Ok, so I haven't had much of chance to update this over the last few days, because I have been busy going to record-breaking buildings, taking lots of buses, flying business class, getting to know my new home town, visiting two hospitals (more about that later) and heading back to the airport again! Also might not have had good internet for a little while - makes it tricky to update when you're trying to type on your phone! Anyway, as I'm now in Heathrow with free internet, and am waiting for the bag drop to open because I got here too early (classic Ritchie move), here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to.
My second day in Dubai was very hot (not surprising) and very busy. Danielle had managed to get us a couple of complimentary tickets to the hop-on/hop-off bus around town, which was awesome. Not only did they have free, unlimited water (we probably made money on this trip, just by the amount of free stuff we consumed) but the buses also took us around the new buildings and malls as well as the historic areas of Dubai, all with quite interesting commentary through our (complimentary) ear-phones. We had been expecting it to take only a couple of hours, but ended up not getting back to the flat until about 5pm, after leaving at 9 - it was a looooong day. Major sights included the Burj Khalifa from the outside, several malls from the outside (including Dubai Mall, the largest mall in the world, Mall of the Emirates, with an indoor ski slope and snow park, and Wafi, which was Egyptian-themed and just plain weird), a number of huge parks, lots and lots of pictures of the Sheik, and some amazing historic buildings, markets and souks. We got off the bus a couple of times, but it was really too hot and we didn't have enough time to do a lot. Have a look through the photos (probably to be uploaded this afternoon, the internet is too slow here) to get a good idea.
After we got back to the apartment from our epic bus ride, I threw my clothes into my bags, had a shower and got changed (it was totally necessary - stinky sweaty grossness), and we caught a taxi back out to the Dubai Mall, which happens to be directly underneath the Burj Khalifa. We had a quick stroll around, past the biggest aquarium tank I've ever seen (possibly biggest in the world - they like breaking records in Dubai), picked up some souvenirs for Danielle to take to her family when she visits Canada this week, and grabbed some dinner from an upmarket McDonalds-style fast food place called Fatburger. At least they're not even trying to make it seem healthy! After quickly eating our dodgy dinner (it went straight to concrete in my belly), we joined the queue to get up the Burj Khalifa (again, we had discounted tickets - I love knowing tourism-industry people!). The tourist viewing deck is on the 124th floor, which, just in case you didn't know, is REALLY REALLY high. Lots of rude people elbowing you out of the way to take photos, and an amazing number of people pulling duck-face selfies (google it if you don't know what this means). It was quite funny, actually - some people had even brought tripods to take proper glamour shots. Weird but fun, and definitely amazing views. We eventually got bored of watching other people posing, so we went back down the lift (124 floors in about a minute - my ears popped five times) and wandered outside to watch a fountain show - lots of water spouts squirting to music with coloured lights, quite spectacular but a bit difficult to describe! We then jumped on the metro train service (very clean, very safe, quite slow) and headed back to the apartment, just to pick up my bags, put Danielle to bed (she had to work at 4am the next morning) and grab a taxi so I could head out to the airport again! So, all in all, a very busy day.
Got to the airport and discovered I had been upgraded to Business Class (very nice), so I picked up some duty free and headed into the business lounge, where I had intended to update this blog but the internet was so dodgy that I couldn't make it work! Also I was exhausted to the point of collapse, so I just sat, listened to music and tried not to fall asleep. Eventually, after a couple of delays (one in the airport and one, an hour and a half long, while sitting in the plane) we took off, and I headed off to London.
More to come!
