Favorite Summer Activities

Ironically, when summer months are the time to hit the beach, summer in Dubai are the months most people stay away from parks and beaches because of fear of heatstroke. The temperature can rise up to 48 degrees Celsius. The rich will leave the country to cool off in other parts of the world. Those who are left behind will hit the shopping malls and make the most of annual Dubai Summer Surprises. This is also the time when hotel rates and entrance fees for waterparks are at its lowest.

Weekend get-away in Yas Hotel, Abu Dhabi

Anyway, here are my 5 favorite summer activities:

1. Shopping for winter clothes (you get a good deal of bargain)
2. Weekend getaway
3. Visiting Wild Wadi or Aquaventure
4. Barbecue nights with friends.
5. Camping.

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What Songs Make You Fall In-Love?

This week's GT is all about love music. I share with you my:

Top Ten Love Song Play List

1. At Last By Etta James
2. With or Without U by U2
3. Crazy In Love by Beyonce ft Jay Z
4. Close To You by The Carpenters
5. In My Life  by The Beatles
6. The Look Of Love by Diana Krall
7.I'm Yours by Jason Mraz
8. Your Body Is A Wonderland by John Mayer
9. She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
10.All songs from Norah Jones CD Come Away With Me.

I love love Norah  Jones' first album. It's a  CD i'll take on a deserted island lol! I just came home from work one day and dropped myself on the couch. I turned on the TV and there is this beautiful dark-haired woman singing with fresh voice while walking barefoot on the beach. I was stunned. In-love. And in tears.

I bought  her CD, made copies and gave it to my friends. I even gave one to an office mate i was crushing on (hoping he'll listen to the track I've Got To Se You Again) hahahaa charing!! I play it whenever I worked late in the office. Maybe I have replayed the CD too much that one day  I just heard my then boss (who is also a gifted musician) singing along with The Nearness Of You.

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What Music Do You Hate?

Girls Talk is going musical this month! The first week asks us to share what type of music we totally abhor.

I am absolutely not  a fan of techno, trance, or any of those electronic music. It drives me crazy. I also don't like grunge and heavy metal. I despise vocalists shouting or screaming at the top of their lungs. I've never been to a concert ever before but even if they give my VIP tickets to see Bon Jovi or Marilyn Manson, thank you but I'll pass them on to my friends. =)

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The Where: To Eat Out

Girls' Talk for the month of December is all about revisiting the places where we enjoyed to dine, date, have fun, or where you spent a fabulous vacation. I think this is very timely as it will give me a chance to wrap up our Best of 2010.

I am also writing this for the people planning to visit Dubai. All GT posts  will be divided in three:  Budget, Mid- Range, and Luxury.

Here my dear readers are the places I enjoy and recommend to dine.

Budget: Under 50 AED for 2

1. Taza (Branch in Rigga and Al Satwa)

**They serve the best fried chicken in the whole wide world. It's juicy, crispy, tasty. Hubby and I are never fond of fried chicken but that all change when we visited Taza. The food chain is originally from Saudi Arabia.

2. Tipanan/Tagpuan (Branch in Rigga and Al Karama)

**They are the unbeatable Filipino restaurant in Dubai. Although they do not serve pork,  their Bulalo Steak and Beef Asado makes up for it.

3. Picnic Restaurant (Al Satwa); WideRange Restaurant (Al Karama)

**They have the tastiest shawarma in town!

4. Jabal Al Noor (Al Dhiyafa)

**Is where you can get a good introduction to Biryani and Grilled Lamb chops

Mid Range: 200AED for 2

Any visitor to the city should experience what they call The Dubai Friday Brunch. This is where posh hotel restaurants open their doors to lavish intercontinental buffet including unlimited alcoholic drinks that even the most glutunous person would beg for the food to stop coming. But since this is done by almost all starred restaurants, I will choose which has the most unique ambiance

.

1. Planet Hollywood

**If you are a movie fan, this is the best place to visit. You can take time off from the sumptuous buffet and browse on the movie memorabilia around the place. There are entertainment for kids and they are served a different buffet as well.

2.Sezzam, Kempinski Hotel, Mall of The Emirates

**Whether you come to experience Dubai indoor-ski, or just content to watch from afar, Sezzam will give you a good view.

Luxury: 800+AED for 2

1. Al Muntaha

**For reasons that you can get inside the world's only 7-star hotel and get a good view of Dubai's skyline and the iconic man-made islands. Food as well is superb thanks to their multi-awarded Chef.

2. Farriers

**It is located in Jumeirah The Meydan and the best place to watch out for Sheikhs coming  for their afternoon tea. You will have a view of the racecourse where world millionaires run their horses (and yes a huge probability to see the horses from the Ruler of Dubai's stable). Moreover, the hotel is included in the filming of Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible IV. Need I say more? ((^_^))

Al Muntaha, Burj Al Arab

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Accessory & Apparel Shopping

 For those who have been following my blog, you know I am a huge H&M fan. When words "Further Reductions" are emblazoned on their store window, I buy my Andreas' clothes, hats, jackets and Hubby's office wear and suits.

