Paddleboarding in the Ocean

Today Akhil, Michelle, and I went paddleboarding in the ocean...got up bright and early at 6 am to head out to the Jumeirah beach and get in the water by 8:00.  Paddleboarding is kinda like surfing with a paddle.  It's a huge, wide board that you stand on facing forward and paddle out into the middle of the ocean with an oar.  We were a little wobbly at first and took a few initial plunges, but it didn't take too long to get the hang of and before long we were way out in the ocean underneath the Burj Al Arab.  It was awesome, kinda like walking on water.  Once we got out real far, Akhil took a fateful tumble.  He went one way, the paddle went the other, and for some reason it sunk.  Talk about being up the creek without a paddle...      

John, Michelle, Akhil

After that we went for some sightseeing at the Medinat shopping center and the Jumeirah hotel, one of Dubai's 7-star hotels.  The Medina center was full of cool gift shops, restaurants, and antique stores.  There was a music shop full of guitars and other assorted instruments.  I picked up an Oud and played the surf song wipeout in memory of our surfing adventure.  We had worked up quite an appetite paddleboarding, so we stopped at a Costa coffee shop for some sandwiches, coffee, chocolate cheesecake, blueberry muffin, and donuts.  Collectively, we have a lot of sweet tooths.  Next stop was the Jumeriah hotel.  When you first walk inside the hotel, there's a gold ATM.  Instead of dispensing cash, it gives you bars of gold.  I don't think it gets used much, most people just take pictures of it.     

Jumeirah Hotel

Friday is not only the first day of the weekend, it is the holy day.  After all of these adventures, we went to church in the evening.  The church meets in a school gymnasium just outside the heart of the city.  It was a great service, it's so nice to be able to worship freely in the Middle East. 

Exploring Nassar Square

Today my friend Olesya and I went to go visit Nassar square.  Nassar square is located in the original part of Dubai, the heart of where this extravagant city began.  It stretches along the Dubai creek, and you can take water taxis to get from one part of the city to another.  These taxis are small wooden boats with a little motor, and it cost 1 dirham (about $0.28) to ride.  Olesya and I took a ride across the creek, taking pictures of all of the sites and amazing architecture.  On the other shore, there were shops selling everything from handmade shoes to tourist trinkets to fake watches and sunglasses.  While we were there, we almost became famous.  They happened to be filming a movie in the market area, and we tried to get in but they made us turn around…guess they already had an action hero and sidekick.

Water Taxi

Historic Dubai

So we continued exploring, and happened upon an old Arabian house that had been converted into a museum.  The architecture was interesting, with rooms all over the place and a courtyard in the center.  It was almost like a little palace.  Some of the rooms were empty, others contained artifacts and photos.  One of the rooms had wax figures of Arab men working…they were pretty friendly, and let me take a picture with them.

Ancient Craftsmen

Drinking a coconut

After all that walking, we were both getting hungry and thirsty.  So we stopped at a small street shop for some food.  We got a some shawarmas (which is like an Arabic chicken pita wrap) and a coconut to wash it down.  They take a coconut, cut the top off, and put a straw in it.  It tasted nothing like I expected…guess my tongue was anticipating something like a coconut cream pie or an almond joy.  The coconut juice was clear, cool, and refreshing.  I give it a thumbs up. 

Oman Trip

First, a little background.  I'm on a temporary visa, valid for  30-day stay here in Dubai.  One of the benefits to this is that it's free (well, included in the airfare I guess) and best of all it requires a road trip somewhere outside the Emirates to get my passport restamped.  So on Friday April 8th, my buddy Steve and I took a trip to Musundam, Oman. Musundam is a very remote place in the mountains at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, where the water is clear and the views are simply breathtaking.  The travel company picked us up at 6:30 a.m. in a small van here at the dorms, and we headed out with the sun rising to our right.  On the way, we transferred to a large coach bus and picked up a few other groups of tourists, mostly retired vacationing Germans and Englishmen.  We ended up with a group of about 40 people, and we headed up into the tall rocky mountains of Oman. 

Dhow boat

Mountains of Musundam

Once we got there, we loaded up into a traditional Arabic boat called a Dhow. It's got a big motor under the deck that sounds like a tractor, and cushions all around to sit on.  We cruised out into the clear water of the mountainous gulf, snacking on dates and hot tea.  A tour guide told us a little bit about the fishing villages that lie at the base of the cliffs.  Alternating between the German and English languages, he explained that these villages consist of about 100 people who are fisherman preserving the old way of life.  For them, boats are a way of life...kids take the boat into school, women take the boat to town to shop, and men spend their nights fishing off the boats.  I was amazed at how people can live at the base of these cliffs, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  They sure do wake up to a beautiful view every morning.

Arabian angel fish

Snorkeling

We took a couple stops to go snorkeling.  The first place was an island that used to be a British settlement.  Steve and I swam to the island and climbed the massive rock steps leading up the cliff, just like Rocky Balboa in training.  In the water, there were fish swimming all around us, and we got some nice photos…the fish in the picture above is an Arabian anglefish, probably because of his golden “wing”.

One of the coolest parts of the cruise was dolphin racing.  Someone spotted dolphins surfacing off in the distance, and so the captain drove over to see if they would follow our boat.  Sure enough, they did.  It turns out that dolphins love to race boats.  The races went on for about a half hour, and the dolphins swam with us four-wide as we chugged along full throttle.  Eventually, Flipper and his friends tired out, and we continued on with the cruise.

