Foggy Greetings

Foggy greetings on the last day of 2008 early in the morning. Foggy about the future, but staying hopeful that eventually there will be clearer skies.

The future is also foggy because leaders with flagging courage have been telling lies that all would be well and the fundamentals are strong. Fortunately for me, I never believed them. I thank God for putting me with previously the right jobs and experience, the good friends to know. I feel sorry for those who have been misled into the wrong investments, who had trusted others who claimed they could see through the fog who are actually themselves clueless.

The fog will eventually lifts not because we make it so. It is only natural that it clears but we will have no lack of personalities to claim credit for it. If you think hindsight is 20/20 vision you are mistaken. Just look at one of those historical events that we have tried to attempt an honest study - The Great Depression and you will see how controversial it is. Professional historians know we cannot see history with clarity, how often facts are disputed, what more the hows, whats and whys. But we also cannot do without them, a broken compass is still a compass. We are humans.

We cannot agree on the past, the present passes too quickly, as like the fog I drove through this morning and the future is even murkier. So plans are for education and prayer, the expression of our hope and faith, and the future is engaged with courage and character than with brains. Brains is only good for the now, like choosing healthy over bad food, preferring to save than to waste on unnecessary spending...

See http://www.inspiringword.net/daily/all-dailies.php?day_is=1231 then.

Happy New Year!

Water is precious in the Desert

You can tell from this photo that I have bought far too many packs of water. Back home you get your water from the tap, boil it and if you prefer it cold pour it into a tumbler to be placed in a fridge. Here everyone buys water, and I have inadvertantly developed a habit of buying too much. Each time I push a trolley in a supermart, I feel that I must carry back some water. I think I should just quit this and start ordering them to be delivered in 5-gallons bottles.

There is a brand of bottled water that sometimes taste like our new water back home. To avoid being sued, I am not mentioning their name here. Also my Canadian friend daughter works for them.

We have experimented with several brands and have settled for Masafi, which I am told is the choice of the Emiratis. We have to avoid Evian, Volvic and Perrier. They have set a far too high standards for price. Ideally you should only pay so much for water without even knowing how much it costs, otherwise you would eventually count the number of times you go to the toilet too right?

Collapsing Real Estate

The above came from my more technical blog on NaviMap (http://navimap.blogspot.com/2006/05/dubai-real-estate-bubble.html)

I visited Dubai in May '06. Upon returning to Singapore I drew the above NaviMap. So much has changed in two years.

Even as the prices of high end property is nose diving, the rental market remains relatively resilient. We paid 190K AED in in a single cheque for a year rental. Yes, for the uninitiated you are reading it right - One year's rental paid in advance. Stupid market. Last time, I checked Dubizzle, apartments like ours are still going for between 200 to 210K AED. This is a little better than when some landlords were asking for 220K AED and occasionally even 230K AED a few weeks earlier. The day of reckoning of the rental sector could be coming.

The market here is quite opaque, otherwise I feel prices would have responded faster. I wonder if they have not set themselves up for a fall over the cliff as a result. And as this happen to real estate, it should also apply to cars too, and an eminently depreciating asset to boot. We have decided to stay with pricey car rental (3.5K/month) for now.

There will be collateral damage of course - Lots of people will be laid off. We don't know if we will eventually join their swelling ranks, but I am sure except God nobody knows. So as confidence evaporates given that the crazy and greedy behavior of the past few years get exposed, commerce is braking towards a grinding halt. Once locked, the grease of liquidity has not been sufficient to remove the friction. It is because the road ahead on the old paradigm isn't tenable any more. As and when the path is secure again, governments and central bankers will discover there is too much liquidity. Some worry that it might take a war to make this happen. They pointed out that despite FDR valiant effort, he couldn't get America out of its economic malaise. It took World War II to do it. I don't know, this is too difficult for me to figure out. I just hope we are not entering a dark age. I haven't met anyone who can point the way to a new dawn yet but that does not mean there isn't one. My grand father generation will tell you that they felt the world ended when the Japs took Singapore. They could not be more wrong.

Conclusion: The future is beyond us to fathom, but let's have faith. If this is not good enough for you, go and read Taleb's, "The Black Swan" and get a good dose of intellectual humility.

"Ghim Moh" market

Don't you think this look like a wet market in Singapore and Ghim Moh's in particular. This is the wholesale cum retail Fruit and Vegetable Market near the driving school.

I spent some time there to watch some people come in pick ups to buy lots of vegetables, probably their daily supply for their food business. The bid-offer start off at 50%.

