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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Presotto Furniture

I went to Presotto for an exhibition of paintings by 5 worldwide artists - all very beautiful pictures, mostly abstract. Presotto is full of lovely furniture and accessories that would look fantastic in any Dubai home and their prices are very reasonable. It is located near Marina furniture in Al Quoz, between the Sheik Zayed Road and Emirates Road. If your home needs furnishing or decorating I would recommend a visit.

Monday, December 12, 2005

A1 GP in Dubai

The inaugural A1 GP in Dubai was held over the weekend. As this was the brainchild of Sheik Mohammed it was always guaranteed to be a well organised event, even if the attendance was predicted to be low due to it running on a Sunday and the general lack of interest in motorsport in Dubai. However, after what I heard were disappointing attendance figures for the Friday and Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised to see a few thousand people at the main event. The atmosphere was great and ear plugs were required but overall it was a spectacle worth attending if you do have the interest in motorsport of any kind. They also had a first (of course they had to) which was a helicopter rescue vehicle for the cars which was used to great effect to winch a stranded car off the racetrack and deposit it back over near the pits. Given the wide-ranging nationality profile of Dubai residents, there was pretty much some support for all teams which was good.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Global Village - worth a visit!

I went to Global Village on UAE National Day and it was pretty buzzing. There were not a lot of expats there it seemed but it is certainly worth a visit. Of note were the Pakistan area where they had loads of nice leather jackets and wooden furniture at very good prices. Also worth a look was the Iraqi area where they had a predomination of oil paintings a lot of which were done by obviously very talented artists. I think the village has improved from last year with more products that were relevant to the country although of course there were still some exceptions. If you have a spare evening, take a wander.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Soy chinese restaurant

I went to the Soy chinese restaurant at Ibn Battuta shopping mall a few days ago and I can heartily recommend it. The food was delicious and the service was excellent with the waiters and waitresses looking extremely smart and being very helpful and friendly. We had crispy lamb beijing style and, from the Wonder Wok (you can choose which meat and which sauce to put together) lamb with spring onion and oyster sauce. The price was very reasonable too!

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Dragon Mart

Dragon Mart - what a great place! You can get pretty much anything there that you might want at very cheap prices. Whether it is bathroom fittings, childrens clothes and toys, jewellery, crystals, machinery, bedding, bicycles, furniture etc! It is located off Interchange 5 on Emirates Road, heading towards Hatta. It is really starting to get popular there so can get a bit busy at times. Make sure you have at least a few hours spare for browsing as you will need it to cover the whole place.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Market at Green Community

The Market at Green Community is finally getting going. At last the Choithrams is open and it's pretty big and not nearly as crowded as Geant at Ibn Battuta. There are also a lot more shops there than I thought. I can't find a website link for it but a few examples of shops are Ace Hardware, Beyond the Beach, Green Community Pharmacy, Emirates Bank. Anyway, there are 54 retailers so it is quite sizeable (for anywhere other than Dubai :-) ).

Monday, November 07, 2005

Accommodation in Dubai

A good source of information if you want to find accommodation, whether that be on a short-term or long term basis is www.expatriates.com. Once you have a place you can also use this to look for possible flatmates etc. In Dubai you tend to have to sign up for a year if you want to rent a place and you also have to pay the whole year up front, although most landlords will accommodate a few post-dated cheques so that you can pay in up to 4 installments. This still means finding a reasonavle chunk of money in advance as you also have to find a 5% deposit and 5% agency fee.

Arts & crafts group

If you are an artist or crafter in Dubai then you may be interested to join this group:
http://groups.msn.com/dubaiartscrafts
here you can find other like minded people, details of craft fairs and also where to buy supplies.

About me

A short bit about me. I am a Brit who has been living in Dubai since December 2004. I have created this blog not only to supplement my failing memory but also to help any other expats or potential expats find information about Dubai!