The tallest building in the world!!!

Dubai's motto should be, "Another one for the record books." So many of the main attractions in the Dubai are about being the biggest or the best in the world. The Burj Khalifa is no exception. At 2,717 feet the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. Will and I were not completely thrilled to spend the money to travel up to the top (it is just a really tall building after all), but we decided that it was a must do because how often do you get to travel to the 124th floor of a building. The group that operates the tours to the top apears to be playing a marketing game and only sells 50 tickets every half hour. This made it very challenging to get tickets; Will and I attempted 3 or 4 times with no avail. We finally bought tickets a few days in advance and crossed our fingers that it would be clear weather, not an easy thing to come by in sand storm season. There is not much to the exerience besides taking the elevator up and taking a look around on the observation deck. It was slightly disipointing to find out that the building has 160 floors, but they only take visitors to the 124th floor. It is the highest outdoor observation deck in the world and we took the world's fasted elevator to reach it. After it all, I would have to say that it was nice that to only have 50 other people at the top with us.


Me at the top of the Burj Khalifa



Looking down at Dubai Buisness center from the Burj Khalifa



Looking down at the Dubai Mall and the Address Hotel
from the Burj Khalifa.



At the base of the Burj Khalifa

Skiing in the desert!

Snow in the middle of the desert! It may be man made and inside of a large spaceship looking capsule, but there is snow! After our not so successful trip to the east coast of the UAE, Will and I decided to spend an afternoon at Ski Dubai. Ski Dubai is an indoor ski resort in the Mall of the Emirates, one of the largest shopping malls in the world. All of the ski gear is provided with your lift ticket and you get two full hours of slope time. The size of the slope is similar to a single slope at Snow Creek in Weston, MO and their is a quad chairlift. The slope was equivalent to a very easy green run without moguls or any sort of bumps. I was surprised at how cold it was. It was very easy to forget that you are in the desert, except that you are inside. Will and I agreed that the two hours was plenty! You can only go down the same exact slop so many times :)

Will and I on the chairlift going up the slope.

At the top of the indoor slope.

Me at the bottom of the slope.

UAE's East Coast: Khor Fakkan

In a check-out line at the grocery store, a Time Out Dubai magazine caught the eye of Will. Its cover story was about the best drives/day trips from Dubai.Since we were beginning to run out of things to do in Dubai, we snatched this up. One of the trips listed was to Khor Fakkan, a supposedly picturesque town on the east coast of the UAE known for incredible snorkeling sites on Shark Island off the coast of the town. Since it was only a 2 hour and 30 minute drive from Dubai, we decided to give it a try.

The drive was somewhat interesting. We drove through a little bit of desert (saw a few camels wondering on the side of the road) and then through the mountains that line the east coast. The mountains are completely different that any I have seen before. They look more like big rocks or massive piles of sand. On our route was also the Friday Market, an outdoor souk that sells anything from inflatable animals to rugs shaped like tigers.

Once in Khor Fakkan, when drove the entire length of the town and walk up and down the beach several times, to find nothing! It was a very sleeply town and only saw a few people, let alone an island for snorkeling. We decided we must not have driven far enough, so we got back in the car and drove up the coast only to find an even sleepier town. In the process we happened upon the Oldest Mosque in the country, Al Bidyah Moaque and circa 1400 AD. This was slightly interesting, but it was just there on the side of the highway...no museum, no explanation of what it is, nothing! The only reason we knew what it was is because we had the Garmin (thanks Granna & Grandpa, we would be lost without the Garmin!) and a travel guide book.

While at the mosque we asked a local about Shark Island and snorkeling. He had never heard of it and said that we might what to go to a waterfall, but that road it closed. We're not sure why he thought we should go someplace that the road was closed, so we moved on and had a quick bite to eat on the beach. After one last attempt to find the island, we go back on the road to Dubai. It was a little frustrating to drive all that way just to see an old building, but at least we got something out the day!

The oldest mosque in the UAE.

