Dubai

Ski, Desert, Shop!

~ tanlandia ~ 1 Comment

Early to rise Friday morning, Kim and Nick had come up with the great idea to go skiing, yes, snow skiing in the mall, because this is a thing. I had heard about this and seen on those travel television shows, but didn’t really think much of it, something for the uber tourist. Well, the next thing I know, we are all renting skis. Having been in Tahoe the weekend before, I was ready, and this was surprisingly much colder than our California skiing. I think they say it “slope” goes up 25 flights and even though it was early, there were quite a lot of people there! Up and down we went, my review? It was awesome. Would I do it again?? Absolutely. We had a blast and I really enjoyed the two hours of it we had. The other “skiers” there were a mix of kids taking lessons to learn, and very advanced skiers who probably miss the snow and this is the easiest and closest way they can get to a mountain. A lot of them even brought their own equipment!! We rented everything, including snow pants and jackets since we obviously did not pack for this!

Then it was time for our next tour!! We went back to Kim’s hotel, which was conveniently located in the Mall of Emirates where Ski Dubai is, had some tea and the appropriate sandwiches, and were picked up by Platinum Heritage for our desert safari. In our car was a young couple from Norway, along with a Swedish guy who was in Dubai working for a 6 month stint with his two friends visiting, and the three of us. We drove about 45 minutes out to the desert, which was actually private land that the Sheik owned which was neat, jumped into our very classic open air Range Rover, and we were off. Driving further into the sandy desert, we stopped a few times to check out some of the wild animals running around, and to run (and roll down) the sand dunes. It was such a neat experience, I felt like I could just run forever! Or until my calves gave up I guess! We had the opportunity to see a falcon fly and dive in for some food and learn about their history and why they are so important to the people of the area. Our last stop through the desert was at camp that was set up for dinner. Here we were able to hang out and ride camels, get henna, smoke hookah, watch a few performances from the locals, and had a traditional feast! Basically, we had an Arabic Luau! This was a huge highlight from our time in Dubai, we all had a great time!!

It was then our final day. We kept it low key and somehow ended up spending 6-hours at the mall. Embarrassing yes, but it really is the thing to do!!! The stores are all incredible; think of any high-end brand, you will find their store there. But we really didn’t spend the time in the stores, we were just walking around, they squeeze a lot of attractions into the mall, and given the hot summer temperatures, it makes sense.

Nick and I, along with my other friends in Dubai decided to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world!!! It worked out perfectly because I had another good friend, Nameeta, who was stopping into Dubai from NYC on her way to visit her family in Bangalore, and wanted to join as well. Nameeta are good friends from London, so it was fun to see her in Dubai! The views from Burj Khalifa were awesome, however it seems more like they are currently doing a lot of city planning and building to make the views from the top amazing as most of what you see is desert. The scariest part of the whole experience for me had to be the elevator ride up. I can’t believe some people LIVE that high, and ever HIGHER! We were on the 125th floor and there were still about 40 floors or so above us!!!

Kicking off our trip in Dubai

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Once we landed, getting out of the airport and to our hotel was surprisingly a breeze. It was about 7:30pm and the city was so lit up! The height of all the buildings was impressive, Dubai is such an exciting place and we were looking forward to the next few days of adventure! After checking into the Shangri-la Dubai (our room was all the way up on the 32nd floor with a view of the Persian Gulf!) we went to get a quick a bite. There was a Chinese restaurant, Shang Palace, in our hotel which looked fantastic so we decided to have a light dinner there. Since the UAE is Muslim, one thing to note is alcohol is allowed to be served only in hotels. This means that all of the hotels have plenty of restaurants and nightclubs!! The second thing we quickly found out was that pork was generally not served. This made me very happy since we picked a Chinese restaurant, meaning all the shrimp dumplings were safe for me!! (since I don’t eat pork, poultry, or beef) Living in San Francisco, a city with the most restaurants per capita (higher even than NYC) with cuisines from all over the world, it can be hard to impress us when dinner time comes around. This, however, was seriously some of the best Chinese I think I have had, and I’m not even much of a Chinese food eater. Now I know why people go gaga for dumplings.

