Dubai, of the United Arab Emirates

Greetings Moms and any other Faithful Blog Followers,

Dubai is rapidly becoming one of those places that is cool, but not necessarily exotic, since over 10,000,000 people visited the place in 2012 alone, but we thought we would do a quick update on our visit since we had personally never been there before, and it gives us an excuse to post some more photos.

The Burj Khalifa in all its competitiveness

First, if you like airports, then you will love Dubai. The entire city is pretty much organized like a huge airport where everything is indoors, man-made, and connected by crowded trains. We stayed at the Emirates Stars Hotel, which shows up in three different incorrect locations on Google Maps when searched for, but turns out to be within walking distance from Dubai airport on the business side (walking distance for our trip is defined as any location that can be reached in less than a day with a 25 kg pack on your back and airline food in your stomach). The place was well kept, and we actually got upgraded to a bigger room for the first night since they had run out of single rooms. Nice place, and relatively close (walking distance) to the Stadium Metro stop, which we made extensive use of. The Metro itself was fast, clean, and very convenient for getting into downtown Dubai and other places of interest. Carol was especially proud of being able to ride in the "Women and Children Only" car of the train.

Carol and the Dubai Mall fish tank

Aside from riding the Metro, other highlights included seeing the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa (it is possible to ride to the 124th floor, but we didn't book tickets in advance, and the rides were all sold out during our stay), standing in front of the world's largest fish-tank viewing panel in the Dubai Mall, eating shawarma at Ikea, Joe visiting an Ikea for the first time, watching the spectacular fountain-light-sound show at night along the promenade with Carol's friend Kerry-Ann, and just people watching in general.

Night view of Burj Khalifa and Dhows from the El Mansour dinner cruise

Our biggest adventure of the three days however, was a dhow dinner cruise along Dubai Creek one evening. We had already experienced a pretty taxing day, walking an estimated 10 miles (not an exaggeration), and miraculously found our way to the Al Mansour dock without a map and just a few minutes shy of departure time. We were instantly transported to a very peaceful environment of an open air table for two on the upper deck with live traditional Arabic music emanating from the lower deck. The food was amazing, and there was lots of it which was almost dangerous for the two of us since we hadn't eaten a whole lot that day. While we munched away happily on hummus, salads, kabob, more kabob, and Umm Ali (a wonderful Egyptian dessert that we originally sampled in Jordan) the boat meandered down into the Persian Gulf, and then circled back, passing quite a few other colorfully lighted boats on similar missions. I have to admit that it was pretty wonderful despite my prejudice against big cities, and a great way to end our time in this crazy place.

With all our love,

Joe & Carol