Travel, parties and Turkish soccer

Got back from a business trip in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday night. Was there for three days: one day into Abu Dhabi, two days in Dubai. The trip went smoothly enough but it was dusty much like the rest of the region. Took a taxi to get from Abu Dhabi to Dubai (about 160 km) which took us through all of the major developments in Dubai -- it is incredible to see just how much construction and development there is been in Dubai last few years. Tower after tower of residential and commercial development, and most of these buildings were an average 50 to 60 stories tall. Make Doha look like a minor construction zone. Traffic was bad as usual.

A coworker of mine is moving to Dubai soon and was looking at real estate prices. Two-bedroom apartments were sitting in the range of 2.6 million to 4.2 million dirham (~$720,000 to $1.15 million US). Isn't that crazy? How can people afford to live there with prices like that for an apartment? And yet people keep talking like the prices are going to go up 20 to 30% a year. I see it more as a team of hot potato -- speculators buy the apartments, flip it to someone else, who flips it to someone else when the prices have gone up enough, but eventually someone will get stuck holding the apartment when the price corrects itself and goes down.

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On Saturday night I hosted a small dinner party for some friends. It always seemed that I was eating over at other peoples places and never returning the favor so it was high time that I hosted an event myself. What made it slightly challenging is that some of my guests are vegetarian, two of them are vegan, and I am generally a lousy cook! So I planned ahead about a month in advance began experimenting with vegetarian chili recipes. It seemed like a decent way to go as you just add various vegetables and spices to a boiling pot of water and let simmer (and I was pretty sure I couldn't screw that up). Have crackers, cheese, chips and grapes for starter snacks, ice cream, strawberries and cherries for dessert, and you have a well-rounded all-vegetarian and mostly vegan meal. Friends of mine brought over a blender so we could make mango juice with freshly picked mint, which was really nice in the summer heat. Overall I'd say that went pretty good. It went so well that my friend’s 92-year-old mother-in-law told me that if she were a bit younger she’d make a play for me since I'm such a good cook. (cheeky lady! And what is a bit younger -- 75?)

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So did anyone catch that Turkey versus Croatia soccer game the other day? I watched it with my friend Serdar (a Turk, natch) and his family. What a crazy game! After the last shot at the end everyone was going absolutely nuts! If you don't know when talking about look up the game in online news. The entire country of Turkey must have partied all night.

Olympics results - and vacation plans

So Doha did not make the shortlist for the Olympic Games. The IOC decided to shortlist 4 cities and Rio Chicago Madrid and Tokyo made the list. Shame. I'm still not sure why exactly they did not make the shortlist, I suppose that information will be forthcoming over the next few weeks. It looks like Qatar is big on hosting some major event -- a newspaper article mentioned that Doha might try to place a bid for the 2018 World Cup. Uh, I'm not sure if they have the infrastructure necessary to host an event like that, that requires having a lot of very large soccer stadiums.

My friend Byrun wants Rio to get the Olympics. I'd have to agree, it would be nice if South America could host the Olympics for once.

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Speaking of which, a friend Byrun has moved from Vancouver to Saskatoon to continue in university (so I guess I better update the link on the site for the new city). Good luck Byrun!

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Weather here has been a "cool" 40°, mostly because of all the dust is being blown around blocking out the sunlight. Weather reports noted that there's been a shamal wind in the last three or four days that has been kicking up a lot of dust from the deserts. I thought that shamal was an Arabic word referring to a specific type of weather phenomenon only to find out from my Qatari colleagues that shamal simply means "north". So, it looks like a north wind is kicking up a lot of dust.

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Summer vacation is almost booked! Looks like at the end of July I will be going to Slovakia and the Czech Republic for a couple weeks to visit some Czech and Slovak friends that I met in Bermuda. Initial plans are to go to Bratislava, Prague, Perdubice, and tour some of the Slovak countryside. Maybe I will even have time for a couple of days in Vienna. It should be a lot of fun.

Olympics!

