We received a circular at work today regarding weather warning for UAE residents. It seems that Saturday’s rain that left hundreds of people stranded on the road and a lot of flooding wasn’t all – to think the rainfall that single night must be equivalent to the whole year of rain in Dubai.

From the email:

From this evening onwards the weather will become unsettled with thunderstorms accompanied by heavy rain, strong gusty winds and the possibility of hail,” the met office said in its warning. “Winds may gust to 40 knots (75km/h) with poor visibility and flooding, making driving conditions difficult. This unsettled weather will persist throughout Tuesday.

Uhm, hello? Isn’t this desert land and not the tropical rainforests of Amazon and Southeast Asia! The people and moreover, the city isn’t capable of handling too much rain. No drainage on most parts, yes?

The circular continues:

All staff should be prepared for delays and make the necessary adjustments to ensure they get to work safely. Personnel who have planned long road journeys should reconsider their travel plans. It is better to delay visits and meetings than to spend hours in heavy traffic, while at the same time running the risk of being involved in an accident. Everyone should drive within their capabilities and anticipate and make allowances for poor driving habits on the part of others.

Aye. There were lots of those kind of driving habit on my way home yesterday. We live in the boundary of Dubai and Sharjah and the number of cars going to Sharjah were utilizing all the roads!

Photo credit: Arshad Ali/Gulf News

Sharjah was underwater, with most roads going to Sharjah impassable (even a day after the rains), traffic on Dubai roads connecting to Sharjah were a standstill. It took me 1.5 hours to go home yesterday instead of 20 minutes.

Looking at the blue skies and sun coming out today, last night seemed like a distant nightmare. It rained heavily, like those rains in the tropical rainforests of South-East Asia. We’re talking of buckets upon buckets of rain being poured all at once kind of thunderstorm.

Ok, no problem…would be relaxing even had we been home, safe and warm under our blankets. After all, I do love some rain.

Thing is, we weren’t home but we’re in a clinic to rush Pristine due to her complaints of pain in her right wrist and forearm. Her hands swelled and she developed fever. After an hour at the clinic, we were given clearance – it was nothing serious but a severe allergy triggered “possibly” by an insect bite (unknown insect). She is highly allergic to these kind of things that’s why I don’t do so many trips back to the Philippines with her.

Anyway, when we went out, there was thunder and lightning and big fat raindrops coming from the skies! We are not used to heavy rains here in Dubai and last night was out of this world. We waited and waited only to see the roads disappear as flood waters rose. We checked our car – half of the tires are submerged and the security at the parking lot has fled, locking the parking barrier.

We had no umbrella, no rain boots, no car.

At 10:30 pm, Pristine was so tired, sleepy, in pain and hungry. We braved the rain and walked to a hotel apartment beside the hospital building. Soaked and wet we asked for a room and thankfully, there was ONE left!

I ran a hot bath for Pristine and I, ordered room service food for her (what a life! she liked it) and jumped into bed while the rain still battered Dubai way past midnight. When I turned off the lights, it was so dark with the blackout curtains and Pristine said:

“Mom, I can’t see your face!”

I said it’s ok, it’s because of the curtains and told her to close her eyes.

“But I don’t want to close my eyes and sleep without seeing your face!”

Oh Lord, what drama. I turned on the head light she smiled, kissed me and we slept peacefully at last!

*****

Today, there’s news of severe flooding in Dubai and the next emirate of Sharjah with lots of roads being blocked and impassable. That said, the skies are getting dark again, I’ll run now before it rains again!!

(It’s 7 pm, I just finished my work and just have to write a blog post as we have no internet at home…2 weeks after we moved in!)

There’s some kind of surreal thing going on with the weather we are experiencing right now in Dubai. It has been raining since yesterday! What a joy. We’ve been waiting for this kind of cool break, literally from the summer heat and kind of a change from the usual sunny-blue-skies weather we have 330 days a year. Forgive me, I do get the “don’t rub it in!” comment from people buried in winter snow but yeah, some gray clouds and rain do make me happy.

It’s quite nice to lie down in bed and looking out at the window to see the rain on a weekend. I spent half of my day off being sick – having a head splitting headache and vomitting. I rushed to the washroom so many times to throw up, creating commotion among the people in the house (namely: my mom, my aunt, my other aunt, etc) who came to visit. I came out and looked at their smiling faces.

“What?”

It’s really not funny for them to even think there’s a bun in the oven because it wasn’t even morning  and that there really wasn’t (I think so). Earlier that day, I took Pristine to a kid cinema at Ikea and I forgot to bring my eyeglasses. Shit happens when I go see a movie without my eyeglasses. That is all!

