Food for thought

Whilst we have been lucky enough to have D. and currently G. as Helpers who are very good cooks, they have tended to stick to traditional Western cuisine rather than Phillipino food so I was recently able to extend my experience of authentic Asian dishes when we were treated to some food from the Philippines as part of a “World Tour” of cooking through work. 

It was a fairly eclectic mix of various different dishes which mixed Asian and western foods including curries and deep fried fish dishes and some extremely brightly coloured deserts. I thoroughly enjoyed it and reminded me a little of when I first arrived in Hong Kong where my previous experience of Chinese food in UK was mainly sweet and sour dishes and  “Chop Suey” (interestingly one of the Phillipino dishes  we were offered at the work event). 

As it turned out “Chinese” food, I learnt very quickly, came in multiple shapes, forms and levels of spiciness ( I seem to recall I was particularly taken by Szechuanese food when I was first in HK where the extensive use of extremely hot peppers were something of a trap for the unwary), and I was quickly transported into a whole new world of tastes and sensations.

Whilst I suspect that the food of the Philippines is likely to be less extensive than the various regional cuisines of China, I am very much looking forward to further opportunities to investigate it based on this first proper exploration!

Homeward Bound

 I have just booked a short trip back to the UK towards the end of this month - my second journey in a couple of months having dropped off A. at college in September so after over 18 months not setting a foot outside of the UAE, I am embracing the return to travel. 

Our return in September required no less than 5 PCR tests including one in UAE, three to comply with UK restrictions (notwithstanding our quarantining in a cottage in North Devon) and then one to return to the UAE. I am hopeful that my next trip will not require quite so many tests but the flight itself was a welcome return to something approaching normality. Before Covid I was probably averaging around a trip every 6 weeks (although some of those were short hops around the Middle East for work reasons). 

I am not sure whether that level of travel will be required in the future and what the new normal will be but I have noticed some changes in booking/taking flights (other than taking PCR tests and face masks). 

In particular, whilst they are still only flying to Heathrow so far as London airports are concerned, Emirates seem to be offering more variety of options when it comes to seat bookings - including a premium economy seat so it will be interesting to see how that compares with the usual economy seat. I will be meeting A. at my Father’s house so he too will be embracing an unfamiliar form of travel - in his case a train - taking advantage of the rail card that his Aunt bought for him. Not much opportunity  for train travel in the Middle East so it will be interesting to see how he gets on navigating the journey from the Midlands to the South East!

Sharjah always on my mind

There is already a strong sporting theme to my posts this November, and for all you sports fans out there, the theme continues today (albeit tangentially). 

For those unfamiliar with the geo-political set up of the UAE, there are 7 Emirates roughly laid out in a line with Abu Dhabi in the South at one end, and in the North we have Umm Al Qwaine, Fujairah and  Ras Al Khaiamah.

In the middle lies Dubai and its next door neighbour Sharjah - DXB airport effectively provides the dividing line between in the centre of town so there is no formal border crossing but the two Emirates are like chalk and cheese - Dubai very high rise and relatively affluent with 5* hotels coming out of its ears, whereas Sharjah is much more Industrial and gritty with its roads choc-a-bloc in the mornings/evenings as its residents make their way to and from work in the other Emirates. It is very much a conduit to the Northern emirates and whilst it does have some impressive buildings on the Corniche as well various museums ( including a maritime museum and a vintage car museum), the combination of a lack of decent hotels and the fact that it is “dry” means that it is not a tourist destination in the same way as the other Emirates.

Tonight I made my second trip in a week to the Sharjah cricket stadium with R and J although disappointingly England managed to lose their T20 World Cup match to S.Africa. 

Even on a Saturday, the traffic along the main highways was heavy. However, the stadium does have a certain ramshackle charm and hopefully there will be more opportunities to come back for some more cricket in the future.

