Monday, January 17, 2011

More Shopping

Ya'll...look what we found at Lulu's on Friday. It's the first time we've seen it for sale in Dubai! Look what else they have here....ALL.YEAR.LONG. Good thing I'm on a diet....

I decided to take more grocery store pictures to show you how things roll around here, so here goes:
This is the delicate detergent for dishdashes and abayas. No idea what it's called....
They also import Seventh Generation products here if you'd like to take out a mortgage for your laundry.


These people LOVE their Tide.


And their Tang. In many ways, this country is about 20 years behind the US.



The whole milk is dubbed "full cream" and they call skim milk "skimmed milk" which is probably more accurate.


Or you can get double cream. Ew. (No, that's not whipping cream, it's milk)


This is one brand of formula - maybe sort of like Good Start since it's made by Nestle. Do you see where it says 5 years plus?



They have a teeny-tiny stash of Jello products, unlike US stores which look like the Tide picture above except with Jello.


At first glance, you'd think this was yogurt:



Nope. It's:

Which is different than cream cheese. The yogurt's over here:



You can get plain or Activia.


They also have a small area with fruited yogurt, but it's not very good. It's over here:



In this section is Butterball meat:


Buitoni noodles...


And Kraft and Sargento cheese which will cost you a small fortune.


They also have frozen pizza, but no pepperoni! Halal meat only!


Plenty of frozen veggies including Green Giant, but no coupons :(


Want butter? It's in the freezer section. I spent about two months thinking they didn't sell butter here because it isn't with the margarine.


Or you can go to the cheese counter and buy it by the kilo.

Speaking of the cheese counter, THIS is the place to get your cheese. Much cheaper and they will shred it for you. You can sort of see the guy shredding my cheese over there. And the wine bottle? It's a tease, in my opinion.


The fresh bread section:


And then there's the produce. I've never seen whole tapioca before, but here it is:


Some Abu Dhabi broccoli:


Beetroot, bread fruit, and chowchow:


They sell coconuts at the coconut booth.


And Dole pineapples. These babies were shipped from Hawaii.


This is the fresh herb section, so you'd better know what your herbs look like before you come!


And these little guys...couldn't figure out their name by the sign. I dub them "Martian Roots."


An odd looking melon-ish fruit:

Not celery. VelleryWhite pumpkins from Oman that look nothing like pumpkins to me.


There is usually a little crowd of Indian women around the bitter gourds, so I think they are a popular part of their cuisine.


They are abusive with their bananas, so they come home bruised.

The name of these makes me laugh :)



Hard-shelled nuts by the gram:


Then they have a counter with shelled nuts....


And behind that counter is about three walls of individually packaged candy.


They have an express lane at checkout, just like us:

And gossip magazines:


And then there's this sign..."Don't trip over your abaya on the way out!"

Then you push your buggy, which they call a trolley, down the magnetic travelator to the parking garage.


And that's what it looks like to shop at Lulu's in Dubai.

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Growing Up Fast

Look who's not a baby anymore!
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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Atlanta vs. Abu Dhabi: Cost of Living

I happened upon an interesting site today, Xpatulator.com. I was intrigued about their views on the UAE, and thought I'd do some comparisons to home. This landed me in Microsoft Excel, which happens a lot in my life. I think in spreadsheets...I can't help it.

So the way this works...each category is rated from 1, being the most expensive, to 300, being the cheapest. There are 300 countries in the study, with Tokyo, Japan being the number 1 most expensive overall, and Sanaa, Yemen being the cheapest. (Of note: they do not cite resources!)

Overall, Abu Dhabi ranked 27 and Atlanta ranked 225. New York City ranked 33.

Then, they ranked spending areas in each city. Remember 1=most expensive and 300=least expensive, so Abu Dhabi's clothing cost is really expensive!
So then I made a graph, because who doesn't love a graph? You can see that the two cities meet in the middle for Communication and Transportation, and that Atlanta's household prices are super inexpensive compared to the rest of the world!
I feel the need to comment on some of these...
If you divided up Alcohol and Tobacco into two categories, you'd see that Abu Dhabi's Alcohol number would fall drastically and their Tobacco level would rise.
As far as Clothing...it's hard to score well when you fill all of your malls with BCBG, Burberry, Dolce & Gabanna, Emporio Armani, Gucci, Juicy Couture...and the likes.
In terms of Education, they must be referring to free public schools reserved for Emiratis. To give you an idea, the nurseries I've seen here cost 8,000-12,000dhs (about $2K-$3K) for a 3-4 month term. A common education allowance for employees seems to be 25,000-40,000dhs ($6K-$10K) per year starting at age 3. I think nursery is way above what I know in Atlanta, but the private school seems pretty close to average at home.
Household seems accurate to me - with Abu Dhabi being REALLY expensive and Atlanta being really cheap. This includes rent/mortgage, real estate taxes, and utilities.
The Restaurant/Hotel speaks for itself...this isn't a cheap vacation spot!
Well, that's the end of our lesson today. Hope you enjoyed my nerdy presentation :)

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