So tonight is it very important announcement for the country of Qatar -- the international Olympic Committee will be announcing a short list of candidates for the 2016 Olympics. Doha is one of the seven candidate cities vying for the 2016 Olympics (I think be others are Baku, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Prague, and Tokyo) and tonight the IOC shortlists it down to four or five.

I hope Doha does make it onto the shortlist because it will be a key step to hosting the Olympics. Now I don't mean the 2016 Olympics, personally I don't think Doha realistically has a shot at that. But before any Qatari reading this gets all bent out of shape I have two reasons why I don't think they will get it:

1) almost no city ever gets awarded the Olympics on their first bid (in fact I was always under the assumption that no city gets it on the first bid, but it may have happened in the past such as Atlanta -- I haven't researched it though)

2) from a geographic perspective it is unlikely that the games will return to a country in Asia this quickly. The 2008 games are about to start in China, the 2012 games are in Europe. It seems unlikely to me that the 2016 games are going to go back to Asia to a first-bid city with a population of less than one million people.

My personal bet is on it going to one of the Americas.

So why am I hopeful that Doha makes it onto the shortlist? Because it is an important steppingstone for the 2020 Olympics -- that's the Olympics I think they really have a shot at! But it is important that they get onto the 2016 shortlist -- by making it onto the 2016 shortlist Doha will undergo further IOC review, they will point out the weaknesses in their application and give Doha time to remedy them for a solid 2020 bid.

Now others may disagree with my analysis, and deciding on which city gets the Olympics always has had a bit of a political element to it, but I just can't see that it would be Asia's turn again. 2020 -- strive for it Doha. Don't give up if the 2016 bid doesn't work out.

We'll find out tonight -- good luck Doha!

Lazy Friday

I forgot to mention that my birthday was a little while ago. Not a big deal really, birthdays were never a big celebration in my family so I don't take my birthday that seriously (for us Christmas was the big family holiday). As we got older we would e-mail or otherwise send birthday wishes to one another, and if we were around take them out to dinner. Mom was the exception, her birthday was Christmas Day, and we would always make sure that she got separate birthday presents as well as Christmas presents, as well as a nice cake with candles at dinner. (As an aside, if you know someone who's birthday lies very close to Christmas, and you plan to get them a gift, I recommend not giving them a "combination" birthday/Christmas present.) Most times I don't even mention to people when my birthday is.

This year a few friends knew that it was my birthday so we decided to go out for dinner to Souq Waqif later in the week, a couple of days after my birthday. I never turn down a nice dinner! So I arrived at my friends' house earlier that afternoon to watch a movie when they surprised me -- their whole family came out of the kitchen with a chocolate cake, complete with candles, and a present! I was not expecting that at all and was completely taken aback, especially since my birthday had been a couple of days ago.

Wasn't that sweet of them? When I think about it I can't really remember the last time I had a birthday cake, certainly not in the last five or six years, and despite my earlier spiel about birthdays not being a big deal I felt grateful that they had taken the time to get a cake for me. I think there is an old saying along the lines of unexpected surprises being the most pleasant, and this was no exception.

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I know I just mentioned eating cake and going out for dinner but despite that I am actually on a diet. Really, honest! It turns out a few of the other guys in the office also wanted to lose some weight so we all agreed to sign up to the gym on the first floor of our office tower and go there every lunch hour. We started this week and so far so good as I went three lunch hours (missed one because I was supposed to be going to Dubai so I didn't bring my gym bag, see previous blog entry) and I plan to go all five lunch hours next week. Going to the gym to exercise is easier when there are other people expecting you to do it. Hopefully we can keep this up for at least a few months.

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In regards to my last post about countries requiring exit permits a friend of mine mentioned that he had looked into it and as far as he knows only Saudi Arabia and Qatar have exit permit requirements for foreign workers living there. I still bet that North Korea has some sort of exit permit system in place, it is just that they don't really have many foreign workers living there and many of those who are there were kidnapped by them back in the 70s, so I'm willing to bet they would need some kind of government permission to leave the country. Anyway, isn't it weird that there are probably only a handful of countries that still have this requirement?

