Live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me

So I'm on the road again. Dubai was nice (yeah I'm gonna be back there quite soon), especially last days when I did indoor sky diving, met my Dubai friends and was getting ready to go to Philippines.

Sky diving outfit

Cedric was doing quite well on his own. But he did that before.

Skydiving tube. BTW look at the hair pulled out of the helmet by the wind.

I required some help from the staff, but after the first run I was doing not bad too. I even flew 8m high.

On Thursday, after busy day in the office I got to the airport with a colleague cause I was trying to send my bag with him to Warsaw, but it was not possible (Austrian charges 30e/kg). So I wanted to try cargo (forget it) but in the end I gave up. I decided to take my big luggage with me to Manila and store it somewhere.
I dropped my luggage and went to Warehouse in Le Royal Meridien to meet some friends to say goodbye. My flight was at 3.45 a.m. so I had some time to kill as it was 11.30 p.m..
After I went back to the airport I got really surprised how busy it was at 2 in the morning. Whole terminal was full of people. Although there were no queues and surprisingly I managed to smuggle whole bottle of shampoo in my hand luggage. I don't know if it was only my lick, as the guys at the security were rather relaxed and had fun there or what.
When I was going via passport control there was Emirati guy checking my passport and asking me where do I go. I told him Manila. He asked if I'm going alone.
- Yes I do.
- Oh, but it's boring alone (he was laughing already).
- No, It's not. It's even more fun (meaningful laugh).
That was good start.
Later it got only better. I took my sleeping pills before boarding and when I was getting on the plane they've already took effect so I had to hold the wall to be able to walk. Even funnier was when I woke up for the second meal, I've started to eat it and I asked guy sitting next to me if he remembers if I had my first meal cause I cannot recall it. Insane? Well, I tend to be insane sometimes ;D. I remember seeing some food, like a roll and fruits but I don't recall any taste.
I got to Manila at 4 p.m. Left my luggage at the airport n a storage room and took a cab to the Friendly's Guest House. As soon as I've arrived there I knew that, that's the place to be. In an instant I I got that SE Asia feeling. Freedom, joy, world belongs to me feeling. I went upstairs to the balcony, get myself a bottle of beer, took a sip, asked a group of guys sitting at the table if I can join them and the party started.
Unfortunately it was holly Friday so not much was going on in the city itself but we had fun at the balcony. They've showed me some photos from St. Fernando - crucifixion. I wish I arrived one day earlier to see that...

It's easy to join this kind of group, a sin fact everyone is a single traveler

View from the GH

On Saturday on the other hand with one of the guys (actually Polish guy) we went to do sightseeing. And that was load of sightseeing. Not a single minute was wasted.
First we went to the Chinese Cemetery

Kids at the entrance playing with water. Indeed it was shot day.

Chinese cemetery. All tombs are in small houses, where (depending on the richness of the family) there are bedrooms, tv, toilet and so on. In front of them there are small chimneys to burn faked money. This is to send money to the dead people as they might need it there where they are now.

Dead ppl also want to receive letters ;-)

They call it Alcatraz here

And Beverly Hills (90210?) . In Beverly Hills houses have two levels

You will even find white house

Kids' graves

Silent highway

Chapel with figures of Buddha, Jesus, Maria, Magdalena, Confucius

Ash house

From the cemetery we took a tricycle to go to see a cock fight

Tricycle ride

Cocks are first made angry. Small cock bites them to rise aggressiveness level.

In the same time ppl are betting. I dunno how they do that, there is such a noise that it's insane. They give some signs to the guy who takes bets and apparently it works,.

It was a break in the fight

After a cock fight we walked the streets and took jeepney to Chinese district and Intramuros. Actually with jeepneys we were rather lucky. Lonely Planet claims that you never manage to take the correct one for the first time and in fact we never got lost. We went through some slums where I got robbed (my necklace was pulled), through a park and got back to the guest house.

Looks good? Tastes even better. We've managed to try a little bit of meat and crispy skin. We wanted to buy tiny bit but they offered us small piece to taste.

Some more tasty pigs

Jeepney. Gift of God. Philippines are 90% catholics and actually you can see christian signs everywhere

Street vendor

Chinese district

It was impossible not to enter any church. To make things better I've been to four of them....

