A day in the trenches: No rest for the wicked

Whew! It's been a busy few weeks. You'd think being on holiday would have brought me a bit of respite, but no... lately my life has been all go go go.

My favourite part of my half-term break was painting murals for Kids Company. A day of physical labour can go by surprisingly quickly. I didn't want it to end.

Of course, before half term was Dubai, and I still haven't talked much about that. Dubai is full of steel and concrete; big fancy towers and shopping malls and resorts and 14 lane highways and every single brand name you can imagine. Even Canadian brands!

It's all very luxurious, I suppose, if you're into that sort of thing. I personally found it a bit sickening.

For me, Dubai had one single saving grace (apart from the sunshine): The Creek.

The Creek is the heart of Old Dubai and is where most of the traditional souks (markets) are concentrated. I had a brilliant time browsing and haggling my way through the labyrinths. It reminded me of India (though it smelled much more delicious), and I wound up getting some rather impressive deals.

It's also where I finally found some local food (shockingly difficult to acquire in Dubai!) and for a great price. This shawarma is about a fifth of the size of the ones they sell in Ottawa, but it was just the right amount of food and packed loads of flavour. The accompanying avocado juice was about the most amazing blended drink I've ever tasted. The total for both came to 11 dirhams (£1.84). I'm emphasising prices because they're so different from the rest of Dubai. My other lunches cost me between 60 and 110 dirhams (£10-18) and weren't nearly as nice.

Most people who live there will tell you there are too many Indians, but I think the high concentration of Indian expats was a big part of what made it appeal to me. Sights like these stirred up my memories of dusty, chaotic, magical India and made it seem like a real place where real people live and work, rather than a Wall-E wasteland.