The Week Before our Big Move.

Since we knew we had gotton the apartment, we started going out there in the evenings taking bits and pieces of our luggage and would often at in the food court at the Mall of the Emirates. The mall also has a big Carrefour Hypermarket (as they call them here) which sell everything from food, seafood, electricals, kitchenware, kids toys, linen, clothes, shoes, jewellery, perfumes & tools. You can get almost everything there and we did get alot of our kitchen stuff from there, including our mattress!

Sunday - Cameron back at work today (poor guy he was so tired when he woke up this morning after our huge day yesterday.) Fortunately I didn't need to go anywhere or do anything so was able to veg our a bit and get ready for the big week of deliveries and unpacking.

Monday - I went out to our new apartment to start getting things ready for us to move in and to wait for the delivery of our TV and washing machine. While I was there I started unpacking the kitchen stuff we had bought and began washing it before putting it away in he cupboards. After the delivery guys had dropped off the tv and the washing machine I went back to the Winchester to meet Cameron after work. An early night trying to catch up on some sleep!

Tuesday - Back out to the apartment as I was waiting for the delivery of our new mattress. I finished the rest of the unpacking, washing and putting away and Cameron met me at the apartment after work, before going to dinner at the food court at MOE (Mall of the Emirates). We also went into Carrefour to get some more bits and pieces for the apartment, took them back there and went back to the Winchester for bed.

Wednesday - No where to go today, no deliveries to wait for and no one to meet, so I spent the day at home packing all our stuff ready for when Cameron got home so we could take it out to the new place. Thank goodness Cameron doesn't have to work tomorrow (since they are changing the weekend days in the UAE to Friday and Saturday - he has just worked 6 days) which means we can check out of the Winchester in the morning and spend tomorrow night in our own place!!! We are so excited!

Furniture Shopping!!!

We woke up early and went to the real estates office to pick up the keys to our apartment. We then went there to make sure we had the correct set of keys - thankfully we did. Cameron dropped me off to pick up the bedroom suite to our apartment before heading off to Abu Dhabi to collect a cheque. Kate (a friend) and I jumped in a taxi and went to the Spinneys carpark, (Spinneys is a Supermarket) wound down the window and waited as a dozen men came running to help us. We told them we needed 2 strong men to come and dismantle the bed, take it to The Greens, and then put it together again. We haggled a bit and ended up agreeing on a bargain price. The guys followed us back to the apartment, where they packed up the bed in their truck, then followed us in another taxi out to The Greens. The taxi that Kate and I were in nearly lost the van along Sheikh Zayed Road (which is 4 lanes of pure madness) so we made our taxi driver drive slowly at about 80kms an hour with his hazard lights on, so the truck could keep up. The driver was not at all popular with the rest of the drivers on the road as most cars go along at least 100kms hour. In Dubai though, if a driver does not know where they are going, or if they want to get in another lane and can't or for any reason other that they deem necessary they may drive along with their hazard lights on and you may not have a clue what they are doing. It is a very funny sight. Anyway, we got to our apartment okay and the men unloaded the bed and reassembled it for us.

Later that afternoon when Cameron got back from Abu Dhabi (about 4pm) we began our furniture shopping. Fortunately, we had been to the shops before to look around and decide what we wanted to we knew exactly where to go, what we wanted and where to get it. We were super organised! We began at IKEA at Dubai Festival City, where we got our futon, bookcase, tv unit, coffee table and some other assorted household items. We paid for our purchases and ordered the free home delivery (which was booked in for Thursday the 31st August). We then went to Plug Ins (an electrical store) and ordered our TV and washing machine to be delivered. We also bought and took home the microwave, iron, toaster, kettle and juicer. By this time it was about 9:15pm and we still had to go and get dinner sets and stuff, so we headed to Carrefour (the Deira branch) to collect them. After a small detour (ok, Kathryn got lost) we got there and ran in to get the rest of the kitchen stuff and a few other bits and pieces. We then went back to our apartment and unloaded the car, which by this stage was completely chockers, before going back to the Winchester for bed - we were absolutely exhausted by this stage!

Our First Week.

The rest of the week was spent with Cameron working and me either out exploring or veging out at the Winchester Apartment. We ended up going to the Crown Plaza as Jimmy Barnes was playing in concert there. It was fun - we had dinner there in one of their restaurants before going in for the concert. It was very loud and squashy, but it was a good night out and good to see an Aussie Artist while overseas. On Wednesday Cameron sent me a text saying that the housemate of one of the guys he worked with was leaving Dubai and selling a bedroom suite, if I wanted to take a look at it. I gave her a call and arranged to go over later that afternoon to have a look at it. It was love at first sight (between the bed and I) and I told her we would take it. We would need to get a mattress, because she only had a double mattress on it but it was a queen size bed. We went to one of the shopping centres close to where she lived - which coincidentally was around the corner to the Winchester called Burjuman, so that I could give her the money for it and ended up having coffee in a little cafe called Paul's. I strongly reccommend their apricot tart - just delicious!