Kids on the street

First I've thought it's a dead body without a head. Only later I've seen that it is puppet stuffed with wood. They will burn it in the church on holy Sunday. I suppose it's Judas.

Kids in slums. They were asking us to take some photos of them.

They are not kids, but wanted to be on pics too.

Basketball is a big thing in Philippines.

Kids

Lady boys in slums

Again kids and laundry on a basket ball field

Rizal park

I want to see people and I want to see life

After almost two weeks in Dubai I’m still not in love with this city. I’ve made my ways around a little bit: I’ve place to run, which is in the walking distance from my hotel. It’s Greens Community and Lakes Community. If I go running in the evening I run only in Greens as to get to Lakes you have to run about 500m along the busy road and I don’t want to be hit by a car and still it does not feel too comfortable to run in shorts and top during the night along the road in a country where you should not show your knees not mentioning your tights or shoulders. In those closed districts when you do sports it’s still acceptable and you will not be caught and taken by police for that.

It’s difficult to run during the day as it is too hot. It literally feels like polish summer, so the only option is to go in the morning or in the evening, unless you want to go to the gym and do your workout on the trade mill, but that option I leave till it gets warmer when it’ll even be impossible to run outside in the night.
In Greens there are some grocery stores and mini markets. They also have some restaurants and cafes (what was a nice surprise to see Caribou cafe which I know from my time spent in Rochester, MN for IBM) which makes me feel much better and I guess that will be the place where I’ll be going more often, as where Grand Millennium hotel is it feels like in the middle of a business park which is still being under construction, so there is mostly steel, glass, concrete, dust and sand.
I’ve also managed to find nice beach, where you can freely wear bikini and sun bath. What’s more there is free shuttle bus from hotel to the beach and back which makes things easier too. The only thing that I regret is that I can go there only during the weekend.
The only thing that I did not find, and I guess I’ll not manage to do so, it’s public swimming pool where I could do laps. There are swimming pools in hotels (even in mine), but they are either something like 15m long or if they are 25m admission is far too high for my standards. I’ve heard about one public swimming pool, but it’s meant to be crowded and water quality is not too good, so it makes no sense too, so probably it’s better to use our 14m hotel swimming pool. At least it’s free and very close – only 9 floors up from my room. It’s also annoying there that swimming pool is situated between two towers in a way to forbid any sun there, everything is shaded.
Recently I’ve also gone through some bureaucracy procedures in Dubai. To legally work in Emirates you have to make medical check, which involves lungs x-ray and blood check against HIV and C hepatitis (HCV). As my mum pointed at least I’ll find out if I caught something in Asia.
When we went to the hospital with a colleague of mine, we literally did not know what’s going on. We were being redirected from one room to another, showing papers that we were given in the office, giving them out, getting something back, being redirected again to other room, having x-ray, blood check, going somewhere, coming back, etc. It was like some surrealistic movie (here is even something at the back of my head, that I’ve seen cartoon or short movie on this topic). But in the end of that long way we got out health cards which entitle us for treatment in public clinics.

My running routines in Dubai

Polish accent in Dubai

Jumeirah Park Beach in Dubai. In fact it was forbidden to take photos there so I had to take hidden shots.

Jumeira Park Beach

Room service always supplies me with 8 bottles of water after last weekend all I wanted from them was water. They've tried to clean my apartment 3 times, but each time I was telling them not to do so and give me only water.

