The U.A.E

Dubai was wonderful. Very hot and not as dry as I thought it would be. That means we got much more sweaty then I had expected which lead to chafing. Enough of that! Here are some pics. The first one shows our flight to Doha, which was just under 6 hours there then we had another 2 or 3 hours to sleep/kill in Qatar before our 3 am flight to Dubai. That flight was just under an hour and it was still on a HUGE giant plane the size of those you take across the ocean. Its called an airbus 330-200. It holds around 200 people, but on both our flights it had maybe 50. MAYBE. Each person could have their very own row of 4 or 5 seats to recline in.

Ready to go to Dubai

Our flight - nearly empty - ready pull away from the gate

my passport with new stamps!!

Pretty fabric

The first day we got in so early (at 4 am) we drove around a little bit to the rising sun. I think it was coming up around 5 when we were leaving the airport with our rental. We found the round about location of our hotel then drove to see the beach and parked. Since we were tired Tony thought it was a good idea to try to sleep in the car. With the rising sun and all I did not agree so we left the beach and headed to our hotel at 6 30 am. We tried to check in and thought we were good till they told us the room wasn't yet ready but it would be by 11 or so.

SOo we hit the couch in the lobby to sleep. I actually fell asleep there and only woke a few times because it was so chilly in there. I was so tired because when you put me on a plane with movies I have yet to see I have to watch the movies. Although Tony had slept, he needed more sleep because he was not very peppy. When he woke me around 9 to say our room was ready I felt good and ready to go. But thought that if I didnt nap I would just crash early that evening. So we took a nap till 11:30 and man was I tired after that nap. It was way worse then I felt before the nap. Then 15 minutes of me laying there, like I was supposed to be dead later, I got up to freshen up. We were going to officially start our first day in Dubai!

I put on my new long skirt that I got so my ankles could be covered and I wouldn't be showing sex all over Dubai but I did decide to change into a tank top. It had straps that were about an inch thick but it did show my shoulders. I had a light capelet thing that I tried to cover them with but it turned out to be way to hot to wear that. So I was showing my shoulders to all those men who are used to seeing most women covered from the neck down if not head down in black.

Tony noticed that the men stared at me..but I didn't.. I did notice that I was about the only female within sight a few times. If you look in this photo you can see the man in the white shirt looking at me when I took this picture.
Old Souk

We walked around a lot that afternoon going in and out of shops just to keep cool. It was so hot at 106 degrees that any air was good air. We went to the Dubai Museum which was very nice and had lots of air conditioned areas. They had lots of recreations of how things were done in the past such as how they used to pound metal into jewelry, or what a clothing shop looked like. They also talked about the pearl divers too. Lots more things of course. See link to Dubai Museum. = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai_Museum. We also took a water taxi across the Dubai Creek (at about 10 cents a ride its pretty cheap) to see the Gold Souk and the Spice Souk. I think the fish and Perfume Souks were also around there and those are the 4 main ones. However there are many more. Souks are traditional Arab Markets, the photo above shows one. I thought they were more like a market place where there would be tables set up with all the merchandise set out so this was a shock to me. We then ended up in the Dubai Mall. In the gold souk when we were getting some juice I started talking to a lady from England who was there on her Honeymoon and she had been one other time and she recommended that we go to the Atlantis water park and for sure to the Dubai Mall. Two places we hadn't planned on going to before. So we headed off to the mall to see what it had in store. We had no idea how cool it would be. Not only was it a very pretty mall it also had a huge aquarium inside and it had a beautiful fountain outside and it was also right near the Burj Dubai construction site. It reminded me of some of the malls and areas in Las Vegas. Even though Tony has never been he agreed. The photo below is taken on the bridge of the Burj Dubai.

Worlds tallest structure (soon to be building when it opens) 818 meters