For small families like ours, it isn't worth making the long trip here. The quantities we need are small and it is a long way from our place - Almost like going from Queenstown to Changi Airport.

Car shopping

Visited several car showrooms yesterday. To go straight to the end, our conclusion is still the car we are driving now - the 2009 Honda Accord is best. We checked out the Toyota Camry with high expectations given the solid reviews it has received but feel that the accolades should have gone to its predecessor. This new model is very cramped at the back seats and the children didn't like it.

We were roundly impressed with the tiny Honda Jazz. It is a marvel in engineering and design but feeling it is not adequate on the safety aspect, we decide to pass.

Cars here are a world cheaper than back home. An entry level Accord will only set you back 83K AED or about S$33K. We can well afford to pay cash for it. Even back home we have always not taken a car loan unless it costs more to pay in cash. Yes, this is a stranger and stranger world isn't it? Your finance and economics texts would tell you that you always pay more taking on a loan. I can't go into the details here, but the concept is quite simple. In an integrating world, and don't we already try to teach our kids in school to think integratively across disciplines, there are full of surprises. That is why the financial markets have also become so confusing. The economics we have been taught were never sufficiently integrated with other disciplines to mentally prepare us for market surprises.

Back to car shopping. The Toyota showrooms while not crowded were receiving enough visitors to keep many of their sales executives occupied. Looks like the biggest wave of the financial tsunami is still on the way. We kicked the tires of many models - I mean it only figuratively before a sales person approached us.

At the Nissan showroom, the salesman lost interest and literally disappeared when he found out where were from. It didn't matter actually. He didn't know we will pay cash. Too bad. Perhaps most Nissan buyers take out car loans.

As to why we are not keen on SUVs, well for the same reasons Freakonomics repeatedly explains why people always do not make the best choices.

Christmas Gathering

We were invited to a neighbour's apartment for dinner last night. Yummy korean barbecue. Everything was excellent, and I especially like the bee-hoon and beef. I experimented with the lamb but as feared, it was less successful for me.

Christmas is not celebrated in the UAE. So the only thing that make me bill this as a Christmas makan was because we had bought presents for the children.

Back home, without fail for almost 20 years now, the same old friends will meet for a simple dinner and chit chat until the early hours of the morning. The children will be at the basement of the house having their greatest fun of the year. So you can understand how sad our girls were to live Christmas here as just another work day.

Well, at least we make some calls home to our old friends with our speaker phone on the 24th.

How big is big?

How big is the aquarium at the Dubai Mall. This is big (see above) but not bigger and less crowded than the one we visited in Monterey, California, which is considered among the top three in the world.

Accidentally Singapore

Like Ngee Ann City, the new flagship Dubai Mall by Emaar also has a christmas tree, only much bigger. We were surprised when we visited a few days ago, to see the symbols of Singapore pacing around the tree. A few days later when we were there again, but I didn't get a photo, they have even upgraded it to colour.

Creative TravelSound

The iPod may be the coolest MP3 player but I think the best sound comes from the Creative Zen XFi incorporating the namesake technology.

We badly wanted to buy the TravelSound for the Zen XFi before coming here, but it wasn't available yet. We had absolutely no luck getting it here until our new friend Jordan sent me a link to Creative's Ecommerce site for the UAE. Unlike my internet banking token from DBS, it took only slightly more than a week from the day I ordered to delivery via FedEx. Courier charges was only $8. I assume Creative has a special arrangment with them. In contrast my DBS internet banking token took weeks to arrive because the first one was lost in the mail. The second one came by speedpost and a local courier (probably contracted by Emirates Post) and cost me more than $40 and over two weeks of waiting.

Christmas cards stuck here

This is our box of pretty Christmas cards. None of them went out to any of you because we do not know where to buy the stamps. The only post office I know about is quite out of the way. Only yesterday did we discover that the mall we frequented the most, there is a post box on the ground floor (we almost always park our car on the first floor and so we missed it) and that one of the customer service desk also double up as a postal agency.

Well this is Dubai. Unless you are very rich, you will find things very haphazard and even hazardous here.

As at this time of writing, I believe they are still carting away a lot of the sewage in tankers to be treated. The situation is so bad that the typical waiting time for a tanker to dispose of its load is about eight hours. So it is little wonder that some of them prefer to find alternative dumping ground. Of course, some hours or days later the evidence will appear in all the wrong places!