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Nothing much else happening today, just another lazy Friday in Doha. I think the Rugby Club next door is having a barbecue this afternoon so I might go just to have one burger. Just one. After that I'll just hang around until the stores are open in the evening as I need some new dress shirts, as well as an extra towel and gym shorts for the above-mentioned workouts. Later.

Exit permits

One thing about Qatar that most Westerners don't expect is the requirement for all foreigners who live in the country (at least, those who are not Arabs from the Gulf) to have an exit permit in order to leave the country. We are used to needing a visa to enter a country, but certainly not one to have to exit a country. Qatar is not unique in this regard, It is common in most of the region and I'm sure a few countries in the developing world have similar requirements. I'm guessing it is to prevent people from running off without paying their debts. It is also a good way to ensure that the only foreigners living here are those who have jobs or married to someone who has a job -- the exit permit is provided by your sponsor or employer. So if you or someone in your family doesn't have a job, no exit permit, and no leaving the country. This of course can cause problems for those who for some reason do not have an exit permit as they may then become stuck in the country with no way to leave. This can happen with workers who are in the country illegally. Recently, the United Arab Emirates granted a general amnesty for those people who needed to get a permit to leave the country without worrying about being arrested for being in the country illegally. Thousands turned up. I'm not sure if the UAE government was expecting the massive scale of illegal workers in the country.

So, why am I explaining exit permits to you? Because this week I was scheduled to go on a business trip to Dubai, went to the airport, went to immigration... and then was told that my exit permit had expired 5 days ago and that I was not allowed to leave the country! The HR department at work missed that my exit permit expired and forgot to renew it. (They did remember, however, to inform at least six of my colleagues that theirs is expiring and in need of renewal). So that was that -- I was not getting on that plane! Unfortunately we were not able to renew the exit permit until the following day by which time the forum that I was supposed to be attending was over. Needless to say that kind of sucked. I was not in a good mood that morning, but I eventually got over it. Mistakes happen. At least it didn't happen on a weekend when I was going on vacation, I would have been really screwed then. But it was then that I realised that the concept of exit permits is very annoying.

Massages

Last weekend I decided to do something different -- get a massage. A friend of mine informed me that a new barber/massage place and opened up in a strip mall near his home and it seemed that the prices were pretty reasonable so I decided to give it a try.

Now I have never had a massage in Qatar before. Generally the only massage places are in the big five-star hotels, and there they charge you an arm and a leg for a massage, around $100 or so. This place in the strip mall charges around $30 per hour which is more in line with my kind of spending budget. Of course there's one thing about it that you may not be expecting -- it is a male-only massage parlour.

Now in North America a male only massage parlour would certainly raise some eyebrows, but around here it is not that unexpected. Remember, this is a country with some stricter rules about gender segregation. I'm pretty sure that there is almost no such thing as a unisex salon here, there are salons only for women (in which case no men are allowed at all) or there are barbers for men. From what I've heard about the hotel spas they are similar, most if not all times a man goes to the spa he will get a masseur while ladies will get a masseuse and I know one example of a Thai massage place where they clearly state that you will only be massaged by someone of the same gender. So a male only massage parlour would actually be more than the norm here rather than the exception.

(That said, a couple of the Filipino guys in the massage parlour seemed pretty swishy to me, but the massage was okay and nothing untoward happened)

Otherwise, what else is new? Well, I just got over a cold, and the heat has built up to a point where it is getting uncomfortable to walk outside, but otherwise everything is fine. A friend of mine hosted a big barbecue on Friday night, and another buddy is arriving tomorrow and staying for a few days which should keep me socially active for a while.

I'm a millionaire!

On the weekend I met up with my friends Carrie and Khamal. Khamal just got back from Zimbabwe where he had been working on assignment for Al Jazeera. Now in Zimbabwe inflation is going crazy, at one estimate now at 165,000% a year, so prices are doubling on almost a daily basis. This makes it difficult for the government to keep up in terms of the value of currency, they keep reprinting currency with more and more zeros on it to keep up a price inflation. So as a gift Khamal gave me a $10 million Zimbabwe note.

I'm a millionaire!

