Fireworks: D0bye to Abu Dhabi

On December 2, the world’s largest and record breaking fireworks will light up Abu Dhabi’s night sky to celebrate the 37th National Day of the UAE. The fireworks will begin at 8.30pm lasting for 45 minutes but not all UAE residences are going to enjoy the show, some are without jobs and most uncertain about their future in d0bye.

In time of economy crisis, d0bye spend 10 million USD on fireworks 2weeks ago during the opening ceremony of Atlantis and now Abu Dhabi gonna show the world Abu Dhabi is bigger than d0bye. Abu Dhabi don’t care how much the fireworks cost, as long as its bigger than d0bye’s one, they will pay for it.

Although there were large scale retrenchment exercise happening in d0bye, there isn’t a single case of retrenchment heard yet from Abu Dhabi.

Taiko Abu Dhabi aint gonna let Sai-Lol d0bye to take the lead. Most frens said, Abu Dhabi is the way forward but for me Abu Dhabi just got a slower reaction.

Burning Money… that’s what I call fireworks!

D0bye Crying

D0bye cried last night, d0bye cried loudly and tears flows like river. It was as if d0bye was crying for all her inhabitants that lost their jobs. The heaviest rain I have seen in d0bye so far but doesn’t matter if its rain heavy or not, it always flood in UAE because nothing here were build to resist the rain. Roofs always leak and there are no irrigation systems, to be fair they don’t need one, no point making something that will only be in use 3 out of 365 days a year.

When d0bye cries, my first worry is safety on the roads. Most drivers here don’t have the experience to drive in the rain and they tend to speed as usual. After spending two years of my life here, I myself have also speeded up. It’s not easy to do 60Kmh when I have been doing 120kmh regularly.

The timing of the thunderstorm really makes me wonder if it was a reminder of the hardship the world is facing from the Mass Sacking of employees in d0bye to Mumbai's Terrorist attack, the world seems to be coming from bad to worst since Mr.0bama won.

Her0 come in the time of crisis, is mr.0bama a hero or a villain?

Only time will tell...

A pix says a thousand words

Pix that best describe D0bye

Construction Safety in D0bye

I have to pass through this crane’s weight at least once a day as it located right above the driveway to my apartment parking. Will it fall down right one me?

Dubai Mall Aquarium

Dubai mall located less than a kilometre from my home but I have no intention what so ever to visit it since it official opening a month ago. For me it will just be another Shopping Mall.

By chance I visited Dubai Mall and actually there wasn’t much to see, most shops were still under renovation but it major attraction The Mall’s Dubai Aquarium and Discovery Centre was magnificent.

It officially earned the Guinness World Record for the world's "Largest Acrylic Panel" (32.88 metres wide x 8.3 metres high x 750mm thick and weighing 245,614kg).

From certain angles the connecting line between panels are actually visible. I doubt any vehicles could have loaded the 33x8m2 panel; it has be manufactured on site or assembled there. I believe the latter hypothesis shall be correct since there were visible connecting line.

Equiped with only K810i, this is the best I could have done... Althought their Aquarium is the bigest I have seen but their fishes were small. Their two Giant Groupe (Loong tun) were babies compare to what I seen in our Sandakan "Hoi siong wong" wakakakaka...

But the Stingrays' tail were really looooooooong, at least 3times the length of its body. The one that killed Crocodile hunter...

Money makes Wonderss!

Burning M0ney

If not of L insistent to watch fireworks show, I will surely miss the greatest fireworks show on earth because as usual, I am lazy to go crowded places. Someone told me that those involve in the Beijing2008 firework setup are the one who gonna make this show bigger and better.

We waited at the beach opposite of Atlantis. A friend with some “inside” info said the fireworks gonna start at 11pm. So we wait and wait and wait… till 12.15am also no fireworks. I thought d0bye brankrupt already, fireworks also can’t afford to purchase but at least the beach sand was cool and it was a nice place to relax as well and we actually planned to leave, suddenly...

