Sunset in Springtime

The water is warmer now. The beach is revisited by the reckless residents. I am one of them with Lucky by my side. It has been my regimen on the days I am not working.

I swim in the open sea for about 30 minutes, braving the mild waves and stroking to cover the planned distance. I have to alter my head positioning in the freestyle stroke. Unlike swimming in a standard pool where there is a black line at the bottom for me to follow, I have to tilt my head higher to occasionally spot my marks. In this open water swimming, my marks are the tall buildings of Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR) on my left. The water is very salty. It is clear. Once I have seen a fish about 12 inches long that looks like a barracuda, supposedly a lonely barracuda, an outcast of its school. Most of the time there are small fish swimming away as I get closer. The sea bed is not as even as I thought. For safety reason, I always ensure that I see a clear bottom; but there are some parts that sink in almost suddenly, where I don't see the clear bottom. The clue to this, is the sudden creepy coldness that I feel before I realize being in this zone which I called the 'bed of bottomlessness'. My Nike goggle has been a great help. So far it hasn't allow a drop of water to seep in, so I can see and navigate better during the swim. Still, I am at the stage of seizing the contour of the sea bed of Jumeirah (in front of JBR) and familiarizing with the water conditions and its tidal timing, before I can proceed safely with 1 hour swim.

After the short swim, I change into my running short for 1 hour beach run. I run bare-footed. It beats all other running experience. The sand is so soft that the knees and ankles don't complain. Landing my feet on the sand over and over again, leaves my feet with the same sensation after a good feet massage. There is no blister, no damage to the nails and when I touch my heels, I am proud to tell that the callous is gone now. The only setback is at certain some part of the beach, there are scattered shells with sharp edges that sting, but it is not too bad.

It takes some time to dry myself up from the sweating after the run and to get rid of the sticking sand on my feet. It is the time to sit and see the sunset. The best sight of the sunset is brief but beautiful. Ca fait mon affaire.

Lucky is parked next to the red Jeep Wrangler - the meeting of the Jeeps in front of JBR

The sunset as reflected by Lucky

The sunset and its admirers

The sun is out of sight, hidden in the pocket of the peaceful horizon

I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just A Little Unwell

The title is robbed from Rob Thomas, in case it gives a familiar ring to you. Life can bite back unsuspectingly to make an occasional reminder that we are always at God's mercy. Recently, I recommended to a good friend in KL the supplement that I take which had kept my motor running without a break for months, and guess what? Yesterday I was unwell. I got a sore throat with a mild fever and now I am having congested chest and coughing out phlegm every now and then. A friend of mine told me that it is the change of weather which my body hasn't got used to. I called the office to declare 2 days of sick leave. Something I am not so proud of. But it's better than spreading the bugs to others at workplace. In my 2 days of sick leave, I slept most of the time just to kill the time. When I woke up I cooked for myself. I couldn't bring myself to walk out of the door to eat outside. Luckily, a day before I got sick, I had done food stock-up. So I had cereals with fresh milk, mushroom soup with garlic bread, oranges with yoghurt for breakfast. And nasi goreng for lunch. I have taken the advice from a friend, the mat stylo of dubai, that I should not eat nasi goreng that looks like a hospital unhappy meal. So I had fried decapitated anchovies (without the black internal parts) , shrimps, calamari rings, tomatoes, capsicum, cili padi and eggs, all fried together with the cooked rice in one wok, and I ate right from the wok so I could minimize the dish-washing. It is a plain lie if I say, the taste of the nasi goreng was heaven-like. It's just OK since I am sick and I had it when it's very hot, so my senses couldn't be very judgmental about the actual taste. But if I were to redo it tonight, I will add a few more pinches of salt.

My running training is affected with my health condition. Having to take a few days off from running, I decided it is a perfect time to wash my running shoes. Despite the modern technology we are enjoying today, the method of washing shoes now has not changed much from the way I washed my school shoes when I was seven years old, when velcro and viagra were unheard of . First, I removed the shoe strings, soaked the shoes and the strings in a pail of bubbly soapy water, left them for a few hours and came back to do the scrubbing. The differences, this time, I scrubbed it gently, not to scratch the fabric that characterised Reebok and I got the job done without messing up the bathroom with the white chalked diluted paste or what it was called back then, 'kapor kasut'. Back in the early 80s, I scrubbed my cheap Bata shoes (well, not so cheap back then, but having a pair Bata shoes was better than the Fung Keong's pair) with all the might that a boy could possibly muster, in order to make them spotless and then for the soothing and whitening effect, I applied the white 'kapor kasut' on the fabric and yes, the shoe strings got the same treatment or else the white tone wouldn't match and my mother would nag even on that. So today I have a newly washed pair of shoes that could make any mother proud.

Since I just mentioned my mother, I got a call from my wife, telling me that my younger brother is warded in the hospital for dengue and my mother as expected, is worried sick. Some eight years ago, I had my encounter with the blood-sucker Aedes and consequently, down with dengue, but there was nothing to worry about. I got a jab. Blood was taken everyday to monitor the platelets level. After less than a week, I was fine. But nowadays, dengue has a new twist and the twist can now be deadly. But what can I do here, other that praying for God's mercy, again.