So what is the note actually worth? Well, the official Zimbabwe government exchange rate is something like $300,000 to one US dollar , which is a rip off considering a can of Coke was $50 million (and that was a couple weeks ago, it's probably something like $125 million now). Kamal is saying that on the black market however the rate is much higher -- 100 US dollars will get you something like 5 1/2 billion dollars (yes, feel free to say it like Dr. Evil). So in reality my $10 million note is probably worth something like $.30, and perhaps $.15 by the end of the day.

Living in a country with such high inflation rate must be absolutely insane. Kamal tells me that in Zimbabwe if you get local currency you spend it immediately since its value is decreasing daily, but if you get foreign currency you hang onto it for as long as possible.

Despite the economic chaos people living in the rural regions are generally supportive of the government. Many of them received parcels of land from the government during the land seizures of a few years ago, for which they are quite grateful. And the rampant inflation does not affect subsistence farmers much since they do not deal with a lot of currency. They grow their food, and they eat it. The odd time that they earn some money they can to spend it immediately on what they need.

As for my $10 million I might get it framed as a souvenir.



As a side note, last Friday at "classic movies night" we watched the Mel Brooks comedy The Producers. Great film. We then briefly watched the more recent version with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. While the modern version is pretty good I will have to say that Matthew Broderick does not hold a candle to Gene Wilder. Try to get hold of both movies and compare for yourself.

Alcohol, dieting, and more...

Well, the heat is finally upon us. I have the AC on that pretty much 24 hours a day now and it isn't even the end of April. So, what's new?

It looks like in the last month or so the law changed regarding local Muslims and drinking alcohol. Before, any Arab in a thobe (that's the long white robes arabs wear) were not allowed to be served alcohol in hotels. Now, hotels are allowed to serve the so when you go to the bar you see a number of men in thobes having beer and whiskeys. While unusual for Qatar this is not unique to the Gulf region, Arabs can drink in Bahrain, Dubai and Oman. As for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, alcohol is completely banned so I doubt there will be any change to the laws soon.

A friend of mine in my carpool group just got himself a new vehicle so today we drove in to work in a Nissan Armada. That had to be the biggest vehicle I've ever been in short of a bus or airplane. Absolutely huge! I guess that's the advantage of having gas at $.19 a liter, everyone can afford to drive these massive vehicles. I must admit it was a very luxurious ride especially since I'm driving a Honda city.

No trips planned for the near future though I might be heading to Dubai or Oman in the near future on business. Will keep you posted.

In other news, I have discovered a new way to ensure that my social calendar is filled up with plenty of lunches and dinners and invites to barbecues -- announcing you're on a diet! Seriously, I announced a few days ago that I was going on a diet to try to lose weight and in the last week I've gone out to four different lunches, three dinners, a barbecue, and will be going out to dinner on Saturday. Oh, and today we have a big staff lunch. Try this trick at home.

Later.

Speech software!

Yesterday I received speech recognition software. I've been trying it out and so far it's been working really good. As an example, this entire posting was written using it and not making any edits. I was skeptical at first that this is a program would work well but I do because of my repetitive strain injury and decided I really had to try it out just to see if he could save me typing.

As you can see it is working very well. There are just a couple of edits need to be made every paragraph, that's not too bad. So now I should be able to put regular updates on my blog using the software.

So what is new? Well it is starting to get hotter here and I need to put the air conditioner on now at night. Temperatures are around 35°. But he is still cool enough to go out on the weekends and evenings so I've been going to the beach and doing other activities.

I will leave it for now but I'll be back more frequently with updates.

[not using software] not bad, eh?

ups & downs

Guess it has been a while since I updated. I am still alive – honest!

The ups of downs of current life . . .

Down: hands got worse after coming back from vacation, but I have an MRI scheduled and I’m being more disciplined, such as wearing a wrist brace at work even if I’m feeling fine. It has helped and my hands are improving. Plans are to keep the brace on at work for at least 6 months, if only to keep reminding me to minimize unnecessary typing. Have speech recognition software on order as well.

