Our first full day in Dubai, or any other place we travel for that matter is usually one of ‘gather the maps’, have breakfast with maps in hand, determine where we are, what the plan is and what we do first.
The area we are staying in is ‘Jumeraih’ and very much full of hotels, ex-pats and tourists. The whole area is very new and almost every skyscraper in this area is made of sandstone (my highly technical opinion). It’s a BUSY place! The streets in the whole area are paved, there are open air restaurants everywhere and just looking at a telecast on TV this morning about Dubai – much of what the media report is done in this are it seems – we recognised 2 or 3 spots as just outside the hotel.
It’s a full on construction zone here though – we think we have roadworks at home – wrong! They’re all here! Every building is tall, every street block has something being built on it and the traffic jams in the local streets are such that it’s probably quicker to get out of the cab and walk!
Headed out yesterday to the ‘Mall of the Emirates” – a huge shopping amll and although just like any other around the palce – this one contains “Ski Dubai” where you can go skiing for a day! Sorry, we didn’t, just took our photos through the viewing platform!! I have added the link here as my photos are not quite the same!
Anyhow spent a little while there then head back to decide what to do next. Actually we were having a ‘room issue’ – booked a seaview room and on arrival there wasn’t one available so we were downgraded and indicated we would like the seaview room the next day – took about 3 visits to the front desk and a phone call until it finally happened! Had our bags packed in one room and asked that ‘when the room is ready can someone please move our bags to the new room!’
We headed on out to ‘The Palm‘ and Atlantis – a whole $10 to get us there – the cabs are cheap – the aquarium and the hotel itself were amazing as is the whole concept of the ‘Palm’ island – it’s full on apartments with all the associated facilites alongside. All very new looking and of course very expensive we believe.
But, “The Palm’ we visited is only one of 3 Palms as we all know them, then there’s the ‘World’ islands. Haven’t been that way yet but off on a City Tour this afternoon so might see what’s happening whilst on that tour.
There were SO MANY people out at Atlantis that trying to get a cab back later was terrible – the queues were horrendous but it was the only way back so we had to queue! Took about 40 minutes I think – there were queue jumpers and all – it was a shambles! By the time Kemm and I were at the front of the queue, anyone trying to get in front of us was shouted at by us and the next few in the queue. Get back! Wait your turn! Can’t you see the queue line!!! Ahhh, such fun!
Headed home and had a ‘little lie down’ at 7pm before we supposedly headed out for dinner – oops it’s 5am! Slept right through!
Consequently we are both feeling a little better now ready for a new day and obviously needed the sleep plus the jet lag bit has done it’s catch up. We’re 6 hours behind here so a little hard to acclimatise.
