Culture – Page 9 – Ruth Badley

Let’s do brunch!

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:10th March 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living Food UAE
Post comments:1 Comment

The UAE working week is Sunday to Thursday and I thought it would take me ages to get used to thinking of Sunday as a working day. Not a problem. I’ve come to realise you can take pretty much anything in your stride if the sun is shining. The weekends appear to come round a bit faster, if anything, over here and the Thursday night traffic suggests that people would like to get their weekend underway even sooner, if they could just get to their destination in time for the party. (more…)

Bling it on

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:2nd March 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living Shopping UAE
Post comments:0 Comments

Understated, subtle, restrained and unadorned. Dubai does not understand these concepts, much less live by them. How very refreshing.

Perhaps it has something to with the dazzling sunlight bouncing off the city’s waterways and courtyard pools, or the way the glass and marble facades of the buildings appear to glimmer in the heat of the day. Glitter and sparkle seem almost natural elements here and quite appealing to this Brit, recently arrived, with skin as pale as whitewash from too many Yorkshire winters. (more…)

Dubai’s desert heart

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:21st February 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living Shopping UAE
Post comments:1 Comment

For three weeks Dubai has put on its best welcome for two sun-starved Brits that blossomed in the warm glow of UAE’s ‘winter’ temperatures. Since our arrival the need to even wonder about weather conditions has seemed slightly ridiculous because every day has brought uninterrupted sunshine and clear blue skies. We started to get confident. Big mistake. (more…)

Taste for local knowledge

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:18th February 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living Food UAE
Post comments:1 Comment

I have been uncharacteristically quiet on the subject of food since we landed here. Holed up in a hotel for two weeks brought some highs and lows on the eating front, particularly as we have been staying at one of Dubai’s less grand establishments on a bed, breakfast and dinner basis. We haven’t always taken dinner though – two days in we gave the ‘dish of the day’ a whirl and what they did to a poor innocent piece of tuna scared us off. Overcooked, to the consistency of a rubber ball it was hard to believe it was once a fish. It was almost impossible to swallow which is quite a feat of achievement on the chef’s part. Luckily, we could fill up on the salad buffet which, save for an overcooked pasta creation, had been prepared with minimal interference from the kitchen. (more…)

Money, Money, Money, must be funny

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:15th February 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living Food Shopping UAE
Post comments:0 Comments

Dubai is a bonkers world as far prices go. We joked before we arrived that Tim would spend two years saying ‘How much?’ in an incredulous Yorkshire accent but even one given to regular extravagance (me) can be taken aback by the cost of most things here. (more…)

Footloose in the Mall

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:12th February 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living Food Shopping UAE
Post comments:1 Comment

I am itching to move in to our apartment but will have to wait a few more days until Tim’s residency visa and Emirates ID come through. In the meantime I decide to spend a day in the Downtown area to see what the Old Town development is like on an average day and how I might fit in to my new environment. Is it even as nice as I remember it was? (more…)

New kids on the Dubai block

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:10th February 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living UAE
Post comments:3 Comments

Only day two but the need to put down roots a new and very different location is overwhelming so the search for an apartment begins in earnest. The various online forums and guides to Dubai that formed part of my pre-travel research are not particularly illuminating on the different residential areas because of course it depends what you are looking for and this is naturally subjective. (more…)

Heavyweight travellers

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:10th February 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living UAE
Post comments:0 Comments

Somewhere in the depths of North Yorkshire lies a storage facility housing many, many enormous containers. Six of them house every object the Badleys currently own. Or rather those that we felt we didn’t need with us for the next two years. Some years ago the contemporary artist Michael Landy famously turned all his possessions and the deliberate disposal of same into an art work. It seemed like madness at the time but I see what he was getting at now.
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From Yorkshire to Dubai – smooth landing or bumpy ride?

Post author:RuthBadley
Post published:10th February 2015
Post category:Culture Dubai Expat Living

Early days, but as friends and family are keen to hear how we are settling in to a new and very different life in Dubai, here are some observations to date – and some tips on the general relocation overseas thing that the forums and books I read didn’t mention. All views my own, you understand and I speak as I find. (more…)