A roundup of the first 10 days

It's my 10th day into Dubai and I'm still not fully settled down yet.  Not sure if this is considered slow or not.  Have been looking through countless ads for apartments and have seen a couple of them.  Many of them are comparable to hotel standard but the rent is on the steep side.  There's one unit which is offering at a cheaper rent but the appliances and building is not well maintained.  I guess it's just 一分钱，一分货.

Well, my first weekend here isn't entirely spent on apartment viewing.  I went to 2 of the largest shopping malls in Dubai, the Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates. These 2 malls house rather exotic stuff in them.  Dubai Mall contains an indoor aquarium and ice skating rink while Mall of the Emirates houses an indoor ski resort!  Check out FB for the pics.

On Middle East cuisine, I haven't really tried a wide variety of it yet.  I've tasted Lebanese and Turkish cuisine (Turkish cuisine isn't really Middle East cuisine anyway).  Most of the time, I'm still on Western food.  Well, a few things are missing here.  Initially, I thought it was rice but surprisingly, I could still find rice without much difficulty but price is on the high side.  Ok, chillies are like non-existent.  Substitutes such as chilli sauce, hot sauce and Tabasco are used instead.  Curry is quite easily found though.  Vending machines are also scarce here, so are hawker centres and food courts.  If you don't wanna dine at fast food outlets, you will have to eat in a restaurant (and of course, pay restaurant prices for your food).

Service charge and GST are also non-existent here although some restaurants add a service charge of between 5 to 15% which you can get away without paying if you bring up the UAE law as they are not supposed to impose mandatory service charges to the patrons.  Tips are supposed to be given on discretion.  So within a short stint of 10 days, I've learnt that if the restaurants impose a service charge, I will not tip.  If no service charge is added, I usually leave behind a couple of dirhams as tips.

Perhaps at this point, you may be put off to come over for a holiday.  So let me paint you the brighter side of the picture.  Food is more expensive when dined outside but the consolation is that raw food price is about the same as Singapore for most food, if not cheaper!  Only a few items are steeper in costs here such as rice and chillies.  I went to Carrefour and did a simple scan through the hypermart.  Most of the necessities such as toiletries and essential food items such as vegetables and meat are comparable to Singapore.  Soft drinks are quite cheap here.  A can of coke costs only 1 dirham (about SGD0.40) while a 2.25 litres bottle (not 1.5 litres) cost 4 dirhams (about SGD1.60).  Locally produced cooking oil is about 10 dirhams (SGD4) for 2 litres.  Even the prohibited food item, pork, is available at Waitrose (a UK supermarket chain) and the price is acceptable (I thought it would be a premium to buy pork here!).