Foggy on the 23rd

Sorry very busy. Have quite a few things I want to put up on this blog. Give me some time. Anyway above is a photo Daisy took from her office window two mornings ago. It was also very foggy this morning. I was a little nervous going on the road because of the recklessness of so many drivers here, but it turned out that my fear was unfounded because the fog seems to hog mostly the mid levels of tall buildings.

This morning, i.e,. 24th on the way to the driving school, (Daisy's turn to take lessons now) I saw a tow truck on the side of the freeway. I guess this an evil sign of an evil kelong waiting for unfortunate fish (wrecked cars). I wish him absolutely poor business.

Finally, a worthy bookstore

All the bookstores here have been disappointing until this one - Kinokuniya at the Dubai Mall. It is set up by the Singapore Kinokuniya instead of the Japanese parent. I think it is bigger than the one in Ngee Ann City, at least it is far more spacious. I came with several latest titles in my mind and tried to see if I could locate them. Passed with flying colours, I found all of them and more.

This is the bookstore to go to in Dubai. The others do not even begin to come close.

What car to buy?

I shall begin with a quote from the commander of Dubai Traffic Police department in today's Gulf News.

Al Mazroui said four-wheel drivers and drivers of towing vehicles specifically need to pay more attention and abide by speed limits, because it is more difficult for them to control their vehicles on wet roads if they speed.

Nearly everyone, including the relocation specialists assigned to us have advised me to opt for a 4WD vehicle. My research on the Web has suggested otherwise. When we first got here, we were given a 4WD.

Back in Singapore I will never consider a 4WD. I drove an Altis and my brother complained his Accord was too big for his family. I am really enjoying my rental Accord now and we would probably opt for a Camry eventually. I can even double up as a night shift taxi driver with that. Just kidding. Yes, I don't care that most taxis are Camrys. I think it is a practical and wise choice.

By the way petrol isn't dirt cheap here, only cheaper than Singapore and about the same price what the US consumer is paying now, US$1.77/gal.

Good bye to CL Teachers

The sign says, "Welcome!" but from today onward, there are no Chinese Language teachers to welcome the pupils. They have left and the school will have to look for replacement as quickly as possible.

CL is not a priority here. The teachers are very good but there are simply not enough curriculum time devoted to it. The girls would be horribly unprepared if they have to rejoin the Singapore system.

Our visit to Knowledge Village

Knowledge Village is a little "university town" next Internet City and Media City. We were there to have a quick lunch at the food court yesterday. I was told on Fridays, there are church meetings here.

Our new rental car

Last night we collected our rental Accord at the Mall of the Emirates. A few hours earlier, I had picked up my Dubai driver's licence. I prefer this to the company sponsored one when we first arrived here, but that Pajero was good when we were trying to set up home here. The big storage space at its back is very handy for the pieces of furniture we bought from Ikea.

Nature Downstairs

Some nature shots of my place taken on December 8.

Second hand bookshop

We have always enjoyed our visits to San bookshop and Sunny bookshop in Singapore, but second hand bookshops are no so common here. We finally found it of all places, at Ibn Buttuta which we visit so often. It was located outside the shopping complex. We never knew given the hot Dubai weather that there would be shops outside. We found many Enid Blyton's originals for Yi Lin here. We are glad that she is finally showing an interest to reading. We bought her seven books for less than the equivalent of S$40. If we return them, we get half our money back. There is no time limit.

No under one roof shopping here

The shopping malls here are very much larger than those in Singapore but true to what a friend told us, it is nearly impossible to experience under one roof shopping here. Here is my personal experience with book buying.

Before coming over, we were excited that Borders have a shop here but they are the biggest let down. Since we arrived in September, the shelf with the new non-fiction books still proudly display the same titles. The next time we are there, we should check how much dust have settled on them.

I finally found some of the latest titles e.g., "Snowball", "Outliers" and "The Ascent of Money" at various book shops. "The Ascent of Money", only one copy was available at Magrudy's branch in the newly opened Dubai Mall. "Snowball" and "Outliers" were discovered at City Centre Magrudy's but not at the larger Festival Centre outlet or the Ibn Batutta's branch.

Recently we collected our second order from Amazon.com. The three books I mentioned earlier, they are in my smart phone as ebooks.

As for Borders, why bother?

Jasmine Green Tea

Was quite surprised by serendipity to see a few cans of the familiar Pokka Green Tea at Choittram supermart in the Greens Village last night. We bought four with each costing us the equivalent of S$1.30.

If you take a closer look it is not exactly the same as the one in Singapore. This one is made in Malaysia.

