weekend in Jordan...

got to hang out with a few friends and spend some time early in june hanging out in Petra and the Dead Sea.. to say I was blown away by Petra would not do it justice... I had no idea it would be that impressive, and I am not simply talking about just the Treasury... in fact, I was more amazed by the Monastery, which you get access to after hiking for about 2 straight hours... the weather was amazing, the people amazing, and we had a great time everywhere we went!!

spending some time in London

got the opportunity to spend the next 3 weeks in London for training, and I am sure as soon as I get back the heat will have come on in full force in the sandbox. weather has been spotty here in the london area, but some rain and wind and non-humid sunshine is welcome right now. i have had the chance to do some touring on the weekends, and i have met some great local uk mates who are also posted elsewhere in the world... hanging at some local english pubs on the weekdays, "... watching footie, eating pies and drinking ales..." (as the locals would say)

hanging in Dubai for the weekend

got to hang out with some friends in Dubai this past weekend... went to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel for their brunch, and then we wandered over to the Atlantis Hotel's Nasimi Beach. Originally we went just to hang out and smoke shisha, but we didn't realize they were having a white outfit theme party later on that night, so of course we had to stay for that!!! some videos below from our night, then over to Maria Bonita's Mexican Restaurant for a late dinner to finish an awesome day!

Masdar City

Lorien showing her displeasure at my request for a random pic while shopping at Masdar City...hahaha, awesome!!!

dim sum brunch at Hakkasan, Emirates Palace

out for dim sum brunch with some of our great group of friends that we are sharing our time in Abu Dhabi with...

enjoying Christmas at home...

had a great time hanging out at home for Christmas...

Summary of 2011- seriously behind in blog posts...

Okay, so for those of you who did follow my blog, I obviously took some time off from posting, like 1 year LOL

This past year was busy with work and travel, and some family visiting us in the sandbox.

In 2011, we got to do some great traveling and enjoyed some time bbq'ing and brunching with friends. Unfortunately, some friends of ours finished their 2 year contract at the end of June, and they moved on. We still have a great core group of friends, and we are still having fun!!

I will try to share some pics from this past year...this was a whirlwind year!!!

I am not going to post all of our pics, but merely a flavour, since most of everyone who visits my blog is also on my facebook so you get to see all of them throughout the year anyway.


Feb 2011



went up to Ras Al Khaimah, and took part in the half marathon




March 2011

Got a great visit from Lorien's parents... They have visited the last 2 years, and we have had fun showing them around the UAE. Especially this year, we all managed to get to see a lot of the UAE. Dubai, Al Ain, Fujairah, there is not much we haven't seen and we got to share some of our fave spots with Lorien's parents.

This is us on a seafood brunch cruise up and down the Corniche






March 2011


We took off from the UAE for a couple weeks to visit Greece and parts of Turkey.

Finally got to visit the Parthenon!! This was a dream come true for me, one of the must see destinations that I had on my list as a place that I needed to see when coming to live over here.



We also got to see a lot of Greece, including some of the islands and also the southern tip. Which you get to see in this hilarious video...



We also visited a part of Turkey called Ephesus...

This was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era. In the Roman period, Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean world.[2]


Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation.


One of the largest ruins that we got to see while touring around Greece and Turkey.







July 2011

Got a great opportunity to go to a Syrian wedding of a work colleague of mine... This video is right before the groom goes with all his brothers and cousins and groomsmen to go see his new bride.




Thailand!!! Spent a great couple of weeks celebrating our anniversary...




Nov 2011

Tim Hortons is finally here in the UAE!!! We got to go up to Dubai and finally enjoying some coffee and timbits...




Dec 2011

Beach Day at the Fairmont!



So that is the year!! Stay tuned for most posts in 2012...

coming home for holidays, Amsterdam, and Halloween...

hey all...

thought i would post a couple quick snaps from the last couple of months. i have been pretty sporadic with the posts, so here are a few months at once!! :)

i got to see some of you when i came home to Canada for a few weeks.

on the way, i stopped in Holland and wandered around Amsterdam.

Canada was great, and not too cold :) and it was good seeing old friends, family and visiting some great areas of BC, including going back to the Sunshine Coast, and making a trip over to Nanaimo and up to Port McNeill. My main reason for going was a high school reunion, so it was great seeing old friends...

and then back to Abu Dhabi, where Lorien and I went to our favourite hotel for a Halloween party. We dressed up as a gangster and flapper girl, and we took a quick video of some friends of ours partying at the hotel. My friend Ben is the one dressed as Hansel trying to start the mob scene from Michael Jackson's Thriller... lots of fun that night...

next up is Christmas, which we will be spending in Muscat, Oman. Scuba diving and beach time is in order!!!

hope all is well with everyone at home, and as always, we are thinking of everyone and missing everyone...

Beirut Trip and coming home for 2 weeks!!

got some time to go to Beirut, Lebanon for some Safety training... one friend said, safety training?? in Beirut?? with all the bombs?? "yep"...

anyway, a fun few days, here are some pics from around town... didn't get to go everywhere, but got to see downtown, some really cool caves and mountainous areas, went to the casino, checked out some roman ruins downtown beside a mosque, and generally wandered around town...

rooftop pic from my hotel, with the trainer, i knew him from previous training in UAE, does all training for europe, middle east...

some pics from the Jeitta Grotto caves, very cool... the mountainous areas were on the drive outside town to get to these caves...

downtown beirut, cool area... clock tower and parliament buildings, some military presence in these areas, just in case...

while bulding this mosque, the excation unearthed these roman ruins... about 2 hours from beirut, did not get time to go there, is a fully excavated temple from the roman period, super cool (Baalbeck)...

