Life & Style | Gadgets & Tech

Blogosphere 2 Sept - 8 Sept

Gulf News web editor Adam Flinter plunges headlong into the blogosphere to find out what bloggers from the Middle East and beyond have on their minds.

  • By Adam Flinter, Web Editor
  • Published: 23:54 September 1, 2008
  • Tabloid

  • Image Credit: Gulf News Archive
  • In Ramadan, you wake up in the morning when no one else is awake, grab something to eat quickly and then you pray.

Gulf News web editor Adam Flinter plunges headlong into the blogosphere to find out what bloggers from the Middle East and beyond have on their minds.

Got any chiclets?

The UAE's unit of currency is the dirham. A dirham is divided into 100 fils and there are coins for 50 fils and 25 fils. Much less common, but still sometimes to be found in circulation, there are little brown coins worth 5 and 10 fils respectively. Much more prevalent, and valued at anything up to 50 fils, although 25 is more reasonable, is the Chiclet.

The UAE central bank has never really recognised the Chiclet, but then no other Middle East central bank has – and it's a recognised unit of currency throughout the Arab world. Wherever you go in the region, a lack of small change in any shop is met with a Chiclet. A boiled sweet or small pack of Wrigley's gum is acceptable if the shop doesn't, for some strange reason, have a sufficient stock of two-piece packs of Chiclets.

Nobody ever buys Chiclets. They get them as change. And, oddly enough, they're the Middle East's market leading gum - they're actually made in Lebanon. It's probably the strangest product success story of them all

http://fakeplasticsouks.blogspot.com/

Souk al bahar

I was in Dubai over the weekend visiting friends, and I snapped some shots from the Souk Al Bahar located in the soon-to-be-completed Burj Dubai (the tallest structure in the world once completed). Souk would seem to mean "mall" in Gulf Arabic (smiling), but it really means "market".

http://auhgal.blogspot.com/

Got a spare million dollars?

The Emirates Palace resort in Abu Dhabi has announced a million dollar travel package that it promises "incarnates pure opulence".

Along with first-class airfare and seven nights at a giant suite at the Palace, the package includes:

Chauffeur-driven Maybach at your disposal daily during your stay in Abu Dhabi and daily spa treatments.

Also a day trip in a private jet to Iran where you'll create your own Persian carpet with the country's most-exclusive and best-renowned hand-maker.

Also a day trip to Bahrain in a private jet for "a pearl deep sea experience", with the pearl then hand-designed with jewellery settings.

http://uaecommunity.blogspot.com/

Not so thrilled

I was very thrilled to hear that self-service gas stations have made their way to the UAE.

I was not thrilled, however, when I heard about a not-very-gentleman-like attitude of one Eppco-Enoc gas station's supervisor in one of the new self-service stations in Dubai.

My wife, very visibly eight months pregnant, pulled into one of the new self-service gas stations after a busy day of running errands with our hyper-active toddler.
Pregnancy was really taking its toll on her that day. It was extremely hot and she didn't want to leave our 3-year-old girl alone in the car. She asked the attendant standing next to her car if he could help her fill the car.

"No! Self-service only," the supervisor abruptly answered. My message to that supervisor:

I hope you are proud of yourself. If you were half the man you claim you are, your dignity would have at least suggested to offer assistance to a pregnant woman, not just standing there watching her.

http://dubaiconsumermirror.blogspot.com/

Ramadan is here

Judging by the flow of cars coming and going to the Red Crescent in Fujairah last week it appears that the approach of Ramadan has signalled the time for generous giving.

With zakat or giving to charity being one of the five obligatory pillars of Islam, the Red Crescent is an obvious recipient with its international work, especially this year, among earthquake victims in China and those who continue to be ravaged by war and famine in the Sudan.

http://experiencingtheemirates.blogspot.com/

Amman

I travelled on my own for the first time in 1999, to an international language and sports camp in France. Back then it came as very natural to me when people responded with "Georgia?" every time I said I came from Jordan. I would just start explaining that Jordan is in the Middle East, across the river from Palestine/Israel and then people would be like "oohh, okay".

Obviously so much has changed in the past 10 years. All you need to do is hang out at a Books@cafe to get a small glimpse of the increasing number of expats in Amman; people coming to Jordan from all over the world for diverse non-touristy reasons.

But getting a glimpse of it from the other side of the Atlantic has been very amusing and interesting for me. Now when I tell people I'm from Jordan, the most common answer is "from Amman?"

http://linasturmoil.blogspot.com/

Ramadan for me

In Ramadan, you wake up in the morning when no one else is awake, grab something to eat quickly and then you pray. Then you go out and throughout the whole day when you are walking past supermarkets, restaurants and canteens, you smell the food and your tummy starts gurgling.

I've heard that it's been scientifically proven that if you do this for 30 days a year, it detoxes your body and it's not that hard right now as the days are really short and as long as you fill yourself up in the morning, you'll be fine until about 6pm.
Ramadan for me means a month of patience: no partying and losing weight.

I think of Ramadan as a time of challenge - to change our behaviour so as to abandon those bad and sinful actions that we are accustomed to and strive to perform more good actions on a regular basis.

http://www.moeys.net

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