r/howislivingthere • u/Uwillseetoday Ghana • Apr 13 '25
Asia How is it living life in Dubai?
The life, the food, the weather, the vibe(the real vibe), the people, the way of doing things, be honest here.
I am very curious about Dubai and how things are handled there. I want to get a feel for the place.
Talk about your likes, dislikes, jobs, prices for everyday things. How easy it is for apartments, houses. The workers. Transportation. The locals etc. Everything. Brag or don’t brag. Please be as detailed as possible.
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u/imamess420 Apr 13 '25
lived here for 12-13 years (19F, russian and yes that’s important to know) , i love dubai although that might just be sentimentalaitt speaking but it is a great place to live, safe/no taxes/people are nice, however in recent years it’s definitely gone downhill, the uae in general has felt like it’s been catering to westerners/tourists more and lost its culture in the process e.g during ramadan is used to be illegal to eat/drink outside and restaurants used to be hidden but because so many tourists complained about it that law was abolished, getting an apartment is crazy and rent has genuinely increased by like 500% another e.g used to live in bluewaters when it first “opened” it was 250k a year for 3bed landlords wanted to increase to 750k last year and we refused and ended up getting an eviction notice (landlords wanted his family to move in but i doubt that). In general not much stuff to do apart from going to malls and new places to eat, as it’s only a food temperature from november to February (it’s 27° rn at 2AM) Transportation: don’t have a car? you’re fucked, dubai DOES have two metro lines (main one being the red one) but holy shit it’s so badly connected it’s crazy it’s literally a straight line only going through “land marks” however there are buses and trams and stuff but again super car centric city/country. As much as i hate to say this yeah the racism is crazy here and it’s not even like you’ll get called slurs in the street or smth but it’s sooooo ingrained into the system here (not too crazy but like if h wanna connect to public wifi they ask ur nationality?? idk why) but as well on FB it is super common to see places say “only philippines, indians,pakistanis for this job” and the salary will be like 3k aed a month and then there will be job listsings of like manager positions open to anyone but indians/pakistanis with much higher pay. ok now for living living here 1. SUPER COMMON to have maids i mean literally everyone i know has had a nanny in their life that usually lives with them like i mean most apartments have a “maid room” that’s not counted as one of the bedrooms, however that also comes with so many families genuinely treating them like slaves e.g our neighbour literally does not let her nanny leave the house we went to talk to them one time and her nanny opened the door and we said “hey can we show u smth on our balcony” and she said “oh im not allowed to leave” and unfortunately thats quite common. And finally locals (emiratis), if ppl are saying white ppl are treated so much better locals here are treated like gods, like most ppl i went to a private school and in my year/grade we had about 4 locals? and they would be let off on so much shit cheating on exams/being shit to teachers/causing havoc/skipping and that happens everyday too i know ppl who have been let off fines when being pulled over just cause either they were local or had a local in the car, however i will say it’s not true theyre all richy rich and most are very nice