Weekend Trip To Fujairah!

Yesterday, we took a weekend trip to Fujairah, which is an Emirate three hours away from Dubai. Climate wise, because of the mountains surrounding the emirate, the weather is always more pleasant there and the temperature is usually 8 - 10 degrees lower than the rest of the U.A.E. We really treated ourselves with the five star Le Meridian hotel and resort. I strongly recommend the hotel, as it's one of few hotels in the U.A.E. which keeps up with their reputation. Real five star service, and swimming pool and the pool-bar is just amazing.

Our new home in Jumeirah!

We now have moved to this gigantic villa and apparently we have an in-house maid and a gardener. As we’re very inexperienced having maids and gardeners around, I think it’s going to be a challenge assigning tasks and having some privacy inside our walls. But let’s see how it goes. As I mentioned earlier, we came to Dubai only to experience a different side of life (some might call it luxurious). The temperature is nearly 40 degrees and it’s becoming quite difficult to stay outside longer than a minute. But I really want to be out in the garden as it’s so flowery and nice. It reminds me so much of my childhood house. Luckily in about a month or so we’re travelling to Sweden to get married. So, hopefully we’ll miss most of the hot weather this year.

Looking for a moving company

Today we accepted the offer to rent my fiance boss villa and we're going and as of June 1st we'll be living in a villa near the beach. I've been calling around the entire morning looking for a moving company to move our stuff to our new place. Since we're not sure how long we're going to stay in Dubai, we decided not purchase many things. That said, I think somehow we've managed to ignore that rule. Once you empty the drawers and wardrobs, you'll relize how many unneccerary gadgets you actualy own.

Villa in Jumeirah!

As we were looking to find an apartment in JBR, my fiancé boss suggested that we should rent and move to her villa as she and her fiancé were about to move to the palm. The villa is located in Jumeirah 1 and has three bedrooms. It’s quite big for just the two of us but I think this is going to be a pleasant experience.

Looking for an apartment in Dubai Marina

I took a few hours off from work today to go for apartment haunting. As our annual rental contract is about to expire, we need to find a new place which is bigger so that we can have a study room (Where I can sit and play computer games.. lool). Fortunately, the rents have been reduced up to 45% compared to last year’s index. For us, this means that with the same amount that we paid last year to rent a studio we now can rent a 1 bedroom apartment in Dubai Marina instead. For those of you who are not familiar with different areas of Dubai, I can say that Dubai Marina is the most popular resident area in Dubai, especially for expats as it's relatively cleaner and more organized compare to the rest of Dubai and it has lots of cafes, yacht clubs, night clubs and fancy restaurants. There’s a beautiful beach in an even more popular area of Marina, commonly known as JBR (Jumeirah Beach Residents).

Anyway, I saw a few apartments near the Marina Lake and I kind of liked one which was a spacious 1-bedroom on 18^th floor of Diamond Tower. It had a great view over the Marina Lake, Persian Gulf and partially Jumeirah Lake Towers. Gym, Swimming pool, Sauna, Steam, covered parking, Gas and AC was all included in the rent which made the annual rent quite reasonable. However, I asked the agent to keep the apartment a few more hours so that Bahareh sees it after I pick her up from work.

Dubai Weather: Sunny, 34°

Trip to Tehran

Last week, we had a quick trip to Iran to purchase some wedding stuff which might be difficult to find in Sweden. We decided to perform a Persian ceremony and naturally it won't be easy to find all required ceremonial stuff back home in Sweden. Anyway, it was a great experience, also was the first time Bahareh and I travelled to Iran together, something we wanted to do since the early days of our relationship, seven years ago. We really had a good time over there, threw a few parties at my parents apartment in Tehran, went hitch-hiking with friends and cousins, spent many hours at Bazaar, and just showing my wife-to-be, a few places that reminded my of my childshood brought me lots of joy.

On a Diet in Dubai

Well about two months ago I finally made up my mind that no matter what I have to lose a few pounds. So, we went straight to a nutritionist in Dubai in order for him to straighten up our eating habits and in result put us on a diet to lose our extra pounds of fat. And he did give us a diet indeed. It consisted of 7 meals a day, something which I knew was the right approach but still didn’t like it. Anyway, after 10 extremely difficult days of trying his diet, we went back to him. I had lost 200 grams and I was furious. I told the doctor, “Man, probably you didn’t quite understand what I meant when I said I wanted to lose weight... let me repeat, I want to lose 20 kg before July”. He was very calm and said: I know, I just wanted to test your body to see how much you can tolerate. But now that you’re asking for it .. I’m gonna give it to you!. Well, he wrote me a new recipe and this time 9 meals a day and each meal less than 30 calories. Long story short, I tried the diet for one single day and I found it very annoying and difficult to prepare these meals 9 times a day. So, the next morning after the first day of trying, I decided to STOP eating. I bought myself some vitamin pills and just stopped eating for 40 whole days. Even though I was worried about my health and side effects of “my own method” I carried on. The good news is that now, 50 days after I started. I have lost over 30 pounds (13 kg) and I’m healthier than anytime I can remember in my life. I have 7 more kg to reach my ideal weight, but I’m taking it easier. I’m having one meal a day, and that’s a healthy breakfast . I will post some Before & After photos just for the fun of it.

Dubai Weather: Sunny, 30°