Up: finished my Hep A & B vaccinations

Down: no travel plans until the summer

Up: but when I do go, it looks like great trips ahead. Possibilities are Turkey, Slovakia, Yemen. Maybe Italy or the Riviera? Egypt?

Up: McEwan’s Export ale, I tried it and liked it.

Down: McEwan’s Scotch Ale – gross stuff. Some Scots tried it and realized it was “sweetheart stout”, back in the day they used to give it to women in maternity wards. Don’t know how much of that is true but it certainly was not a good stout by my standards.

Up: pretty active socially: Natural History Group, then drinks at the Rugby Club next evening, followed next night by the Moto GP, followed the next night with comedy night at the Ramada and so on.

Down: Summer is approaching and a lot of activities will cease, gotta enjoy the cooler temperatures while I can.

Later.

Qatar Open women's tennis

Last night I went to the Qatar Open women’s tennis tournament. The tournament is now a Tier 1 WTP event, and has a serious prize pool (~$2.5 million) so almost all of the big names in women’s tennis were there.

I love tennis so to be able to watch pros of this level play, and for free, was incredible. (most tickets were free for the early matches, you just had to get there early to get them)

Unfortunately there was a dust storm yesterday so it made for poor conditions, cold (16 degrees), windy and dusty. Winds were so bad that play had to stop occasionally because of trash flying into the court. My friends and I didn’t bring thick enough jackets so we were cold/shivering throughout the evening. Didn’t stop us from leaving though! Where else could you see this line-up all in one evening at one court:

Ana Ivanovic (World #2, runner-up at recent Australian Open), followed by;
Maria Sharapova, followed by;
Venus Williams.

All in one evening. The Sharapova match was the best one, it went to three sets and her opponent really made a great effort in the first two. Great tennis.

I hope to see more before it ends, but as the tournament goes along it’ll be tougher to get the tickets.

My tastes in music.

Let’s continue on a lighter note. Though I've had this blog for a year-andf-a-half I’ve never really described my taste in music before. I suppose it’s a little all over the place, some metal, alt-rock, 60’s, world, even a few classical CD’s. So I guess a good way to indicate my favourites would be to go through the collection and list the artists I have a number of CD’s of.

I own more than three CD’s of:

Beatles
Dandy Warhols
Foo Fighters
Muse
Nine Inch Nails
Pink Floyd
System of a Down
Skunk Anansie / Skin
Weezer

And I have two of the following but won’t rule out getting a third in the future (or when available)

Audioslave
Fall Out Boy
Gorillaz
Green Day
Linkin Park
My Chemical Romance
Scissor Sisters
Sloan
Veruca Salt

I also have two of the following but I doubt I’ll be getting a third one, for various reasons:

Black Sabbarh
Coldplay
Eels
Grapes of Wrath (anyone remember them?)
Placebo
Radiohead
Sonic Youth
They Might be Giants

Make of these lists what you will. . .

Crap - forgot to mention I was on vacation for three weeks!

Oops, looks like I forgot to post about my three week vacation in Canada so I wouldn't be blogging for the rest of January. Sorry about that.

I had a great time visiting a lot of family and friends. I hadn't been to Vancouver in like 4 years so it was surprising how much had changed. It was like entering a Twilight Zone version of Vancouver where things were similar enough to how they were - yet different in a number of ways. More buildings, people moved to other places, or maybe got married, or had kids, or changed jobs and so on.

I do miss Vancouver, it has a scene and laid-back vibe that places like Doha and Dubai cannot ever hope to match. Will I ever end up living there again? Or Canada for that matter? No plans to, but then again I never plan anything far in advance. All of my career and location moves have been fairly spur-of-the-moment, especially the move to Qatar. So who can say if I'll ever live in Canada again. Maybe I'll end up in Europe or something.

So my sister gets engaged . . .

. . .and I have to find out second hand from someone else! My own sister -- whom I valiantly protected from harm all those years we were growing up, whom I supported through those tough years she had during the War, whose political aspirations I helped inspire -- couldn't even tell her own brother directly that she got engaged. *sob*

Sure, she emailed me later but by then I had already heard from others. *sniff*





(Congratulations Karen!)