For comparison a six-pack of Coke Zero costs between S$2.15 to S$2.35

From my balcony: The World's Tallest Tower

I didn't know I could see the Burj Dubai, which when completed will be the tallest building in the world, from my balcony. May be when it is ready, I will try to go up on it and spot my apartment from there. I used to amuse myself this way when I had my office in DBS Tower 2, Shell Tower and UOB Plaza 1. Yes, most of the offices I occupy happened to be above 40 storeys.

Aircon shelter at the Golf Course

I can see this faintly from my balcony but not until I took out my old Canon camera and zoom in did I discover that it is an aircon shelter on the golf course. We don't have something like this back in Singapore but we can find their equivalent at our Mandai Zoo.

Actually I am only guessing that this is an aircon shelter. May be if I get the chance to check it out in person, who knows, it might actually be toilets. The absence of windows has arose my suspicion.

Post Box: A rare find

I have been looking for a post box since I arrived in Dubai about three months ago. Finally we found one at Diera City Centre today, which is a very busy and noisy mall, I hope to avoid.

Beside the red post box is a much bigger thrash bin. What fantastic company this post box has got!

This post box is so small, and it is hardly full. It is easy to understand why. As it is hard to buy postage stamps, there must be scant need for many and large post boxes like we have back home. Furthemore Dubai does not have a zip or postal code system. It is the same in Ireland but the postmen in Ireland knows their way, I am not sure about Dubai. Taxi drivers routinely lose their way, which is not a problem for them as the bill is passed on to you.

Hailstorm in Dubai

(photo by Gulf News)

We missed the exciting hail fall in Dubai this morning, but got to know about it tonight in the Gulf News (sometimes euphemistically called the Good News here). See full report here.

Steamboat dinner at home

Today when we left the house about 11am, there was a light drizzle and the temperature made a new low of 15 degrees Celsius. On the way back, we bought stuff for a steamboat dinner. There will be many opportunities for such dinners in the next couple of months.

Our potted plants

Lin has been endlessly persuading me to buy her a potted plant to take care. I finally relented with not one by five plants. Only four are shown here, and they cost us the equivalent of S$4 including the box. They are beautiful little plants with outsized flowers, and they also happen to be Marigolds, which were my first flowering plants I grew as a kid.

It seems to rain every day now, which is beautiful provided it doesn't flood.

It was only raining lightly

I don't know how long the rain lasted last night. We tried to go downstairs for a walk in the early evening but had to abandon the idea because of the rain. It was very light rain and we didn't even know till we were downstairs.

The next morning there were pools of water every where. This is our second experience of what to expect, and so were more prepared going to work in the morning. The roads were uncannily quiet, probably because most people have taken advantage of the long holidays to go away from work.

Yet another mall

There are a great many malls in Dubai. On UAE 37th Independence Day, naturally a public holiday, we made a trip to the Dubai Outlet Mall. Most of the time, except for groceries shopping we buy almost nothing - the prices are wrong. We were pleasantly surprised to be able to pick up quite a few things on this trip. As usual, I got nothing for myself. I was almost tempted to buy a clock that reports both inside and outside temperatures, as I am always curious about how hot it is outside (at this time, I should say how cold actually).

Construction workers transported me home

This morning, I was disturbed by very loud talking from somewhere outside my apartment. I thought it was one of my neighbours practising preaching! I opened the sliding window to my balcony and what greeted me was two happy workers from the subcontinent chatting with each other. Today is UAE Independence Day, I thought most of them weren't working, perhaps their supervisors have the day off but not them.

I should have known better. Many years ago, before mobile phones became common, most calls outside were made with pay phones. Once late at night I was at Comcentre at Exeter road. There was an Indian man shouting over the phone (I assume he was calling home) and I could hear him loud and clear a good 300m away. These two incidents connected nostalgically in my mind.

A princess in school

Yesterday I was at the girls' school to pay the school fees when I chanced upon these pictures. They were so brightly and joyously litted that I just have to snap a couple of shots with my camera. I didn't know they were the work of a 9-year old princess who is joining the school.

The churches centre at Jebel Ali

Or click here for a larger view

I have heard about a row of buildings in Jebel Ali where the government has built and rented to churches to use. We finally got to visit one of them courtesy of friends here.

It is kinda of out of the way and not practical to visit unless you have a car. I didn't see anyone come by taxi at all. So only the relatively well to do are christians? At least those that come here are. We usually go to another church but half the time we are not at any.

UAE Independence Day

December 1 is UAE Independence Day. This year they celebrate the 37th anniversary of the union of six emirates. About a year later the last emirate joined and they become a federation of seven.

