Day D7: The Inverse Lockdown

July 23, 2024

One of the most horrific things we had to endure with the Shanghai covid lockdowns in 2022 was days on end in home confinement.

Now here in Dubai it would be the inverse: due to a complex Airbnb arrangement I was effectively kicked out of the house from 7am to 10pm. So what do you exactly call this? A lockup? A lockout? The English language makes no sense. It was going to be an interesting day to say the least.

The house was a hubbub of activity as various guests were coming and going at an early hour. The host was busy as a bee coordinating them all and talking to everyone. She even told me she never slept as apparently ended up talking to hours with two of the women who arrived late at night before on a flight delay. Then this other woman from Australia had arrived with her flight at 5:30am and was just coming in from the airport now and taking my room.

The host said I was welcome to put my stuff in a corner and it would be safe. Not having had the greatest sleep myself I was rather exhausted and not in a socializing mood so I simply introduced myself to a few guests and started the inverse lockdown.

First stop was a walk to the beach. It was still relatively cool at 32 degees at this hour so I figured this would be an ok place to chill and grab a little extra sleep underneath a lifeguard tower.

Apparently they are doing a massive project to develop this. When complete there will be beach chairs, AC units, restaurants, swimming pools, and all sorts of other stuff.

Residents along the beach already enjoy all that and more

That little nap didn't last very long. It got stifling hot and sweaty even at this hour. The sun was starting to broil and already pushing 35 degrees by aroun 8am or so. The great irony here is that I would be forced to go inside anyways and stay at shopping malls or anywhere with air conditioning. With weather like this, you're not exactly going to find people out on the streets or in public areas.

But then again, these massive indoor shopping malls were worth exploring in and out of themselves. It made me wonder how they handled covid over here especially during summer months. Did everyone just go inside shopping malls and spread covid that way when a far more effective quarantine would have been to stay outside in the heat? But then who is even going to do that? I couldn't for barely an hour. At this point, who really knows and who really cares.

Starting the long shopping mall tour, this was Gateway near the DIFC

I had researched online there was supposed to be a sleep pod inside Dubai Mall. Basically you rent a capsule for a few hours and take a nap. Unfortunately it was closed down and no longer existed. The same things were at the airport but I wasn't going to make a trip out there just for that. Instead I found other ways to chill out and stay awake. Mostly it was just walking the long corridors of Dubai Mall and Gateway which were close by then finding Starbucks to update my budget.

As I did so, things were adding up fast and I was horrified by how much this Dubai trip was costing. If I did eventually find a job here, it would have to pay very well or I would need to be a lot more strategic about cutting costs. On the other hand, any jobs would have two months holidays in the summer (just like my current one) when the most logical thing to do is leave Dubai. In other times of the year it really is not this hot and you absolutely can get around on the bicycle. So you would be saving on all that transport and certainly not be forced to take taxis everywhere.

As for today, I also thought of the idea to visit Ikea and sleep on the furniture over there which is what people generally do. But it was too far and a taxi would have cost too much so thought it better to linger in this area when eventually I would be doing a fitness class.

If that doesn't wake you up I don't know what will

The fitness class was a good call and the instructor was brutal. Much to my bad luck he was a sadist and the body focus today was on legs and butt. When you're doing treadmills *and* lower body exercises on the floor you know it is double torture. This guy basically had us doing nonstop exercises of squats and glute bridge with minibands. He would always say "Keep tension in the band" and various exercises where we held the glute bridge and moved the legs in and out. This all put extra pressures on the glutes and absolutely destroyed them.

At other points in the class he would yell on the microphone, "Keep going and don't stop. It's not supposed to be easy. If you want easy, then you go train by yourself at some gym. But no, you didn't want that, you came to Barry's to WORK HARD!! So I wanna see that. You are being tested. What are you going to do? Are you going to back down or will you show your worth? Now down to the ground and give me pushups!"

Holy shit, they don't call it Barry's Bootcamp for nothing. After the first round of floor torture we somehow walked back to the treadmills and I told my neighbor, 'This is really really hard. I give up." She had only been doing Barry's for two days and had a body that was fit as fuck. She put me in my place and said, "Yes it is hard but you need to listen to that coach." With strength I didn't know was possible I made it through the second round on the treadmills and an even harder floor session next.

