Guess Who Found the Pork Shop?

Hoorah for the Humble Piggy

Hmmmmmmm......

Oh, joy of joys.... there is a pork shop hidden away inside the Waitrose downstairs in my building.  You have to wander past the Islamically acceptable beef, sidle up beside the vinegar, and turn left just before the halal seafood stall... a sign above reads 'For Non-Muslims Only', meaning infidels are more than welcome.  Being the infidel that I am, I gladly pressed the button, to the comforting swoosh of a frosted glass door sliding welcomingly and satisfyingly open.  Beyond the sliding-door-of-sin lay all manner of piggy delights... sausages as fat and juicy as only a porky-lorkle sausage can be, bacon in a mouth-wateringly vast array of styles: maple roasted, traditional, extra smokey, pepper nut infused.  Dried goods hung from the racks, German wursts burst from the refrigerated shelves and crackling covered pork roasts sat glistening behind glass cabinets.  Oh joy of joys.  And let us not forget the humble can of spam, laden with its own special brand of porcine delights.  Hooda thunk it?  Hoorah for bacon!!  Hoorah for the spicy Italian pork sausage... hip hip hooray, I say, for the Humble Little Piggy.

Spicy Italian sausage..... gottta love it...

Hmmmmmm...... baaaaacon!  Black Label indeed...

Birthday Bash

Coopers Pub at the Park Rotana

Last night's birthday bash was a roaring success!  A goodly number of folks popped into thre Coopers Pub at the Park Rotana for a few bevvies, and I didn't pay for a thing all night.  Happy Birthday to me.  Here are a few pics to fill you in on the evening, chronologically:

Gorgeous sunsets here. It's all the dust in the sky.

Oh, yu know... just an interesting 'taken from the cab' kinda pic.

A city intersection in the early evening.  Still pretty hot, so not a hell of a lot of people wandering the streets.  Also, any pedestrain is taking their lives in their hands in this city... the drivers are MENTAL!!!

City Mosque Below Light Pole, by John Laing

Heading for one of the underpasses we go through on the way to work every day.

These two cool buildings are awesome!  They have an exoskeleton that looks as if it might open and close in reaction to the position of the sun.  Tiff and Kosta and I can't quite work it out.  But they're cool buildings, man!  This is an evening shot.  I'll try and get a good daytime shot so that you can see the exoskeleton more clearly.  It's pretty impressive architecture.

Beer number one!!!

The first wave of merry revellers.  Another five or so mid-week madness beer lovers turned up later: L to R: Richard, Tim, Tiff behind, Jeremy, Chris, Mark, Aesha, Mel, Rob and yours truly.

A little later in the night... several pints donw.  Jeremy yours truly and Jesse Crazy-eyes.

Off the pints and into the... Coopers!!  Yes, they sell Coopers at Coopers, but I don't think the two are related in any way.  I shall endeavour to find out.  Yours truly, Mark and Chris.

Part of the second wave of revellers.  Mel, Rob, yours truly, Peter, Tim and Sarah.

Ahhhhhhh, the terrible trio.  My besties in AD, Tiff and Kosta, and yours truly of course.

I don't know what Mel was on about, but the finger was wagging about something!!

Jeremy, who inhabits the same apartment building as me, and is my office next door neighbour at work.

Now, this is the Coopers Pub bar.  For some ridiculous reason, it won't publish to the blog in any form other than upside down.  So, turn your head over and look.  Sorry about that.  I tried to rotate it several times, but to no avail.

Very nice glass work windows in teh place.  It's quite ritzy, really.  For a pub, that is.

Nice one of Kosta and Tiff.

Ummm... art shot?

Through the taxi window.  Fascinating, really....

Ummm, another art shot?

I really quite like this one.  It has a kooky, sci-fi, horror film kinda je ne sais quoi about it.  Kosta and Tiff don't like it.  But, hey, it's MY blog.  MINE!!!

From IKEA to Sweatshop Indian Labour

This is the contstantly changing triple-towered complex being built beside my building.  Notice the large connecting bridge over the top.  Notice the two holes (well, you can only see one, on the left there, but I assure you there is another gaping hole to the right, between the right-most and centre towers).  Notice there's nothing in them.  I've been told that these two noticeable holes will, soon enough, contain two very noticeable glass-bottomed swimming pools. Q: Would you like to come over and have a swim in my glass-bottomed swimming pool suspended precariously 80 floors above the ground? A: Ummmmm.... no.

 Everyone Needs a Lovely... Dining Table!

The new table and chairs are made of teak.

Looking back towards the kitchen.

Looking towards the windows.

Well, well, well.  Another birthday comes around.  And yet another one spent in a foreign land.  Paul and Laura and Mark and all the other Tokyo gang will remember many a birthday spent sipping bubbles, both beery and champagney (thanks again for the 40th Moet, Loz!), in various Ni-Chome establishments (ie: only one, really... Advocates).  As I write, I'm sitting in my living room, awaiting a lovely evening out at a pub called 'Coopers', which is part of the Park Rotana complex about half way between here and work.  I'll no doubt post a few pics from the evening on here some time soon, but for now, you'll have to make do with these pics of my lovely, growing, beautifying, comfortifcatiing pad!!  I bought myself a dining table and chairs for myself.  They're fab!!

Oh, and I recently bought  few little plants.  Ridiculously expensive here.

Oh my god, what a beautiful bed!!!

The place got the dining table from is called Debaj Furniture.  They have heaps of handmade wooden pieces.  All made in India by underapid child labourers and untouchables, no doubt.  But, gainfully employed is gainfully employed, right kids?  I mean, come on.

Notice the lovely green sheets.... IKEA Blergen Lergen.