At 12.30am the show begins… It was the opening ceremony of The Atlantis and a lotta A-list Hollywood, Bollywood and Sportstars were invited; Kylie Minogue, Denzel Washington, Robert DeNiro, Charlize Theron, Lindsay Lohan, Mischa Barton, Boris Becker, Lily Allen, Richard Branson, Sol Kerzner, Quincy Jones and also lotta Bollywoods stars which I have not much ideas who are they. If I knew Michael Jordan will be there, I would have bought a ticket to watch that show in Atlantis.

I was more interested to fire up situation than watching fireworks until I experienced first hand this beautiful sight. Although the fireworks display was engineered to perfection but most of friends’ main topic was the global financial meltdown. I think this fireworks display alone cost more than USD 10millions, some of my financial analyst friends thinks that d0bye's pocket has been cleared but they still push... push... push... to make believe they still got money even they are broke!

Fireworks weren’t launched at a particular areas but it was launched all around the lining of 520km of the palm. I think that 15minutes times 520km = more than USD 10 millions? Really burning money… These fotos cant cover the every fireworks launched, the line was so long... those who didnt know in advance of this fireworks might thought it might be missles attack from Iraq or Afgan?

I was surprise to see Atlantis and Palm Jumeira still exist after what look like a nuclear bomb explosion. The beach was jammed with people... All these photos were taken by Samuel using E450!

Youtube VIDEO... Impressive!

Team Building Lunch

I feel very appreciated working in a semi-government organisation because they held a team building lunch the first Thursday of every month and departmental lunch third Thursday of the month, all these in a five stars hotel. The food there was good and there were actually tropical fruits available but of cause no durian.

Suprisingly those kwai lols and arnab sactually know how to eat rambutan and dragon fruits… fruits are expensive in dubai, especially tropical fruits so there are no holding back from the company.

h0w much?

Hiao was waiting for friends at crone plaza along the SZ road. It was 1pm in the afternoon but her fren hasn’t turn up yet. It was the main road of d0bye so there were lotta people and cars. A car stopped by her, an a-cha or arnab or maybe crossbreed, asked her "how much?"

Angie, Bella & Carl were having a drink in Dragon Mart, the famous china mart. Tw0 arnab in white table cloths dress asked Carl "how much?" Carl didn’t reply them. After drinks, 3 of them leave and one of the arnab followed them and asked angie "how much?'

0ne day I was taking a taxi from a shopping mall in d0bye. I queued along the taxi line and wait for my turn. When it’s my turn, the first question that taxi driver asked me was "H0w much?"

I said "What!!!" Even I was "How much-ed"

Reputation of the chinese community in d0bye can be summed up with "HOW MUCH?"

Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm reduced visibility to 500 metres in Dubai on Saturday. Taiko8 is very lucky; he is only here for less than a month but could experience rain in the dessert.

This morning my car temperature read 25C, 6C under the normal temperature. When storm happen it usually meant change of season in the dessert. I guess winter is officially here.

b0c0r

1803 hour, 9 November 2008 was once of those days... I reached the parking lot around 5.45pm and found my right back tyre flat. I was planning to drive to the nearest petrol kiosk to pump it up as what I usually do but dunno why this time I felt like changing it? Maybe because I haven’t change a tyre for a long time or maybe because I have nothing better to do that night ( no football, no badminton, no party, nothing at all) or maybe I felt it this time the tyre will burst because I haven’t service my car since February 2008 and over 10,000km of mileage.

I have been concentrating on my left back tyre as it has eaten a nail for the last six month. There were few occasion where my tyre almost ran outta air but I manage to reach the petrol kiosk in time to save it. It was just plain laziness not to have it fixed, but I never expect my right side tyre to go flat. That was a surprise, I haven’t found out the clause yet.

Everyone laughed at me for buying this dynamo power torch light but that day I fully appreciated it function. Actually this UAE invented product can be use to charge varieties of phones as well. My w810i has a very good torch light but I am using k810i that doesn’t have torch light but got a better camera flash. So new doesn’t mean better and this dynamo power torch light is superb if being use in remote areas.

