-it takes 4 months to ship ur stuff from canada to the uae
-there will be mildew on ur rock and republic jeans when it finally gets here
-you will get sick from inhaling the mould and mildew while unpacking
-your grade 9 yearbook won't make u feel nostalgic as much as it makes you feel nauseous
-I haven't slept in my bed in a week.
-We have to wash atleast 20 loads of laundry
-I have to study for atleast 3 hours a day this week.
What the heck! When did this become my life?
The status of my disGUSTing room right now. Can't wait to get my organizing on
On a happier note, one of my favourite things is here! :)
and Ahilia, if u are reading this - YES. its urs.
Today, I realized that I haven't gone out for sushi in over 4 months! Which is pretty much since I moved from Toronto. Where do you find good Japanese in town? Only my dubai-savvy brother would know. So, we went off in the wrong direction toward Jumeirah Beach Road to find SUMO Sushi. Lesson: Nishanth gives the worst directions ever. An hour and too much green tea ice-cream later, we couldn't resist a beach side drive. Even though we were so NOT in the mood for more food, I was on a mission to find a little seafood shack by the beach called "bu qtair". The renowned cafe is supposedly super hard to find - So I figured this is a good time to walk around and explore-burn off some cals. All of a sudden we see a ton of kites in the sky by the beach. KITESURFERS?!
We stuck around for a while and then continued our search for this "bu qtair" ... turns out we were nowhere near it. We finally stopped and asked people for directions after we hit a dead end twice. I had no intention of eating cause I was still so full, but since it was so hard to find and there was so much build up and hype around it - we figured it would be best to get some shrimp to take home. After many parking failures, wrong turns and sand, we found the place! Turns out it doesn't open until 6.30pm... END SCENE.
I went home and slept for five hours. The sushi experience is just not complete without "itis" right after. Anyways, this is January in Dubai! I have to say that post-christmas people are much nicer. Malls are friendlier and people seem to be more relaxed on the roads. However, it's only two weeks into the new year. I'm sure the resolutions will soon wear off.
PS. I REALLY want to take up Kite Surfing. Look out for a "How to Kite Surf" post coming soon!
BU QTAIR!!!!
Love and Peace from the middle east. <3 .. i've been wanting to say that for a while now lol
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I know I've totally abandoned my blog for Christmas and New Years - but I promise to make up for it through this month and this year. So here's a quick update on life ... December was mostly filled with family, food and INDIA..
My brother and I left to India for a week on Christmas night and got back after new years. We literally went prepared to camp out for a week- we were going to be trekking it to the mountains of southern India for about 5 days with a bunch of our cousins. A few words to describe this once-in-a-lifetime experience would be - illegal travel, illegal flowers, excessive food, leeches, a water snake, spiders, mountains, a taxi strike, rivers, frogs, elephants, beauty, family and cameras. I'm pretty sure there was tequila somewhere in between.
The Wayanad district of the state of Kerala (where we were heading) is about a 12 hr, overnight train journey from the city we landed in (Chennai/Madras). Since we booked our trip so late - there were eight of us and only six train tickets. Clearly, that didn't stop us - So, let the games begin. We planned our scam better than Ocean's Eleven and illegally got to our destination with sneaky smiles on our faces.
It was 4.30am and pitch dark when we got off at our stop to meet our driver for the next 4 days. His name was Shafoor and he was a noob to say the least (keep reading for an explanation). We got to our "resort" on the mountain at around 7am just as the sun came out, had breakfast, and confidently went off to explore the forest.
The mountains as we entered Wayanad
Here are a few excerpts from our adventures:
Leeches.
-"Oh Hey, what's that thing by my.. omg.. is that a worm? .. omg! WHAT IS THAT?!" *shriek*
- "!@#$%^&*" -"i'm bleeding"
-"OMG IT'S ON ME TOO" *voice cracking*
-"GUYS, its DOING SOMETHING!!!!" *kicking the air really hard* - "I need to salt this fucker"
-"Shit, it's in my socks!!"
Lesson: If you want to get a leech off you - pulling it off is a bad idea. It leaves an enzyme by the area its on which does not allow your blood to clot, so you would bleed for a longer time than necessary. The best way to get a leech off you is to SALT it. It will naturally release itself from ur body and die.
Exploring, right before we got leeched.
The leech sucking on my cousins foot
The leech post-salt
Elephants. We woke up at 4.30 am and drove for almost 2 hours to a wildlife sanctuary. Ofcourse, we lose our way to the point that we ended up in a different state - all thanks to Shafoor. As we were figuring out how to get back, the sun was rising and the fog was clearing up on the roads that were surrounded by forest. Just as we headed back, my cousin spotted a family of elephants through the fog.
It was so beautiful! The baby elephants were the cutest! They moved really slowly and graciously. We watched them for a while through the mist, took some pictures and left before they noticed us there. No camera can really capture this moment.
Rivers Shafoor drove us in and around the mountains, I guess it would have been really pretty, but I slept for the most part. Finally, we got to the place everyone at the resort was raving about. I imagined the place to be a serene jungle with vines and rivers and cool animals - I was upset that I had forgotten to bring my bathing suit.
In reality, we got off the car and it was SO crowded. I immediately felt naked in my shorts and tank top since every other woman/girl was fully covered with Indian clothes. I'm pretty sure I would have been arrested for indecent exposure if I had worn my bikini. We hurried off to get a guide and then followed him clumsily while he expertly walked through the rivers and forest. As we got deeper into the forest I asked him if there were alligators or crocodilios in the river. He confirmed that there were, but they were more upstream and didn't ever bother to come down to where we were. NOT comforting at all.
Overall, this was an amazingly fun day! We had a small snack while playing in the water inside the forest and then later stopped off at this tiny little shack to have a meal on the way back to the resort.
Spiders and illegal flowers I hate plucking flowers, but we were kayaking at a lake close by one morning and found a million water lillies - I just had to. Little did I know that I was going to get fined for plucking it. Yes, we paid 50 rupees for deflowering the lake.
We also found the COOLEST spiders around town and unfortunately, one was inside our room as well. Even though I hate the thought of one of these creeps beside me or on me - they were pretty fascinating in the wild.
Taxi Strike Strikes in Canada involve a few picketers and maybe a couple of news reporters scouring the area for a decent story. Strikes in Kerala,India = being stoned. Lucky for us, we were a huge family with women and children (sort of), so they were kind to us. However, we did get pulled over about 3 times by the picketers. And each time, Shafoor got yelled at for not supporting the strike. It took about 10-15minutes of reasoning with the strikers to get us off the hook. One time, the cops came to rescue us too. It was scary at first, it later become funny and annoying.
