Brains1983

Brazil is fantastic, been 5 times now varying from a 3 day trip to a 6 week one. Rio is the most "dangerous" of the lot, but providing you sort your package well, the nicer areas aren't unaffordable at all, Sao Paulo, the nicer areas are cheap. Brasilia has no where near the crime rate that the aforementioned places do. My preference is the south east, parana and santa catarina states, mafnificent part of the world and would suggest it to anyone for atleast a visit.

Millhouse

did you do anything about it?

typical

No votes for Korea? Far less westernised and rather less authoritarian than Singapore, less fat than Houston, better weather than Scotland, a really interesting country with bags of history, good skiing and bars, still a place few Westerners bother with.

Shame the language is so bloody difficult.

Millhouse

... and the food so awful.

I had an offer there when I recently changed jobs - couldn't get my head around it all, maybe in a couple of years.

co durham boy

Cheap coke , cheap hookers , good football....

hnd

Yup Brazil's so safe, even for F1 teams with their armoured vehicles etc:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/moto...ne/9164831.stm

Have a few Brazilian friends here in Dubai - the reason being that their families encouraged them to come here or go anywhere other than Brazil (that's after all of them had been in some form of the tourist industry - cruise ships, hotels etc) - and most have higher education (even university) qualifications in that particular industry. Thinking of one friend in particular, neither she nor any of her siblings now live in Brazil (Sao Paolo).

As for us leaving Dubai ... when is it time to leave? Well, some time next year. How did we know when it was time to leave? Well when the Govt changed it's mind about residence visas for those who bought freehold properties. And before everybody jumps in and says we were numpties to have believed it in the first place ...

We bought off plan in 2003 and villa was delivered on time. Visa was provided by developer (not Nakheel) in quick time when we moved here in 2005 and renewed swiftly when it had to be 3 yrs later. In the meantime we decided that Dubai was too busy/city like for us (Arabian Ranches was out in the desert when we bought which suited us but while we really like living here and our neighbours and friends are great we find that Dubai is just a bit too busy for us) have already bought another place somewhere else which also 'guarantees' us residency. We'll see how it goes and we understand that nothing is guaranteed despite government decrees whatever.

As someone on another thread said, they'd moved because they had a thirst for adventure and they were still drinking. Think that may describe us even though we've embarked on this expat life in our senior years.

We had many, many, many years of doing the 9 - 5 or, more correctly, 5am - 11pm plus weekend working.

So next stop Muscat ... and we'll see where we go from there - but, hopefully, not back to UK.

commander

singapore is still the #1 choice.

In Brazil, it would be Macae. Ive only been to Rio, so cant comment on other areas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maca%C3%A9


Korea would be Pusan

Lots of options, which is not a bad thing i guess.

Ethos83

No.

What could we do?

It was late at night. We'd just had a massive meal at a churrascaria and had stumbled down to Copa beach for a leisurely stroll. The beach is vast and like JBR beach, quite steep so when you are on the foreshore you are out of sight of the promenade. We walked around a hump in the sand to see the shadows of a group of feral youths attack a young couple. The boys held down what was the male half while someone did whatever he did to the female half.

The woman was screaming, and we were completely stunned, which wasn't helped by having a number of drinks earlier that evening. The whole thing lasted five minutes or so, and by the time we came to our senses the youths had run off, and so did the couple in chase after the youths.

Maybe she'd just been attacked rather than properly raped. But that it was completely dark, we saw only shadowy figures and noises and that everyone disappeared, we had no grounds for going to the police with just a story and no evidence.

If you ever go to Rio, stick to Ipenema beach.

flares

I really enjoyed Pusan or Busan when I was travelling around Korea in 2002. There's a really nice beach resort called Hyundae attached to it. Lots of mountains surround the place. There was a pretty efficient tube system that was being extended. Donghae hot springs complex was pretty amazing as it is located on top of a shopping mall and cost about 4 quid to get in.

Lots of Irish TEFL teachers there too.

commander

yup, ive been there many times and stayed at Hyundae beach. Great bar called U2 there.

commander

he wiped his knob and asked her not to tell.

Meow

A friend of mine moved there some four years ago, initially as a TEFL teacher. He loves it and is now happily married to a local girl. I don't believe that have any plans to leave, although he found it very weird to start with. He had a blog which was really very good indeed.

BurpusMe

We came to Dubai for more adventure, fine weather and job market vitality than was found in Toronto. Any move onwards would be for the same reasons. I'm not claiming to have roots here, but we do have a few good friends and decent jobs. It would take some major event to get us to leave (layoff, Iran war, Canadian conflict escalation, etc)

I'm not keen on anywhere else in the middle east.
We'd probably leave UAE before moving to Abu Dhabi.

This isn't the right time to move to UK/Europe.

USA has a fantastic (cheap) housing market, but no culture, declining civilization, and a restrictive visa regime.

Hong Kong is a gem in the far east, but the expat community has greatly reduced since the economic crisis. There isn't as much opportunity in HK as there used to be.

We've looked closely at Singapore.
It's an interesting place to work, but costly and more competitive than Dubai.
We wouldn't save much money there, but I think it could be a cool home base for a couple years.
This is the most likely expat post for us.

I guess our most likely option is back to Canada.
Maybe we'll choose Vancouver instead of icy cold Toronto?

This is an interesting topic.
We've been trying to answer this question for a while now and still don't have a concrete plan of "when and where to move next".

kittycat1

For me when I have saved enough money and know what I want to do next, currently deciding whether I'd buy a house or start my own business or go to HK for a couple of years, or go back to being self employed as a creative or look for full time employment in the UK. Lots of options to consider.

My contract is for 3 years but I may look at staying for a little longer guess it comes down to how long I can stay away from London for. Quite simply when you stop enjoying it it's time to take to the road.

glynster

gayboy