We moved to Abu Dhabi after our trip round China in late 2007 when I was half way through my pregnancy with Indy (who was called Basil at the time!! Yeah, yeah, I was going to name all our kids after herbs and spices!!). This post from our old site gives a view of Abu Dhabi in our first year here.
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We moved to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates at the start of October 2007 for Tommy to begin work with the Arabian Construction Company (ACC). And we moved into our flat here 6 week later. here are some pics to give an idea of what Abu Dhabi and UAE are really like…. so far |
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Looking back towards the Corniche
National Day was at the start of December, the Emiratees like to dress their cars up and cruise the town for 2 days!
The Emirates Palace – AD’s 7 star hotel – and where Kirsty went to see Justin Timberlake!
Dubai Creek
Abra on the creek – they’re open sided boats which ferry people across
fort in Umm al Quwain
hoopoe on the balcony of our friends apartment in Dubai
We had major sandstorms here in Feb 08 – difficult to catch the effect in a picture but given that we’re actually about 40km from the desert, quite a lot of it came into town!!
An arabian bagpipe band!
Pots at the plant souk
Most of the UAE looks like this
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The Corniche is a long promenade along the top of the island with fountains (which Saffron likes to play in), sitting areas and a beach
There are lots of beaches – this one looks towards an area called the Breakwater – which is opposite the Corniche, and where L and R pics above were taken from
Our living room done up for Christmas
If you search for Electra Street, Abu Dhabi on Google Earth – the search result “Sara Building” gives you the building next but 1 to ours! We’re diagonally opposite the park, which is called Mosque Gardens – and yes, it has a noisy mosque in it – but it’s almost impossible not to live within hearing of a mosque here!
Sheik Zayed mosque in Abu Dhabi – the second largest mosque in the world, with a capacity of 45,000 people, and being built by Tommy’s company
Sheik Mohamed’s House
lots of bling at the gold souk
Saffron outside our apartment block
Some of the horse owners
but in the middle there’s a range of mountains which look like this
Pictures from the red bull air race. The planes had to weave in and out of the cones and fancy stuff like that!
We went to visit the Sheik Zayed Mosque – first time in a mosque for any of us
We were driving to Iftar one night and I snapped this whilst stopped at traffic lights – shame about the lamp posts, but what can you do… and no, I don’t own photoshop!!
Tommy and Saffron jumping over the rocks at the beach at sunset one day.
It’s true there are a LOT of sand dunes here!
You do see camels sitting atop sand dunes every now and then!
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The Corniche
The Red Arrows put on a display for us too!
A bit of Saffron’s bedroom in our new flat
goats on their way to be offered as sacrifices for Eid – there were people walking goats down the street everywhere in Sharjah!
mosque decoration, Sharjah
souk, Sharjah
children’s paintings, art gallery, Sharjah
We went to the Arabian Horse championships, which was slightly odd and involved lots of prancing horses, and men in bowler hats!
Van of sheep being driven through town
in the Hajar mountains
Abeyas are so flattering!
prayer times
Little boy posing for his photo in national dress – very cute, but I can’t believe they have kids posing with guns
Tommy and Saffy on the Corniche
Clouds from our apartment window one evening
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by Kirsty
I love the Hajar mountains! Very interesting to take a peek into another side of life and realise the enormous cultural differences between countries. You look beautiful in your abeya.