As you may have guessed, we've been out for a walk today. It was supposed to be both for a purpose and pleasure, but the end, it was far from pleasurable. The first issue from the Tecom area is crossing Sheikh Zayed Road. Calling it a road is an injustice. There are at least 6 lanes in either direction and if you add in slip-roads, sometime 8 or 9! It's really an urban freeway. The only way of crossing it on foot is where there is a Metro station where there is a bridge and there is certainly at least a kilometre between stations. Luckily, Dubai Internet City station is only 300-400 metres away from the flat.
We managed that fairly easily this morning and arrived on the other side of the freeway in one piece. It wasn't too bad a walk to Knowledge City, an area of University campuses. Some effort has been made to build walkways in this area although at one stage, the path was interrupted by a 4 lane road with no crossing and a concrete barrier on the central reservation. This entailed a 200 metre diversion to nearby traffic lights.
The stroll through the University area was quite pleasant, there were lots of students taking a break, sitting on the benches and grass or in one of the fast-food outlets. We did our business at the Post Office although we were delayed whilst we waited for the lady who dealt with stamps to return from Subway! We followed the same route back to the Metro.
From here, we started to head towards Arrows and Sparrows a small lunch spot we've used several times. Initially, walking isn't too bad as there is a pavement, then then it's only possible to continue by walking in the road as a building site has fenced off the pavement. Next obstacle is crossing another highway. This entails taking your chances crossing two lanes of fast moving traffic, ducking under a bridge through a sandy central reservation and then another two lanes of traffic!
Lunch was very pleasant and relaxed and allowed us the pluck up courage for our return trip! We had to go via a small shopping centre to find a postbox. There is no sign of one at the Post Office! We also went to the small supermarket there for a few groceries. Then the assault course started!
After 300-400 metres we came to a main road 6 lanes wide. The only way to cross was at the traffic lights. All very sensible except there is no footpath. Dicing with death, we made it to the lights and safely crossed the road at the Pedestrian crossing. On the other side, due to incomplete building work, there was no footpath, just rough sand with a few boulders embedded in it. Next was a roundabout. Here, as they are doing work, they had netted off all access to the crossings which forced us back on the road as we walked around the roundabout!
To get across the next section, there is no traffic but a huge building site where extensive ground works are ongoing. This forced us, and lots of other pedestrians, to head through the excavations keeping a careful eye out for diggers etc. It's rather dusty here too, so to keep this in check, the contractors spray it with water which turns it into mud instead! Surrounding all this are huge curbs to negotiate or broken paving stones on which to twist your ankle. One day, perhaps, it might be finished and look quite nice! Currently, it almost counts as fell-running for the twists, turns and obstacles.
Rant over!
I tried the rooftop swimming pool out this afternoon. It's a nice little oval-shaped affair on the roof of a 14 storey block. It was quite a pleasant temperature too, but I felt rather like a goldfish in a bowl as the pool is mainly surrounded by other buildings far higher than this one.
Advertising is interesting here too. They seem to have perfected the art of wrapping tall buildings in advertisements. Clearly, the occupants don't notice this film wrapped around their office or housing spaces. One building here that was made out to look like a giant water bottle when we were here in January is now 'naked' again, and a partially completed tower block we can see from the balcony was wrapped in advertising until today. Since this morning, it's all been removed. All clever stuff, I've no idea how they do it and have no interest in the products advertised but I'm impressed with the technology that permits it. OK, I'm a sad bunny!
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