Weekend in Dubai

A group of 6 of us organized to go to Dubai for the weekend, Ellen, Aisey, Matt, Rob, Bec and I plus a group of 4 guys, Alberto, Azlan, Steve and Simon. P.K. was flying through Dubai on our flight, on his way to Turkey so there was 11 of us. We took a casual day so we could have 4 days 3 nights. We flew out after work on Thursday (the last day of the week here) and arrived in Dubai about 7pm. We were all standing at the check in counter and Matt turns to P.K and asks "which airline are you flying," "ah that would be the same as you seeing as I'm in this line."

We hired 2 cars from the airport, collected them and navigated our way with no map in the general Dubai direction. We had not been given great directions to get to the place we were staying and as a result spent about an hour driving around trying to find the landmarks we had been given. After a couple of stops, map searching and even looking on foot, we found the massive shopping center we were meant to me looking out for (no one had said was actually round the corner from the main road not ON it) we found Ramee Hotel Apartments and parked the cars. We had booked 3 rooms, found them and before long collected together the 6 bottles of spirits we had brought from Duty Free, the other 4 boys that had traveled with us to Dubai and were staying at the Rush-In and we drank and limboed till the 3:15am prayer call.

I had my alarm set for 8:30am so I could make a booking at the Burj for brunch (that is the 7-star hotel which has the tennis court / golf green on the top floor). I struggled to open my eyes let alone converse with non-English hotel staff about the booking we wanted to make. He suggested I call back at 9:30am so I tried to sleep a little more. Called back at 9:30am and was told I would have to fill out a booking confirmation form which he would fax to the hotel. I was to return it with a copy of my credit card and passport. This was some serious booking!! To cut a long story short their system was down and the hotel fax machine wasn’t working, so, after numerous calls to the Burj and to our Hotels reception desk I called the Burj back and told them we were unable to get the form and as it was 10am and the booking was for 11am he should think of another option. The reservations staff spoke to Matt as he had the credit card, asked for a lot of unnecessary information, said he would call back with a booking confirmation number. You can't get onto the island without one. The hotel can only be used by guests and those with restaurant reservations. The number was huge, 9287856143THG like we need all those numbers, not one you can remember anyway! Lunch was fantastic with all the yummy hob nob foods you could imagine, lobster, prawns, some Japanese special beef, your own chef to cook your shell fish or pancakes, cheese, caviar and the biggest dessert bar I have ever seen. We stayed there for about 3 hours, eating and enjoying the view and each of us at one stage just sitting there, taking it all in and thinking how amazing it was!! The view was spectacular, out into the sea as far as you could see, the Palm and World constructions on either side was a magnificent sight. You could also see a fair bit of Dubai.

Lunch concluded about 3pm and we drove from there to the Mall of the Emirates which is the biggest shopping center I have ever been too and even has a ski slope inside. Can you imagine skiing in the desert! It's right in the middle of the shopping centre and there are cafes and shops all around it with huge glass windows so you can see everyone styling down the slope. There is even a chair lift to get you to the top. The picture here is the outside of the slope that you can see from the car park. Very impressive. Us girls had a ball, Friday we didn’t have much time to shop as we were planning to go out about 10pm (and try and have a sleep from the up late limboing the night before). The plan was for the three of us to buy dresses to wear that night. After 2 hours at the mall racing from shop to shop I'm happy to announce that we not only had dresses, shoes and accessories but a range of other items…….love that place.

We didn’t get much time to sleep as it was into the bathroom with make up and hair straighters for us.

Ellen drove the 6 of us to Buda Bar to start the night off and I wish I had taken my camera (at that stage anyway) as it was the most amazing place. There were little sort of rooms all along the entrance corridor with low lying furniture and heaps of cushions to lounge around on. There was a huge buda statue in the centre and awesome décor, with prices to match. Very smoky though and not really the right kind of music for us in our fancy new dresses. So we headed to Madinat Jumeirah to a place called Trilogy where Prodigy is playing next week! It cost us $35 to get in but it was worth it. We had the best night, the music was a little housey, but we danced and danced till 3am. Seriously thinking of going back to Dubai this week just to go there and see Prodigy.

