Lunch Out With Max

After so many months in Dubai, finally got the process started to make my Resident's ID card here... I learnt an interesting thing or two about Dubai when I tried to make my resident's card.

The first one was how my name looked like in arabic:) I dunno how to pronounce it or if they were using the phonetic sounds to create it but it does look sort of nice to me. My friends say it look like a smiley face and I think part of it looks like a pair of boobs;) Just how did they know I am female.. hahahah:)

First step was that we had to go to a shop tat specialized in these things and hand in things like our passport and photos for them to verify and get the process started. As Ace is a child, his card was ready in a few weeks..

As for me, I needed an extra step of going to one of the offices to get my ID done. When I arrived at the office, I was amazed to see the really long queue that was snaking out of the office into the corridor. The queue was at least a few metres long and I was wondering why were there only men applying for their cards till I went to queue behind the man.. only to have the security guard tell me that I need not queue cos I am a woman.. women gets express queue.. you just go straight to the counter!:)

I got my queue number and went to the next office to queue... this time round, I clever liao.. i din queue and went straight to the front desk. I was given yet another number and asked to go into another room where they were supposed to scan my fingers and palms for prints and take my photo.

When i went into the room, I realized a very strange thing... everyone was staring at me. I was wondering what is wrong. I tried to dress more formally that day and wore a knee length dress and a cardigan with high heels lor... (that is my lucky i wore when I went to do my driving test) And after staring at me, the staff there just laughed and talked amongst themselves.. I don't understand arabic but I had a feeling they were jeering at me..

Anyway, after about a minute, a man came and told me that if i do not live too far away, I should go home and change... I din realize it but apparently, as this is a govt place, you have to cover both your knees and your shoulders... it's ok to wear jeans but not ok to wear a formal short dress!

So boh pian lah.. went home to change. Just for the record, the change in clothing served no purpose... it was just a rule. The photo they took of me is a passport photo and they can only see my face!:) Anyway, now i know lah..

Another thing tat intrigued me was that the second time I went into the room, there were alot of people in the room. There were chairs placed in the room and they were placed into an L shape. And there were people all over the chairs. Whenever someone finished, someone random will stand up and go next. There is no numbering system and they were not seated in order at all!

I asked the lady next to me, "How do you know who goes next?" She says it is according to who arrives in the room first. Gee, amazing lor.. how will I know who is the last one to arrive before me and if I were not an observant person.. how can I remember when there were 10 pple already seated there when I arrived?

I also noticed hor, that the people who worked here have very good life! :) Customers' service is definitely not a priority. Enjoying their job is:) I am so envious! They really still chat and use the phone blatantly in front of us "customers" and treat us as just objects or invisible men or women!:) But I dun mind.. given that it makes the environment there alot less "serious".

Also, when the booth where a man was in charge is free, I was not allowed to go cos only women can help women.. as they will need to touch our hands to help us scan our finger prints and they have to scan like ALL our fingers and even our palms.. hahaha:) I think even stricter than Singapore:)

After all the hard work of waiting, getting my fingers scanned, I was hungry! So Max brought me to this place he promised he would bring me to some time back...

Tadah! it is called Sai Diam! Did he bring me to sai diam to jiak sai? Hahahaha.. Okie.. no.. actually, it is Sai dham.. (No offence intended okie..) I think it means something like house of sai baba... cos it is vegeterian... and started by a person called sai baba.. but not the same one tat I usually see in indian restaurants... not the one with afro hairdo who passed away last year.. but is a old bearded man who I think is an indian guru or saint... (i read up on wiki and the afro hair sai baba claims to be an reincarnation of this particular sai baba)

Anyway, he promotes eating vegeterian food that has less oil and salt and no things like eggs, mushrooms etc tat will actually according to him disturb your health... did you know tat eggs can make you sleepy, dully and ignorant according to the guru? With no disrespect to him, but I think I am STILL going to eat my eggs.. hahaha

I must say tat even though they boast of being cooked with lesser oil and salt... the food is still slightly too savory for my taste.. i cannot imagine if they were to cook it with normal amounts of oil and salt... wahahahaha:)

But it was nice to lunch alone with Max every once in a while:) and we were super full after that.. so we just ate salad for dinner!


Few days later, we went out for lunch together again... this indian restaurant has the best briyani and gobi manchurian ever!:) haha

PS: Since we are on the topic of food: I was hungry that day, and bought KFC to eat at home for lunch. My son arrived home earlier than expected and so I din have time to get rid of the box before he arrived. Moment he saw my KFC box, he said, "Orh.. you eat chicken.. you dun respect vegeterian!" I told him in what way I dun respect vegeterian? I dun criticize him for eating only veg and i dun force him to eat meat or call him names just because he eats differently from me.. I told him he has to learn how to respect people who eat meat too... it is great he wants to be healthy and eat vegeterian food only, but that doesnt give him the right to judge other people about their choices in life:) Anyway, as expected, the bao toh kia told his dad that "Mummy eat meat! She buy KFC and eat Chicken!" the moment he had a chance! Hahaha...

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