The girls' school has put in a lot of serious work to make this a special occasion. Everything you are seeing in this picture is done in-house. The key pupils involved were Zhen's class. Back home, the school workers would have put up the decorations. Here the teachers and students own it.

A garden city

For weeks I saw lots of workers planting on the road edges and traffic islands. It's time to showcase their work. They were seeding Marigold flowers. I love them. I used to grow them when I was a kid from seeds my mom's friend gave me. They had plenty in their kampung house and even a durian tree in their compound.

The last time I almost as many was in ChristChurch. This is such a welcome sight. Remember this is a desert and consequently these flowers become even more special.

Dressing Respectfully

"Please wear RESPECTFUL CLOTHING", I have seen this countless times on LCD displays all over the Mall of the Emirates. I had wanted to get a photo of it but never succeeded in getting an adequate shot until recently I spotted them pasting them on the glass doors to the mall.

The Mall of the Emirates attract many tourists, but I can tell you they mostly do not care. They are usually the ang mohs, and two of them succeeded at making themselves famous around the world by having open sex on the beach and was arrested by the police.

Now it is not just the ang mohs, Asian girls are almost equally over-exposed. Even today I spotted at least some in church dressed in shorts that are way above the knee. I would love to hear what the emiratis have to say when I get the opportunity. The last time I had the chance to speak to one, we were discussing the global financial crisis and Abu Dhabi reserves.

An "Iconic" view

This is the view with the Burj Al Arab every morning I walk the children into their school. The morning I took this photo, the scene was unusually beautiful and the temperature was a cool 21C.

The view will change as the winter arrives because unlike back home, the sun rises noticeably later and sets earlier. Of course, it was far more marked when we were in New Zealand. Well, just Geography 101.

Upgrading my IT infrastructure

I have been telling some of you about my new Skype speaker phone. Now you can see it above, i.e., the one marked with a red ellipse.

About one to two weeks ago, I bought a 19-inch LCD display for my 8.5" mini-notebook display. This is followed by a Logitech cordless keyboard/mouse and skype speaker phone system several days later.

The AcerOne notebook is wonderful but I often have to squint to read the tiny words. The skype speaker phone is equally wonderful because of its built-in "intelligence". It automatically configures and optimizes itself or skype. When a call comes in it automatically mute whatever sound or music the notebook might be playing.

The Samsung 19" LCD display is about S$220 and the Logitech system S$155

Skinny to Fat

We have noticed this for several weeks now. When we first arrived in September we didn't notice any free flying birds until one of my daughters pointed them out. They were invariably skinny and small looking. We laughed it off that birds here do not have hawker centres like back home to pick up after us, so they kinda of starve. Now the cooler weather is upon us and we have also noticed that the birds are fatter. Have they put on weight or is it a bird trick to keep warm by fluffing their feathers?

Fireworks as seen from my balcony

This isn't the very grand fireworks display at the Palm Jumeirah last night that blew a whopping US $20 million bucks. We didn't stay up to catch that one.

This one came as a surprise. I suddenly heard boom, boom, boom and went to investigate. This is what I managed to catch on video from my balcony.

Amazon.com: 10 days from the USA to Dubai

Got the rare call from the reception downstairs this morning to break to me some very happy news. The parcel from Amazon.com has arrived. We put in our order for express delivery only 10 days ago.

The trip from state side to Dubai was undertaken by DHL global mail. I had tought it would had been US Post. The journey to my place was undertaken by the elusive Emirates Post. I said elusive because I have never seen a postman in all my time here and there are also not many post offices.

Well I am not too happy that they opened the package for inspection. I think they are looking for forbidden books. They should have trusted us but then, they don't know us.

Here are the three books we bought. All of them you can't find at Borders or Magrudy here.

If I were in Singapore, I would just have to check them out from the NLB. Well in this sense the cost of living here is higher.

Waiting, waiting...

We are waiting for this flyover to be built. When this is done, the traffic congestion outside our estate will ease and I am glad that they are working day and night on it.

Dubai Mall - Only because it was convenient

On friday we skipped church in order to locate the meeting place of the fellowship that evening. The last time we met elsewhere, we had quite a hard time locating the residence. So we thought better scout it out first, not nice if we are super late.

The meeting place happened to be very near to the week old Dubai Mall. The traffic unlike opening day was very much lighter. We decided to check it out and here is a photo record of what we have found.




