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Published: August 1st 2008
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First View from the 40th floor balcony
It was very hot and very hazy even at 6:30 in the morning Hello again,
We arrived home about midnight on the 29th of July - a long, long time on the airplanes, but how else to you get around a 1/3+ of the world in less than 24 hours?
We thoroughly enjoyed being in Dubai. It is an amazing experience and I don't know where else you could go to even compare the dynamics that are part of this planned city. Jim was not able to find a room that would accommodate three people and two rooms didn't seem practical because of the cost. So, he looked online and found the Oasis Beach Towers. They had apartments with two to four bedrooms. At 1:00 am our butler, Ibnu, was giving us the grand tour of our two-bedroom apartment. It was about 2000 square feet of grandness. On the 40th floor with the two-bedrooms; a large living room with dining area; very sleek kitchen; a little bare room with small bath in case we had brought a servant with us (we hadn't) and a guest restroom in the front foyer. It was heavenly and the air conditioning worked quite spectacularly. However, there wasn't really any cool water and the cold water was almost too
hot to enjoy the shower. Chrissy overcame this by filling the tub in the afternoon and then, the water was quite cool when she had her bath in the evening. We had 24 hour maid service and the three different butlers that helped us were great. They seemed to be always hovering to see if we would just breathe a wish and they could fulfill it. Breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea were provided and, no matter how late or how early, they always had us stop for coffee and juice to see if we were enjoying ourselves. No worries there!
The first day we just took it easy. You could only be out in the heat for a very short time. In the afternoon, we went to a beautiful shopping mall called Ibn Battuta. It had 5 or 6 different sections that represented different countries; Egyptian, Chinese, Tunisian, Andulusian and I can't remember the others. Each was very ornately decorated with real wood, real stone and real marble. We didn't spy a piece of particle board anywhere. The mall was exceptionally clean and not too crowded. People come to Dubai to shop because there are no import duties and no
sales tax. All of the very high end Italian and French stores were here and many of the American ones. We found H&M and Forever New for Peggy and Traci. They had a Le Geant for Glenn, an enormous supermarket from France. It was fun to just walk and look. Chrissy and I had a water massage that was very nice. Jim was holding out for a real one. We took a taxi back to the room. We were staying in the Jumeira Beach district and couldn't believe that all the buildings around us were residential or hotels. There were small shops on the ground floors, but mainly residential. It was the size of 3 or 4 Chicago downtowns. Dubai has several areas like this. The tallest building is in the business section and not yet finished. Construction goes on pretty much 24 hours. Some let the workers off from 11:00 am to 4:00 om to get away from full brunt of the sun. It is always hazy because of the heat and the construction. Great freeway system that is very new. Seems to have something happening all the time.
That night, we went to a rustic Italian restaurant and
had a delightful European repast that lasted about 3 hours. On the way up to the room, we had to stop in the lounge and have one more coffee and juice. The butlers had to hear about what we did and made sure we had no complaints (As if). They made us then plan the next day so they could make all the reservations, arrange taxis and leave time to come and have lunch & tea with them. We were so pampered and the room was costing us less than the no heat - no hot water one on Safari.
I'll have to post this and continue our Dubai delight tomorrow. We are settling in pretty well, but it might take a few more days to really get into a routine of normalcy.
Shirley
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