Tag: weather

Touch down Australia, “summer holidays” begin – Aug 2017

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It’s 4 in the morning, I’m wide awake, and my body feels like it should be eating dinner.
Dubai right now is 37 degrees at 10pm. Outside here in Launceston is 1.
My summer holiday has again become a freezing one.

It was quite a day of flying. In summary, my plane took off from DXB at 10:41am. With a short stop to change planes in MEL, I arrived and reunited with my family at Launceston airport 10:08am the next day.

I already got into the Aussie mood in Dubai. The family behind me at the boarding gate were speaking in Greek. I like the sound of the language. Then occasionally they would switch to a thick, regional Australian accent when they were cursing so impressively. I guess Greek has no equivalent to “flamin‘”

As I boarded, Bob Marley & The Wailers were singing “Don’t worry, ’bout a thing … Cause ev’ry little thing, is going to be all-right.” Not just a cool song, perhaps a great ploy to calm the nervous traveler?

I had the window seat, a vacant spot next to me, then one neighbour on the aisle. It was a lovely, old British lady. She looked like a small, female version of Tim Cook. We exchanged pleasantries. Soon after she took off her shoes, and asked if it’s ok to store them in the seat pocket between us. I said it’s fine. A little while later, she put her feet up on the seat next to me, after asking if it was fine. I figured it wouldn’t be long before I’d be asked to give her a foot massage. It didn’t come to that. She was actually lovely company, even helping me finish my large bag of cashews before Australian Customs.

I watched three movies, which is my standard for this leg. 

  • I watched Fate of the Furious – #8 in the franchise. It’s a lot of fun, and must be the best movie written by a 10 year old boy. 
  • Then I watched Ghost In The Shell. It’s hard to go past an action flick with a near-naked Scarlett Johansson. The movie is quite amazing. It’s the movie you’d expect if The Matrix and Total Recall had a baby. 
  • And the pick of the bunch was Off The Rails. It’s a documentary about Darius McCollum. Darius had issues growing up, and has Asperger’s syndrome, which resulted in his unhealthy love of the New York transit system. He continuously, quite innocently, takes control of trains and buses and impersonates employees. It has landed him in jail 32 times and for more than half of his adult life. His problem is exacerbated by a justice problem which continually proves unable to help. I watched it 1.5 times.

And now the two week whirlwind whistle-stop tour begins. It’s good to be home.

Weathering Dubai

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The end of Summer is impending, and we’re already starting to get a sense of the beautiful weather in store. I could translate this for someone not living in Dubai as, the heat is no longer so much that you’ll die quickly outside of air conditioning.

I think it’s interesting how everyone’s expectations are such a lowest common denominator. Conditions don’t need to be very special to seem “beautiful” after surviving a seasonal onslaught of >40 degrees centigrade combined with >60% humidity. (I won’t mention the temperature exceeding 50, cause it never happens. Some believe this is due to people being allowed to take days off whenever it officially hits this mark, so it’s just never published.)

We must take clues from other areas to confirm that the weather really is beautiful. From my running club’s perspective weather is turning beautiful because most of us can now run more than 16kms without our socks becoming too wet with sweat to proceed – the dreaded “squelch” as our running patriarch Murph describes it. I suppose it’s unsurprising I’ve yet to hear a single weather forecast on TV use such descriptions.

Another positive sign of better days ahead is the number of people beginning to go to the beaches again. Or go camping. Or even to sit outside at restaurants or pubs again. It’s amazing that some of our regular spots can survive the hiatus. These venues are doing almost the equivalent of a bear’s hibernation from July to September. Not only is the heat the concern then, it’s also Ramadan and school holiday time – so it’s very bare in the country anyway, with everybody returning to their homelands. In an Australian’s case, returning to THEIR country’s worst weather.

Anyway, let’s enjoy the beautiful weather (“let’s enjoy doing what is considered normal in every other country again”).

In the Summertime

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Now that the temperatures are becoming more reasonable, it’s sparked me to reflect and share some thoughts on Dubai’s infamous Summer.

When you first arrive here everybody warns you about what Summer will bring. Some times when you meet someone it’s their opening sentence. I received so many warnings last year I was really quite concerned. Thankfully we had one of the mildest Summers on record. In fact, during the week I arrived it snowed in Ras Al Khaimah. Ordinarily it’s much hotter though.
During Dubai’s Summer months there is always a massive outflux of expats. Even many of the locals tend to holiday outside of the UAE during this time. Each year the summer period more or less lines up with Ramadan, so if people aren’t celebrating the holy month with Hajj, it’s safe to say they’re searching out more friendly climates than Dubai.

I should quantify this, the average minimum temperature during the hottest month of August is more than 30 degrees. All in all, it means that work is always terribly quiet. Although some people do strategically stay to get a lot of quiet work done through with fewer distractions around.