My son in his H&M First Birthday suit

Carrefour  Clothes section is also my favorite place for budget friendly clothing. Kids' apparel are known to be expensive but with luck, you can find bargains such as these:

Each costs 14 AED ant they usually sell for 50AED in other baby stores.

And because it is gift-giving season, I buy some from Marks & Spencer because of their gift boxes. It saves me time and still saves me money.





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Homeware & Houseware Shopping

 When we buy something for our apartment, we are loyal customers to four stores: Ikea, Home Center, Dragon Mart, and Carrefour.

Most of our furnitures are from IKEA. Bed, side table, sofa, divider, office chair, baby high chair we buy them all there. It is cheaper (because we have to assemble them  at home), functional with brilliant design (Ikea is Sweden 's most popular furniture export), and of good quality.

Our Queen Size Ikea Leksvik. In the headboard there are two adjustable shelves with hidden compartments underneath for convenient storing of newspapers, magazines, etc.

 

Home Center, is where I buy our place mats, table runner, photo frame and everything else we need to perk up our nook. Their fabulous oriental designs sell far more cheaper than other homeware stores.

Dragon Mart is where I buy our bed linens. Chinese embroidery always appeal to me =)...and those silk sheets never fail to give a luxurious feeling - and a posh appeal of course.

For my baking utensils, I buy them at Carrefour Homeware section.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank my always generous Hubby, for buying my current kitchen best friend - Kenwood Robot Culinaire. Mwaah!

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At The Beauty Section

I splurge on fragrant body moisturizers. Although the weather in UAE rarely allow us to generously apply moisturizer at daytime (as it can get very hot and sticky) -- i love, love to sleep smelling yummy ((^_^))

Here are my two favorite shops for body moisturizers.

The Body Shop for their body butter. A soft skin pampered in papaya body butter is the next best thing to wake up to in the morning =)

And I was ecstatic that finally, Bath & Body Works opened in Dubai.  Over the weekend, I asked Hubby if we can drive to Mirdiff City Center and check it out. The store was huge and very, very busy. Oh it's one of those things you love about America!

I was soo thrilled to be reunited with one of my favorite winter scents: Black Raspberry Vanilla. I always opt for fruity scents on summer and vanilla based scents for winter. To have them both in one lovely moisturizer bottle is simply gorgeous.

45AED for 330ml

Really, if you want to make me happy, they're all I want for Christmas. ((^_^))

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Grocery Trip

We head to Carrefour once a month for most part of our grocery. Poultry, coffee, energy drink, condiments and whatever else we need to fill the cupboard. For our fresh vegetable and fruit supply (because my boys are such fruit addicts) we buy from Spinneys and Al Manama Supermarket which is just across our street. For our pork supply, we visit the discreet section at Waitrose.

I do keep a list because it saves so much time and money. Plus I also do not go to the supermarket hungry or I end up hoarding pastries.

From a recent grocery trip. You can see my son's small hands reaching for his mango juice in tetra pack.

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All Time Favorite Books

Howdy my visitors! Thank you so much for dropping by again. We come to the last part of book topic for Girls Talk. I will share with you today, my best loves.

::Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt::

I read this back in 2004. My copy was a gift from my good friend G. First two pages and i knew the book will be my favorite for a long time to come. When I started going out with my ex-boyfriend (now the Husband), I was very eager to share the book with him only to find out that it was his favorite read as well LOL! From then on, we collected all the works of the author including his brother, Malachy's.

Angela's Ashes is a memoir by late Irish-American Frank McCourt. In a most amusing yet heart-wrenching manner, McCourt tells the story of his childhood and poverty  in Brooklyn and Ireland...."Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."

The book is graphic with human tragedy. An alcoholic, jobless for a father. A heroic and yet pathetic for a mother - Angela. They had 11 kids, three of them died....."The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live. My brothers are dead and my sister is dead and I wonder if they died for Ireland or the Faith. Dad says they were too young to die for anything. Mam says it was disease and starvation and him never having a job. Dad says, Och, Angela, puts on his cap and goes for a long walk."

Anybody who had a dysfunctional  childhood (like I did)  will love McCourt . One  will greatly admire that he survived and thrived and went on to become a genius despite enormous nutrition (among others) deprivation.

::Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett:::

 Like my copy of Agatha Christie's, this book was sold for 1AED from the Charity Book Sale. The only difference was, this is a battered copy. The cover was falling off but I so wanted to read at least one work of Neil Gaiman and this is my only cheapest chance. Besides, the book looked very lonely among the pile with its black cover and weird graphics. After checking that the pages are complete, I paid and clutched it home. I'm glad that the appearance didn't put me off because it's a treasure. I can read it over and over again.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter..that is the complete title. I know Gaiman (I have no idea who Pratchett is) is a fictional writer but I had to re-read the first page thrice I just didn't know where he was coming from!...."the world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea..."...beat that.

The book is a huge comedy. It's the funniest book i've ever read. I should have included it in the books that make me laugh post but I felt Good Omens deserves more than that. Okay, I admit, i cried towards the last part. When Adam Young came to realize he was not at all mortal and that he didn't want the world to end yet - even though he only needed to nod to make it happen.