And here is a youtube video of the aquarium

First Rains

I was up as usual at 4.30am this morning. Curious what the temperature was like, I pushed the sliding door of our balcony open and was surprised to see droplets of water on the glass on our balcony. I thought who is this crazy fellows who threw water over their balconies above me. Cannot be, I think this must be rain drops and by now I am trying to slowly absorb what it means. I have not seen rain since we arrived in early September.

Indeed it was raining, when we got out into the open this morning we could feel it. The photo above, shot with my phone camera shows some slight flooding at the children's school. In Dubai, there are no drains, so water accumulate into pools very quickly. Now I wonder if we will have swimming pools every where when there is a down pour.

Seeing Home in a Flash Movie

Link to above Flash Movie is http://inspiringword.net/daily/all-dailies.php?day_is=1115

Found the above flash movie at my own website yesterday. What a joy to see pictures of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which I have personally shot myself. I never expect that I would be seeing it from so far away. Our family loves the Gardens. We have been there so countless times.

Dubai, and I was told even truer of Abu Dhabi, try to create green oases. Water comes down from the heavens to refresh the grounds in Singapore, but here in the desert water shoots from the ground up and falls back on the greens. I never grow tired of watching these sprinklers in action. It is just a beautiful sight.

I have produced so many flash movies, easily six or even seven hundred of them that I often cannot remember them. At times I feel like I am seeing it for the first time and it felt that another has created them.

Blowing much sand, but was it a sandstorm?

Shot this on my trusty Casio yesterday on the way to Times Square. It was interesting to see strong winds blowing up sand everywhere. What do you expect? This is the desert biome, and it has its beauty too!

No, it wasn't a sand storm. I am tempted to call it one but I know it cannot be. Never been through one, when we were in Beijing, we escaped it. One the day we went to the Great Wall we had clear skies and the driver tried very hard to tell us how fortunate we were. In many ways, we have been quite fortunate here too.

Cheers!

Property in Dubai: The calm before the storm

This guy mostly lifted this from online newspapers published here in the UAE. I have seen several copies of it the day before. LKY told investors to buy with your eyes open forgetting that it is easier said than done. I feel like telling LKY to go say the same to the great Sir Isaac Newton who lost most of his fortune in the South Sea Bubble.

What if you open your eyes but just cannot see, which is the problem with most people. You need trusted people to guide you! Again eaiser said than done because the greatest enemy of most investors are themselves.

Pause and think. Go back to the Supply/Demand balance. The key point here is that they can't sell so now they want to rent it out. What do you think would happen to the supply of rental properties? Up right? So suckers will bite first and then the smart ones will come after and have their pick.

Dubai is retrenching expatriates. There is growth, it is called negative growth. So the demand side is coming down against rising supply.

Should you trust what I say? No, not yet. You need some numbers which I do not have, but I have given you the trend. So if you need to act on this, you need more data.

Remember the middleman doesn't care if you make or lose money as long as there is transactions, he/she makes money.

Dubai rental market on the rise
Concern about the credit crunch has created a movement in the Dubai property market away from sales towards rentals, according to industry experts.

More and more properties are being marketed for rent rather than being sold on. ‘Speaking to brokers, we have noticed a shift in the market. Now that more and more properties are being completed, property owners are looking to rent their properties to manage mortgage repayments,’ said property event director Pooja Rajani.

The trend has also been noticed by Riad Kamal, the chief executive of construction giant Arabtec Holding. He said that more developers would become more reliant on income from property rents as the housing sales market continued to slow.

‘There is a huge demand for rented accommodation and that’s what is escalating the rent prices. What we are going to see is a healthy correction as more accommodation becomes available, helping to reduce the rents which today are just very unreasonable,’ he added.

However not everyone is reporting property falls. ‘Contrary to popular belief not all property prices are falling in Dubai. We see a very clear end-user market emerging both in terms of rental, investors for buy to let and owner occupiers in projects that are completed or close to handover,’ said Vincent Easton, sales director at Sherwoods Property Consultants.

‘The fundamentals and dynamics of both living and working in Dubai are still strong meaning the medium to long term outlook for real estate investment remain sound,’ he added.

Found! The Challenger Superstore equivalent

I have been looking for a computer superstore like the one we have back home in Funan Centre - Challenger. Today on an impromptu "look see" maiden trip to Times Square we found it. This one is really big, at least three times bigger than Challenger flagship store in Funan Centre.

The property market in Dubai

I just wrote something on my Facebook page on the above subject and I might write more over there because with the FB's fine privacy settings I can afford to be more candid. Here you have to wonder what I wish to tell but deferring to better judgement chose to sealed my lips, or may be harden my keyboard.

