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Gulf News deputy web editor Florence Pia G. Yu plunges headlong into the blogosphere to find out what bloggers from the Middle East and beyond have on their minds.
Star blogs
DHL guessing game
An interesting interactive promotion from DHL, this box is placed at City Mall in Amman saying: "What's inside and how heavy is it?"
All you have to do is to SMS the answer to win.
It's a little bit misleading. It could be anything: a car, a paper, a laptop… maybe a DHL employee. But that's the idea, to communicate that DHL can ship anything, interesting.
http://www.jazarah.net/blog
Moving to Dubai
Five movies, six TV sitcoms and the most delicious airline food I've ever eaten and we've arrived in Dubai. We'll definitely hit the Gold Souk and some of the other old town souks and likely the shopping mall that has an indoor ski hill. Emirates Airline was fantastic; just 12 "quick" hours from JFK to Dubai!
http://www.mcgregorjourney.blogspot.com
etisalat gets kudos
I complain about etisalat from time to time, with good reason, so I should also record when something is done well.
Yesterday evening I suddenly lost my connection - couldn't get onto the internet or e-mail. So I called the helpline.
First good point, I got through, it wasn't engaged. The usual thing of a machine telling me which numbers to press to finally get to a human being.
A short wait, no more than a couple of minutes, because all the staff were "busy helping other customers" and then I was talking to a helpful person.
He didn't jabber on in meaningless jargon, but quickly and efficiently ran me through the steps to take. That lead him to discover that the problem was somewhere at their end, they'd cut my connection somehow. (I expect someone tripped over a wire and pulled the plug out.)
He said he'd get the engineers working on it and I should have my connection back within two hours. In fact it was less than one hour.
http://www.dubaithoughts.blogspot.com
Missing compassion
The blogger started off on her journey. In the car she stapled documents, she wrote emails, she made phone calls. But she felt uneasy, somehow. There was a lurking feeling that she had forgotten something, something important.
At the airport, the person behind the Emirates counter told her coolly that her flight was delayed, which would mean that she would miss her ongoing flight and would have to spend six hours in the middle of the night in the Dubai airport.
The girl protested but the Emirates representative looked past her and called "next".
The hours passed at the Casablanca airport. The blogger's Emirates meal voucher only entitled her to a drink, but her delayed flight didn't leave until 4pm.
Finally on the plane, the girl poured herself a drink, placing it on the pull down plastic tray before her. It was a few minutes later that the man sitting in front of her jerked his seat forward, spilling the entire beverage on her lap. She cried out.
And so began the girl's journey to Bahrain.
PS: It turns out that the important thing that the blogging girl had forgotten was her camera battery. Sigh, no pictures of this journey.
http://www.moroccanmaryam.typepad.com/
Change of scenery
Our first experience of Abu Dhabi was our taxi driver speeding us into the city at around 130km/ph, finger firmly lodged in his nose for the entire time and distracted by almost everything around him - other cars, other drivers, lights, signs.
As he went to turn one corner he even crashed us into a curb because he was so distracted by the car next to him. Silly man, but no damage done.
It was so hot that the clothes we washed in the morning dried within 15 minutes of being outside. I thought I was going to die from heat exhaustion - the sun was fierce. But it was really nice to have a change of scenery though - mosques in place of temples, palm trees in place of no trees.
http://www.lee-zokujin.blogspot.com/
Caramel (Sukkar Banat)
A few days ago we watched Caramel (Sukkar Banat), a Lebanese movie directed by Nadine Labaki. I heard a lot about the movie and read many reviews of it on several blogs, and had wanted to check it out for months before I got the chance to.
The title Caramel refers to an epilation method used in the Middle East that consists of heating sugar, water and lemon juice.
The movie is a romantic comedy that revolves around the intersecting lives of five Lebanese women. Layale works in a beauty salon in Beirut along with two other women, Nisrine and Rima.
Each one has a problem: Layale is stuck in a dead-end relationship with a married man; Nisrine is no longer a virgin but is set to be married to a Muslim; Rima is attracted to women; Jamale, a regular customer and wannabe actress, is worried about getting old; Rose, a tailor with a shop next to the salon, is an old woman who had devoted her life to taking care of her mentally unbalanced older sister Lili, but has found her first love.
I have to confirm the reviews; I really enjoyed this movie and think it's a great effort from Labaki as her first feature film. I totally recommend it to everyone.
http://www.subzeroblue.com/
Indiana Jones
Harrison Ford is back and kicking as Indiana Jones, jumping in graves and beating people up. How we all remember Indiana Jones so fondly, enjoyed the movies, and wanted more.
I have had the boxset since it came out a couple of years ago, so I had high expectations for this movie. From the moment you start watching it you get a complete understanding of the time they are in, and Indiana Jones has grown older. You can see it and feel it, it gives an authentic feel to him.
As it picks up, Shia LaBeouf enters into the movie and he flows perfectly, I really liked the character he played, it added a different flavour to the movie. It was a little bit longer then it should have been but overall it was an Indiana Jones movie.
http://www.zdistrict.com
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