Eid Mubarak translated to English basically means "Blessed Festival" and it is a greeting that is said by everyone over the festival period. Very nice for us because that means we get time off work / school !
For our mini break we zoomed off to Dubai....an hour down the road. It's a straight road and it is evident when driving that we are in the desert!! The city stops as we drive out of Abu Dhabi and everywhere we look is....sand. The occasional petrol station with MacD's or Subway which is a bit strange in such an underdeveloped piece of road. We had booked a hotel within the Dubai Marina area and it was surprisingly easy to find. All I can say is ...WOW. As with everything over here, luxury and presentation is at the top of the list. The kids were in awe of this amazing, beautiful hotel and so were we. Unfortunately we had only one night booked so we made the most of it.
Beach view of our hotel
View from our balcony
Another view from our balcony
Dubai skyscrapers - mostly apartments
With loads of water sports on offer I had to get it out of my system and water-ski! As I was being pulled around the marina by the speedboat I realised the last time I water-skiied was 18 years ago! And don't I know it......I have had sciatica for the last 2 days since!! Serves me right......forgot that I am no longer a young'un anymore. Haha. Although I only fell once in the 15 minutes I had and I loved every minute of it, I have to face up to reality and bypass the water-skiing next time. My back can no longer take it :(
Being typical tourists still ( even though we are residents!) we decided to take a trip to Dubai Mall on probably the busiest weekend of the year!! We took the Metro into the city and joined a carriage full of Pakistanis on the way to watch the Pakistani v Australia cricket game in Dubai. So we didn't think this through. When we got to Dubai Mall there is at least a mile walk to the actual Mall. This wasn't the brightest idea as we had another injury that day...Paul's knee had gone playing waterpolo in the pool with the kids in the kids club! Haha we really are getting old. So you can imagine how the rest of the evening went!!
The mall was heaving and we pushed our way through to see the fountains outside, which are very similar to the fountains in Las Vegas outside the Bellagio if anyone is familiar with them. Water fountains to music. I'm not sure it was worth the crowds but it's been ticked off the list to do!! We also took a glimpse at the Aquarium but decided we would go back another time....I'm hoping crowds will be a little less next time.
The Burj Khalifa - tallest man made structure in the world
Aquarium in Dubai Mall
One of those rare moments of affection!
So our first experience of Dubai was fabulous if not a bit hectic on our one evening there! There are so many other places to see in Dubai and we will eventually get around to doing them on our days off. I don't think staying overnight will be a regular occurrence but it was amazing!
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