Even if bits and bytes are practically free, you must have noticed that I do not like to write too much. How to tell you that the real estate market is not well. Something I felt should have happened here two years ago but they were able to postpone it until now.

Yesterday, I bought ice-cream for the children after we had dinner with friends. In the ice-cream parlour was a very thick weekly property market magazine. I told our friends, let's do an experiment. Pick any page in this more than an inch thick magazine and let's see if it has bad news.

The first random page we flip to was total bad news. We repeated the exercise two more times, and got the same result. The only improvement is when one of the page carried adverts. After all, imagine when you flip you have the left and right page.

What is not said is more interesting and important than what is said.

Forget about the beautiful balcony

I finally dedicated some time to clean up our apartment balcony, and was quite satisfied with it now that the family can enjoy the wonderful panoramic views from so high up. The satisfaction didn't last long though. By early evening, the floor is so dusty that you don't want to go out to it any more until you have it mopped again.

This morning Google sent me a news article which explains why.




Desert Dust Quite High in Dubai
Lily B. Libo-on 12 November 2008


DUBAI - The prevalence of dust is quite high in Dubai and most parts in Middle East with the worst being registered in 2005, which was also due to the least amount of rain in the region, Eng. Redha Salman, Director of Dubai’s Health and Safety Department revealed on Tuesday.
He said that results of research works on air pollutants in Dubai showed that desert dust contributes around 25 to 30 per cent of the air pollution, local traffic, 20 to 25 per cent, and local industry and regional sources, 40 to 45 per cent.



Speaking on the air quality management in Dubai at the “EnviroCities 2008 International Conference”, he said the standard of air quality –as per the test- is within the World health Organisation’s standard and even better within UAE standards coming from its 96 readings performed daily.



Since 2003, Dubai Municipality has been reporting daily with a continuous programme monitoring the construction sites and moving earth equipment until 2015. “We are doing this because there is a continuous delivery of construction materials and moving earth day and night all over Dubai,” Eng. Salman said.



According to him, all projects carried in Dubai are subjected to environmental impact assessment before implementation.



He said that in 2006, power stations contributed to 25 per cent of air pollution, energy 21 per cent, industry 18 per cent, and motor vehicles were still the source of the most of it. “Dubai has 1.5 million people who live with their 75,000 vehicles,” he said.



Major air pollution recorded in Dubai coming from motor vehicles was 64 per cent in 2005, 61 per cent in 2006, but it tapered off to 53 perc ent in 2007.



“The reduction is traced to awareness of the fact that emissions from vehicles pollute the air. Dubai is highest among countries in the region in terms of car ownership with 541 cars per 1,000 population.”



Dubai Municipality uses the Remote Sensing Device that monitors the carbon dioxide infra red and ultraviolet, as research results pinpoint to 83 per cent of petrol vehicles emitting more than others.



lily@khaleejtimes.com

Dubai vs Singapore: Flowers

Yet another story that happened yesterday. I have been noticing this bed of flowers for many days as we need to drive by them each morning on the way to school. They glow in the morning light, much more beautiful than my modest camera is able to capture them.

Below are photos of the same type of flowers shot in Singapore along the bike track of the East Coast Parkway. This is not a fair comparison as these were shot with a better camera.

Roses for my wife

I have set up Google to inform me of blogs with "Dubai" and "Singapore" in them. Consquently I have come across so many blogs of people coming to Dubai to work but leaving their families back home. This explains why so many rental apartments are studio and one-bedroom types. It is another way of telling you that Dubai has become very expensive.

We are fortunate that the whole family is together in Dubai. Yesterday, I saw these roses and bought them for my wife. She has never appreciated floral gestures but I still go ahead anyway.

Last night I cook dinner

Back home, cooking for me means trivial stuff like maggi noodle, steamed rice, frying eggs etc., But last night I tried my late mom's recipie of not good to look at but nice to eat chicken wings. It is really simple and I believe just one look you can tell me how I have done it.

Moving to a new city changes your life. I don't think I would bother with this back home.

Dubai Brochure Life - Not for the most of us

This is something along the lines you are likely to see when they promote Dubai to the world. I call it the brochure life, i.e., it isn't real or true for most people living here.

I pass the Burj Al Arab (If you do not know or remember just know that this is perhaps the only 7-star and also tallest hotel in the world) every day. The girls' school is just a short distance from it.

