Day 6!

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Day 6 starts early. . . . well 10 o clock early anyway!
Charles breaks into our bed room! Olli is close behind with the offer of Coffee.

We get ourselves ready for a busy day. Just the three of us as Reyhan has college work to do.

We head out after some breakfast to the Abu Dhabi Mosque.
It is a really striking building, costing a fortune to build. All of the decorative colors are natural, so colors stoned decorate the columns and alot of the floors. The carpets in the prayer rooms are all one piece, with raised lines for the people to stand along when prayers are taking place. The men and the women pray in different rooms although women are allowed to visit the mail prayer room whilst not in use.

This is a holy place and before i can enter the building i have to put on a robe and a head scarf. I don't mind and i treat it as dressing up although i find it odd that men do not have to adhere to the same rules. We all have to take our shoes off though and it looks like TK Max shoe department outside!

Chris takes a lot of photos and He and Ollie try to remember facts about the building that they remember from previous visits.

The time is now 12.06 and it is time for prayers we are politely ushered from the building and find that the car park is pretty much empty, everyone has gone!

Ollie needs to refuel the car, petrol is soooo cheap!

Our next stop is the Dubai Mall, the largest shopping centre in the world, this is home to an aquarium and the base of the Burj Khalifa The tallest building in the world. We book tickets to visit another time then head around the shopping center! I know me shopping. . . but it is so big that the place is quite quiet so i can cope!

We have a look at the aquarium, i think Charles will like this so we wizz past!

Ollie then takes us down town! this is where a lot of the cultural centers and the oldest part of the city. It looks a bit like a theme park as everything seems to have its place, that is until we get to the markets then he fun begins! We get on a boat/ferry across the river. There are no railings and no walk ways on and of of the boat. All very casual! we pay the ferry man and a few minute later we jump off and into another world. The streets are lined with almost market stalls based in little shopping outlets. Being sold are fabrics spices, imitation goods and electrical items. Every person that speaks to you want to sell you some thing!! I am really impressed with the activity here, really busy and yet entertaining.

(Am going to let Chris finish the account of the rest of the day, but for me I have had a brilliant time today, Thank you Ollie for being a great tour guide.x)


so, after we'd finished in the souks in old Dubai, we got the boat back across and headed back towards the car. The fabric markets which had been closed up earlier on were open, with offers of pashmenas and sari material, but we had other plans! Time to head to the Burj al Arab, the Jumeria hotel which is famous for its 7 star rating....and also where Coleen and Wayne stayed last week when they were over. Looks like a giant sail from afar. Previous experience had shown that the best place to view this from is either the public beach next door or, if you're in need of anything to eat or drink, from the bar at the Jumeira beach hotel which is right next to it. We also know from previous experience that the bar would be showing the football, and with Bolton being the early game we arrived with 12 minutes to go and finding Bolton 3-0 up against spurs! the look of astonishment and joy on mine and helen's faces when we looked at the TV and saw the score prompted a chap already in there to comment that we must be either Bolton or Arsenal fans, to which i replied both!! 2 minutes later and Ollie has been to the bar and the wife is sat at the table with the bloke chatting away and eating his chips!!! Anyway, we joined him for the rest of the game, which got quite nervy for Helen as spurs pulled 2 back before Bolton finally put the game to bed with a 4th goal. Two TV's in the bar and the rugby was starting on the other one, so we stayed for a bite to eat. The Burj is normally illuminated in different colours but, despite having taken the tripod out of the car, it still wasn't lit up properly, so we decided to eat while we waited. Fish and Chips was the recommendation from our new friend in the bar, and what a recommendation it turned out to be, absolutely amazing, and even with mushy peas! So, whilst Mr Rooney may have been getting grief for eating chip when he was out here, they were pretty good!! 😉

After a while our new friend departed, but not before we'd been chatting about things and he'd very generously offered to put me in touch with a few of his contacts in NZ in terms of looking for a job out there, which was a very sporting offer and certainly not one i'll be ignorning! So, sometimes it IS good when the wife goes off and chats to strange men in bars.

Anyway, we finished dinner, even i couldn't manage pudding, and, finally, the Burj was lit up so, with a little bit of persuasion from Ollie, we were able to persuade the security guard to let us onto the residents only beach so i could take a few photos of the hotel illuminated in all its glory. The Jumera Beach hotel also looked pretty impressive, so i took some of that too before we finally headed out to the front entrance, waited for the concierge to bring the car out front for us, and headed off back to Abu Dhabi.

What we didn't mention earlier is that to go up the Burj Khalifa, you need to book a ticket at a set time, and there weren't any slots available today until 9pm, which was a bit too late for us, so we've booked tickets for Monday at 3pm, so we're going to be back in Dubai again the day after tomorrow!! I am well excited about going up the tallest building in the world!!! it looked beautiful as we drove home, all sparkly and twinkling with lights, clearly someone there has been to Paris and seen the Eiffel tower!!

Journey back was as uneventful as any road trip in the UAE is, with massively fast cars doing whatever speed they like, and you trying to keep out of the way. Passed by Ferrari World en route too, which reminded us thats still on the to do list. Won't be Monday as we will still be in Dubai, and won't be tomorrow as thats Brazilian Grand Prix night! Trouble is, with us wanting to do a meal on a floating restaurant, and the desert trek to the Bedouin camp, we're fast running out of evenings left!! So much to do, so little time


Managed to do a bit of shopping in the Dubai Mall, i picked up a smaller more portable external hard drive as the one i have with me need a separate power supply and is sounding a bit creaky, so i decided to invest in a backup backup drive. currnently copying my entire photo library from my current external drive to the new one, so photos will have to follow tomorrow as that copying will take all night.

Quiet day planned tomorrow. i must go running, as digging out all my running gear and setting a 7am alarm this morning still wasn't enough to get me out of the door, and i'm getting bigger and bigger! 😞 Just over a month to my first half ironman and there isn't a hope in hell of me doing it without some serious training. just so hard doing the touristy thing and trying to train at the same time. i think when we get to NZ it'll be 7 weeks of pretty much non stop training up until the big race, and then non stop tourism after that.

Anyway, enough for today, time for bed!!!

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