Dubai

Dubai is an expat playground with lots of different things to see and do.  For us, living in the Middle East, Dubai is a great escape from the more conservative neighbor countries.  Dubai is also a typically lay-over area for people traveling to Thailand or other exotic Asia destinations.  Even just 24 hours is worth getting out to explore.
For our short trip,  we picked up Micah from work on a Tuesday and headed straight to the airport.  We were flying with Gulf Air which is a very discount airline.  Needless to say, both flights (layover in Bahrain) were late so of course we arrived in Duabai late. Then our luggage decided it wanted to hang out in Bahrain for the night and not arrive in Dubai until the next afternoon.  Ugh!! We finally made it to our hotel around 1:00am tired, hungry, and cranky. Not such a great start.


Wednesday morning I had booked us a desert dune buggy driving experience.  It was fun and Micah and I were their only customers for the morning.  This was nice since we didn't have to wait for any other possible "bad" drivers or people getting stuck. Plus, it worked out since this was the only activity I had planned that I was ok with wearing my clothes from the day before.

After our dune bashing drive we were taken back to our hotel where finally our luggage arrived!  Since we had our luggage we threw on the swimsuits and decided to spend some time at our hotel pool and beach.

Hotel pools

Hotel Pools

Once we were finished with some pool time we decided to head in to get cleaned up.  Once we were up in our room we realized a sand storm was blowing in.  Notice the difference in our view.  And yes, the white glaring stuff is sand.

Before 

During 

Anyway...We decided it was only fitting to spend the morning in the desert and the evening snow skiing so we headed for the Mall of the Emirates.  We bought a 2 hour ski lift pass but we only made it about an hour. Although it is very cool to be snow skiing in the middle of the desert, the single run gets a little boring plus it actually IS cold in there!

 

The malls in Dubai are incredible.  Nothing in the USA and I dare even say the world compares to these malls.  The Dubai Mall is the largest mall in the world.  It has a huge aquarium that you can actually scuba dive in, over 1,000 shops, ice rink, cinemas, etc.  The Mall of the Emirates has indoor snow skiing, 1,000 of shops, 3rd largest in the world, cinema, etc.  Again, the malls are crazy!  However, when you have nothing to shop for it's not all that exciting.


Attached to the Dubai Mall is the Burj Khalifa- the tallest building in the world.  It stands 2,217 feet tall costing about $1.5 billion to build.  However, the observation deck isn't nearly that high which I found a little disappointing.

 

 

View of another section of Dubai with the Burj Al Arab on the right

 Also next to the Dubai Mall are the Dubai fountains.  They were created by the same creators of the Bellagio Fountains in Vegas.

For the most part, we just wanted to spend our time in Dubai relaxing.  We spent lots of time by the pool, at the pool bar, or at the beach soaking up the sun.  It was a great relaxing trip and nice to finally get some quality time with my hubs.