Today was the first day of the big adventure. We left Melbourne bound for Dubai on Emirates. Kyle and I had to say our good byes to family at the international gate. It was not too hard but I don’t think it will hit me till later that I have left my family and friend behind for the big adventure.
While at the airport we had to make a phone call to our new prospective bosses in the UK. It’s the perfect thing you want to be doing while catching a plane, but oh well it had to be done. What we didn’t for see is not being able to get through. The number the agency gave us isn’t working anymore so had a frantic few moments before we got hold of someone that gave us the right number. The owners sound proper English. I think that may take some getting used to. The pub is in Weybridge Surrey. On Google maps it looks like a nice part of Surrey, about a 30min train ride into waterloo station. Near enough to London when we want to get away from the weather and see somewhere else for a while.
The flight to dubai was fairly uneventful. I just watch Marry Poppins, Kung Fu Pander 2, The Kings Speech, Toy Story and Ratatouie. Well most of them anyway. I would pick a movie then fall asleep and wake up near the end. There was enough turbulence that the pilot would turn on the seat belt sign. Looking out the window I could see lightning so that would account for it. We also had a nice tail wind so our flight had almost 1 hour knocked off the time. We landed in Dubai at about 5am their time in 31 dregees. Because it is Ramadan the hotel is nearly empty so we got our room when we arrived instead of waiting round till 2pm for check in. It was so early we ended up having breakfast in the hotel. The breakfast was nothing special except that they had a big bowl of rip bananas. I just had to have one because I hadn’t eaten a banana like that in months. The wait staff couldn’t work out why I was laughing at the bananas.
After breakfast we went back to our room to try and work out what we were going to do for the day. We went to reception to try and find out what there is to do in this heat and during Ramadan. Reception was very help in saying there isn’t much to do except shop in the air condition malls. So after having a nap we took our selves off to the mall of emirates.
There malls are huge! It seemed much bigger then chaddy but had a lot of the same stuff. All the designer brands like Louis Vuitton and some I had only heard about like H&M. I had to have a look in H&M because people always talk about them so I wanted to see what all the fuss is about. The fuss is hyped. I didn’t think they were anything to fly half way round the world just to shop in. It was interesting but on the expensive side. After wandering round for a while we went to find the indoor ski field. As it turns out it wasn’t that hard to find. Dubai doesn’t do anything on a small scale. The field has 4 runs that you could ski or snow board down with a chair lift taking you back up. Kyle and I decided we wouldn’t ski because it cost too much, about $30aud just to play in the snow not even to ski. They did provide winter clothing because it was -4 degrees. Also because it was Ramadan they were renovating the ski field too make it bigger so there was no option to ski anyway.
After looking at the ski field we wanted some lunch. So we had to find a hotel so we could have some food and drink. Inside the mall there were 2 hotels but only 1 we could find. I think it was a 5 star but the look it. We arrived just in time for their buffet lunch. Their food was interesting to taste. Everything had a lot of different spices to make it appear like home but when you ate it was different. They had an awesome dessert fridge. So I sat and ate dessert for lunch because they all looked so interesting.
After lunch we found a Carre Four. This is a store I always wanted to have a look inside. So in we went fighting the people buying thing for the breaking of the fast called Iftar that they were going to do at sunset. It was like a giant supermarket come kmart and big W stores. There was everything you could every want here. They had a huge meat section that had meat from round the world. They had rib eye from New Zealand that was reasonably priced. They also had bananas from the Filipinas that was about AUD$1.50kg. In the fruit section there was a man who just stood there pealing you fruit before you took it home.
Once we had out fill we decided to head across to the mall of Dubai. We decided to try out there monorail system. It was cheap and very user friendly. Because of the heat (about 45 degrees by this stage of the day) everything is air conditioned even the platforms and bus stations. The stations to the monorail look like the heads of aliens from the movie independence day. The trains are prompt and on time. We got off at the Dubai mall stop and then caught a feeder bus to the mall. The mall didn’t look that far away from the station but I would not have wanted to walk it. Once in the mall we decided to find the world’s tallest tower called Burj Khalifa. To go up this tower you either have to book a time in advance for the cheap tickets or you can go up right then or there for 4x the price. The earliest we could get up the tower was Sunday at 11pm.
Once we bought the tickets for Sunday we went looking for the aquarium. Yes that’s right this mall has an aquarium and water zoo.
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| Mono Rail |
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| Huge Lollie Store |
On our way to the aquarium was found a huge lolly store and more stores you only hear about in New York. There was a pottery barn, Bloomingdales, Zara and another H&M. I had to have a look in Zara. I found Zara more interesting then H&M but still not interesting enough to buy anything.
The aquarium has the world record for the biggest piece of Perspex used for an aquarium. It was huge about 20m long and about 5min high would be my guess. Once you buy your tickets you wonder round to the start for the tunnel. At the entrance it’s all dark and creepy with huge sharks just swimming over your head looking at you like you were lunch. The sharks had such sharp teeth that were in rows. The rest of the tunnel was interesting but not much different to the one in Melbourne. Once we had enough we wondering up to the zoo part to see if they had a Gambit Fish. They didn’t have one and I was disappointed, but oh well. The zoo part had some interesting animals but nothing really different or exciting the other aquariums don’t have.
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| The aquarium with the largest piece of perspex |
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| Kyle being eaten by a sting ray |
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| A shark with all his teeth |
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| Gold Souk inside Dubai Mall |
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| Kyle in front of the gold souk inside dubai mall |
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| Gold Souk |
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| A window of one of the shops in the gold souk |
It was time to head back to the hotel to kill a little time to when we could eat normally in the street. My feet were sore and developing blisters. We both had another nap before heading out for the night. We decided that we might go and explore the souks. We tried for the textile souk first. Once we got there it was closed because it was Friday and Ramadan. The taxi driver then took us to the gold souk instead. Wow there was a lot of gold in some of the windows. The gold souk was not what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be more vic market style but it was more closed in with everyone behind glass with air con on. We tried to find the spice souk with no luck. We would ask shop people were it was and we still couldn’t find it. After wandering round being lost we decided to jump in a cab in search of food. I thought there would be a lot more street food and restaurants but we didn’t find much. The cab took us to the beach where it was touristy and food orientated. We had a very nice dinner of Middle Eastern food so a lot of lamb. Once we were full we headed back to the hotel to end our first day.
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