There you have the plot, the world is going to end through the anti-Christ's making. Aziraphale (the Angel) and Crowley (the Devil) do everything in their power not to let this happen (yes, the good and the bad working together, meeting up for coffee). Because they had been in the earth for such a long time ,that people and sushi and Bentley have endeared to them.

When I Googled about the book. I learned that Pratchett completely shadowed Gaiman's writing on the book. I am now in search of all of Pratchett's works. 

I leave you then with one of my favorite quote:

"Crowley rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse."

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It's Thriller Time!

Girls Talk this week asks about our bet books for suspense. Here are my picks:

::The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie::

I read the book two months ago. I bought it for 1AED at a Charity Book Sale. I have no knowledge of Agatha Christie except that she is a celebrated mystery writer. I bought it specifically because I wanted to read at least one of her works (and it had baby pink paperback cover lol!). It turns out, I got a very good bargain (the book was brand new) because The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is considered one of her most famous and controversial work. One short autobiography in UK even hailed the book as Christie's masterpiece.

Published in 1926, this detective fiction features Hercule Poirot, the lead to solve the murder. There was an initial suspect and then soon everybody was being questioned. The book ends with an unprecedented plot-twist that made an enormous impact on the genre. Although it is a suspense mystery, there were a lot of funny lines especially pertaining to the character of Caroline Sheppard. Oh you will adore her too when you have the chance to read.

::A Time To Kill by John Grisham::

This is one of my favorite books and I think  is the best book yet of Grisham. It contains my favorite book character of all time, Lucien Wilbanks. I have yet to see the movie version and I am interested to know who played his character LOL! The book endeared to me more when I learned that Grisham practically had to sell the book through his car trunk after  being rejected numerous times by publishers!

This legal suspense thriller is about a black girl raped by two rednecks. The town reacts with horror until the girl's father takes justice into his own hands. He kills the two whites on their way to jail. For days, the nation sits spellbound as the defense lawyer struggle to save his client's life and his own.

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Funnny, Entertaining Books

My picks are the Shopaholic series, Harry Potter Series, and a novel by John Grisham.

::Shopaholic Series by Sophie Kinsella::

Meet the charming Becky Bloomwood from the Shopaholic novel series. A very good friend in college recommended this for light reading. A year after coming to Dubai, I finally laid my hands on them. Oh, Becky is the perfect companion by the beach as you read her adventures in shopping.

::The Harry Potter Series::

Reading dialogues of Hagrid, Hermione, Neville, and The Weasley Family will have you roaring with laughter. It may not look fun at all in the movies but reading wizarding world is funnier that you could ever imagine.

::The Brethren by John Grisham::

 

This is not a great book but thoroughly entertaining. Unlike the usual Grisham formula, there is no showdown in the courtroom. The Brethren is about three crooked judges (who call themselves The Brethren) serving their time in federal prison. They unofficially handle inmate disputes within the fences.

The Brethren needed money when they go out of prison eventually so they began a scam, placing tiny adds on the back of magazines, targeting gay, wealthy men. They exchange letters until their penpals are identified before sending extorion letters.The Brethren succeeded on many occasion until they conned the wrong man and got the CIA to watch them.

The characters are not interesting but how Grisham explained their actions and the details of their scam is absolutely funny!

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Books That Made Me Cry

Girls Talk is all about books for the month of October. We are to share what made us Timberlake like a river, books that made us laugh, books that kept us awake all night.

For a start, the Thursday is asking us to share what books made us cry. Here are my picks:

::Heaven and Earth::

It is an autobiography of Vietnamese girl named Le Ly Hayslip. It paints a haunting picture of the war that divided her country. Her strength and courage help her survive the Americans, the Viet Congs, and the South Vietnamese soldiers.

The book opens up your mind on almost everything about humanity. It made me feel so lucky to have choices. To have freely chosen the husband I wanted. To have the choice to give myself firstly to him, after all those years of taking care of myself. Le Ly, on the other hand was taken against her will. The irony was, it wasn't the foreign soldiers who took over the village. She was violated by her own people - the Viet Congs - whom her family trusted, defied the rules for, and fought beside.

There was so much to learn from Le Ly's tale. It will make you sad, cry, and will make you advocate not to wage war with another country.

::Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck::

I read this back in college and yet almost eight years, I still feel a pang of sadness every time I hear about the book. It is a story about two male friends, both grown up. The other is simple-minded that the other one is forced to look after him. And then one of them "does a bad thing."

Some may find it harsh and violent but the characters are endearing and will probably stay with you for a long time.

This is a short story - you can finish the book in a day or two if you are planning to read it. It's also a great introduction to Steinbeck's works.

::My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult::

The novel is keeping me further from reading the rest of Picoult's work. I lost count how many times I had to put down the book and sob lol! It is about a 13-year-old Anna who sues here parents for medical emancipation when she is expected to donate kidney (among others) to her sister who is dying of leukemia.

::Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix::

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan (but sad to say, I still have to save up and buy the 7th book. grin). I cried like a baby when Sirius Black (the godfather of Harry) died. Thinking Harry to be orphaned for the second time almost gave me emotional breakdown lol!

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