A Good Friday, As Good As Gold

It's Friday, my off day. Here, Friday is like Sunday, back home. My off day goes on a rotation, like the moon. It meets Friday, once or twice in a month. In their ecliptic alignment, this good day was not to be wasted.

The 1st part of the good Friday was a good breakfast. The menu was nasi goreng kampung, Nescafe Tongkat Ali with Ginseng pre-mixed and the Gulf News. First, I boiled little prawns and squids. I scraped 3 cups of cooked rice from the rice cooker, leftover from last dinner. I squeezed out the Maggi Nasi Goreng Kampung paste. I added 4 tablespoons of sunflower oil. All the above were fried in a hot pan and they became one happy meal. It's not that I got laid last night that I needed the Nescafe with Tongkat Ali to get another good erection. It's just that I love the aroma. The aroma I'm so used to, back home. While enjoying the coffee aroma and the fragrant smell of the fried rice, I read the Gulf News and stopped at the page that I wanted to linger. I spread that page on the table and put on the plate and mug. It was a nice nasi goreng, but kurang pedas. I was enjoying my meal in a kain pelekat at 11:00AM. The article I hooked with while eating, was about an Emirati writer condemning Western journalists who were condemning Dubai Government for blah, blah, blah.

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The 2nd part of the good Friday was the Friday prayer at the mosque across the street. The khutbah was in Arabic. Blah, blah, blah. I did my prayers, thanking God for the many blessings and asking for more. I prayed that God will give health, wealth and protection to me, my loved ones, entire family and some friends. I asked God to keep on showing me the straight way ahead, when there are cross-roads of temptations at every milestone. Amin.

The 3rd part of the good Friday was an easy shopping at Geant. I was blessed with a new vocabulary. Cili Padi is called Bird Chilli, really? It was my precious item in my shopping basket today. It would make my next nasi goreng, maggi kari, mushroom soup, tom yam, whatever, hot, I mean, nose-watering hot, the Malaysian way.

The 4th part of the good Friday was the splendid sunset viewing at the Jumeirah Beach. I was blessed with a good spot to view the sunset.

Before it was getting darker, I had good view of Burj Al Arab looming from the distance, along the same coast line. It was the small white sail-like figure at the centre of the photograph.

I had a good view of the Atlantis. It's a new luxurious resort at the tip of the Palm Jumeirah. If you find the lonely lady in the black bikini, backing the camera, in the photograph below, look further at the same direction across the sea, you'll see the a cluster of buildings on a reclaimed artificial island. That's the Atlantis.....

I had a good view of an avid reader who was oblivious of the surrounding and appeared to be very comfortable with her threefold tummy. In between the views above, I had a good swim, good skin salting and good salt tasting, while the threefold tummy owner looked after my belongings. Good beach neighbour.

I had a good view of other beachgoers lying on the beach in a social gathering like the sea lions of Galapagos. I guess there are many other kinds of mammals linked by the beaches of this planet, another possibility of the nouvelle vague, much talkabout, the six degree of separation, I guess.

The 5th part of the good Friday was the evening walk at The Walk, Jumeirah Beach. It was the place to be and to be seen. I enjoyed the sea breeze and longed to live in the posh apartment above.

The 6th part of the good Friday was the night visit at the Gold Souk, Deira. I was inspired to be there after reading the following.

"This is Dubai's best-known souk and must-do for every tourist. Wondering through the Souk is great experience. The meandering lanes are lined with shops selling gold, silver, pearls and precious stones. It is a place to try your bargaining skills. Gold is sold by weight according to the daily international price so prices will be much the same. The price of the workmanship is where you will have a bargaining power. The Gold Souk is always busy....."

The Gulf News reported this morning that the price of gold is dropping and the sales jump 400%. The price of gold on this good Friday is 83 dirham per gram for the 22-karat or 91.67% of pure gold. The Indians with their buying power in the approaching Diwali with others, losing faith in their bubble-burst property and their money in the banks, made the gold rush.....It's back to basics.

It was like the ambience in pasar malam, back home. But instead of sotong kering, udang kering and cili kering in the pasar malam, gold jewelleries, mostly yellow and some white, were displayed for sale in this City of Gold. Gold was everywhere.......

Precious gold, on my left....

Glorious, glamourous gold, on my right.......

Glittering, glistening gold, here.

Gold galore, ahead....

I stopped to look at one of the extravagant gold pieces. It's the locket of the great Cleopatra's head.

There were so many people. I was here only to look around. Not to purchase anything. It is speculated the gold price will drop further after Diwali. So I can wait. I have found what I was looking for. The gold shop that I fancy. Perhaps I'll get inside, someday, to buy a little piece of gold for my loved one.

The 7th and the last part of the good Friday was the slow sip of the great hot tea at the roadside, close to midnight. It's sweet and mildly minted. The tea was golden, no milk, rich and cheap. 1 dirham for a small glass. I tried to ask the tea maker something. Ironically, the great tasting tea was made by a cold, unfriendly and suspicious looking old Arab man who kept saying, "Arabic....Arabic....".

Old man, I will come back with the question in Arabic, since you insisted, if we ever meet again. Insyallah. I handed him the 1 dirham with a smile. He didn't look. I hailed a cab and headed home.