Thursday 25th June
WOW-what an amazing first day! We have crammed soo much into and it feels like we havent slept in about 4 days straight, which we later worked out was actually that we havent lied down for 44 hours.
First impressions of Dubai were amazing! everything is soo big and impressive. When flying in, we looked out the window and all you could see were sand dunes and really long straight highways that looked like they would never end.
Customs here is sooo quick it took a total of about 5 mins, this may be due to the fact it was 5.30am oh and also a toasty 34 degrees. Even the airport had a massive water fall with coloured fountains in it that you actually caught the lift down into to get to ground floor and baggage area. The lift was massive, i heard someone say it was bigger than their house!!
Katie and Simon then picked us up, which was really nice of them as it was soo early. They gave us a little tour and pointed out different things on the way home to their place in Jumeirah. Laina their made even had pancakes made when we got there for breaky. Petrol here is really cheap and it only cost Simon about $35 Australian to fill their massive 4wd. No wonder everyone here has either 4wd's or sports cars. It is so weird to go to the supermarket and see soo many rangerovers, bmws, mercedes,porches, etc, etc. I'm sure you get the idea.
We then took Asha to school with Katie, she seems so grown up and is very cute. There are so many different nationalities of kids there. I hadn't met Eli before and he was a bit scared of us at first but it didn't take him long to warm up to us, he is soo cute too! After this we went to the supermarket and past some beautiful villas on the way home-so so big!
After getting freshened up we went to the mall of emirates to go to ski Dubai. It was amazing-can't beleive it was inside a mall!! It really felt like the real thing, actually probly colder, or that may have just been the contrast of the dry humid 40degree plus heat outside!! haha
Glyn tried to snowboard at first but then switched to skiing which he was really good at for a first timer. After 2 hours of the same thing we were a bit over it but still had a great time and awesome expirience. The mall was massive and reallly clean, although i didn't buy anything considering it was only the first day!
That afternoon we were off to the desert! Talk about from one extreme to another. It cost about 150 dirhams so about $50 AUD. We went out of the city into the desert where it is just like you imagine- so sparse and freaking HOT! We even seen wild camels and like 2 random desert nomads. Our driver-Hussien, was intense. If one of the other cars in our fleet of about 10 did something we would have to do it better, faster, higher. He actually made me really carsick and almost ripped the holy shit handle off a few times. We had another couple in our car- 2 polish chemists. the man was humongous- even taller than luke. The driver stopped for me to be sick and made me splash water on my face. apparently i wasn't doing a good enough job- he grabbed my water and threw it all over me. it felt really nice and took like 5 mins to dry as it was that hot!
After what seemed like forever or duning we got to "camp" where we drank, ate traditional food-yum, and even tried on their clothes. The burqa is not something i will be taking up in normal life. It felt like i was going to die because it was that hot, in the 2 mins i had it on. After dinner there was belly dancing, which was really cool and the chick even got Glyn up to dance with her. He had to copy what she was doing.
After that we came home past the city to drop the other couple off. The Burj looks even taller at night time! i guess it is the tallest building in the world at 800m so it probly should.
Even the bus shelters over here at airconditioned it is that hot!!
