5th July 2017 - Dubai

Wednesday 5^th July 2017

A Google photo of the Burj by night - we will be too tired after dark to go and see it with our very own eyes..

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I will draw a veil over our 14 hour flight Brisbane-Dubai.  Suffice it to say that it was long and uncomfortable but all went well.  Lots of babies and toddlers, behaving well.  Lots of haggard mums and dads.  I had a very nice, gentle man called David sitting next to me in the aisle seat.  He didn’t complain at all about having to get up and down about fifteen times for me to stretch my back and trot down the aisle to queue for the toilet.

We got to our hotel at 6.30am…not due to check in until 2pm!  The reception took one look at us – we were, to quote Bill Bryson, hollow-eyed ghouls – and said, “I think you can go to your room right now.  It is ready!”

Perfect!!

Oh bliss!  The Hyatt Place is not a particularly expensive hotel – about $250 for two nights, including breakfast.  And oh the breakfast!  Worth its weight in more than $$$!  And it is extremely comfortable – soft mattress, memory foam pillows, hot shower, couches to sit on, a kettle and teacups…

We decided to have a second breakfast at 10 – Emirates had given us scrambled eggs at some bonkers sort of time, maybe 3.15am.  And how I loved it!  Lots of my favourite foods all in one place.  Delicious olives, artichoke hearts, soft little bread rolls freshly baked.  Hummus and fruit and goats cheese.  And best of all – the most wonderful cheese of all!  Not sure what it is called; I asked the chef and he told me, brimming with pride, that it was a special spiced Syrian cheese.  “From my country!”  I gushed and he blushed.

Mysterious Syrian cheese - yummo!!

Brim full of food and fighting off jet lag we caught the metro into town.  Metros all over the world are just fabulous.  Cheap, clean, easy, speedy.

Steep high escalators...not my favourite...

We headed, of course, for the Burj Khalifa.  It is no longer the tallest building in the world – only 829.8 m – but it is mightily impressive.

Burj Khalifa

We spent a few hours in the Mall of Dubai.  Shopping malls are never my favorite thing but I found this one quite fascinating. 

So many glamorous shops!

A Mercedes for your kiddiewink!

and cheap ones.

nicketynackeries

And a wildly diverse range of people, all happily co-existing over many acres of glass and cement.  Outside it is fiercely not.  It only got to 40 today, but a very VERY hot 40.

Impossible really to walk outside further than the block or two to the metro station.

So we walked through the mall and found a large ice skating rink

a huge aquarium

dancing fountains (outside!  In the heat!)

A beautiful fountain full of divers

Pete had work to do on the internet so I left him in a café, tearing his hair, and went off to deal with my own hair, which had become long and draggy and quite horrid.  I found a salon in the souk area of the mall.  Very brave of me…I have had four experiences in the past few years of hairdressers misunderstanding my nee for a stylish bit of a trim… Each time it took about four months for my poor hair to grow again from brutal pixie cuts which I did not want and did not like!  I told Touni (from Jordan) that I would cry if he cut my hair too short and he looked quite startled and was very careful.  I think he did a good job; it no longer looks draggy.  But Pete has been totally silent on the subject so maybe I still look ghastly.  Or maybe he is so preoccupied with his internet woes that he hasn’t noticed.  Who knows??  I can say that when I emerged for the salon I looked very strange indeed…Touni had put a BIG effort into blowdrying my hair.  He transformed it into a great big pouffe…No of course there are no photos!  I headed straight for the nearest toilet facility and plunged my head under the tap to flatten it down again!!

Just look at this fabulous defection!!  Skyscrapers!  Cranes!

Tomorrow we are going on a four hour bus trip organised by the hotel.  (NO we are not doing it ourselves!!  TOO hot!!)  The brochure, mysteriously, says…

WTF??

Can’t wait!!