Kandura and Abaya

This pic is borrowed from the person and site listed down below until I get my own to post here.
Anyway this is exactly what all of the UAE Nationals wear, and I see dozens of them every day. The Abaya for women and the Kandura for men, sometimes called the Dish Dash. It looks pretty smart I think.

One absolutely remarkable thing about the Dish Dash is that I have never seen one that is dirty OR wrinkled. Not a word of a lie.! They are always impeccable. Apparently some people own 50 of these or more with 20 or so at the cleaners at any given time.
I have heard that if you are a National it is law that you must wear the official dress.

Tap water

All tap water here comes from the ocean.....after it has been desalinated. Apparently after the power generating plants have used the steam to turn the turbines the leftover heat goes into distilling the water gathered from the Arabian Sea.

Two birds one stone,... nice.

Did you know that you should not drink distilled water? The pure water will pull certain salts and elements from your body. So to make it drinkable and safe they add some salts and trace elements back into it.

Water storage

The item of interest here are the water tanks on the roof (white). It seems that most places maybe even all places have them.

This is for the 'cold' water supply, however after sitting in the 38 C heat in the sun and it dropping to a whopping 36 at night, cold is only a distant memory.

Hot showers here are not an issue, the issue is can you cool the hot down enough to not burn yourself?

Dust to Dust

The life span of a high rise building here is around 25 years! After that the foundation has started to become unreliable due to the salinity of the water in the soil, so down it comes. Here is a tear down in progress, the crane in the middle has a big wrecking ram on it and it continues to chip away. Approximately half way up you can see some red tile that was once someones bathroom. No wonder they were anxious to knock it down.

Safety Message

The message here is more like 'Incorrect Passing Kills', referring to the generally accepted method of overtaking other cars on the highway. The method? (only to be done at speeds in excess of 120 km/hr)
Drive up as fast as you can, and slam on the brakes at the last nano second, hold on as close as you can, flash your lights, honk incessantly, don't give the car you are passing any room to get out of your way, or if there is room and the split second of patience you have is already gone,...suddenly swerve and pass on the right.
Very entertaining at least!

Parking ??

This is a shot from the balcony of our apartment showing the street below. That mishmash of cars you see is actually one of the more orderly arrangements that I have observed.

Parking space is a premium in the downtown and the rule is ' no rules'. Park it wherever you can, and as long as a car can squeeze through it is legit!

Own a SUV? ,...then you have just doubled the parking choices available because now you can get over the curb and park on the sidewalk!

On A Bicycle Built for.......

.......your guess is as good as mine!
Lila

Hunain Secondary School

Hi ho, Hi ho
It's off to school I go!
Beyond these gates....this is the school I'll be teaching in. Now I have only a 30-50 minute commute to school. Wait for my first day of school photo where I'll be wearing my new abaya (dress code for female teachers). Unfortunately, I can't take any photos of the girls as it is illegal. First day of classes....Sept. 27 (work week runs from Sunday-Thursday). Lila

Al Samha Girls School

This was the first school to which I was assigned.
As you can tell from the photo the school is in a very barren, remote location...just miles of desert sand surrounding it. No township, no village. I'm glad I pushed for a transfer as I was promised at my interview that I would be placed in Abu Dhabi city and this is NOT Abu Dhabi city, it's virtually a 90 minute drive north of Abu Dhabi at a cross-road in the desert!
Lila

The Emirates Palace Hotel

This sweet little place is a rockin 7 star hotel. I didn't even know there was such a rating.

One can tour the palace, no charge, in fact they have exhibitions here that are free as well.

I found this photo on the net at the address below, the photo itself looks like a drawing but the actual palace is no less impressive.

Fathima Supermarket

When you step out the front door of our apt. you see Fathima's sign.
This is where we do some of our shopping, it's really small and kind of like a general store. You can get everything that you need here as far as essentials are concerned, like soup to nuts.

Upstairs you can buy suitcases if you are leaving town, can openers to get into that soup tin you just purchased downstairs or prayer mats if the one you have just won't hold out for one more session.

Yours Truly

Yaris

OK I was pretty much lost before, now I am still lost except that I am now 35 km from home. At least I have a map to keep the sun off my head so I'm not too over cooked when the vultures swoop in.

This is showing off our new set of rented wheels that I call squishies ( it looks like they were squished between two trucks). You can get them by the day, week month, year whatever. Unlimited mileage too!
Singapore here we come!

Back home in Canada I would always have an emergency survival kit in the car, you know,.. 7 pairs of long johns, candles, blankets, food, etc etc. Here you keep drinking water in the trunk. ( and a camel ideally)

The Doors ( not the rock band)

Pictured here is one of the entrances (wooden doors) and the sculpted openings that lead to the outdoor "porch thingy" that surrounds the theatre before you can get to the wooden doors.

For further clairification and loads of quote marks surrounding nebulous terms like "thingy" please leave a comment with your email.

The Theatre

A couple of shots of the theatre previously seen from across the water in the photo titled "The Arabian Gulf".

Tile Work

This highly detailed tile work is at the entrance way to the theatre pictured in the photos titled "In The Arabian Gulf". It would be my assumption that every piece of this was laid individually, because that just seems to be how they do things of this nature here.

Iftar Tent

Iftar is breakfast in Arabic, literally breaking -fast, which is done after sunset during Ramadan. Iftar can be enjoyed at home with the family and sometimes as a community at an Iftar tent.

Traditionally fast is broken with dates and water.

This particular tent is in front of the Mosque just down the street from us.( pictured in the following photos.)

Throughout Ramadan the city is spotted with such tents.

The Gate

Minarets have been described as " the gate between heaven and earth"

More Mosque

Here you can see the prayer hall or Mushalla windows lit up on the main floor level with the minarets behind.

Minarets were also used as a type of air conditioning before mechanical AC became popular. The sun would heat up the tower and then pull air up and out (stack effect) and thereby pull in air from outside to cool off the people inside.

Minarets in the dark

Shown here is the dome and two of the four minarets that this particular mosque has. Minaret comes from the Arabic word manara which means light house. Before the days of speakers and microphones the Muezzin (person who sings out the call to prayer) would climb up the minaret and call out from the gallery up near the top.

Mosque in the morning

This morning (3.45 am ish) I went out on a stroll before the call to prayer (adhan) to get some shots of the mosque.

This photo is shown through the park which is why there is so many other lights showing in the foreground.

Going Underground

Here is a handy way to cross the street....go underground. There are a few of these under-street tunnels which are a great way to cross 8 or more lanes of mad traffic.

Abu Dhabi apparently has one traffic injury every 15 minutes and 1 death per day. I'm not too surprised, many of the taxi drivers here drive as if they are in the Grand Prix. That kind of driving is great if you need to get to the airport 15 minutes ago, but not so wonderful if you are a pedestrian crossing the road that goes to the airport.