Will and I after climbing up to some old forts. Notice the mountains in the
background are orange and just look like big piles of rock and sand.

One of the fort towers that we climbed up to with the mountain in the
background.

Dubai: also know as Do Buy

While Will and I were on our Big Bus tour, we had a tour guide that took us on a walking tour of the Old Souk (traditional market) in Bur Dubai. He pointed out to us that the city's name says it all; Dubai means Do Buy. The guide books and travel sites were not joking when they claimed the national pass time is shopping. There are malls and souks everywhere you go. I have counted over 10 major malls in Dubai alone. When I say major, this malls are 3 to 4 times the size of Oak Park mall in Overland Park, KS.

Mall of the Emirates. The spaceship looking structure is Ski Dubai.

Wafi Mall is very luxurious with shops like Channel
and Burberry.

In fact the first week or so that we were here, when we had a hard time finding places to eat we just headed to the nearest mall and would find something from there. I think it is due to the scorching temperatures in the summer, but we have rarely found anything that opens to a street front. Instead you will find most everything in a mall; including restaurants, clothing stores, entertainment, and grocery stores in the malls.

This is at the Dubai Mall. The big structure that looks like

a big speaker is actually outdoor air conditioner.

Apparently they have so much money they can air

condition the outdoors.

The restaurants that we find here are very similar to the ones you find in the State. There are not many local restaurants in Dubai, so in the last few weeks Will and I have eaten at Chili's, California Pizza Kitchen, Pizza Hut, FatBurger, Baja Fresh, and so on. For the most part they taste like they do in the State with the exception that all pork products are band, so they try to imitate it with beef and they don't do a very good job.

The California Pizza Kitchen sign in Arabic.

The shops are a little less American because they also have all of the European shops that are sometimes hard to come by in the USA. They have Zara, Mango, H&M, Bershka, Promod, Stradivarius, and so on. It has been fun to shop in these because many of them I have not been in since I was studying abroad in Barcelona. The malls also have American stores like Banana Republic, American Eagle, The Body Shop, Forever 21, Express, Blomingdales, and so on. I find it interesting that there are so many American stores present because when I was in Europe it was unlikely to come across these.

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

November 16-20 was the Islam holiday Eid Al-Adha. This Eid is the second of two Eids celebrated in the Islamic lunar calendar and it is to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God. Before the sacrifice God intervened to provide Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead. The Emirates take vacations and exchange presents with family. The celebrations begin after the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The appropriate phrase to wish people a nice holiday is "Eid Mumbarak." Since the dates of Eid are determined by a lunar calendar, the actual dates of the holiday are not announced until a few days prior. This tends to throw a wrench in business activities. The hospital had classes scheduled for the week and did not want to cancel, but with Eid very few people attended. In fact, on the first day of Eid only one doctor showed up and he wished to rescheduled. Thus, Will and I had an unexpected day off. We took advantage of this chose to go to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

The exterior of the Mosque is stunning and can be seen for miles.

Like many thing in the UAE, the Sheikh Zayad Grand Mosque is a very new structure. It was completed in December 2007 and is named after Sheikh Zayad bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founder and first President of the UAE. Tours of the mosque are available once a day and visitors must dress respectively. This includes an abaya for the women. An abaya is a loose robe worn by Muslim women that covers the body from head to toe and is worn with a headscarf. The abaya is actually considered national dress in the UAE. Female visitors are loaned an abaya upon arrival. I found it to be very comfortable and silky. Surprisingly, the robes have a rather cooling affect; the black acts as a sort of shade.

Will and I outside of the prayer rooms in the courtyard. The combination of
the white marble and the sun was blinding. 

Me in an Abaya in front of the main entrance to the Mosque.