Despite the heat of the day reaching maybe 40-45 degrees, you still see people playing cricket on the weekends. Cricket must be an Indian’s most popular activity next to breathing. They generally don’t play during the hottest part of the day. However the timing doesn’t make much of a difference. Some nights the temperature does not fall below 38 degrees. I trained for the Berlin Marathon during our Summer period where I’d leave my run as late into the night as possible, but it was still tough.

The parks around the city are totally abandoned. In fact, I think it’s free entry during these months as there is no one to pay fees anyway. Water parks are popular places, but to be honest the Dubai summer is often too hot even for this – as you find yourself more often out of the water than in it. It’s certainly too hot to enjoy the beach – unless you’re like me and enjoy a really, really warm bath and don’t mind the salt. The doctors at our clinic warned us to avoid the beach in summer anyway. Apparently the bacteria love the warmer waters, and in the heat there’s nothing really to stop them. The place that is most busy from July through to September are the very air conditioned malls. We did go there a few times, however it’s one activity none of us really enjoy. Especially when there’s no real purpose except avoiding the heat.

We made the mistake of taking our kids to Modhesh World. It’s a temporary amusement park focused around Modhesh – a kid’s character who is based on the Sun whose names translates into amazing in Arabic. While my kids, and a friend of theirs, all had fun, it was terribly expensive considering it was just a few amusement rides, games and some pretty depressed farm animals. Much like any other exhibition I guess. In fact we likened the place to our own Ekka in Brisbane, except the all the “carnies” have Blackberrys! It’s a true sign of the wealth of the region. Another distinction with our Ekka is here is probably be 3-4 times more expensive. I was one of the people in Australia who’d complain about the rising costs of going to such places. Not any more.

Dubai touch footy

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I played a game of touch footy this evening as a fill-in. The conditions were superb. So the weather was almost the opposite of two nights ago when I went for a run to the Burj Al Arab and back. That night I returned possibly three kilograms lighter from loss of fluids.
Contradictory to this statement, I was actually running quite strong cause throughout the run I really had to find a bathroom. Dubai is not the kind of place to “go bush”. And the longer I was running, the more urgently I required the finish line. I was definitely running negative splits toward the homeward stretch.

Touch footy, Dubai style is the same as at home – except you generally need a litre more sweat. It’s one of those activities in a country of expats where you see the usual suspects. Just walking to the field you hear the clear accents of the Aussies/Kiwis, South Africans and British. In fact I made the comment that there were probably only four nationalities on show. The very next second, one of our own team joyously arrived for the game speaking with a distinctive German accent. Woops, there I go making generalisations again.

Generosity and rain

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Last night I went to the electrical shop just down the road to see if I could get a certain connection.  I failed, but the trip was certainly worth it.  The centre I went to was the more expensive one which has  a lot of fancy clothes shops especially, but I had heard previously there was a Spinney’s there also – a supermarket which is popular, although overpriced compared its competitors.  I had never seen the supermarket in my travels, but on this particular trip I saw one of their shopping trolley so I figure I’d walk a bit further to see if I could find it.  As soon as I got to the end of the street, and looked around the corner there it was in huge green fluoro lights.  I can’t believe I was so close, yet not ever seeing it before.  I had very nearly walked there quite a few times previously.

The good thing about Spinney’s and a few other supermarkets is that they have a noticeboard, which is handy as I’m currently looking to buy a car.

There were also plenty of other shops that would have been useful a while ago if I had known it was all there.  There was a kids entertainment place which we may utilise one of these days.

When I returned home I was a bit chuffed at my discovery, but that was nothing.  Our night time doorman had a bit of a grin on his face, and as I approached I noticed he was fidgeting through a stack of envelopes. With a big beaming smile he said this is for you Ryan.  It was an invitation to his wedding in India.  I think it was a bit tongue in cheek, but he proceeded to tell me about all the details, and how good India is to go to for quite a period of time I think he would like us to attend.  Unfortunately it’s too short notice, and probably not the ideal time to visit.  He also told me that he doesn’t give them to anyone, just his friends which was a nice touch. The pile of envelopes was quite high, so I figure he’s friends with just about everyone in our apartment.

This hasn’t been our first invitation to India, or Sri Lanka. Quite a few of the guys I work with have been very welcoming, and have offered to show me around their respective countries, and that they would love to show me around.  I’ll definitely take them up on the offer one day. One guy also made a deal with me to show me around if I take him to a cricket test match in Australia one day – which I obviously agreed to.

Thought I’d also mention, tonight it has been raining quite a lot. It’s rained so much that the road has flooded (probably 10 cm of “flooding”).  It’s been interesting to see the drivers reacting to water on the road, like it’s a deadly creek crossing. Actually the flooded road doesn’t necessarily indicate lots of rain as generally there hasn’t been much thinking or design for the effects of rain, as it’s not traditionally an issue.  With the effects of climate change, perhaps they should begin thinking. I mean, a couple of days before I arrived here it actually snowed in Ras Al Khaimer – a neighbouring Emirate.