Dubai Marina by night

Dubai Marina by night

Dubai behind green eyes

For the first couple of days I did not see anything in Dubai except airport where I've arrived, my hotel, office and road between all mentioned. It does not mean that I did not want to. I just did not have time to. And if I'd have time later in the evening I was too tired to go anywhere, especially that I wanted to do my sports. Obvious.
So the first thing that I saw outside, was 360 bar, which is located on a long, curved pier and gives magical view over Burj ar-Arab, unfortunately I gig not have my camera with me there. I also did not take my id with me which was kinda problem but in the end after a lot of smiles from me and Diti (Indian colleague who seems like soul mate in respect to parties) and telling him what year I was born and how old I am, bouncer let me finally in.
When we were entering there I've spotted swimming pool. 25 meters swimming pool in Dubai is rather uncommon thing. So I was amazed and decided that I've got to get in there and do my swimming there, as in Grand Millennium there is only 14 meters. On my first day off I've tried to go swimming there. But forget it. Entrance costs 250 Dh. And I've tried to enter it from three different entrances with three different people watching gates. There was not way to sneak in. I was soooo disappointed, that I went back home and went running with my colleagues. At least that was something that made my mood better, as I did not expect that there are such a nice places to run. Of course there are no parks (don't forget that Dubai is an artificial city on the desert), but there are some closed districts with nice pavements, not too many cars and some artificial lakes and some grass, so it's ok to do your training. The only problem was heat. After about 8 km and half a liter of water that I drunk during the run I had to stop cause I got dizzy. And it's winter. How it's gonna be during the summer? I bet that it'll even be too hot during the night to do anything outside, sit even, not mentioning any activities involving movement.
Yesterday we went to have food in the "old city". So we took a subway, which in fact is rather like a sky train, than we walked to see Deira Gold Souq and Deira Spice Souq where I had to talk to some shop assistants. I just love it to talk to random people who try to sell you something. He explained me what is what and for example showed me different kinds of cinnamon and dried sun flower petals. And to my surprise he said that they eat it with bread. I did not have time to ask if they prepare it somehow as guys were waiting for me and I was constantly slowing down the whole trip taking photos and entering stores.
Next we took abra - traditional wooden water taxi to cross Dubai Creek and finally we went to have food. That one was delicious in one of the Indian restaurants - Mumtaz Mahal. Name of thew restaurant comes from a name of a third wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who build Taj Mahal in memory of her and it's a symbol of eternal love.
Food was amazing, I had lamb with spinach spiced with cardamon and mint. It was called gosth something. I can guess that gosth means lamb in Hindu. Maybe Saagwala gohst? Just delicious. My mouth waters, when I write about it now, when I've long forgotten about that pseudo dinner that I had today.
Last part of the evening was to empty some bottles that me and Diti had. How strange it is that girls have them and guys did not have any?
Did I already mentioned that world is small and that there are people who you meet over and over in different places and situations? I guess I did. But now I should repeat it. There was a girl who sold me her flat about 3 years ago. We were in touch sometimes. When she was still in Warsaw I was at her hen's night and maybe even there was something at the back of my head that she moved out to Emirates, but that was such a long time ago that I was not expecting her to still be here. At least not in Dubai. But she was and she still is. In fact first she was living with her husband in Abu Dhabi, but in June they moved into Dubai. And accidentally she saw status on my gtalk, where I've written down my Dubai mobile number. She wrote to me and we met today. She was my private tour guide in Dubai, as she went here for the first time on order to write a guide book for Pascal about Emirates and Oman. We've spent really cool afternoon constantly talking (somehow from the first time when I met her we were always talking and talking and talking) and she's showed me most of the "must sees" in Dubai, which is not too difficult during one afternoon,as there is not much to be seen in here. But now comes the best: she studied Spanish philology and my idea was........ "So maybe you would like to give me Spanish classes two times a week?". So soon I'll have to find unoccupied 2 or 3 hours (bearing in mind time to commute even more) which will be a challenge, as I even have problems to find time for doing my sports, but Spanish is my biggest dream and I'm gonna start making it true again after I had to quit my classes in Sin Fronteras. At least there will be something to wait for (except sport) what I'll do after work in this city which I must honestly say don't like and work which is not short hours at all.

Grand Millennium seen from the Belgian Beer Bar

Belgian Beer Bar in Grand Millennium Hotel

View from 18th floor of a hotel. This is the view when you swim in a hotel, 14 m long swimming pool. In the end I've manage to do some laps there. It was more turning there and back, but there was a little bit of swimming too.

Metro station. All look the same, like some king of space ship.

Guess what is it?

You hit the jack pot. Burj Al Arab

Deira by night

Nuts in one of the stores where I had to come in and have a little chat with the shop assistant

Wanna buy some gold? Deira Gold Souq

It's not a good pic, but this is the biggest golden ring. It weights over 53 kg. Or was it 63?

Do you need a dress? Why not get one made out of gold?

Dubai Creek by night

Wind tower in Bastakia Quarter - Dubai 'old town'. Traditionally wind towers cooled buildings

XVA Gallery in Bastakia Quarter. One of the most reputable galleries in Dubai. There is also small cafe.

Bastakia Quarter

Dubai Creek by day

Abra

 Was there a volume of Pan Samochodzik in Dubai?