Dubai Football Challenge - AC Milan v Hamburg SV

This took place at the new Sevens Ground down the Al Ain road. Despite bad organisation with traffic queuing for hours to get in, no marshalls in the huge car park etc, attendance was high at 17,000. The big names were in force from AC Milan particularly with the much publicised debut of David Beckham who was on a 3 month loan from LA Galaxy. In addition there were the likes of Ronaldhino and Shevchenko in the Milan squad. The match was goalless in the first half and after a Ronaldhino penalty and a Hamburg equaliser 5 minutes later, the match ended 1-1 at full time. This lead to a penalty shoot out which AC Milan won 4-3.

Awesome landscape

Took a drive over to Ras Al Khaimah recently and got some great dunes pictures. It's good to take a day out now and then and appreciate the awesome scenery around this area. And I love to see the camels :-)

Red Bull Air Race - 6th April 2007

Once again Abu Dhabi was packed to bursting with spectators for this now annual event. Albeit it was nearly impossible to park, this is a spectacle worth going to see. The tricks that these guys do are pretty amazing and it's really a great day out.

Dubai International Arabian Horse Championships

The place to go if you want to see some of the top arabian horses in the world. This is an annual event, one of the many that is free to spectators. See www.diahc.ae for details.

Dubai World Cup 31 March 2007

As usual this was a great day/evening out and the numbers seemed to be well up on last year. Lots of racing and lots of fashion and the one event on the social calendar that is a must!

Jumana, Secret of the Desert

Head out to the Al Sahra Desert Resort to go and see this spectacular production. Loads of special effects with fireworks, lighting, fire etc make this a must-see. The production is just over an hour so it is worth going out to have some dinner there first - they also have a shisha area and the whole resort is lit up with what must be thousands of flame torches (it must take someone all night to light them all!). www.alsahra.com

Jazz Festival 8-10 March 2007

The Jazz festival was great with loads of beanbags to lounge around on (although there were almost fights breaking out to keep hold of them!) and great music to listen to, art to buy and plenty of liquid refreshment.

The highlight was Jamie Cullum on the last night but Dubai Drums came in a close second.

Old and New

I just liked the contrast between the camels on the beach tethered up next to a bedouin tent and the new buildings going up around Jumeirah Beach Residence...

Doing the Tourist Thing

It's great to have visitors over to stay because it gives you a good excuse to do the touristy things that you might otherwise not take time to do. I had a friend visiting and we took an abra across the creek to the gold souk. When we came back we walked around the Bastakia area, took in a few galleries including the Majlis and then stopped at the Basta Art Cafe. Great.

Golf Challenge Match - 30 Jan 07

What a great way to get up close to the stars. This is the event prior to the Dubai Desert Classic that pits 8 players in pairs against each other for charity. All are top players and the number of spectators is low so, as you can see, you can really get a good view of your favourite player.

Green Community Roundabout

What a disaster this roundabout is - you basically take your life in your hands every time you go on it. Most days I end up in some kind of truck sandwich which can be quite scary. It's easy to blame the trucks (especially when you are coming out of Green Community and they don't leave any gaps for people to get out) but it also the cars driving at stupid speeds on what they obviously don't remember is actually a roundabout and not just a continuation of the road. Whatever you do, don't go on the road from SZR to Green Community at peak times - it will be quicker to turn back and go up Al Khail Road. When are they going to do something about this???

Global Village back on

So Global Village is back on again. Personally I think it is a great place so I will be heading down there in the next few days. I have a few friends who have stalls there so I will see how they are getting on. I think I have posted before about Global Village and the kinds of things you can get there and I'm sure it is no different this year. It's not on for quite so long this year, I guess they didn't get the visitor numbers they expected over the 5 months last year. For those who don't know it is on Emirates Road, pretty much signposted from most places in Dubai.

Summer in Dubai

For those who complain that there is nothing going on in Dubai in the summer, I think they need to look again! OK, so most of it is centred around the shopping malls but who can blame them to focus on air-conditioned comfort when the temperature is in the forties outside. There are lots of activities for children but also a huge number of genuine sales on. You can really grab a few bargains out there without looking too hard. It also seems that the place is not so quiet when it comes to ski Dubai. If you are able to even get a spot to watch the goings on in the snow park then you will see how many people are happily playing in the freezing temperatures on the many rides and runs they have to offer. If you are brave enough to face the heat then a trip down to the beach in the early morning can be pleasant enough for an hour or so, and a nice change from the noisy buzz of the quad bikes and jet skis that usually take over in the winter.

Dubai World Cup

Well the Dubai World Cup was once again an excellent day for racing and partying. International Village was full of people who were not interested in the racing and also a few who were.

The racing was great with the big race being a very exciting battle finally won by Frankie Dettori on Electrocutionist, despite coming from the much maligned stall one. It seemed like the whole of Nad Al Sheba erupted with joy when the Saeed bin Suroor trained horse passed Brass Hat to take the glory for Godolphin.

Of course there was the obligatory trademark flying dismount from Frankie (see picture, taken by Brian Fleischman)

Dubai Tennis Championships

I got my tickets early this year as by half way through the tournament last year the tickets for the finals had sold out and as there was an even better cast of players for this year I didn't want to miss out ont he possibility of a Nadal v Federer final. As luck would have it, I wasn't to be disappointed as this is exactly what we got. But more than that it was a fantastic match with some awesome and unbelievable shots being played and the match swinging from being a one-sided Federer affair in the first set to a thrilling 3 setter. In the end it was Nadal's day but you couldn't help thinking it could have gone either way and each one of them would have deserved it.

We shouldn't forget the women, who also had a great tournament albeit with a few stops due to rain. There were also big names here and both tournaments seem to be going from strength to strength no doubt with the help of the large pot of prize money from dubai Duty Free.