EDIT: sorry about some of the photos being out of order, blogspot is acting weird, and i can't switch them around...


so i will be home for 2 weeks in October, looking forward to seeing as many people as possible... hope to see you guys at some point during my stay... and if not, then get your butt out to the sandbox!!! LOL :)

the future shape i strive to be in...

what a great video... they are full of fun and enjoying life, i would love to be in this spirit and shape at their age, inspiring for all...

the businessman and the fisherman...

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.
As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

pics of the day... Ramadan in UAE...

another pic of the day...

from one of the local mall parking lots... red light for full parking spot, green light to let you know that the spot coming up is empty, and on each floor indicates how many empty spots are available on that floor...

pic of the day...

from our Aloft pool... they put this up after their last huge night time pool party..

ramadan kareem!!

so it is august 11th, which means ramadan is upon us... this is my first time experiencing this side of the culture... for the most part, everyone takes part, like how everyone takes part in christmas and easter for christians...

so, all muslims will not eat, drink, or smoke, from sunrise to sunset... then a lot of muslims will gather and pray, then celebrate with a large Iftar dinner, with family and friends at sunset... also a time to give back by donating to charity or other ways to help those less fortunate, very big during ramadan... the biggest thing is it is supposed to connect you with god more, to understand your faith more, kind of like how christians are supposed to treat Lent...

sometimes people forget we are in a muslim country, with the ton of available bars, and the emeratis and their high end hotels and porsches/land rovers, but apparently ramadan really brings out the muslim faith and for this month, it is the holy month, so even the most secular muslim who might drink and have prostitutes is supposed to be extremely holy during this month...

so the only thing for non fasting folk is to not eat or drink in front of someone who is fasting...

it will be interesting, because most of the shops and restaurants will be closed until 7pm, then they stay open until 2am; malls, restaurants, etc...

i have already stocked up on beer!! hahaha...

but you can go to some places, and they set up special tents and screens for non fasting folk to eat... just that your options are extremely limited, so i will probably eat at home more, and of course at work away from the fasting muslims...

take care everyone, see you in october...

Dubai trip...

did a quick trip to dubai to see a friend... he bartends at The Address hotel, which is right across from Burj Khalifa, and looks down on the Dubai Dancing Fountain...

couple of pics from that night...


the address hotel bar is 64 floors up, and we are only halfway up from looking across at the burj khalifa...

my friend anubhav and i went and saw my friend jeremy in his new work gig...

and looking down at the fountain and souq, pretty cool...

cars, licenses, and independence...

this blog will be a little about driving in the uae...

this country is very much all about the car... either if you talk about local emeratis with their porsches, hummers, and land cruisers, or you are talking about the labourers, who only dream of such things...

the biggest thing out here is owning a car... and acquiring a driver's license to go with it...

for most people who work here, either indian or filipino, or even from other arabic countries like egypt or syria, the pay is very low, and most of your monthly salary would go towards a car.

for most, owning a car symbolizes wealth like nothing else, and the independence and freedom to take off and go driving, go to the mall, etc. whenever you want...

most staff, for example in my hotel, live in a shared accommodation, and they are shuttled back and forth to work. we have a cafeteria, where the food is free, and the shuttle back to the accommodation is free... but you are unable to do anything else if you are slave to the food and bus timings... and the accommodation is 45 minutes from downtown

so for them, being able to go to the mall on your own or with a couple friends to sit at the movie or go bowling or sit at the food court is the same as back home with teenagers, the thrill of being able to break out of the rut...

like i mentioned, getting a license for westerners is no big deal, we just get a couple pieces of paper, and a stamp or two, pay some money, and after one solid day of bureaucracy, it is done and we can drive here ( if you rent a car you can use your CAD license, if you own a car, you must have a UAE license...)

but for non westerners (indian, egyptian, etc.) you need to spend several days in lineups for paperwork, and then you have to take a road test, which cost alot more money than my paperwork... and if you fail the test, you need to take a week long driving school... and this is even after you have your own license from your own country...

and of course, once you own a car, trying to find parking is a whole other blog!!

this and that...

i am woefully behind in my posting... i apologize to my loyal 5 readers... :)

so... what to talk about???

as most of you know from facebook, we got a new puppy named LeaLou, another chihuahua, a little sister for Tinsley... she has been fun, and a handful, and at least Tinsley is not bored now LOL...


Lorien and I had some days of hanging at the pool and going for drinks before she went home for the summer... She is spending some time in Vancouver before visiting some Irish Teacher friends over in Ireland... i am still planning on heading back in October, so I will visit with people then...

work is okay, and i have been hanging with the kids mainly... i found a friend who plays guitar and we have been playing a little here and there, me on the harp and him on guitar... it is something to do and not go crazy, being inside all the time because of the heat...

it has actually been cool the last 4 days, and by cool i mean under 40 degrees... i can actually enjoy mid 30's after a few days of 47...

i have also got back running and working out, and trying to spend time at the pool...

i have a few friends who will also be here all summer, so i will have company on my off days... they are also members of the pool, so we can hang out there and have a drink or two...

you might see more posts over the summer if i have time, i will try to do some from work while i am bored...

i might head to dubai this weekend, will take pics!!!