We agreed to meet at 10am the next morning to go to Wild Wadi which is a water park in Jumeriah which is the same area as the Burj, Souks and the night club we went to. 10 got pushed to 11 and then it was meeting at 12 in the lobby. We ended up going for lunch so by 1pm we decided to go to the mall instead as didn’t know what time the water park closed and we still had to go and collect the car we parked at Buda bar the night before.

So we once again hit the Mall of the Emirates, very dangerous place for my credit card!! Spent about 3 hours looking around and a couple of us went skiing. I decided the money could be better spent in Channel, Debenhams and a range of other classy shops where the sales were on, and when Dubai says sale its not just a rack of crap that no one else wants with 12% off!! We had some dinner at the Mall and then headed to Madinat to the Souks. These were not the traditional souks like the ones you find in Doha but castle like mazes complete with hotel and a moat with traditional boats to take guests to their rooms and around the maze of restaurants and shops. You can see the souks in the picture, it’s the brown block of buildings with water around the outside.

There was some amazing artwork, traditional clothing, statues, ornaments and jewelry. We went into one store for Bec to look at a necklace. The lady in the shop asked her if she wanted to try it on, Bec was like "oh, ummm," I was like "yes she does" and they asked me if I wanted to try anything on and I pointed to the $20,000 blue topaz encrusted with diamonds! Love the titanic!! It was ridiculously huge and there was an even larger one, they let me take a picture to show Matt, heehee.

The souks have some bars and restaurants on the water and we chose one to sit down at and have a bottle of wine. It was just beautiful, very fake, but beautiful and the boats looked lovely floating around on the calm water. I asked the waitress how we get to go on the boats and she suggested that they were only for hotel guests. Ah yes, room 703….. Bec, Rob and I boarded a little boat with Abdul the driver and floated off into the maze of Madinat. We had a great driver who insisted there were sharks in the man made moat! He took us for a tour all around and we had a spectacular view of the Burj all lit up. Abdul pointed out places in the hotel and he was like, there is the spa, which you know! Ha we were like, yes, went there today actually….. naughty!

When we got back from the tour we tried to get into trilogy, where we went the first night, alas our dress wasn’t up to standard so it was back to the Hotel to start on the 5 bottles of spirits we brought in duty free on the way through Dubai airport. Unfortunately we couldn’t bring it back to Doha so we had to drink it all.

Once again waking up in the morning was a slight challenge and times were pushed to the limits once again. Bec, Ellen and I went back to the trusty Mall of the Emirates so Ellen could buy the key board she wanted to bring back to Doha. Yes key board, and I'm not talking one you sit on your lap. This puppy was 16.5kg, 2m long and had a stand as well. Bec and I "popped" into Mossimo Dutti, our new favorite store, for 15 minutes….. we had walked by a couple of times the day before but hadn't dared enter, thinking the prices would be way out of our price range. But to our delight, there was a sale and as I described before they have awesome sales here.

Well you can buy a lot in 15 minutes. Bec brought a great leather jacket which was 60% off. It had a small surface stain on it so she asked the manager to give her a better deal. The manager called head office and tried to get 70% off but was unable to so she offered Bec any accessory, jewelry or bottle of perfume from the store.

From there we went to Wild Wadi water park and hung out in the boiling sun until it was time to drive out to the airport. That was a mission as there are three in Dubai and the little aeroplane signs don’t actually have the name of the airport on them in English. We only had a tourist map which was not very useful as we were going to an airport outside Dubai and the journey wasn’t even halfway on the map. Bec did a great job of driving; the person we were following however!!! Don’t think they have been educated in the etiquette of following. After being pushed off the road by a huge truck and trying to get back on with 10 others speeding along in our lane, screeching to a stop from 100km when at the last second and with no indicator Matt decides to take an exit, and 50 lane changes, we made it to the airport.

Aisey obviously wanted to stay longer in Dubai and booked his flight home a month later! He was coming back on the 23^rd August. Matt almost wasn’t coming back at all as he left his boarding pass at the check in counter…… yes they are logistics and we are organizing the 2^nd largest Games in the world……. Yikes…..