Dubai, 7 hours on Saturday
We landed in Dubai at 7am after a nice flight from Cape
Town. We slept hard the whole way
there. We walked off the plane and the
airport was very nice. We had a 4-hour
van tour planned to visit the city and they would drive us and drop us off
everywhere we needed to go.
We met our tour guide and he was very a nice Indian
man. As we were leaving the airport,
employees were handing us scarfs with the country flag on it. Come to find out, we were there on their
Independence Day, December 2nd.
We found our van with a separate driver and off we went.
Nadine and I each starred out the window as we were in the
world’s version of Las Vegas. One of the
richest and fastest growing cities in the world. Our first stop was the Dubai mall and because
we arrived there at 8am before all the crowds, getting around was super
easy. The mall is biggest in the world
and has stores from everywhere. It also
had the largest indoor aquarium and largest tv screen.
We took a few photos and then headed
outside. We were immediately greeted by
the Burj Khalif, the tallest building in the world, at just under 900 meters
high. When we asked our guide about it
he told us there is already another building in Saudia Arabia that will be
taller, but then he mentioned Dubai is thinking about building a structure at 1
km tall, wow! And then behind us was the
hotel that caught fire on New Years Eve years ago, and the structure was still
closed.
Next we headed onto the huge highway and among the jungle of
sky-scrapers. We then for ~30 minutes
and headed down to the famous Atlantis Beach and right next to the Persian
Gulf. Wow, I had never thought I’d be
near this body of water. The hotel was
over-the-top and the highway leading to it was designed to look like trees to
try and add some color. Then we headed
to the famous sailboat hotel and stopped by a local beach. People were out starting their day to
celebrate Independence Day!
We then headed back towards the city, but along the way saw
the building for the indoor ski resort, and also saw them building the largest
ferris wheel in the world right on the water (everything has to be largest and
tallest!). We also saw a building shaped
like a picture frame!
Our driver dropped us off in the older part of town, along a
river with a lot of boat traffic. This
had a little more of a local feel, and we boarded a water taxi to get to the
market. Before the city grew into an
international powerhouse in the 1980s…the city was a small port city with a
little bit of trade. This was the old
city we were in. We crossed the river and then entered the gold and spice
market. But we made a quick diversion to
get some camel milk gelato, yum!
We entered the markets with huge crowds, but felt very
safe. It was a very affluent area. We looked and smelled all the colors of the
spice markets, and even bought a little arabian coffee. We then ventured into the largest
concentration of yellow gold in the world.
Nadine was in heaven! We stopped
in a few stores just to see what they had, and wow! And no photos allowed inside! We kept walking and saw huge World Records
for Gold & Diamonds, and also saw a golden soccer boot and even a gold
dress and gold bikini! I asked Nadne to
try one on just so I could get a photo, but it was break you buy it!
Our trip was coming to an end so we made a couple final
stops at a historic mosque and a ?. We then headed to the airport and got ready
for our flight back to USA.
Back in USA, Saturday @8p
Wow, what a 3-week trip.
We went through so much, together, and made it out the other side. We also talked about coming from Africa
straight to Dubai. The juxtaposition of
having too much in Dubai versus having too little in Africa, it was something
we needed some time to digest.
But we boarded our flight and got ready for our 2nd
night in a row on a plane. We took off
and flew up over Iran and it was beautiful with the sunset. Only 15 hours until we’d land in NYC at 8am
and need to get home.
We landed safely, go our rental car, and headed home to
Scranton. Luckily we had no weather but
we had to deal with Saturday night traffic.
We made it out of the hustle and bustle, and Nadine needed to
switch. Dave began to drive and Nadine
quickly fell asleep but was talking in her sleep thinking that she was driving. We very tired and loopy!
We got home before midnight and crashed into bed. That bed never felt so good. We battled jet lag and awoke on Sunday only
to ask “did that really happen?”.
But the craziness would only continue, as tomorrow Nadine
& I would each tell Gentex we were putting in our two weeks, and then we’d
be moving to Chicago before Christmas.
Let the adventures continue!
Dubai Skyline over Dubai Creek
On December 2nd street -- on December 2!
Burj Khalifa (Tallest Building in World (2,700 feet)
Hotel that caught fire New Years 2016
Burj Al Arab (Sailboat Hotel)
Dubai Frame
Dubai Mall - Largest indoor aquarium & screen
Road to Atlantis Hotel - On Palm Tree Island
Faux trees under the highway
Water Taxi - on Dubai Creek
Camel Milk Gelato
Spice Market
Gold Market -- see the GOLD DRESS!
Flight Home -- $20k Whiskey in Duty Free!
Flight Home - Mountain Ranges of Iran
