Dubai!

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We are in Dubai! We had an extremely boring 7 hour flight yesterday. Although flying Emirates was a lot nicer than your average Thomas Cook flight, Terry managed to spill Jamesons on me and our TV’s were broke, meaning my hopes of watching Glee for 7 hours were shattered.
We got into Dubai airport and after a bag search (My GHD’s aroused suspicion), we met Uncle Mike (my second cousin and Dubai expat) and he drove us back to his apartment and WOW, it’s massive and absolutely beautiful. It’s got great city views and we have our own huge bedroom and bathroom. Shame we’re only here two nights!
The apartment is close to loads of places to eat so Mike took us out to an Indian Restaurant and we sampled our first meal of travelling, which was a load of bread and rice with little pots of various curries. It was delicious! I ordered this really bad drink which was lime juice with curry powder in it....I had no idea what I even asked for till I drank it!!!

Its SO hot here. 35 - 40 degrees at all times, but it’s lovely heat which makes a huge change to home. I did wonder how everyone keeps so cool despite wearing the traditional Emirati dress but today I’m wearing harem pants, a vest and a white cotton scarf draped over my shoulders and not only does it save on sun cream, it actually keeps you cooler.

Today we wanted to get out early so we could avoid the heat in the day. Turns out it’s always extremely hot but we set off at about 8am to Deria, which is the old, traditional part of the city. The whole area is popular with Indian and Pakistani immigrants and it felt like we were in India. There were people sitting on the pavements, shoes off, just chilling and others working at the port. After a bit of walking around, getting lost etc, we sat down for breakfast with the locals at a tiny cafe. I’ve got no idea what we ate, but it was like savoury pancakes and this thing that looked like curry but didn’t taste like it. Yummy though. Ignorance is bliss. Deria is famous for its souks, which are basically just markets, selling spices, perfume, gold, clothes etc. Neither of us have any intention of shopping, but they were fun to walk around, although a lot of people offered us fake watches on the way. I got a lot of attention there, as it’s an old part of the city and they’re not that used to seeing Westerners, so I covered up my shoulders and chest with a scarf which helped the staring a little less.

After a walk, we took an Abra (boat) over the river and caught a taxi to the mall of the emirates. We can’t afford to shop here, but walking around a huge air conditioned mall is so appealing after a morning in the sun. The mall was massive, and had loads of fancy designer shops aswell as places like Next and H&M. Also, they have an indoor snow world thing, which is a bit random. The food court has all the places we have back home and I even saw an “Asha’s”, which have a branch in Birmingham!
We’ve been so busy today, so were back at the apartment for a while. Tonight we will probably have a few drinks as it’s the Emirati weekend Fri – Sat. Alcohol is really expensive unfortunately, but Kasia, I have found the cigarettes you want for 69AED (about £11.50) for a pack of 200 so I’ll be bringing them home! Food is a bit cheaper than home and taxis are too.

Tomorrow we are in Dubai all day then have a flight to Singapore at 02:45 in the morning so will leave for the airport at about 11pm. It’s going to be a very long, very busy day but so far, I think Dubai is pretty awesome so I want to see as much as possible of it before we leave.

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Comments

[Kasia]

Glad you are safe and sound!
Hi dudes, I'm happy to hear you survived your first day ^^ I'm loving your "got no idea what we ate but it was delicious" :P And THANKS for the fags in advance! Bring 2 packs if Terry doesn't want any! :) Waiting for more news! xxx