UAE

So, I think this blog will make my sister proud. I know I always make her grimace with my frugalness at times and she tries to tell me that there things worth spending money on. I hope I succeeded.
The airline had moved our flight up three hours so we arrived in Dubai it was 5am. We had contacted our hotel to ask if we could check in super early and they said it would be ok if there were clean rooms available.
Well, due to the number of new taxi drivers in Dubai, it would take over an hour for our driver to find our hotel. Not to mention that with the mass amount of construction going on, all buildings have blocked driveways, detours, and signs covered so it isn’t the easiest or prettiest place to navigate. We would arrive at our hotel around 7am and were able to check in to get a few hours sleep. We woke around noon and started to plan out the rest of the 20 hours we had left in Dubai. The hotel offered free shuttle service to the Mall of the Emirates and to the nearby beach resort. Happy Hour on the 52nd floor of our hotel would start at 5pm and we weren’t going to miss it considering how expensive everything would be. So the mall and the beach for today sounded great. The Mall of the Emirates is supposed to be the largest in the world. But we couldn’t figure out why...was it the number of shops? Or square footage? Can someone look this up for us? It was a beautiful mall with fancy atriums and upscale seating for the food court. Not to mention the indoor ski resort at the very end. We didn’t ski, but watched others and realized that for a mall in Dubai the ski resort was just like having a small ice skating rink at home – only we were in the middle of the desert in a land far, far away. We walked around the mall which wasn’t too exciting since they had mostly all the shops we have at home. It was cool though to see all the signs in Arabic.
Our shuttle picked us up and we changed and headed toward the beach. We ended up having passes for the Le Meridien Resort; gorgeous place with a beautiful beach and swimming pool. It was hot!! The water was almost hot too so we didn’t spend too much time it. I collected a few shells and we hit the pool. We decided to have a few drinks at the swim up bar (I think my dad would have like it) and had four beers for the whopping total of $45USD. Ouch. We have budgeted a good amount of money for Dubai, now we were wondering if we had budgeted enough.
Jason had booked us a hotel that was right on the new marina over looking one of the palm islands. Our hotel room was a two bedroom apartment that was probably about 2,000 square feet. It was huge. On the bar at the top on the 52nd floor we watched the sunset and contemplated making reservations at the Burj Al Arab, the world’s only 7-star hotel. Of course we would want to check it out but reservations were obligating. If you wanted to go to passed the security gate of the hotel, you had to have a reservation. If you wanted reservations, you had to commit to consuming a minimum of 275Durhams a person (which calculates to $75 US Dollars). So the question was whether to spend $150 dollars of our budget to go have what would probably end up being 4 cocktails at the Sky Bar….the answer: absolutely. We headed down from happy hour to the concierge to make the reservation. They needed a credit card to hold the reservation in addition to our concierge’s opinion of whether we were dressed well enough. We didn’t bring any fancy clothes, but my reliable black dress and Jason’s “elegant” jeans would suit just fine.
The Burj Al Arab was an impressive building with a huge atrium in the lobby that goes straight through to the ceiling. It is very colorful, they use the rainbow colors to decorate almost everything, tastefully.
Jason and I enjoyed exactly 1 cocktail and one beer each to meet the minimum dollar amount. We couldn't afford anymore than that!!
It had been a pretty fun day and being that we had as many drinks during Happy Hour as we could, we decided to call it a night and hang out in our cool penthouse apartment.
Dubai was fun and interesting. I think it would be a much prettier city without so much construction obstruction the views.
In the morning we hailed a cab to the airport. Emirates Air has its own terminal in Dubai. So much so that First and Business Class has their own entrance! It was pretty cool.
Well, on the way to Thailand. We should be there in about 6 hours. First time in Asia for both of us.

Days Traveled: 56
Distance Traveled: 40,306km/25,191mi
Craving since Europe: Thai noodles!!
Missing Everyday: Charlie