I inserted the carjack from behind but found it very hard to transfer my power to the carjack, my arm length was just enough to reach the carjack handle and after 15minutes I still found the car wasn’t jacked up an inch.

So for the first time since I bought this car 10 months ago, I read the Owner’s guide. I found out the right place to jack and also many other car maintenances services. I checked the black oil, water level and etc for the first time in my life. If things are done the right way, its easy!

American invented the car with three nuts on the tyre and Japanese “ciplak’ it with four nuts, American reinvent it with five nuts and all this nuts were making me nuts!!! The first three nuts weren’t easy, I have to step on the wrench and jump-jump before it loosen but the two last nuts just wont come out! NUTzzzzzzz! Actually I exhausted the wrench by not loosening the nuts in the correct order.

I was totally exhausted after 15minutes of trying with my hands, legs and body. I could hardly stand so I have to call for help. I tried to HSBC road side assistant and I was expecting so professional help on line but instead some ah-cha who spoke ah-cha Inglish asking stupid question rudely. That stupid road assistant will not change tyre for me but can tow my car to service centre and that will cost me Dhs150.

I wasn’t that stupid to go for that option because I need to wait for an hour for that tow car and wait for the next day for service centre to operate. Changing tyre will only cause me max 30minutes! So I called Roy for help, he drive the same car as me and his work place was just 15minutes away.

That buffer time in my life was very productive indeed, I thought about lotta stuffs about my life, work, faith, love and etc. It was godsend because He wanna me to rethink about life and especially how I treated my car badly.

The last time I changed a car tyre was 2005 in Sri Hartamas. It was my superior tyre, we just had lunch and came back to find his car tyre has been punctured because his parked in someone place...

Do-bye or Goodbye

Lotta people got sacked from their jobs recently in UK & Ireland, especially construction related jobs. When recession hit, construction industry is the first one who taste it effect. So lotta friends, friends' friends and friends's spouses are looking for jobs in the Middle East. d0-bye is the prime location because of its more westernize culture.

As side from its tax free and cheap petrol, d0-bye do offer a more luxurious lifestyle for the middle class. A maid can be employed as low as 1k dirham a mth, that's about 120pounds. For 120pounds, you cant even ask someone to look after your dog in UK! That cold weather in UK isn’t as romantic as portrayed in winter s0nata! For short holiday, okayla! But for long term stays that's miserable. That’s why kwai poh fresh from UK will literally strip while running towards the sun.

The bad side of d0-bye of cause its there isn’t a sense of belonging here. I have been here for 2years now but I still don’t feel like home. Maybe that's due to UAE don’t give citizenship to outsiders, giving me the feeling that I will have to leave someday. Maybe also because of the Law here which I find verrrrrrrrrry "wui kow" although UAE is the least strict of the Middle Eastern countries but I still feel uncomfortable. A man life is worth 200k, a women life is worth 100k and race hourse life is worth 2million???

D0-bye or Good-bye, a phrase I learn from a visiting friends' friend from UK.

But d0bye isn’t the safe haven as most Europe base frens thought. I repeatedly told them d0bye doesn’t have oil, even if d0bye did if recession hit, there will still be effects.

There are rumors of big-big company in dobye are retrenching hundreds of staffs. Not sure how true is it but I am sure getting job in d0bye isn’t as easy as it use to be. I hope the recession monster doesn’t come to close to d0bye. If it’s come, maybe is time for me to pack and go home?

So now is d0bye also bye-bye!

Egpyt 6.0 -Convoy2 Aswan-Abu Simbel-

I checked out from Basma Hotel at 3am, that was just 6hours of sleep. Not enough to repay the lost of energy due to the anxiety of last night mantai's F1. Still feel very sleepy even though I had a morning bath but felt super excited about getting nearer to "Danger" Sudan. I only spent total of 8hours in the hotel (7pm to 3am), didnt feel worth the money. I didnt even touch the swimming pool water, only molested it through my eyes. This was our 2nd convoy in less than 24hours and I didn’t feel the anxiety like I felt with my virgin convoy. Maybe I had got numbed about all this convoy hype or maybe I was too tired to feel it. I was more worried about my driver's skill as I believed they will "fly" the van.