Eventually the class ended and that smoothie I pre-ordered was divine.

Next there was a ton of recovery time. I made sure to visit Spinney's upstairs which is a supermarket chain. Most of my food had simply come from there. It is very cheap, hence the draw, and why I was somehow avoiding restaurants yet still spending too much. They had amazing healthy food selection as well as today I ordered some Indian food and rice than ate it outside.

After that it was taking the metro all the way south to Palm Jameira area where I would eventually be catching the yacht party. But there was actually an important job interview online coming up first and I wanted to be somewhere chill and quiet to take this.

On the metro ride I watched a few videos. The big irony in all this is that sigma males could care less if there is some guy on YouTube saying this is what it means to be a sigma male. You are either one or you are not. We are the 1% of the population and for every one sigma male the other is completely different. Some despise nighclubs, others thrive in them. Some keep their strategic moves quiet, others like me spill them on the internet. Or so you think. I'll give you a hint: there's a lot of stuff I'm up to that isn't in the blog.

Yet for all this diversity we all have one key thing in common which is to reject the social expectations. We thrive in uncertainty, and live outside of the matrix. Plenty of other men talk like this and say they are rebels but they are actually not. When put to the test, they don't show their worth like the Barry's coach implored. Instead, they back down and conform like sheep. Just look at covid and how 99% of the world responded. You really must have extreme courage to live against the crowd. Even guys like me will cave and follow their fear, desiring certainty and comfort.

That's why I'm in this midlife crisis to begin with. I followed my fear in early 2020 by flying back to China before the borders closed and now look where that got me. Staying in Thailand was what I should have done in March 2020 when the pandemic broke out. Then I would have kept riding the bicycle to Koh Chang where I would then hunker for a few months and figure out next moves. Despite all the chaos and the very real fear of being trapped and isolated and totally on my own, it would have been possible to survive.

It reminded me of that scene from the Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo that he must walk on a ledge outside a tall building and risk falling to death. "There are only two ways out of here. That tall scaffold or back into the building and in their custody." Neo followed his fear also. He walked back into the building and they arrested him.

Interesting buildings on the way to the metro station

It was easy to find the meeting point for the yachts and wanted to make sure this was correct before finding somewhere quiet for my online meeting. A Thai restaurant came up that was perfect and they even spoke to me in Thai. This was a really good chance to practice. These people were so nice, and I then started getting homesick again. I told them after this trip that Pattaya was next.

The life plan emerged again and it was really so clear and simple. Make money in the Middle East and then retire in Thailand. It's not that hard to go back and forth either, there are countless flights between Dubai and Bangkok and it is 7 hours each way. Here in Dubai people were already very nice and there was considerable freedom but it was still very fast paced and frenetic. You kind of have to expect that. Not nearly as bad as other places, so a nice middle ground. But still, this would be a place primarily to make money and enjoy life at the same time. Thailand would be the end goal.

Enjoying some insane spicy soup before the interview

That done I thanked the staff for helping out so much then set off the yacht party. Once there they told me it was canceled. Alright then, I guess it is because I didn't check my email. They said no worries we'll reschedule the party to tomorrow and in addition, as compensation, they gave me a free two hour short tour on another yacht that night. I never even asked for that. This one they explicitly said was no alcohol as it catered to the local population who were mainly Muslim. I said I was totally fine with that. It was more or less a tour of the buildings of the Palm Jameira area.

Unexpectedly they started playing my favorite Pitbull music remixes on the top deck while serving delicious little barbeque snacks and other skewers. This was like I was rich or something.

But it was a really magical moment, because the music they played were all the party classics that formed the peak of the Shanghai nightlife experience in the mid 2010s. This was when life was a better time, a more innocent time, and before everything changed. I had to find some quieter place on the ship and try to stop myself from crying.

Tonight, I want all of you tonight

Give me everything tonight

For all we know we might not get tomorrow

Let's do it tonight

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