Picnic!

Yesterday Liz and I went for a picnic. Yes, that's right, a picnic here in Al Ain!!
You see, there is a random mountain (giant jaggered rock) on the outskirts of Al Ain called Jebel Hafeet, at the base of which they have made a (totally man-made) green park-like area called "Green Mubazzarah". Basically, someone decided it would be a good idea to make a green park in the middle of a dessert, where the desert sands meet the mountain rocks... or so it would seem. The result is really beautiful. The irrigation costs must be out of this world, but it's really pretty to see at the rolling green park with rugged rocky outcrops behind.

Liz and I headed off in the car, with our picnic stuff loaded and a fairly good idea of how to get there. We knew how to get to the mountain, but not exactly where to go once there. On the way, we passed by "Paradise" (the public gardens in Al Ain which hold the world record for the most hanging baskets in a row or something random like that), and since it wasn't open the last time we went to see it, we decided to quickly turn off the main road and take a look. From the road Liz could see people walking around the gardens, so we guessed it must be open. Sure enough... it was!!
Paradise was really nice. Absolutely free to enter, it was like slipping out of the desert for a while and back into the green colourful countries we're from. There were flowers EVERYWHERE, and the place was like an ocean of colour. There was a miniature Eiffel Tower, and green grass lawns and sculptures and benches, and the sweet scent of flowers that is so easy to take for granted back home, but which we don't get to smell much here. The "security" staff were a bit serious, but otherwise it was a very happy place to visit and we were both glad we made the last minute decision to drop in and check it out on the way to our picnic. We'll definitely go back there again.

After our brief but refreshing wander around Paradise, we got back in the car and headed to Green Mubazzarah. Once we arrived there, we parked the car on the side of the little road and took a wander around the hills a bit. It was really fun to be outdoors and "doing stuff". We used to make lots of excursions and do random outdoor things in Japan. We lived in such a beautiful area, but here it's just sand and rocks, and it's too hot to do stuff outside for the most part. It felt so nice to just wander freely around in the mid-morning sun. It wasn't too hot, and there was a bit of a gentle breeze... well... to start with at least...

Not long into our excursion the temperature increased and the breeze died down and pathetic old me started getting hot and sweaty. haha. We decided to head back to the car, get our picnic things and find a cool shady spot for an early picnic lunch.

From the car we could see a grassy area with several date palms dotted around, and decided that looked like a nice place to picnic. We chose a nice flat spot in the shade of one of the palm trees. We spread out our blanket and had a very nice picnic. It was so peaceful and relaxing. Again, this is something we have missed doing since we came here, but now that we know where to go, we'll be sure to do it again and again.
While we were picnicking, we were visited by two very curious birds. They had zebra striped wings, long beaks and a tuft of feathers sticking out the back of their heads! They sort of walked around sticking their long beaks into the ground and pulling out grubs or worms or whatever. I looked the birds up online and it turns out they are called Hoopoes (pronounced hoopoo). Pretty neat! Oh, and the best part... when a mina bird flew down to say hello or something, it startled the hoopoes and so they spread out their head feathers into a kind of mohawk!! VERY cool!!
Liz tried to take some pictures of them, but our camera lens isn't really good enough for that sort of photography. We need to get a bigger lens. Here's Liz's picture:But since you can't really see, I grabbed this picture, care of google! So, full credit to google for this one:

Oh, and the date palms that we were sitting under were in bloom!! Yes, have you seen a date palm flower? I never had. It was the first time for me, so I have added a few photos here for you, in case you are interested like I was. Dates taste pretty bloody good, so I thought it was interesting to see where they come from.

Flowering date palm

flower close-up

The baby dates starting to form on a different tree

Anyway, that's probably enough nature observation for one blog entry! haha
Summary: Paradise and Green Mubazzarah are fantastic places for the greenery-deprived in Al Ain!

Like Sands through the Hourglass...

It's 12:36pm on Saturday. As I write this blog entry, the call to prayer is being broadcast across the neighbourhood. It's as if even the wind paused for a moment to let the call to prayer though. It has been windy all morning. All day yesterday for that matter, too. Being in the middle of the Arabian Desert here, the wind is full of sand. It's not sand like you'd find at the beach back home; it's much finer and more like flour or dust in consistency. In Al Ain, the desert sand is orangey brown. It's actually a very nice colour, and it looks beautiful in the desert... but I don't like to see it in my house, on my car, in my hair, on my face, and in the malls... etc.

Yes, it's a windy sandy day here in Al Ain. Actually, in the time it's taken me to write these few sentences, the call to prayer has stopped and the wind has started back up again. It blows in through the crack under the doors. Today and yesterday I have swept the floors around the doors four times to clear up the sand. We put brush-guard things on the bottom of our external doors here when we first moved in, and I'm sure it makes a huge difference, but it still doesn't block 100% of the sand.

Yesterday we went shopping in the middle of the "sand storm". It wasn't a serious full blown sand storm, just a windy day with lots of sand in the air. It was like driving in fog, only it was yellowy-orange sand dust in the air. After a coulple of hours in the mall, we came back out to find our car covered in a fine layer of sand dust. You can't really see it in the picture below, but you can see the sand accumulating at the base of the windscreen.

The car in front of us had been there for a bit longer than us, and its windscreen had significantly more sand...

We also went to our local supermarket afterwards for some more supplies, and found the carpark there quite sandy:

looking to the right of the parked car. You can see the snake-like lines of sand blowing towards me.

looking to the left of the parked car, you can see more sand blowing around and piles of settled sand in the car park

Liz (just out of the shot) making the mad dash through the dusty/sandy wind from the car to the shop. It's a shame you can't see the dust blowing round in the air, but note the piles of sand around the parking lot. Like snow drifts, but sand... haha

Driving back home from the supermarket there was sand blowing all over the road. It looks like orange smoke slithering or dancing around on the surface of the road. It's really awesome to watch, actually. Liz took a short video of it with my cellphone, but sadly you can't really see most of the fine dust for some reason, but you can still kind of see a bit of sand blowing around.

I tell you what, it's a real experience living in the desert. We had our challenges and thrills in Japan, and now we have different ones here. I suppose this is where one could be somewhat poetic and talk about how we all could be likened to grains of sand, part of the bigger picture, being blown in one direction or another by the winds of time... but luckily for you I won't go there today. Instead I'll go get the broom and sweep up the fresh lot of sand that has settled under our doorway again.

Horsin' Around

A couple of weeks ago Bryn and I started to notice posters all over Al Ain for the Al Ain International Showjumping Championship World Cup Qualifier - Yes, please!


I used to go to the Washington International Horse Show every year to see the show jumping live. I know it bores a lot of people, but I think it's exciting (also, it helps that I am horse-crazy!) I was so excited when I saw the ads for the show.

Even though it was a 3-day show, we went on Friday (there were no schedules posted on-line...only the posters which said the show started at 10am daily.) We got there, and they happened to be on lunch/prayer break. We finally found a flier with the order of events. It said that the next class was to begin at 2:30, so we decided to grab lunch at the rugby club (in the same complex as the equestrian center), and go back after a bit.


We got back to the show ground at about 2:15, and they were just finishing a class!!! Typical. We only had to wait about 30 minutes for them to drag the arena and re-set the jumps, though.


It was a lot of fun, and I think we got some good action shots! (Still, they would have been better with this lens in silver.)