Just like last convoy, police came to register our vehicles and mantai gave them the necessary information. The "Aswan-Abu Simbel" convoy was bigger than the "Luxor-Aswan" convoy. There were more police, dogs and also mirror to check the bottom of vehicles, sounds like serious business compare to the main2 convoy yesterday. There were at least 40-60 public vehicles there, from big buses to small saloon cars.

The hotel packed kids’ breakfast for us, it consisted of 3 breads half the size of my palm, one small box of fruit drink and one yogurt. 3am was too early to feel hungry so I prayed for our safety, plugged in my Ipod and sleepzzzzzzz.

Egpyt 6.1 -Romantic Ride-

Yesterday we rode through sunset and today we ride through sunrise. The most Romantic trip ever, some more at The neck breaking speed of 160kmh.

Abu simbel is about 300km south of Aswan, estimated it will take us 3hours for the journey. I slept at the early part of the journey, when I woke up an hour later, there wasnt a single vehicle visibled. The road was sooooo straight and empty, if not for the well maintained tarmac road, I would have thought we were going to no man land. There wasnt much to see on both side, mostly desert and a few settlements. A-mad said the gomen planned to develop this area into a agricultural land.

Man-tai didn’t slept the whole night as he party till morning. aiya! End of Puasa leh, one of the greatest joy of being "wui-kow". Man-tai brought his prodigy, a young man in the early 20. I nicknamed him (藤原拓海 Fujiwara Takumi) the son of man-tai in Initial-D.

We were also joined by a new Guide named A-Mad, so there were eleven of us in the Van. That was a bit over the comfort zone in the van with the last row being the lugagges storage. I was actually planned to sit infront to continue my snapping spree but my plan got distrubed again. aiya...

Tok-hoi was "flying" at 160km/h but it was less scary than what man-tai did because this road was straight and empty. The most linear road I have ever seen in my life, not a single obvious curve visible until 2.5hours later and if we didnt turn at that junction, we would have reach Sudan. It was a long and boring journey, I was afraid tok-hoi would fall asleep due to the non-challenging journey. It was a good decision from mantai to let tokhoi drive as even mantai didnt party till the next morning, I was sure mantai would have exhausted himself with last night "race with time"!.

Tok-hoi was a curly haired guy, as in chinese saying "Jiu Mao Lan Kow Yit". I was sure he didnt listen to any plea for slowing down. In fact, I saw A-mad did talk to tok-hoi in arabic after a-mad saw us looking abit worried with the neck breaking speed. On our way back, he even tailed gated a lancer at 160kmh and he even stopped once instance to argue with a driver behind... crazee!

Egpyt 6.2 -Abu Simbel-

I was shock to see this cruise ship here, She was the only one of her kind here. There was just one big sized kwai poh sunbathing, nothing to see. I was suprised to see Cruise boat in Abu simbel because nobody stayed overnight here, is too near to uncomfort z0ne, Sudan.

The WC here was really the worst I have come true, 2LE per entry. I didnt go but most of my tourmates went in. I wanna show this ppl, what an expensive WC entry will cost their country! I dunno why but I hate this toilet pharoahs the most, maybe because they make a living outta others desperation, not j0y!

I thought I looked weird, this w0man even out wierd me. Karate Girl? Black Belt some more... Sai lei! Sai Lei! Should I wear a songkok or baju melayu to show my patriotism. Japanese, korean & Indian still wear their tradisional cloths regularly but not us Msian Chinese...

Just like any other Tourist Spot, there were $ale$men... This 0ne was a bit Pro, Robinho and a SLR selling postcard? Salesperson here are much less than in other places, maybe because that day was the 1st day of raya so most choose to stay at home.

Egpyt 6.3 -Th0se Walls-

Abu Simbel was all about these faces in the walls. I seen lotta ancient stuffs the last few days but these walls still "Waaah" me. Abu Simbel two massive rock temples was about 5-6 storeys high. Some said this is a romantic site because Pharaoh Ramesses II built this place as a lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari. I can be this romantic too if I can afford the 200 wives, Ramesses II had.

