Toy-Sized Landmarks
Saw a guy on Hamdan St tonight (the major street I walk along every day I’m home). A fat, balding Arab guy in his 30s riding along on one of those ‘Mall Cop’ two-wheeler vertical scooter things, carrying a huge KFC chicken bucket in a limp plastic bag. Bwahahahaha! How could he not realize how ridiculous he looked?!! Anyway, priceless sighting!
**
I’m going back in time!
That is, tomorrow, I go to a place in which the time zone is behind greenwich mean; zulu time. First time, and so correspondingly the first time to the American continent. A landmark for me! Surely the crew will organize a trip to Niagara Falls.. otherwise I can go alone, or use the 75 hours to see and do a bunch of things in the city. I made some quick notes for popular tourist stuff: lie face down on the glass at CN Tower, skate at Nathan Phillps Square, the Distillery district (Victorian industrial architecture!), Dundas Square, Yorkvills, Steam Whistle Brewery etc. I know a girl who lives there so maybe I can do something with her too? Weeeyahhh!!
**
Still 120 pounds, even though I’m going to the gym everyday for a minimum of an hour each time (with the 8th day as a rest day). I assume it’s just me gaining muscle mass? My shins are basically the consistency of stone now, and my shoulders are looking nicely toned etc 
I just need to get more controlon what I put in my body now, since it all goes hand in hand. I read that you replace the calories you burn after half-an-hour at the gym with one bottle of Gatorade.. so that helps put it in perpective.
Thank god for hotel gyms, a fresh environment really helps shake up what could become a fairly mundane routine.
**
This month I operated a flight with the new IS coral service for the first time (toilsome!), and worked in business for the first time on the way back – 22 pax instead of a few hundred, and you focus on one side, so really it’s only 11 pax. I estimate it’ll be another year before I’m moved up to Pearl, so it was good to get a taste of what it’s like ‘at the front’, heh. I was totally expecting a group of snarky cumbersome middle aged businessmen, but they were all wonderfully well-behaved, probably mostly because it was a night flight!
**
I discovered a new thrift shop the other day, right here in Abu Dhabi! On the photocopy with the address (between a Mosque and Hamdan St, behind Sun & Sand Sports at the Sandesh Sweets building) it says “just like your ukay ukay”, which the owners told me is the Filipino equivelent of a thrift store. In regards to the development of the city this is definetly a landmark. Forget Yas Island and superstar concerts etc.. before this I’d never seen anything not new. They have a nice little bookshelf at the back with about 80 or so English titles.
