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Published: October 11th 2015
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This morning we visited the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding for their Saturday Brunch. The morning was run by two teenage local volunteers but with older locals on hand if needed. They gave us lots of local information about the culture and lifestyle of local Emirates. They also answered all the questions asked by the diners.
After this we were all served coffee and dates. They explained that this is the local Emirate greeting. If you say no it will offend the host. The Arabic coffee was very strong but the added date encouraged most of us to have a second cup.
After this, the main food was unwrapped and each dish was explained. We tried every dish on offer, and even went back for seconds of some of them. Although only warm, it was really tasty. The food they offered was:
Arabic coffee
Dates
Nikhee (Chick peas)
Balaleet (Sweetened vermicelli)
Chabab (Emirati pancake)
Khamir (Bread)
Machboos (Seasoned rice)
Fareeth (Thick bread)
Saloona (Emirati stew)
Mhammar (Fish with caramelised onions and sugary yellow rice)
Ligamat (Moist sweet batter) Like a doughnut
After this, we were served
sweet black tea in miniature glass cups. Could have drunk another one of these, but it was not on offer.
That finished our cultural brunch and we were able to have our shoes back.
We would definitely suggest a visit to here for anyone coming to Dubai. It is a real cultural event. There was a small charge for the brunch and presentation.
From the centre, we walked along the creek to the first abra station. An abra is a local wooden boat. There are many of them used to make the short crossing across the creek. We stopped in a local café for a couple of diet cokes, and were surprised, but shouldn´t have been, to see Arabic writing on the bottles. We sat and watched the abras for a while whilst sheltering from the fierce sun under their umbrellas.
We then walked through the textile souk. We had thought we might make a purchase here, but everyone was really hard sell, and it was all we could do to stop us being dragged into every shop.
At the other end of the souk is another abra station that took us to the Gold
souk. Cost for the abra across the creek 1 AED (about £0.20).
We then walked through the spice souk, the gold souk and many other little alleys selling everything and anything. They were all very hard sell, so we did not look too hard. We were heading for the fish market, but seemed to finish up exactly where we had started. We had a fresh fruit juice from a cafeteria that seemed to be well frequented by locals and then headed for the metro station back to our hotel.
It is really hot out here now, and if we stayed out for much longer we would burn. This was an ideal break time for some further R&R.
In the evening we walked to the shopping area nearby to the hotel. We found a restaurant that took the entertainer voucher and had a really nice local meal for under £10 for the two of us. Then we went into Haagen Daas for ice cream and a milk shake and that cost us more than our main meal did. This was a valuable opportunity for a lesson to be learnt.
A quick visit to the supermarket to stock
up on water and milk before we draw a close to another day.
When we booked this hotel we had hoped that it would have a self-service laundry. But it appears that in Dubai, nobody does their own washing. We have made several enquires since getting here, but have always got the same answer. We spoke to reception tonight to see if there was still enough time for them to do some laundry for us, and they advised us to take it down now and it would be back 1pm tomorrow. We selected some larger heavier items for them to wash, then did some hand washing of some of the lighter items. Just hope they are dry before we leave Dubai for Abu Dhabi on Monday.
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