Our very sweet, young, Muslim tour guide explained to us that the construction of the Mosque was meant to 'unite the world,' using artists and materials from places such as Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, Turkey, Iran, China, Greece, and the UAE. By the completion of the project more than 3,000 workers had played their part in the Mosque. It is roughly the size of five soccer fields and can accommodate 40,960 worshipers. Being such a big structure, has put the Mosque in the record books for a variety of reasons. All of the carpet is Iranian and the one in the main prayer room is the world's largest carpet and as our guide told us multiple times, there are no seems! Until last year, they also had the world's largest chandelier at 33 ft wide and 49 ft tall. All of them are made of real gold and Swarovski crystals.

The chandelier in the main entrance. This one was my
favorite. Made of 24 carat gold and Swarovski crystals. 

This was the largest chandelier until another Mosque
beat them this year.

I found it very interesting that mosques, unlike churches, cannot have paintings or pieces of artwork in them. So there are no pictures of Mohammad or depictions of stories in the Quran. This does not mean that the Mosque is not decorated beautifully. The floors, walls and ceilings are covered in flowers. According to our guide, this is because the Muslims believe that when they go to heaven, it will be a large garden and the ski will reflect the ground. The flowers that are made of naturally colored marble and are carved into the walls where my favorite. 

Me in front of one of the floral marble walls. Thank you
lady for getting in my photo.

Many of the gold and floral marble pilers. 

The prayer times clock in the Mosque. Muslims pray
5 times a day, but there are 6 times on the clock
because the second time is a warning time, the sunrise
time. The first pray must be done before sunrise.

The pulpit in the main prayer room. I found it interesting
how small it is compared to the rest of the Mosque. It
seems to be symbolic of th fact the Islamic faith is very
personal, between the individual and God.

Dubai Big Bus Tour

Our second weekend in Dubai, Will and I took and all day tour of Dubai on the Big Bus tour. There were two routes to the tour...a beach route and a downtown route. We chose to do the beach route first and decided to stay on the bus the whole time instead hopping on and off so that we would have time to do both of the routes. It took a little over two hours and saw places like the Burj Al Arab, Jumerirah Beach, Atlantis Hotel on the Palm Islands, and many many malls!

Immediately after completing the beach route, we switched buses and started the downtown loop. This one was much shorter than the beach route and included a Dubai Creek dhow cruise. Since we had spent time on the Bur Dubai side of the creek the weekend before, we stayed on the bus for that side of the Creek and then hopped off the bus on the Deira side. We spent some time in the famous Gold Souk, but unfortunately many of the shops were closed because of the Eid holiday. We walked in some that were open and my wish to buy a gold bangle was crushed because even the most basic of basic bangle was nearly $1,000!

We wondered around the Old Souk on the Bur Duabi side until it was time for the evening dhow cruise. The dhow cruise was nice, but slightly over overshadowed by the crazy children on the boat. There were several kids running all over the place, but the best was that they would sit wherever they like...including on you if you were in their way!

Our hope was the the bus tour would give us many ideas for things to do in the upcoming weekends in Dubai. Unfortunately we had not realized how many things we had already done!

Me in front of the famous Burj Al Arab, the world's only
7 star hotel.

These building were apparently iconic before the sail
hotel and the tallest building in the world were built. At the
time they were built, they were the tallest twin buildings.  

The entrance to the Gold Souk in Dubai. Too bad there is
nothing in my price range!

One of the many gold shops. You need sunglass to even walk down the street!

This was the Dhow boat we thought we were taking a cruise on. It ended up
being a different one, but this one is very similar.

The Emirati Parking Style

The parking in the UAE is one of the few things that shocks me about this country. The country has so many rules and regulations for just about everything, except parking. It was particularly evident in Abu Dhabi. They park their cars wherever they feel like. It doesn't matter if that means blocking someone in or creating an obstruction on a busy street. When we asked a local if there is any punishment for this kind of parking, he said no. The policy is that if the way that someone is parked so they are blocking you in, you can call a hotline and they will call the owner to have them move it. If the owner cannot be reached, their car gets moved by the police, but not to an impound lot, just to another spot in the lot. Crazy!

