Ridin' around town in a drop-top Toyota echo, Daym it feels good to be a gangsta

These pictures are from the area where my parents stay. It's called Abu Shaghara and it's the used-car sales area of Sharjah. Which explains all the cars parked all over the place. I mean these cars are parked all over the place. On the sidewalks, on the roundabouts (turnabouts for you north-westerners), they're hogging a lane on each street.

Somehow, I’ve managed to get some sleep both nights. I’m not sure how I’m doing this, but I’m sure as hell not going to complain about it.

Dad hooked me up with a rental car (an Echo), which means that I can now drive around and don’t need to count on a cab.

Driving has been an interesting experience here. Pedestrians crossing 4 lane wide highways. Stop signs are optional. I say almost because once the traffic light has been on red for about 5 seconds, it starts to take effect on people. A single lane exit can serve up to 3 cars side by side.

The folks love their car horns here. People honk if you’re going slow, if you’re going fast. They honk when the light changes to green and when it changes back to red. They honk when they turn left and the honk when they turn right. They honk when they’re sad and they honk when they’re happy. They honk when they look up and they honk when they look right. You get the idea…

It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many different ninja clusters. In malls, they primarily travel in clusters. I will have to take some pictures to try and identify several different types of ninja clusters that were spotted. It particularly interesting when the ninjas cross the street at night. Camouflage has its advantages but not in the night while crossing a busy street.

The first mall I sent to was the City Center (above). After recharging with a tall banana mocha (yes, there was banana in it) frap (I like bananas, but not in a mocha I discovered), I was a little more awake and went around checking out the stores.



Bought a book. I don’t think my $500 bucks are going to go very far here.

I wrapped up yesterday with a dish called Nihari (basically a beef stew) at a place called Delhi Restaurant. That was pretty good. You will find a lot of Indian and Pakistani eateries here that serve the authentic stuff. This is because at any given time on the street, in a sample of 100 people, you will find 60 Indians (mostly South Indians, the dot not the feather), 25 Pakistanis, 10 people from other middle eastern countries (Irani, Sudani, Egyptians, Lebanese, etc..) and 5 people who are actually UAE Nationals (citizens of the UAE). You can usually identify the UAE Nationals by their arrogant attitudes, their white flowing dresses and their expensive luxury sports cars. The men wear white robes, women typically wear the black robes called burkhas (the younger women dress a bit more flashy :). So when the men and women stand side-by-side, there is almost like a ying-yang, good vs. evil thing going on here. Only instead of being face to face at the OK corral, the women are typically hauling the children around ( usually a filipino maid is doing that) and the men have their pot bellies leading the way. Ofcourse, I'm generalizing here. Not everyone has a maid there for their children and the UAE locals arn't the only ones allowed to have maids.

I’ll try to get some pictures of these but I’ll have to be discreet. I will get the shit kicked out of me if someone sees me taking pictures of them. I break easy and my insurance won’t cover my medical bills in the UAE.