A couple of anniversaries have come up for us. May 30th is the fourth anniversary of our engagement. We arrived in Abu Dhabi two years ago on June 2. It doesn't seem that long ago.
A couple of weeks ago Darcy and I visited Ajman, the smallest and poorest of the seven emirates in the UAE. We stayed one night at the Ajman Kempinski Hotel. The Petroleum Institute offered its employees a discount for staying there. Apparently Ajman is only the second emirate (after Dubai) to allow 100% freehold by foreigners. So we could buy property there. It's about a two hour drive north from Abu Dhabi and we were surprised by the amount of construction going on there. The hotel had a fantastic beach and our room had a nice view of the Arabian Gulf. One interesting feature of the hotel was the shoeshine station. See the photos below.
Abu Dhabi has a new newspaper called The Nation. It's been publishing for about one month now and it looks promising. Apparently it's the emirate's first English language newspaper. I've subscribed to a couple of its RSS feeds. The UAE ranked fairly well on a listing of peaceful countries
This is a sad story about a ghost town in the UAE. Below are other articles from the same newspaper about a few interesting stories. Awareness of pollution continues to be an issue but not enough action is being taken. There's also pollution being caused from construction.
Public transportation in Abu Dhabi continues to deteriorate as the city's population increases. I'm so lucky to be able to to take a PI owned bus to work every day! Plus housing prices continue to spiral our of control. We're going to see the Picasso exhibit at the Emirates Palace. It's still amazing that we can park for free at a conditional 7 star hotel and pay no entrance fee to see exhibits there! The Emiratization program continues to encounter some problems -especially in the all important tourism industry. Until next time, Ila Aliqa...
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