I saw this bed weeks ago, when Zayed Uni was taking us around in buses from shopiing mall to shopping mall, to IKEA, to Marina Mall, to Abu Dhabi Mall, from mass produced extravaganza-tastic super mall to mass produced extravaganza-tastic super mall .  Then, lo and behold, they took us to this tiny little place in the Mina Port area... dingy, full of ugly warehouses, and nothing much to look at really.  I was knackered at the time, having spent 2 hours speeding through IKEA grabbing Sverken lemon squeezers, Flugen Schmoogen Blugen lamps and Lurgen egg whisks (those words should have umlauts or whatever the Swedish equivalents are over the vowels, but the blog's limited fonts just won't let me express myself properly).  I almost didn't even go in to look around.  Those Sverkens and Lurgens damn near did me in.  But, I thought, why not?  In for a penny, in for a pound.  Well, aren't I glad I did?  Upstairs was a treasure trove of beautiful stuff, all handmade, all solid wood, some more beautiful than others, granted, but plenty of very nice things to choose from.  Gorgeous.  My bed cried out to be slept on. Cried out to me and me alone.

My bed rocks.  Not in the way that a rocking chairs rocks... in the cool man, whoa baby, what a cool bed kind of way.  Comfy as hell, firm but forgiving, supportive and constant, like all good sleeping buddies should be.  And the matching bedside tables just HAD to be bought.  I mean, look at them.  They were made for each other.  And the IKEA Flugen Schmoogen Blugen lamps are an added thirll.  They light the room in that, oh I don't know, Swedish kind of way.

Kick-arse view out over the ever changing, highrise skyline of Abu Dhabi.

 And those are my latest aditions to the flat.  It's all coming together kids.  It's all coming together.....

OMG, clouds!!!!

Look!! Clouds! The first I've seen in 5 weeks!!

Fluffy pink ones... lit by the evening sun.

... and another version.

See them!?  Clouds!!  Clouds in Abu Dhabi!!

One Week into Teaching Classes

Sorry about the delay, all.  I've been flat out like a lizard drinking, as the old Aussie saying goes.  No, really!! Flat out!  I've never been as busy in my life.  Plus I've still not got internet in my apartment, and that makes it difficult to keep updated on personal stuff.  Almost every minute of every day at work is spent planning, teaching, going to meetings, going to training sessions and generally.... um... WORKING!  Who'd'a thought it!? 

So, a quick update, cause I'm sitting in my new friends' apartment upstairs from mine, sipping on a Thursday night beverage (because, as you may or may not realise, Thursday is Friday here).

Here are some pics of my lovely new friends, Kosta and Tiff:

Taken at the Beni Hana japanese restaurant in hte Beach Rotana Hotel over a week ago.

The chef writing our names in salt.

Very clever!!

It's been a crazy ride so far.  As I said, it's been pretty full on at work, with meeting after meeting, and training session after training session.  It has been information overload, to a certain extent, and I had a little mini mental attack yesterday when I thought that my  brain was going to shut down, kinda like a computer crashing.  Sooooooooooo much new information to get in there, and classes to plan on top of that, and blahhhhhhhhhhh!  My head nearly exploded.  But, a few shots of Jack Daniels later, and a nice dinner out, and some retail therapy (ie: two ties from Yves Saint Lauren reduced to 90 dirhams - that's about $25 to all you Aussies back in the motherland), and everything was just fine and dandy. 

Had two awesome classes today.  My students are really lovely, and the whole 'OMG-they'll-all-be-wearing-black' problem that I foresaw before leaving Sydney hasn't even been an issue.  I mean, yeah, they all wear black abeyas over their clothes, and, yes, there's black everywhere, but truthfully, they all look so beautiful dressed up in their national dress that i don't even care.  And besides, it's their culture not mine.  And besides again, there are a lot of young women who are slowly revelaing more of themselves publically, for example, not wearing the shayla over their hair when they walk around campus, or they walk around with their black abeys open to reveal lovely (and completely normal) clothing underneath.  I equate it to a kind of revolution, akin to women wearing miniskirts in the 60s.  Obviously not to the same extent as a miniskirt, but quite revolutionary for young women in a muslim culture.  Bravo to them.  And vive la revolution!!  Sadly, taking photos of women is forbidden (ummm, vive la revolution?) so I can't show you my 21 beautiful students.  They rock.  I already love them after 1 week.  But here's some shots taken from my classroom window!  Pretty cool eh?  Yippee!!

What a great courtyard!!  The grey wall you see on the left separates the men's campus from the women's.

Astonishing architecture.

A slightly different angle.

And an outdoor area next to the Library (the big curve to the right)

Oh, and not from my classroom window... just a nice sunset we saw a few days ago.  Sadly, by the time I whipped my camera out, the sun had pretty much dipped below the man-made horizon.

 So, there's my little update.  I am hoping that my internet will be connected over the next few days and I'll be able to update more frequently.  But suffice it to say that I am happy as Larry, having an awesomr time, learing SOOOOOO much about computer-based language teaching, and just stoked!  Love to all!!!  J.

The First Visit to the Campus

In the suit for my first day to the campus.

I've been so busy the past few days with rushing here and there, buying furniture, and generally settign up a new life here in AD.  Here are a few pictures taken on the First Day on Campus!! Enjoy!!

The overhead skylight in the Beach Rotana Hotel.

The lobby of the Beach Rotana.

First view of the campus in the desert.

The shopping boulevarde on the women's side of the campus.

The faculty entrance.

A view of the interior courtyard.

Cool staircase in the Admin Building.

Cool building angle.

Lovely curved walkway near the library.

The Library book depository.

Overhead lighting in the Library.

Library reading room.

The main reading room of the Library.

My Office!!

Yours truly in MY office in MY chair!!  Cool, eh?