Tag: shopping

A lucid reality

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I often forget my dreams. At times they’re so boring, I maybe just don’t see the point in remembering them.

But one particular dream I keep remembering. I believe it’s what’s known as a lucid dream.

In it, I was with my brother in a particular shopping mall in Australia (Strathpine to be precise), and at that time I only had my first son – who would have been two or three years old.

Something happened while my brother and I were walking and my son got separated from us. It was a scary situation considering he was so young and the mall was so big and busy with people.
My mind quickly filled with panic. I wondered where he could have become lost.
At that point, I remember it crystal clearly, I thought to myself I could either run around frantically retracing my steps; OR it’s a lot easier to avoid this worry and wake up from this dream.

It was a clear option, a completely stress-free one. So I simply woke myself up and felt instantly relieved. I knew all was well, and felt so grateful to avoid the incident – even if it was just in dream form.

Plenty of variety

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In the morning I had to get a few groceries from the local shop. The large shop I go to more often has a Carrefour – the French hypermarket, which is largest chain in the world. Walmart is only bigger in terms of revenue.

Carrefore is definitely a superior shop for variety to the ones close-by, but it takes over 20 minutes to walk, so when I do shop there, I try not to carry too much.  I made that mistake a few weeks back.  They have a fully-organised taxi waiting room, with guards making sure people take it in turns, however there is not nearly enough taxis for the amount of people needing them. Most of the time there’s a bit of a wait,  but on the day I bought my laptop, plus 3 or 4 bulky bags of things for the apartment it just had to be the night that the taxi line had a 40 – 50 metre line-up.

Rather than wait around, and the pain of having to keep moving my bags up as the line shortened I decided to go for it, and walk all the way.  By the time I reached home I think my arms were a foot or two longer.

I’ve learned my lesson, and now just get a few groceries, more often.  Or I just get what I absolutely have to from the big shops, and get other things from the gritty supermarkets nearby. Actually, it’s not that bad.

All shops here have so many different things from back home. Not a lot of pig product, obviously. But the fruit juices are a highlight.  I’ve tried quite a few different varieties which I’m not used to seeing in Australia. My favourite is kiwi fruit juice, closely followed by strawberry juice.  Honeydew mellon is OK, but I’ve learned to avoid anything with coconut or sugar cane. What was I thinking. Ewww.

Two steps forward..

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Today I came back to my apartment feeling like I had some success.  Mind you, this was the second time I returned home. The first time I felt absolutely frustrated.  Just like many other days when I’ve had to deal with a certain area involved in visa processing, etc.

But anyway, back to the positive. Not only did I walk a new way home from the nearby shopping centre without getting lost.  I also managed to achieve almost everything on my shopping and to-do lists that had failed me for almost a couple of weeks.

My trips to the shops have usually ended with me giving  up cause I can’t find what I’m looking for, can’t get in and out of the shops without waiting an enormous amount of time, or can’t find someone with even basic English skills or the willingness to answer a simple question. Actually quite a few of my trips have combined all three.

I talk about it like a tremendous success, but in normal everyday life getting some passport-sized photos enhanced and printed; and buying things like a dish drainer, water bottle, and cotton buds are pretty minor things.  But here, when I have searched the web for info, and gone into plenty of shops and failed to find these everyday things to the standard I want, tonight’s purchases seem like fossicking some huge gold nuggets.

Actually I referred to  not getting lost like it’s a strange thing for me. It actually hasn’t.  Elle refers to me having a bad sense of direction, but it hasn’t been an issue here at all. I guess there’s no alternative to finding my way around. I’ve even helped out the occasional limo driver, who haven’t known where basic landmarks are.

It’s not entirely related to the topic, but typing directions made me think of it. As I was walking through the carpark on my way out of the shop, I probably pass about 20 – 30 drive straight in car spaces.  I would say, tonight when I passed these spaces, almost a third of all the cars were pointing in various directions – other than straight ahead.  No word of a lie, a couple were driven in and left at around a 40 degree angle! This adds to the examples of bad driving that you see everywhere, and that I’ve written about previously.

A few of the guys have asked more than once when I’m going to change my driver’s license over and hire or buy a car. My position is getting more concrete everyday, I’m going to put it off for as long as humanly possible!

But in reality, once the family arrive, it would be a good time to get more daring. There’s more to see in Dubai than the vicinity of Deira and the creek, and where I’ve been able to impinge on the kindness of others who have driven somewhere else.

The prices to hire cars is quite expensive, so a couple people I know hire the small and basic cars.  It might be a good idea until we get used to the roads, driving on the other side of the road, but most importantly, all the other crazy drivers.

Out and about

Reading Time: 2 minutes

It should be unsurpring but today I just noticed that the Dubai escalators are around the opposite ways to what I’m used to.  They still go up and down, but like their roads people go on the right.  I noticed, however, there is no consistent (or any) convention followed while walking generally.  Actually from some reports, this is more like their roads.

I also did what I’ve said I’d never do and visited an internet cafe in my first week of going somewhere. At least I waited til after the airport arrivals section, and nearly got through the second day.  The only reason I broke this was I’ve been without a phone and wanted to get some info to family. There’s a wireless router upstairs, so I may not need to do this once I get a computer – whenever I find to research that one.

I visited an electronics and home entertainment store. Despite the loud speakers broadcasting at full volume from the nearby mosques early in the morning, I thought I should get an clock radio or something to make sure I wake up at the right time for work.  My sleeping patterns haven’t yet matured to sleeping in anyway.  But anyway, at the shop I heard the beautiful voice of a woman obviously demonstrating the karaoke machine. As I got closer I realised that the female voice was actually coming from a short pudgy Arab guy with a moustache.  Woops.

After shoping in a few clothing stores I’ve learned Dubai’s not great for Australian guys concerned about their waist size.  Pants here are labelled an average of 2 inches larger than at home.  OR, I made more of a pig of myself in Business Class on the way over than I first thought.

At the moment I can’t help but feel a bit like Guy Pierce’s character in the movie, Memento.  I’m in my apartment all by myself so I constantly have monologue running in my head, and being in a strange new country I’m unsure of everything.  It hasn’t yet got to the stage where I need to tattoo words to my body, or photograph people’s faces – but I have certainly been writing names down, and making loads of other notes.  Those who love Indian cinema may be interested to know a Bollywood version of Memento has been released. No, honestly!