Trip to Dubai...Twice

     Friday Oct. 3rd, we drove to Dubai around 8am. The traffic was really light and took about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It is only 83 miles away. I don't know why we thought is was farther. First thing we did was go to the meeting at the Crown Plaza. It was neat to visit a new congregation. After the meeting, we went to the tallest building in the world. The Burj Khalifa. Because it was a Holiday Weekend (Eid) we had to make reservations to go to the top for the next day. So Saturday we went to the sky deck on the 160th floor which was cool. The elevator was super fast.

The get to the Burj Khalifa you need to walk inside The Dubai Mall, which is the largest mall in the world. The store directory is ridiculous. 1,000s of stores....just too much. We ended up visiting this mall 3 days in a row and still have not seen it all. Perfume sprayers, crowed halls and smells from all over.....the mall is a sensory overload. 

     We checked into our hotel thinking it was across from the beach. It was actually across from a Dock. Not so nice scenery, but good price :). Terry and I like to ride around and get lost where ever we go and that is just what we did. We rode around at night to all the local areas and it was like being in New York times 10. The streets were so crowded you could only drive like 5 miles an hour or you would definitely hit someone. Dubai was not all like I pictured either. I was expecting streets of gold in a sense....more like dust, dirt and thousands of labor workers. There are nice areas but not so nice too. I am glad I live in Abu Dhabi. The traffic in Dubai is STUPID! Worse than Atlanta.

 Dubai skyline from an area that was under construction. Terry and I just drive any and everywhere.

 We went on a 2hr  dinner cruise called a Dhow Cruise. They had a buffet and entertainment. It was cool for $27 a person.

 This was right down the street from our hotel. 

  

The reason why I say we went to Dubai twice is because the following weekend, Oct. 10, we attended The Regional Convention in Sharjah which is about 15 mins. away from Dubai. We drove up Thursday night and traffic was IGNORANT. We stayed at a hotel down the street from the convention called the Royal Beach Hotel.

The website said 5 stars. It was 5 stars in 1970. Now it is more like 2. Everything was in Russian there...weird. But I hear many Russians visit there so I guess it makes sense. Never read reviews while at the hotel you are staying at. I did this. Some reviews spoke of bed bugs so Terry and I stripped the bed and pulled out the cell phone flashlights to check. Luckily we didn't see any. We also read of cockroaches. Again we didn't see any but I am sure they were there. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well. We woke up and checked out for Terry to notice he left some water bottles and food in the room. When he went back to ask about it, the manager just shrugged his shoulders and said too late you checked out. RUDE! Terry said, so it is ok for someone to steal our things, again the manager just shrugged his shoulders. The front desk clerk laughed. So glad I was not there with him ( I waited in the car). Terry has a calmer spirit than I do. Anyway, won't be staying there again. 

     After the convention, 16 of us went to a restaurant called Tribes. It was so much fun. It is an African themed place with all the employees from different parts of Africa. The food was awesome and the manager gave us a special for the group. All we could eat steak and sides for 260 AED. Kinda of expensive but the live music and dancing was worth it!

My First Post!

So Terry and I have been here since August 15th 2014! It actually feels longer.
I just remember when we first stepped outside of the airport. It was around 11 pm and the temp. felt like you put your face in front of a hair dryer on high heat plus the humidity was like 1000%! Terry's glasses fogged up and we both looked at each other like "What have we done?" But as soon as we entered the Intercontinental Hotel and saw our room, felt the AC and bed we were all good!

We stayed at that hotel for around a week and a half. Then we moved to Al Reem Island which is close to the city center of Abu Dhabi.

This is a view of our complex. It has 23 floors and we live on the 22nd. 

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the country United Arab Emirates. Info from Wikipedia:

"The population of the UAE as of 2009 stands at six million, of which 16.5% are Emiratis.The rest of UAE's population (83.5%) is composed of expatriates, with the largest groups hailing from South Asian countries such as India (1.75 million), Pakistan (1.25 million) andBangladesh (500,000), and Iran (500,000). Members of other Asian communities, including China, the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Afghanistan make up approximately one million of the total population. Western expatriates, from Europe, Australia, and Latin America make up 500,000 of the overall population."
The Emirati people are very beautiful representing all shades of brown. Check this out for their dress: http://www.yourabudhabiguide.com/emirati-clothing.html

Anyway, it is absolutely different than I could ever imagine with would be. There are so many malls here it is ridiculous, such as the Marina Mall, World Trade Center Mall, Abu Dhabi Mall and Al Wahda mall just to name a few. And they are huge, with like 3 to 4 stories or more for each one. There have "western" stores here and ones I have never heard of from Europe and Asia. I love Daiso, which is a Japanese dollar store basically. So many fun things to buy for no reason. Not sure why the white boxes are on here but I can't fix them so oh well. Thanks for reading. I will try to write more often when things happen!