We were eating out each night so at least on days when I didn't go out in the day I was still getting out at some stage - there was a Dome at Burjuman, just around the corner, that was fairly reasonable and had decent food so we went there a few times. We were eagerly awaiting the weekend so that we could go and furnish our apartment and then we could move in and get out of the Winchester.

Our First Few Days.....

Thursday - We woke up feeling a lot better than we did when we went to bed...luckily and decided we would go to Cameron's new office to catch up with the guys and let them know that we had arrived safely. We chatted with them for a while before heading to the shops to have a look around, buy Cameron some new work clothes and refamiliarise ourselves with the place. We had no car at this stage, so we taxi'd everywhere we wanted to go. Fortunently taxi's are fairly cheap in Dubai as the meter only runs when you are moving. A pretty relaxing day, before having dinner and getting an early night to bed.

Friday - We tried to make enquiries about hire cars today, however since it is the first day of the weekend in the UAE all the car rental offices were closed. We caught a taxi out to Ibn Battuta Mall (one of our favourites as it is HUGE and decorated in sections, representing various places in the world, such as China, Persia & India). We had a buffet "all you can eat" lunch at one of the restaurants there called FINZ which cost 55 Dirhams (from now on referred to as AED) which in Australia works out to be about $20.00 and the food was absolutely delicious! We then went and saw a movie (the Break Up) before having a wander in the mall. By the time we wandered from one end of the other and back again we were exhausted so we grabbed some bottles of water and went outside (which gave Kathryn a chance to defrost as she was freezing with the airconditioning). While we were out there a little girl came up to us and said "hello" (after commenting to her Dad that we looked different to her and the dad encouraging her to come and speak to us) so we said hello back and had a short conversation with her. She was extremely cute. Then we went back to the Winchester, had dinner then we sat down together and went through the newspapers to have a look at any "potential" apartment rentals in the areas that we wanted. We found a couple, which Cameron was to look into when he arrived at work the next morning.

Saturday - Cameron got up nice and early to go to work and I went back to bed ready for a nice long sleep in, however that plan changed when Cameron messaged me saying "we have appointment with real estate agent for apartment number 1 on our list at 11am. Meet me at my office at 10". So up i got, and caught a taxi to his work. We walked to the closest shopping centre (Lamcy Plaza) and caught a taxi to "The Greens". Unfortunently (as we were later to find out) the taxi driver had only been driving in Dubai for 4 months and had no idea how to get to the Greens (and neither did we) so instead of telling us he didn't know where to go (street maps in taxi's are almost non-existant in Dubai) he took us miles out of our way to a place called "Green Community". After quite a few phone calls - him to his mates asking for directions and us to the real estate agent to tell her we would be late and to apologise - we finally made it there 30 minutes late. Luckily she was very understanding and took us upstairs to see the unit. We fell in love with it straight away and decided we wanted to take it. It is only 1 bedroom but is a huge space with a separate kitchen, distinct areas for a lounge and dining room and two entrances to the bathroom (one from the little hall and the other from our bedroom). It also has wall to wall floor to ceiling built in cupboards in the bedroom (heaps of storage) a bath (with the shower over it) a dishwasher and a little balcony off our lounge room. (See Plan)

In the complex we also have our own car spot, a pool and a gym. We are close to the Mall of the Emirates which is another one of our favourite shopping centres.

Sunday - A day of rest! (For Kathryn - poor Cameron had to work!)

Our Arrival In Dubai

We arrived in Dubai at 2am after a 7 hour flight and waited in line at customs and immigration for over an hour before collecting our baggage and heading outside into the 37 degree heat. Dubai had just celebrated its hottest day of the year - a stinking 48 degrees. We met our driver who loaded our bags into the van and took us to the Winchester Hotel which was to be home for the next couple of weeks. We checked in as the porter loaded our bags onto trolleys and took us up to Room 203. We were disappointed to read the letter that as of April 2006 the pool was out of order due to renovations - just our luck. We dumped our bags in the foyer of the apartment, had a look around the 1 bedroom - 2 bathroom apartment, and Kathryn spontaneously burst into tears demanding the first flight home to Australia. Unfortunately that was not possible and things looked a lot better the next morning after a couple of hours of decent sleep (and some cuddles from Cameron).

Opening Comments - Welcome to the world of the 'McKays In Dubai'

So we finally made it to Dubai. We were wondering if it was ever going to happen. We departed Perth, WA, Australia in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, 16 August 2006 arriving in Singapore at around 6:30am. After grabbing some breakfast, snoozing in the departures area and looking around Changi Airport (which is huge and must be one of the best airports in the world) we finally got a room in the hotel at the airport. We went on a two hour tour of the city including a bumboat ride on the river which was really interesting. On our return to the airport, we caught some shut-eye and then went for a swim while watching the planes take off. Later that night (10pm) we flew out of Singapore bound for Dubai to start the next chapter of our adventure together.