Wedding Time!

I am now sitting in the lounge of the Heathrow airport in route to Jordan. I was back in the US this past week for a meeting with work and the trip managed to nicely line up with Lauren S. wedding. It was a great time!!! Lauren looked beautiful of course! It was so wonderful to see everyone from college, NYC and friends of friends. Everyone was in good spirits and was dancing up a storm. It was hard to leave after seeing everyone but I've still got another couple months of traveling to do. More from Jordan and the dead sea....

Fujairah - UAE

So I managed to get out of Dubai for a night and head over to Fujairah this is directly across UAE from Dubai. The city sits on the Gulf of Oman/Indian Ocean. It was a pretty relaxing evening by the time we got there; let's just say driving in Dubai was a bit of a challenge. There are no up to date road maps since things change there on a daily basis due to all the construction so you just have to go by a couple of road signs to try and figure out where you are going. It took us about 1.5 hours to get out of Dubai which should have taken like 15 minutes but we got lost and drove around all of Dubai.

Ski Dubai

So it's official I have now snowboarded in the desert!! That's right, it was about 100 degrees outside and then I stepped inside the mall and went snowboarding where it was about 30 degrees. It was a surreal experience and just something everyone has to do, I mean how many people can say they went snowboarding in the desert. Below are some shots of the constant construction and the 7 star hotel in Dubai. Below is a shot of the new 'tallest' building in the world or at least it will be when it's done.

Desert Safari

So went out into the desert this weekend on what they call a desert safari. What it consists of is a ride in a SUV around the desert. So the driver goes up and down the sand dunes kind of a like a roller coaster ride. There was sand being thrown everywhere and the car catching air off a number of sand dunes along with sliding down the side of certain dunes. It was a really fun experience!! I would recommend to anyone who comes out the desert.
Thanks again Alex; your guide to Dubai has been perfect, I think you might have a future in travel book writing!
So after the sudo roller coaster ride; we had a camel ride, 4 wheel ATV around the desert and then a bbq in this little compound area with belly dancing. All and all a great way to see the desert!
Off to swim in the Arabian Gulf and relax on the ocean for the afternoon!

Dubai

So think HOT; really really really HOT (like 100 degrees). Well that is Dubai. I haven't had a chance to get out much yet but from what I noticed; Dubai is a very large spread out city. They actually in the process of building a monorail. I do feel a bit at home since most of the taxi in Dubai are Volvo V70's; hopefully mine looks as good as these since it's chugging across the US states!

There is also tons of sand everywhere, shocker I know. More shopping malls, tons of construction and as a whole a pretty developed city. More to come.......

Singapore

So I officially left Jakarta on Friday and headed to Singapore for the weekend. It is a good city to stop off at on the way to somewhere else but I probably wouldn't recommend staying a weekend. Singapore is actually the shining star of South East Asia or the "Country Club" of the South Pacific as some call it. It is a very nice city, very clean, orderly, clean air, organized cabs, safe, you can eat anything without worrying about getting sick. So on a whole it's a pretty good get away from Indonesia if you need a break and want some fresh air. However, there really isn't much to do in Singapore...it rained both days i was there on and off which was actually fine b/c it cooled it down a bit. It was very very very hot and humid while i was there (think Jersey shore plus another 50% humidity). I did managed to check out the botanical gardens and Sentosa Island.

I was expecting a bit more out of Sentosa being that its an island and everyone told me to go there b/c they had a nice beach you could lay out on and relax. Well that isn't exactly the case, it is more of a Disneyland on the water...it had kind of man made feel to it and lots of touristy things going on. Not what I would think of in terms of a relaxing day by the beach.
Anyway as a whole Singapore is nice but unless you need to pass through there I would probably pass on it.

The Teams in Jakarta

Today we gave presentations to the team we have been working with in Indonesia for the last 5 weeks. After we had a little celebration as a farewell for us and a couple of other people who were transferring offices in Indonesia. It was sad to say good bye; it has been a great couple of weeks in Indonesia and the team will be missed!