I didn’t realize that Chinese New Year is tomorrow! That means Chinese New Year’s Eve is tonight!
Eek – I feel so out of touch with holidays, living in Dubai, and this one really snuck up on me.
Traditionally, my mom would prepare a lavish meal at home for Chinese New Year’s Eve but now that my parents are empty nesters with all three of us daughters scattered across the globe, my parents will celebrate over at my grandma’s house instead.
Egg Waffle Pan from Williams-Sonoma
Maybe it’s the weather (dark, gloomy, windy, and a chilly 60°F in Dubai), or the thought of not having family and friends around to celebrate this very festive holiday, but I’m feeling a little homesick.
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When the weather is nice outside, I like to run the path along Dubai Marina right by the water. When I first moved to the neighborhood four years ago, it wasn’t a very nice run because of all the construction and detours. But now, almost all of the trail down by the water is paved and it’s not a bad run at all.
I took these photos on my iPhone during one of my runs in November last year. I don’t know why it’s take me so long to post them.
There are always fellow joggers as well as cyclists, rollerbladers, and kids on their scooters and skateboards. I even saw a lady jogging in her all-black abaya with what I think were (or I might have imagined it) reflective strips on the edges of her sleeves.
There are also kayakers in the water and sometimes, I see teams of dragon boaters practicing as well.
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Happy 2012 everyone!
It’s a new year and although I hardly ever make new year resolutions these days (because they’ve been the same year after year so why bother?), I do have one for 2012 and that is to clear out all some of my draft posts.
I often come up with all these great ideas for a blog post and then a few days later, the ideas fizzle out and either don’t seem so great anymore or I stare and stare at a draft post until I give up on it for lack of creativity or interest. Does that happen to you?
So all these draft posts have been nagging at me and I hate being nagged at – I mean, who likes being nagged? It’s such an awful sounding word too.
And as I often do when I’m being n-a-g-g-e-d at, I procrastinate. So 2012 resolution: Stop procrastinating. Stop feigning writer’s block. Stop over-analyzing each post so much. JUST WRITE.
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Some of the drafts I’d like to clear out are posts from my girls’ dinner club. As mentioned in my July 2008 post about “Eating Out for Under 100 Dirhams,” my girl friends and I meet bimonthly to sample restaurants around town. It’s not only an opportunity to discover new (and old) Dubai dining options, but it’s also a time for us to catch up on each other’s lives.
Since the start of this eating adventure back in March 2008, we’ve visited over 80 restaurants. Now, no way am I going to write up 80 retrospective restaurant reviews where 90% of the time I can’t even remember what I ordered or took any pictures BUT I will try to write about some of the highlights and try to be more diligent about posting future eats.
Let’s start with a restaurant called Gulnaz Restaurant & Cafe located in Dubai Marina by Jumeirah Beach Residences.
We had a very small dinner party of three when we visited a few months ago which was a shame as there were so many things on the menu that we’d never had before and were we a larger group – we could have tried them all (insert diabolical laugh)!
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For New Year’s Eve, Scotch, Wee Scotch and I spent a low-key evening at a friend’s apartment overlooking the Burj Khalifa (still the tallest building in the world).
Some photos from our viewing point before the fireworks:
Burj Khalifa
Burj Khalifa (right) and the Address hotel (left)
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Here are some photos of the New Year’s Eve fireworks (with the ubiquitous Dubai crane in the foreground):
Near the finale - hence all the smoke
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We woke Wee Scotch up just before midnight so he could watch his first fireworks display. He wasn’t scared one bit!
Happy 2012!
