Dragon Boating

On a recent hazy Friday morning we had our first taste of dragon boat racing, rowing on behalf of a mostly rookie team organized by our friend Francis. Dragon boating is a fairly enjoyable form of rowing that, perhaps like other team rowing events, requires that team members row precisely in time with each other. If you lose the rhythm each person's effort will start to counteract that of their cohorts, making for the sort of team building metaphor that might give a motivational speaker the strength to get out of bed in the morning, but probably not. I can't say that our timing was excellent, but the crew of good ol' number three never quite came in dead last and that's good enough for me. 

In the topmost picture you can see the hull of an immense wooden boat being constructed on the opposite shore. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of these beauties, but from the water they were quite impressive. And really, that was the best part of the race for me; being out on the water at an hour when I'm typically contemplating the inside of my eyelids.

Dubai has become a favorite target in the UK press of late, causing enough of a stir that the Sheikh held a Q&A with local journalists over the weekend, something he reportedly hasn't done since 2001. I haven't read the Q&A yet, but one perhaps telling criticism is that international journalists were apparently not invited to participate. Among the headlines in yesterday's news cycle, were the Sheikh's pronouncement that the worst of the credit crunch is over, and a report by Colliers International that residential real estate prices in Dubai have dropped by 40%. While it's very difficult to know what will happen in the next few months, one definite possibility is that you may be seeing us a bit sooner than expected.

One of the main reasons we came to Dubai was for the travel opportunities, and later this month we will be traveling to China for Nessa's job. Dubai is an excellent hub for visiting much of the world, and quite often does an excellent job of making you wish you were somewhere else. We hope to take advantage of being here by taking a few more trips before our time in the middle east comes to a close. Here's hoping China is just one of a few interesting destinations on our horizon.