Dubai or Don’t I – Day One

I really can’t believe we’re here!!!

Hubby and I took some pre flight pics before we left the house. The first one was pretty boring but after that pic was taken, I said “lets take a romantic pic looking into each others eyes” but almost immediately broke out into giggles.

 

We were able to relax with a drink or two in the airport lounge before our flight.

I was trying very hard not to think about the thirteen hour flight that we were about to take.

I can’t remember taking a flight this late before.
And there she is, the plane that got us turbulently safely to Dubai

I’d always heard good things about Emirates and while it wasn’t a bad flight, I’d love to know why those screens don’t work half the time!! Touch screens. Mine was in danger of breaking I was pressing it so hard. No response.

After a long flight we finally were in Dubai and I have to say that getting through customs was a breeze! Why do we make it so hard in Australia? Fill this out, do this, do that.

I remembered the tip to buy alcohol from the duty free store as we wouldn’t be able to buy it in Dubai. I only got one little bottle of Rose’ so what am I going to do when that’s gone? Most of the wines in there were speciality ones. I was just after a nice little drop to have at the end of the day.

I couldn’t grasp the train system because I’m used to the complexity of the trains in Japan and there are only two main lines here and one main train company (I discovered).

I was surprised at the foggy haze when we got off the train. I don’t know if it’s smog or fog. It wasn’t hot, but it was muggy. It’s only supposed to hit 22 degrees Celsius today but it felt quite warm.

I should add, our plane landed at 5am so we were here really early. The walk to our hotel was about fifteen minutes and luckily I had no problems finding it even though some helpful over zealous information person at the station was trying to tell me we were going to the wrong hotel.

I spent the whole 1500 metres we walked (while dragging our luggage behind us) thinking hubby is going to kill me when we get to the hotel and they tell us that our hotel is actually the one two kilometres in the opposite direction. Same name, two different locations.

Turns out, my directions were right and we were in the right place.

Because we were early our room wasn’t ready (we knew it wouldn’t be) but they offered us a complimentary breakfast anyway! And it was so good!!!

Such a luxurious restaurant with tons of different food.

I wish I’d taken pictures of it but I’m still a bit unsure when I can and can’t take my camera out.

After a huge breakfast we decided to take a little tour of the hotel. I’m happy to say the gym is as good as the online pictures showed it was and the pool is even better than the photos we’d seen. Not only that, there is a cute little bar area by the pool as well! The hotel website hadn’t shown that.

 

Since I got myself a SIM card, we left our number with the hotel and went exploring.

We ended up going all the way to Dubai Creek.

We had a bit of a giggle at this sign. (left)

Special offer for everything in store?

We found ourselves in an area which I think is known as Old city Dubai?
I’m not sure. Most of the stores were closed and I don’t know if that’s because we were there at 9am, or if today isn’t a shopping day.
It looked like a really interesting place. I know there’s lots of accommodation along there as well as we looked at a couple of places when choosing where to stay.

 

We were forced enticed to enter one store that was open and the guy desperately wanted to sell us something but we were still air plane stinky and not in the mood for shopping.

Here’s a few pics of the creek too. We definitely want to go for a dhow tour down the creek while we’re here.

 

Oh and one last thing I’ll mention, while we’re strongly  encouraged to cover our shoulders and knees, there’s tons of these types of cards littered over the foot paths.

Makes you wonder how serious the dress code is?

I won’t be testing the boundaries while I’m here though!

We have been excited to see The Dubai Mall as we’d heard so much about it. We checked it out on Google maps and were all set to go. Luckily, when we got down to the foyer, we had to ask about our kettle (a story for another day) and while the lovely gentleman was talking to us he found out where we were heading. As it turns out, this hotel does a free shuttle service to the Dubai Mall!!! Fantastic! We didn’t have to faff about public transport. One less thing to argue about.

When we got to Dubai Mall, we saw there were a million and one buses trying to get into a small area. I’d be so stressed if I had to drive here!

The picture doesn’t really show how congested this area was; both of cars, buses and pedestrians.

Here are a few pics I took inside the mall. I must admit, I was dead tired while we were here. I’m sure we only saw a small part of it but we have time to come back for more.

The Burj Khalifa is a magnificent structure. I’d seen it in the clips I’d been watching on you tube but so much  more impressive in person.

Here’s one last pic I took inside the mall. Hubby decided to photo bomb. Did you spot him?

Until tomorrow!