang to. Here’re a couple of videos of him going nuts!
He even had a PS3 too! No HD TV though but his widescreen was pretty sweet! Played some GTA4, quite an okay game but I gotta confess that I’m getting pretty sick of travelling from one side of the world to another in each and every game. Anyways, Rushdi had to go get some academic business done for his visa shit so we were waiting for his friend Ashar to come pick us up to Knowledge Village, where all types of courses, schools and programs’ offices are located at.
On Sheikh Zayed Road towards Jumeira
The unfinished Burj Al Arab
We finally arrived at around noon-ish and the temperature had spiked up a bit. Walked around Knowledge Village a bit trying to find the ACCA office and I saw some rather odd schools around. There was a school for baristas even! Who’d really wanna pay to become a barista when you can go get a job at Starbucks, learn and get paid at the same time? Anyways, we got to the ACCA at last…
The ACCA office
For some reason it was sweltering inside so I decided to just stay outside while Rushdi handled his business. After we were done, we went to the little shop there to get some drinks and take a better look at the place. The grass and plants might be artificial but the way they do it, it’s pretty nice.
The entrance to Knowledge Village. Had nice fountains by the side
Some outside area with a view of the taller buildings at Sheikh Zayed Road
Choiy... Greenery!
Rushdi and Ashar attempting to pose
We then hopped over to Jumeira beach where there was this public spot but the place was pretty quiet. Just saw a party of locals there and 2 white families. The place was breathtaking. Freakin’ amazing water. The sand was nice and smooth and you could see the Burj Al Arab in the distance!
Nice rolling waves...
...with clear blue waters
Landcruisers making tracks trying to get closer to the water
Nice and clean sand, not like the puke-laced Malaysian sand
Getting a good look at the 7 Star hotel
White folks frolicking around
Ashar had to leave soon so we had to decide our next destination as soon as possible and we settled on Deira City Center. Took us quite awhile to reach but eventually we did! 1st shop that I saw was a book store and I remembered that my mum hadn’t gotten J.K. Rowling’s new book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard yet so I went in to check. Oddly enough, we haven’t found one copy in the Malaysian bookstores yet. They were pretty much overflowing with it but it wasn’t exactly the centerpiece of the shop. I think the chain was called Magrudy’s or something similar. So, got Beedle the Bard and went ahead and then saw this brand. I know for a fact that Malaysia has nothing or any affiliations or relations with this company.
They had a huge Virgin store here and even a Virgin radio station
Still in the Christmas spirit
Walked around a bit more, called it quits and then took the bus for the first time to Rushdi’s place in Kerama. The buses there looked a tad better, had an almost similar design like the Rapid KLs we get here except the don’t have the seats on the sides that look at each other. They had seats that were facing the back, though. Some buses had extensions behind to accommodate more people. The charge for a trip was 2 dhirhams flat. Bus was air-conditioned but the suspension on these motherfuckers were worse than the bas minis we get here. Once that dude brakes, you better be holding on to something ‘cause if you ain’t, you’re gonna fly in front, kill yourself and someone else or just break your nose in three!
My first impression of Kerama was as Rushdi and everyone else had always described it to me. It’s the ghetto. The slums. Alright, slums’ too strong a word but it was like, Petaling Street sans the piracy and stalls. Eventually got off and went to a nearby cafeteria for dinner. The joint was called Al Falaq Cafeteria. It’s kinda their equivalent of mamaks here. But they don’t serve roti canais and Maggi Gorengs. They serve juices, juice cocktails, burgers and the like. Pretty expensive compared to mamaks but this is what cheap outside dining is in Dubai. I didn’t eat ‘cause I was pretty full from lunch that I had bought at Knowledge Village. It wasn’t that good so I didn’t mention it earlier.
I just had a juice cocktail. Forgot the name but it started with a T. It was strawberry on the top, orange in the middle and avocado at the bottom. I have no idea how these dudes do it, but the 3 juices were separated and it looked like a traffic light. No, the name wasn’t traffic light but it could’ve been the old name, judging from it’s appearance. Strawberry was okay, orange tasted a bit ripe but the avocado was banging! Tasted so good I ordered another drink, pure avocado juice that came with little bits of good honey in it. Amazing shit.
I went to Rushdi’s house for the 1st time and damn, he was honest, alright. So much freakin’ cats! There were the original cats of the house, Sushi and Kitty, fluffy gray Persians, the former being the largest and nicknamed, “Grandma”. Then there were two black cats, Thomson and Thompson, as Rushdi puts it. Two-Face, who was a cat with half a brown face and the other black. The last one was a street cat, the unfriendliest which was white and brown and also the smallest. I think I met Yasmin there and his mum, perhaps. Didn’t see his dad. We left for Panorama via the bus ‘cause Taqi was coming to stay at my place because we were planning to play Soapy Football early the next day.
I crashed pretty early around 10 p.m. Dubai time while these guys were awake the whole time and even went out with Suheil to smoke some sheesha. They came back at around 4 a.m. to the hotel and they told me the next morning what happened with the hos downstairs.
So this dude walks on the opposite side of the road where the hos were standing and Taqi and Rushdi were on the hotel’s side. They see the ho grabbing the dude and he gets shocked and nearly wets himself. Hos were getting desperate as the sun was coming up. The dude then proceeded to calm down and say,
"Shit! You scared me! You were so black I didn't even see you coming!"
Hahahahahaa… Alright then. End of day 2! Tune in for the next 6 days of Dubai! Peace out y’all!
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