Rugby Long Lunch

One of the highlights of the Dubai social calendar returned after a two year hiatus, with the Rugby long lunch being the traditional curtain-raiser for the Rugby 7s - held at the JW Marriott - so  for the first time since I have been attending over the last 10 years or so away from the Intercontinental at Festival City.

 James Haskell and a very droll Ben Ryan were the speakers with Chris McCardie from DubaiEye as MC (I have listened to him on the radio for many years and had pictured him as an Alan Hansen lookalike - he is very different!).

We had a good selection of guests on our table including our global head over from London and it was terrific to get to see so many familiar faces on what must have been one of the largest  in person indoor gatherings since the pandemic began.

Unfortunately someone managed to walk off with my jacket (luckily I had removed my wallet and phone) so I spent some time wandering around and surreptitiously checking various jackets slung over the backs of chairs before giving it up as a bad job and heading home at 1am  - way past my bed time and so today was a very quiet day! (I got a rather sheepish text from the chap who had taken it - he had found some of my business cards in the pocket so hopefully I will shortly be reunited with it). 

Sporting chance

November in Dubai generally means plenty of sporting action, and after nearly 18 months of pandemic induced absence, sportsmen of every shape and expertise are back with a vengeance - the calendar is now full of top quality events. 

I have a friend in town who is a big cricket fan, so we have already seen England beat Australia (in Dubai) and Sri Lanka (in a rather sweaty Sharjah) in the T20 World Cup with Jos Butler superb in both matches (his century against Sri Lanka with a six off the last ball will live long in the memory). 

We also have tickets to the S. Africa game on Saturday as well as the semis and the Final, so we will not be short of cricketing action. 

Tomorrow is also the Rugby Long Lunch - a mainstay of the annual social calendar, and over the next couple of weeks we have golf and tennis both in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. With EXPO 2020 also in full swing, Dubai is very much the place to be, and judging by the increase in UK visitors over the last few weeks, we are not alone in taking full advantage!

Starting as I mean to go on?

Not a particularly good start to my blogpost per day endeavours for the month of November - failed to post anything yesterday and spent a disproportionate amount of time today faffing around trying to remember the password. Anyway, I am now back into the blogosphere (probably not what it is called any more) and will do my best to post regularly over the next 30 days. 

In keen anticipation of the advertised publication of his next volume of diary entries earlier this year (as it turns out the publicity on this seems to have been somewhat premature),  I went to Micheal Palin’s website to see if I could place an order. Still no sign of Volume 4 of his excellent series. However, there was a good post/story on why he started to keep a diary (mainly it would appear, because he had just given up smoking and was looking for a new distraction). As a consequence, I was inspired back in July to start writing my own daily diary and unlike previous attempts, I have so far managed to keep at it (admittedly some days are shall we say more cursory than others). 

What is the relevance of all of this I hear you ask? It is possible that this is a pre-emptive excuse as to the likely quality of the content of these posts going forward - there has only been so much material that I am able to muster sufficient enthusiasm to record for posterity at the best of times over the last few months so having to now generate half way readable prose for a blog and a diary obviously risks diluting what is already content of questionable interest even further (and using the same material for both is going to be tricky as I decided my diary entries would have to be much blunter than what I would normally commit to a medium which might be read by others if I was to retain my enthusiasm). I guess we will see how I go (I also promise to try to reduce the length and prolixity of my sentences....).

A pinch and a punch....

A bonus post after the end of post a day November and we start the first day of the new month with a picture from our trip to the seaside yesterday - now that we live in the desert, our trips to the beach (a 30 minute drive) are much rarer but when we do go, are always enjoyable.

This is a picture looking towards kite beach and the Burg al Arab - in fact these are trainee kite surfers who were being put through their paces by no less than 5 kite surfing schools who had set up next to the running track (and what looks like a new cycle track albeit it seems to be mostly sand) yesterday afternoon. 

If you have ever seen a kite surfer in action it is a truly an art worth mastering as it looks great fun and also extremely difficult - almost all of these kites were being operated from  land -  presumably to practice control although there were a couple of adherents in the water.