We rose Thursday morning ready to tackle the day and see as much of Dubai as we could. Before we arrived, I had set up a 5-hour driving tour that I found through TripAdvisor with OceanAir travel. They picked us up promptly at 9:00am and we were off! A family of 3 from Pisa, Italy joined us, along with another woman and her mother from Switzerland. Our guide, Adel, came from Egypt and informed us that there is a large Egyptian population in Dubai because much of the tourism in Egypt has evaporated due to the current situation and has moved to Dubai where tourism continues to grow every day. He was a great guide with lots of interesting facts and stories about the UAE. I found it fascinating to learn that the main industry in Dubai was originally pearl fishing. However, once the Japanese were able to manufacture artificial pearls, that business became less profitable for Dubai. Fast forward to the 1950s when oil was discovered, which lead to great wealth for the country. To prevent another economic downturn as the supply of oil would eventually run out, it was decided to invest in creating a significant tourism industry so that people would always have a reason to visit the country. How to do this? Make everything bigger and better than anything and anywhere else so that they would be the best… in the world. We next stopped off at the Atlantis resort  which has an aquarium filled with over 65,000 fish and water creatures!!! (The Dubai Mall also has a huge aquarium but with only 35,000 marine creatures). We also visited a mosque, the Burj Al Arab which is that famous 7-star hotel with a heli-pad and patterned after a sail, went over to Old Dubai which has the gold and spice markets, and of course to the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa.

After returning to the Shangri-la, we freshened up and were back out the door to meet up with friends. Besides the fact I have always been intrigued to visit Dubai, it helped that I currently have a childhood friend who lives in Dubai, Ariel Steinberg. As luck turned out, we also had another high school friend, Kim Toomer, who was in town for work, who seriously I may not have seen since graduation in 2002??? Or sometime during college visits home, nonetheless, a long time! We all met (along with Ariel’s mother, Leslie, who is wonderful, just happened to also be in town for a visit) at 360*. It’s a bar which jets off from the Burj al Arab with incredible views of the Gulf, the city, and the infamous hotel. It was such a fabulous time all meeting and catching up, after several cocktails we decided to extend the fun by heading back to Ariel’s apartment and ordering some Indian food.

I learned that the Marina is a popular place for folks to live that work in Dubai. The population of residents is actually 90% expatriates, so the community is large and helpful for those who relocate. It is actually hard to find Emirati people in Dubai. We went up to the 50th-something floor in her building, which was not event near the top and my ears were popping in the elevator! It’s totally crazy to me how the buildings are SO tall, it’s a bit scary, but I guess you get used to living in the sky. We appropriately drank Schramsberg and had some of the best curry ever. I think I was sweating tikka masala for two days after, and I am not kidding. Now I know why the Spice Souk was so busy and a popular place to visit!!

 

Dubai or Bust!

~ tanlandia ~ Leave a comment

Up, up, and away! Here I am, at an altitude of 37,000 feet, sipping on Veuve Clicquot as I catch up on this past years movies during our 16+ hour flight to Dubai from SFO, and I must say, Emirates does it right. Nick and I got very lucky, we are headed off for a 21 day adventure which kind of happened by chance, through South East Asia – Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, and Tokyo (an itinerary put together by Remote Lands, who incidentally also did our honeymoon to the Maldives). I also took this as an opportunity to make a stop off in Dubai for a few days. It’s a destination that has always intrigued me, heck; it was even an option in my future plans as I job searched whilst my time in London was coming to an end, and the fact that I have a lifelong friend residing there at the moment, it was the perfect time and excuse to visit.

 

Curious about what we have been eating? I can fill you in. To set up the flight, I thought it was only appropriate to start with a Kir Royale, this was actually my first real drink when I turned 21, so a great celebratory beverage for me. I had a traditional Arabic Mezze consisting of local savory dishes such as houmous, moutabel, muhammara, and stuffed grape leaves. It was excellent.

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Nick had the smoked salmon. As a main course I had the Baked Sea Bass, not bad considering it still is just airplane food. Nick went with the Chicken Nilgiri which was cooked in a coriander and mint curry, served with patak paneer and steamed rice, it looked excellent.

The showstopper of course was dessert. Chocolate and Pineapple mousse with a honey anglaise, yum!

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My friend, Ariel, happens to work for the airline Emirates, so she was able to get us some nice seats on this Airbus A380,  and this plane is huge. We boarded and went straight upstairs (my first time on a double decker!) to our seats and access to an in flight lounge. It is really nice to go there to stretch your legs, have a drink, and hang out with some of the other chatty passengers. Not to mention all of the nibbles they have such as tea sandwiches, various warm bites, and sweet treats. I found myself wandering back there a few times…