Lectures on Road Signs and Safe Driving

25 years ago, when I passed my driving test on my first attempt, the drivers' training scene in Singapore was still very undeveloped. My driving instructor spoke to me in Mandarin, the basic theory test was called Highway Code test and there was no advanced theory test, much less formal lectures. I trained on the instructor's personal Datsun, now called Nissans. The training car had no aircon, no automatic gears and I also have to learn hand signals. There was also no circuit to train in. I was already out of the car park - read the equivalent of circuit, and onto the road by the third lesson.

I spent the whole morning at the driving school attending lectures. I was hoping to take my Signals test too but the RTA staff were off for the weekend.

Overall the quality of slides and the delivery by the lecturer was excellent. I wonder if those guys back home still use Singlish, but here the gentleman spoke very good English and is also very polite. Nobody were made butt of jokes or what we might say back home as, "tio swan". Some of the attendees were very active and gave very good answers to the questions asked.

Because of the 25-year gap, I can't compare this to Singapore, but I rate them quite highly.

Paying for water

You don't care much for the price of water when what you use for washing and bathing was good enough for drinking and brushing your teeth too. But here in Dubai, we always have to pay for drinking water at the restaurants and certainly also at home. Masafi is one of the cheapest and honestly none of us can taste its difference from the much more pricey Evian or Perrier.

Unlike tap water back home, mineral water is always consistent. What is unwelcome about it is every few days I have to truck up a six-bottles pack of it up to the apartment.

By the way, the children drink for free mineral water from big dispensers at school.

Just as well, there are no new-water here.

Squeezing our Pajero

You can be sure that our next car here would not be a Pajero or any of its brothers. They are just too clumsy to park in tight spaces. So yesterday when we happened to park it in front of this column, I just can't resist myself and took a picture of it.

Location: Spinneys supermarket at Jumeira

This was part of lunch

We have a very late lunch today. We went to this place, Ceramique something which is at the Mall of the Emirates. It is one of our girls' favorite. The food is OK, but what they enjoy is the chance to select a pottery piece and paint it as they wish. Here you can see that Lin has selected a pig. She is going to paint it pink but I can't show it to you here because we have to leave it behind for it to be fired. It would be ready for collection in about a week's time.

Superior Traffic Lights

I feel that the traffic lights here in Dubai are superior to those in Singapore. Don't get me wrong, they haven't move to LED types like we have back home. What they have done is to make the Green light flash first before turning Amber and then Red. Such a simple idea but it is wonderful for safety, and especially the colour blind.

It is all from this small camera

All the photos you have seen and will see are taken by this pocket camera. I carry it with me every where I go. I have a better camera it is but too big and impractical to take with me. No, it is not an SLR as I am not willing to take good care of it, much less learn to use it to its full potential. Nevertheless the limited equipment I owned have not stopped me from getting some fairly nice shots. See some of them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/singcher

By the way, I didn't pay a single dime for this camera. It came from points I accumulated buying stuff at Challenger before it was time to relocate to here.

Cumulus here are unusual

Just got texted by Daisy that there are clouds in the skies of Dubai today. Back home, this would be very ordinary but over here in the desert climate this is rare.

I have heard several times that sometime in the next few months ahead there will be a big spell of rain that doesn't stop for several days. Schools will be closed and there will be flooding. This is obvious because I find it next to impossible to find drains here. Back home they are every where and sometimes adults and more often children fall into them.

First driving lesson

Had my first driving lesson today, more than 25 years after I passed first time in Singapore. What did I learn? My instructor said I drove quite well but I also know I am likely to fail the test if I do not have a few familiarisation classes because the emphasis here is different. Also along the way, we have picked up advanced skills that the tester would not find acceptable.

Naturally I drove like a veteran and my instructor allowed me to go on a long tour faraway from the driving school. I went to International City, Academic City, Mirdiff etc., We had quite a bit of fun.

My instructor was quite good. He mixed fun with instruction on what testers in Dubai look out for. To him, I failed the roundabout test. The truth is actually a communication problem. At the roundabout, I mostly did not know where he wanted me to go, and so I often am forced to switch lanes when I am already in the circle!

By the way, you must have noticed there were so many unused cars in the training yard. I think they welcome a lot more business. Strangely the waiting time to begin training for non-VIP trainees is four months! I paid up for the VIP package, and it costs me bomb. My waiting time to my first lesson was just two weeks. Surely money is not everything but everything is money!

Morning Flowers

Above is a close-up photo of a tiny flower I took this morning. I was there at about 7.30am, hoping that Choitram, the supermart at the community centre near our place would be opened. I found out from the parking attendant that I was half an hour early.

This smaller photo gives you the larger context of the flower. There is so much beauty at the micro level if you slow down and look carefully.