We’ve been having really nice weather here lately. By nice, that would mean, something that would have to do with cooler temperatures and for me, clouds and rain. When I look into the skies every single morning, it always seems like it’s going to rain right that very moment but it just won’t. Dubai skies in winter are such big teasers.

Last Tuesday, the weather was just wild, with strong winds ready to wipe out all the thin people walking in the streets. Of course, my feet was firm on the ground. I’m not that fat – I just need a stronger wind to blow me off. Heh. It was a pain to walk in windy weather though – in case you’ve forgotten, this is desert land and sand can get into the eyes, nose, etc. It was definitely no lip gloss day.

Yesterday I took the bus to work and brought my 3rd The Twilight Saga book, Eclipse and read it inside the bus. I heard a whooshing sound when it neared my bus stop so I stopped imagining about Jacob’s body and looked outside.

From the look of things, it’s apparent that it rained in the night or at dawn, probably lasting 5-10 minutes.

I’ve read some nasty weather in the US from Twitter. How’s the weather in your place?

*****

By the way, while you’re here do enter the current giveaway I’m having: a cute shirt for your little one from Lily and Pete is up for grabs. There are few entries so chance to win is big.

Photo for illustration purposes only

Yesterday at Twitter, came a very surprising tweet: “It’s raining in Dubai!!” I rushed outside to see if indeed the first showers of the season has come but no, from where I was, it was dry.

But the tweets keep on coming. It has rained at an area near the Mall of the Emirates, in Al Barsha, etc. When the local news agency Gulf News finally tweeted that rain hits parts of Dubai and Sharjah, then it was confirmed.

I have a winner in my guess the rain competition! Congratulations to @Mita56 – who placed her bet via Twitter early this month. I told her I’d only accept her bet since she placed in on my birthdate (22nd). And she was right!

Right now, the skies are acting a bit strange, the air is cool and we might experience the elusive rain again. I hope next time it comes to my area so I can take photos of it. No floods, though, please.

*****

Thank you very much to everyone who took part in the rain competition. It was fun! Let’s do that again next year! Speaking of competitions, I have one giveaway tomorrow, watch out for that, especially moms with little kiddos.

Also, I’d like to say thanks so much to all who greeted me on my birthday. You all make me feel extra special.

Just how random can that title be. Coming up with a blog title kills me, every time.

So, have you casted your bets yet? Why not? Go guess when we’ll have our first rain of the season now. There are so many dates still available and nobody’s going to charge you for anything for the bets, I promise.

Anyway, just to give everyone an update about the weather and the temps here, it’s still warm at 29c at night:

But living in the desert and surviving the 45C+ summer heat, 29C is cool. I don’t resent 29C, not at all.

Today, I went out during lunch break and at 1:30 pm here in Dubai the sky looked like this:

Aside from the smoke left by a passing jet, the sky is clear and so blue. That’s a heads-up so you’ll know it won’t rain in Dubai today – so don’t place your bet on November 3!

Just saying – I won’t be giving hints everyday. That won’t be exciting anymore.

*****

On the work front, I came back to office yesterday with people telling me I look fresh, rested and happy. Translating that, they are saying that I looked stale before I left and that I need 30 days straight off several times a year. Why else would they drop hints like that, right!?

Work is normal and not as stressful than I expected but my ears are exploding. How did I ever survive this very loud work place? Everyone’s shouting like either they’re all deaf or there’s a carnival going on that I don’t know of. It’s sad that the ears are involuntarily open like that and my husband is too stingy and won’t buy me earplugs. It’s so different than the offices in Japan where the only sound you can hear is that of the keyboard or your boss’s voice when someone screws up.

Oh and how they commented on my new short hair. Like, “Whoa, we didn’t notice you came in – you looked different!” or “new hair looks nice” and the classic from some of the ladies: “WHY did you cut your hair?” We all know that when someone inserts the word WHY in from of a question, most likely it means they don’t like it.

Or I look like a troll.

Oh well, this is my hair and I can do whatever I want with it. Gone are the days of mad blow drying, hair conditioning, masking, tying and combing. I won’t even have to spend so much time in the shower at the gym or come to work dripping after my lunch break workout. It’s liberating. And that small bottle of my favorite shampoo I brought from Japan? That little darling will last for THREE years.

“Hello, I’m Grace and I like to take photos in the washroom”

Why the sudden self-exposure on the blog? Thank you for asking. The answer: I’ve had people not recognizing me when I meet them on the street (especially if I have my sunglasses on). So now you know how I look like – long hair gone, short hair it is. Say hi!