Women Judges in Qatar

Here's an article about woman judges in Qatar that was in a local newspaper. You have to read it -- talks about how women are too emotional etc to be judges. Very non-PC.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

Today I went to the Qatar Open tennis tournament. Watched Andy Murray (world #11) take down a Belgian player 6-0 6-2, then I looked at the schedule to see what other games were playing and relaized that one of my favourite players was at the tournament:

Daniel Nestor! The most successful Canadian tennis player of all time!

Coincidentally Nestor's match was a doubles match against Andy Murray, so I watched Murray play twice in one day. Now doubles tennis is a whole different game from singles so my money was on Nestor for sure. And he didn't dissappoint - despite Nestor never being a great singles player (his highest singles rank was #59 waaaaay back in 1999) his team quickly dispatched Murray's team 6-3 6-0.

Nestor has won the Qatar doubles title twice before, hopefully he'll make it a third this year.

Test results were okay

The test results on the nerves in my hand/arms came back as OK. It was a strange test involving running electrical currents through my arms, which made them twitch every time I got a shock. A few of the tests had some upped amperage and my whole body twitched a but from it while my arm jumped almost a foot! Anyway, the prob is not constricted nerves.

The tenderness in my hands has subsided a bit so I'm hopeful that my three week break in Canada will really give them time to heal up fully. I think I'll take my brother's advice and look into some physio exercises while I'm in Canada. My hands are now at the point that proper exercises shouldn't cause them to get worse.

why no updates?

Sadly my hands are still not better. So far been to three doctors and now the thought is that it is some kind of problems with the nerves, either their pinched on constricted somewhere. I have a neurological test scheduled for the 27th so hopefully that sheds some light on what's going on. The amount I've been typing has been scaled back heavily and I haven't driven my car in 2 months so I hope doctors get to the bottom of this soon. I'll update after I get the test results.

It's not too painful, just uncomfortable, so don't worry that I'm in agony or anything.

Since updates will be later have a Merry Xmas everyone!

An adopted dog

Thanks to the person who sent me the updated link to the Qatar Animal Welfare Society, my friend and his family stopped by on the weekend and adopted a nice german shepard cross. Your post to this blog found a dog a new home!

As for Beijing, I figured my next posts would be a simple "odds that..." format to give you a slice of life in Beijing.



Odds That In Beijing a girl coming up to you to practice English is really only interested in practising English . . . 50% (2 of 4)

Two girls I met at Tienanmen were genuinely wanting to practice English. One was really good, the other's English was pretty poor. The other girls, which I met on the shopping street and in a high-end mall, we more interested in getting me to "have coffee" at some teahouse somewhere down some alleyway. I declined and was later informed by my friend in Beijing that if you accept such offers there's a hefty bill waiting for you at the teahouse, as well as some muscle to make sure you pay it.

So, what have I been up to lately?

I haven't mentioned what I've been up to lately. Aside from work, now that the weather is pleasant a bunch of us have been organizing meet-ups on the weekend to various places in Qatar. This week we went to Sealine Beach resort south of Doha to hang out on the beach and go swimming. The week before that it was a Diwali celebration hosted by one of my Indian coworkers, and a couple of weeks ago we went to Souq Waqif, a marketplace designed to look like an old traditional souq. It has a lot of shisha cafes and restaurants so it is popular with locals. On top of that the Natural History group is up and running again so I've been going out on the field trips that they organize.

And a coworker has been organizing viewings of classic movies at his apartment every Friday afternoon. This week it is Double Indemnity. Last week it was Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise), a 3+ hour French romance hailed as the French equivalent of Gone with the Wind. I was surprised that I found it to be a good movie despite the fact I'm not fond of romances.

Other movies I've seen via "classic movie afternoon":

To Have and Have Not
Freaks
Rashamon
The Seven Samurai
Mr. Hulot's Vacation


In other news yet another person in Qatar has mentioned to me that they found my blog on internet searches, which is why I'll reiterate that you are never going to read stories about my workplace on this blog!

What about Beijing? Well I'm off to Bahrain on business for three days so I'll post a bit more about that when I return.