Its construction was impressive but its re-construction was even more impressive. These 2 temples have actually been moved by UNESCO in 1964 to its current location from a lower area. The relocation of the temples was needed as the water started to rise due to the construction of Aswan Dam.

The whole operation took 4years and USD 40million.

The egyptian Pounds (LE) of 5LE has Abu Simbel Temples as it background. 5LE not very expensive lorrr but no easy to get someone faces on currency la..

If you see some actsy local guard like this, you know it "No Photo, No Video" kinda things inside the temple. Anyway its too crowded to take photo inside. Imagine what will happen if everyone started to take photo inside... STUCK! I didnt went into the 2nd temple, the temple for the Queen as I think stuffs inside will not interest me.

This guy is holding the Key of Life (KoL), its not use to open doors but simply a symbol between life & death. S0ohai said KoL looks like a scandal and ancient egyptian believe the only thing betwen life and death is the scandal because people live above the earth and die go into the earh. Boleh percaya la...

A-mad pulak said, The Hole represent woman and the stick represent the man... so they make life! Percaya siapa? I think A-mad theory more realistic la, Ancient were got think so much one. they only think s3x la!

W.A. Taylor is my boss name, he must have came here before me. Siao... He even crafted his name on it, much "geng" than my initial "A"! That's why he is my boss lorr...

There were so many names crafted on walls, there wasnt any place left for me to craft! Siao eh!

Egpyt 6.4 -Take this Toilet Pharoahs-

This guy is my her0... looks like an experience traveller to me. I didnt have a clue how to revenge those toilet pharoah!

Mr.Her0 show me how to do it in a bright day ligth under the SUN...

I was going to follow him until I notice something up there...

CCTV at the fences top... This uncle was cool

CCTV on top of the hills...

CCTV everywhere... cant la, I wasnt that brave yet. Takut nanti got send to jail.

So I walked... Walked... Walked... through some treess...

The I shot all my hatred out here...

Wakakakaka!!! The 2nd best pee I had in my life and most important of all its FREEEE!!!

The Best pee still the one I shot with 6others guy at the top of Scotland 4years ago on the mission to revenge for Msia.

Egpyt 6.5 -Tourist Vs Tour Guides-

After The G000dane pee, I went outta the place and have a sit at the shopping area. Super... Super expensive ler.. but lotta lui to kap la.

A-mad was busy smoking shisha and he got it for free... everything for tourist were super expensive and everything for tourguides were free...

Egpyt 6.6 -Aswan High Dam-

I really dun understand this, No video or zoom camere but can take foto? I'm not a military expert but if someone wanna blow this up, some good fotos will do the damage... The aim of this water project was to prevent the river's flooding, generate electricity and provide water for agriculture but it did much more than this...

Lake Nasser was created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam across the waters of the Nile. This lake is the mother of all destruction to those monuments, ancient temples like Abu Simbel & Philae Temple has to be relocated because of this lake. I heard that this lake was huge, one of the biggest in Africa but it was man-made, just like a FF-CUP... FAKE!!!

Egpyt 6.7 -Boat Ride-

This place was sunyi-sepi, not a single tourist beside us. that's stuff here were sibei cheap. traders even fight for our attention. 3Le for 2 big bottles of mineral water, that was like miracle for us. They must had a hard time selling stuffs here.

this remind me of my boat ride in nepal, still fell the fear but egypt water got the famous nile crocssss! boats found here were bigger, due to the richer egyptian and also the s1z3 of their people and tourists. F4t!

sam never charged his E450 for 5days because he got a battery holder which also come with a AA sized holder. looks like a good deal for me...

I always enjoy boat ride... dunno why? I kept touching the cool water with my hand, so so song ah!

Is this kinda of engine strings always broke? I have seen this be4 but cant recall where..

Always use some makeshift tali to pull lorrr

The ride was less than 15mins... h00ray we reached but where? nobody tell me wow!