Awoke early to meet Kinaan - and actually made it. Wayhey! First time this trip, I think? Well, I am on Holiday, eh? I was wondering what wonders he'd introduce me to as I took a bus and Arba (and walked a while) to Al Fahidi Street. On arrival I found that he wasn't yet there but I sat and had a cuppa while I waited anyway. It wasn't too long before he came along and we took a bus to... the City Center (note U.S. spelling!) I guess when it came down to it all there wasn't much to do around Dubai. We walked around and I enquired about my Casio A-11a power pack - no joy.

While at the City Center (U.S. spelling) I'd seen some blurb about the Al Boom tourist village and thinking it could be akin to ta museum showing local life, I though we should check it out. By this time it was already severely hot out there ("only mad Jordanians and Grimbarians go out in the midday sun!") I'm fairly sure that if it were possible to stay in one place long enough then you could burn your shadow into the pavement (British spelling.) We were about to walk over one of the bridges over the Creek and a passing bus stopped for us to get on and out of the sun. Safe and air conditioned passage across to the other side. In a word - cool!

On getting to the other side we got off and spent at least another 20 minutes trying to find the place. When we did eventually find it - I was sorely disappointed. It was a tourist village - but in the sense that it was a village for tourists - where rich tourists could go and copious amounts of cash on dinner and drinks ('... and the same for my PDA!') Not my cup of cha! However there were some nice photos to be taken there anyway so I made the best of it. While taking some shots of the boats moored in the Creek I started chatting with the staff of one of the restaurant boats. Who'da thunkit? Most of the staff are Chinese from the mainland and of course were surprised that I could speak Chinese with them. We stayed for ten minutes or so before we had to go back as Kinaan had to work.

We took a taxi as time was pressing and the taxi dropped us off at Kinaan's apaprtment building. He now shares one room with 4 guys and one girl. Cramped, you bethcha! Hope he finds a something more comfortable soon. The funnyside of it is that due to one of his business endeavours, the flat has a lot of stylish alarm clocks dotted around, and on the balcony stands a huge column of clocks in boxes under a tarpaulin.

I hung around, chatting with Igor, Kinaan's Uzbeki roommate, until Kinan was ready then we went off to the tastey bite for Kinaan to start work.

After eating one last meal at the Tastey Bite I headed to Jameira beach. I took the bus there and bumped into, once more, into Andreas, the Canadian-Iranian athlete, this time with his girlfriend, not going to the beach. Once there I waved cheerfully at the lifeguard and he let me leave my stuff by his chair. With my snorkel I was as happy as a fish in water. first off I couldn't see my toes let alone anything else but as I moved to the East end of the beach I found where the party was at! I had to take extra care because there were plenty of spiney sea Urchins to step upon. Does anyone remember Jacks? Well it was a game played with silver star shaped objects and a power ball. At the end of the beach is a huge artificial breakwater made up by these huge concrete 'jacks'. Under here was fish spotting paradise. I've no idea what species I saw but for me it was fun enough just to stay submerged for the better part of an hour and spend my time playing with the fish. Magic. As before I had to take care with the urchins.

After a while of this it started getting dark and I made my way back up the beach and started playing volleyball pass with some guys. Of course I sucked, I do at ball games. I hung around the beach until around 6:00pm and went back to the bus station to get water, food, and a bus back to the Aviation club. I was due to meet the South African guys at the Irish Village for the annual rain party. As I mentioned earlier, there's not been a whole lot o' rain in these parts for quite a while now so to help spirits of the expats the Irish Village holds an annual rain party. There are huge water cannons hoisted onto the roof and everyone gets armed with water pistols (bring your own - the ones for sale at the pub itself are very cheap and don't last too long.) Not only can you drink Fosters for GBP2.00 a can (cheap - for Dubai) you can try your hand at mechanical rodeo, surf boarding (both of which I did pretty well), limbo and pop quizzes every once in a while. I won a T-shirt for answering who else had a hit with "Wonderwall". As you can quite imagine, I didn't use my camera this day. Didn't want to get it soaked.

Funnily enough after chatting to the young lady, dolling out free jungle juice to newcomers (should be one cup per punter - Should be) I was very drunk and very tired. Wanting to get out of the noise and bustle I retired to the rock garden. Second funny thing was - there was space enough to lay under the rock and fall asleep. This is exactly what I did. I awoke about 3:00am and found that the party was over, the fat lady had sung and all had gone home, leaving me looking for my day-pack which I'd left behind an outside bar. I started looking around the bar not at all noticing that I was being noticed by the security staff. Oops! After explaining to the nice guard whose shirt was hanging through his trouser flies (?) No idea why, and even after I'd brought his attention to it no explanation was offered, I was let out of the pub grounds. I took a taxi back - and slept it off.

Thursday

My main concern, after getting up and sorting my head out was getting my bag back from the pub. Ah cannae remember whit time ah gat up - but I don't think it was an early start.

Off to the Irish Village. Picked up my bag and chatted with the young ladies from the previous night. The majority of them came over via ads in international Irish press and yes... they really are Irish. I stayed an hour or so in the afternoon sun, catching up with my journal as best as I could.

Decided to walk for a while on the way back to Al Ahli - Wouldn'tcha knowit! There was an Emirates office en route. I was ready to get out of Dubai and back home even though my ticket only had one day left in the emirates. On a muse I decided to pop in and see the flight availabilities for that night. I was in luck. I headed back to the YMCA to find that I'd stayed too many nights anyway and would have to get out (There's a limit of 6 nights per guest.) How well did that work out? Very well. In the space of a few short hours I'd advanced my ticket, picked up my stuff and checked out and was winging my way back home. Home. .