The day went by quickly, and eventually it was time to head towards the sunset back to dock.  We were wiped out, it had been a good day of cruising, swimming, climbing, and picture-taking.  I took this picture of the sunset at the Oman border crossing - a good ending to a great day.

Sunset at the Oman Border

The School

So I decided to write a little bit about the school here in Dubai, since that's the main reason I'm here (contrary to how it may appear, I actually have been studying).  RIT Dubai is a new branch of the Rochester campus that offers undergrad and graduate courses.  Last year, the first round of masters students graduated, and this year the school started up its first freshman class with EE, ME and business majors.  The beauty of having such a small school here is that everybody knows everybody.  The professors and staff are great, they know each student by name and you can tell they care.  Sometimes you don't get that at a huge state school. 

This is my last quarter of classes before graduation, taking 3 grad courses here to finish up: two 2-week business courses and an independent research course focused on wind turbine engineering.  It's been great, the first business class is over, and the next one starts up on Saturday.  Wrote and submitted an ethics thesis for the class already...I think it's gonna keep me pretty busy here for the next two weeks.  Looking forward to it though.


     

Weekend of Sand and Sun

It was another adventurous weekend here in the Emirates....a weekend full of sand and sun.  On Thursday a bunch of us from school went on a desert safari.  They picked us up in a land cruiser, we drive out to the middle of the desert, deflated the tires, and rode the sand dunes.  It was awesome, kinda like driving on the snow but a little smoother.  Click to check out the videos: Desert Safari Videos.  We made a few stops here and there in the desert to look around and take some pictures, then hopped back inside the car for some more sandy caravan racing.  We eventually got to the camp in the middle of the desert....literally you look around and all you see is sand and shrubs.  It was perfect weather, warm but not too hot.  There were small brown thatched huts all around, some men bbq-ing, camel rides, and a large dune for sandboarding.  I tried a couple rounds down the sand hill.  It's pretty simple - you wax up a regular snowboard, strap into the bindings, and give yourself a push.  The first time I fell at the bottom and got a few pockets full of sand...it doesn't quite steer like snow.  But the second time, I made it all the way down the slope.  Next was the camel ride.  The key to riding a camel is holding on tight for both takeoff and landing.  They stand up with their front legs first, then their back legs...it's like riding a seesaw.  Dinner at the camp was amazing - bbq meat, rice, hummus, vegetables, spicy lentil stew, Arabic coffee to name a few items.  We sat around on pillows on the ground and enjoyed our meal, and afterward an Arabic bellydancer came out to the stage and the fun continued with some festive songs and dancing.

That night was followed up by a good day kayaking in the ocean.  It was my first time kayaking, and I'd definitely do it again.  We went real far out into the ocean, bobbing on the waves and watching parasailers up in the sky.  It was some of the bluest ocean water I've ever seen.   One of the best parts was rowing back into shore, catching the waves like a surfer and skidding up onto the sand.  After drying off, we went to get some pastries from a nearby bakery....as they say in Arabic, it was "lazeez" (delicious).

Adventures with Allan

So this past Saturday I met a man named Allan from North Carolina while eating breakfast in the cafeteria.  Alan is in Dubai for one week teaching an internet course here at the academy.  He's a friendly, fun-loving guy who can strike up a conversation with anyone.  The church I've been going to was having a picnic that day at the Zabeel Park, so I invited him out to see some of the city, meet some people, and enjoy some good food.  He was all for it, and we ended up having a great time.  The park is humongous, full of cricket fields, futbol fields, picnic areas, and children racing on pedal cars.  We grilled kababs and ribs, played some volleyball, and hung out in the grass talking to a group of students that had come from California on a mission trip. 

Kababs on the Grill

The next night Allan and I made a trip to the Mirdif City Center mall to check out the indoor skydiving place.  That's right, indoor skydiving in a mall.  It's a vertical wind tunnel that basically looks like an enormous glass mug with a fan at the base that makes people fly like Charlie and Grandpa when they drank Willy Wonka's fizzy lifting drink.  Allan is big time into skydiving, so he gave it a go while I documented the "flight" with his camera.  The thing was awesome, and smile on his face when he came out of there was priceless.

The day of the picnic there was a huge sand storm coming from Oman, and so it wasn't the best day to see buildings.  So last night Allan and I went on a Big Bus Tour of Dubai to see the sights.  We rode in the open 2nd level of a big tour bus, departing from the Deira mall on a two-hour cruise through every part of the city.  A few facts that I learned on the trip: there is a large gold plated flagpole with the UAE flag, the Burj Al Arab hotel has a heli-pad, a tennis court, and a restaurant where you can order the world most expensive drink (21,310 AED), there is a building called the Pregnant Lady that bows out on one side, Donald Trump is building his Trump Towers on the Jumeirah Palm island, there is only one restaurant in Dubai that serves camel steaks, and you can also order camel milkshakes.

Dubai Bus Tour

Well tomorrow we go on a Desert Safari, gotta get rested up...   

Dubai -

The best way I can describe Dubai is this -  A bunch of people got together, combined their wildest dreams, built it, and called it Dubai.  I could have never imagined a place like this could exist in the middle of the desert.  It's a bustling city with incredible architecture, beautiful beaches, and friendly people. 

Etisalat Academy Dorms

Jumeirah Beach

Dubai Skyline