Dubai Shopping Festival / Pharmacy hawkers

The Dubai Shopping Festival has started once again. I know there's all kinds of sales, etc. on at this time, but I find that people shop a lot throughout the year; it can't be that shopping increases that much more during the Shopping Festival? If so, it must hit epic proportions this next month!

So I went to my local pharmacy earlier today as I have a cold. All I wanted was cough syrup and drops, yet the new pharmacist there kept trying to paw off other medications on me. I asked if the syrup would help me sleep and he brought out sleeping pills and tried to convince me to buy them (cough syrup, cough drops and sleeping pills-- now THERE's a good combo!). Then he tried to have me buy antibiotics to help clear some supposed phlegm in my chest (this after I chose a cough syrup that would do the job). Finally he tried to have me buy multi-vitamins with calcium and when I told him I had multi-vitamins at home, he was convinced that they couldn't have Calcium in them and kept on with his sales pitch until I told him to STOP, I was not buying anything more. Had I bought what he suggested, I would have walked away with cough syrup, medicated drops, sleeping pills, antibiotics, and multi-vitamins with calcium. This on top of my asthma meds which I'd told him about. Talk about possible med OD... yikes, what was he thinking?? I was so annoyed with the 'hawking' of goods that I left as fast as I could and swore I'd never go back there again. Hopefully there's another pharmacy in my area that doesn't do that.

Dubai Outlet Mall

Yesterday I went out to the Dubai Outlet Mall for the first time. I took about 3.5 hrs to walk through the entire complex. There are lots of great stores there and great deals to be had. I was slightly disappointed because I had hoped there'd be a home furniture store there, but no such luck. The closest I got was a store that sold dishes, cooking pots, etc. I did take the time to check out the clothing store and was quite impressed overall. Next time I need clothes, I think I'll head to the outlet mall to check the deals out. Some of the stores include Mango, Monsoon, Nike, Puma, stores that sell Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger clothes, Massimo Ditto, etc. It's worth checking out!

Muse of the Day

So I'm driving on the highway and take an off-ramp on my way to a shopping area. Right at the junction of the two roads are two signs: The first one says "Shopping Area" with an arrow pointing me in the right direction. The second sign says "BinLadin onsite office" with an arrow. I had a good chuckle about that-- apparently he has his own office here! (Okay, so it's really a construction company, but I still found humour in the sign. It was almost as good as the company's "Sorry for the inconvenience- binLadin" under construction signs you occasionally see around).

Vieux Quebec

On my way to St Jean sur Richelieu for Christmas, I stopped over in Quebec City. The next morning, I went to Vieux Quebec (Old Quebec) to look around. This area of Quebec City was settled by Europeans in 1608 when Samuel de Champlain made his way up the St. Lawrence River to an area known as "Hochelaga" by the Native Peoples. This town quickly developed into a full-fledged French city, complete with food stores, furriers, schools (run by the nuns/priests). The city and the settlement also gave birth to the "coureurs de bois" (runners of the woods) who would trap animals for fur/ trade goods with Native Peoples for fur, then return to the city and sell the furs to traders for a profit. The French government tried to control this trade and began licensing men to do this job. The 'legal' fur trappers were called 'voyageurs' (travelers), while the others were still referred to as 'coureurs de bois'.

Another group of people who rose out of this settlement were the "Metis" (May-tee). The French trappers often married Native women and their children were called "Metis". There are literally tens of thousands of Metis in Canada today.

Quebec City was the stronghold of France in North America and was the site of the big 'show down' between the French and English in 1755 during the 7 Years' War (US history books refer to it as the "French and Indian War"). The battle for supremacy in North America took place on the Plains of Abraham with Montcalm leading the French and Wolfe leading the English. At the end of the battle, both leaders were killed and the English won the war, leading North America to become a primarily English continent.

International Day

This week our school held an International Day. It was really cool! We have 57 countries represented at the school. We had display booths with information and food samples as well as a "parade of nations" around the school's field. I managed to eat my way around the world without leaving the gym! A good time was had by all...

Sharjah Carpet Souk

I think my favourite place in the UAE is the Sharjah souk. It's real name is the Central Souk, but we all call it the Blue Souk because of the blue tiles on the exterior. I love going there and checking out all the different carpets and somehow I always end up leaving with one...

Back from Bahrain...

Just arrived back from Bahrain. It was an interesting place. They're building like mad and there's lots of interesting buildings that are going up around the island, yet there's still a sense of days gone by; walking around the hotel, I could see some dhows on the shore across the street being loaded up with goods.

The souk was like all of Dubai's souks rolled in to one. There was a gold souk area, a tourist area and a spice/clothes souk area. It was neat to walk around, but there really wasn't anything there that I couldn't find in Dubai. Thursday night in Bahrain is hopping with all the Saudi nationals coming over (Saudi's linked to Bahrain by a bridge) to do shopping. I enjoyed it, but it is definitely not Dubai.

Flying back from Bahrain was an adventure. It's a 45 min flight and we were 1.5 hrs late leaving-- not sure why, but it will definitely be the last time I fly Gulf Air. I was not impressed with the service at all. I'm switching to Emirates! The one nice thing about the flight is that I could look out over the ocean and see the waters dotted with dhows, all lit up as they floated along. It was so amazing-- it was black as far as they eye could see except for these bright yellow/orange dots on the water.