An example of the crazy parking. This is at the hospital we work at. Car park
down the center of the aisle and the white SUV on the right is parked in a
non-spot (there is a big lamp post in the center of the spot).

One of the malls in Dubai has actually surprised me. They have a very innovative parking tool. When you enter the parking garage there is a large sign that tells you which floors have spots open; thats nothing new, we have that in the States. The cool thing is that at the end of each row there is a sign that has how many spots are available in that row. Even cooler, once you are in the row there are lights above each parking spot. The light is red if a car is parked in it and it is green if the spot is open. This is awesome because you can look down the row and quickly determine what is the closest open spot to the door. Very cool!

The green light hanging above the parking spot is an
open place and all of the red lights are taken spots.

Where am I staying?

I get this question a lot...most of you know that I spend roughly 16-20 nights a month in hotels, but now that I am not checking in and out of my hotel at the beginning and the end of the week, where am I staying? I am staying at a place a little different than the Spring Hill Suites that I normally stay at. The company that I work for has a deal with a very nice hotel that is close to their offices in Dubai. It is called the Grand Millennium and is considered a 5 star hotel. The hotel has two towers, one for your average hotel rooms and another for hotel apartments. Hotel apartments are very common in Dubai and are basically like a hotel room except there is a small kitchen and clothes washer in room.

With the hotel being a rather nice one, it come with several amenities. Some of my favorites are: bottled water delivered to the room twice a day, fresh towels in the morning and the evening, an American continental breakfast with made to order omelets (they even make them egg white omelets for me!), a huge state of the art fitness center, 24 hour unlimited valet service, etc. My absolute favorite amenity is the turn down service; every night someone comes in and turns down the bed, puts a bottled water on each side of the bed, positions the provided slippers next to the bed and places chocolates on the pillow! Of course there are a few drawbacks. First off, no points! I don't get to accumulate any points towards a vacation because the hotel doesn't have a rewards program. The location is great for jumping on the highway to the hospital, but not so great for walking around. There are few sidewalks and there is lots of construction, just like everywhere in Dubai. And unfortunately, the pool doesn't get much sun, so not much chance for sunbathing without going to the beach.

The set up of sweets that was brought up as a welcome gift we I arrived.

Looking into the room from the door. Bathroom on right, bed around the corner.

Looking back at the entrance from the living room. Bathroom on left, kitchen
ahead to the right.

Bed from the living area.

Turn down service. Slippers next to bed, bottled water next to bed and
chocolates on the pillow. 

An Afternoon in Bur Dubai

Once Will and I had a little understanding of the Muslim culture under our belt, we set off to explore one of the more historical neighborhoods of Dubai, Bur Dubai. Our first stop in Bur Dubai was the Dubai Museum. It is housed in one of the oldest forts in the city; built in the late 1700s and used as an active fort and residence until the 1970s. The cost to enter was a mer 3 Dhs; only 81 cents! And it was worth so much more. On the main level of the museum there are many artifacts and a duplicate  of a traditional home made of palm trees. The real gem of the museum is the basement. There are several traditional setting staged with mannequins dressed in traditional outfits. Not only was it interesting...but the guards are kind and will turn the other direction so that you can take photos with the mannequins. My favorite was the pearl diving section because the room was set up so that the visitor feel as though they are underwater with a boat and pearl divers above our heads.

After the museum we walked through Bastakiya. Bastakiya is one of the first residential areas in the city. It is named after the Bastak region of Iran, from which many of its first in habitants emigrated. The neighborhood is most known for its unique architecture. Each building has a wind tower, called barjeel, considered the first form of air conditioning. The number of barjeels indicated the wealth of the owner. It is a very old looking area, similar to some of the Gothic walking only neighborhoods in Europe, but surprisingly the Bastakiya only dates back to the 1890s. In present day the area is not very busy. There are some art galleries and restaurants, but while we were walking through its narrow streets Will and I did not run into anyone else!

The rest of our afternoon was spent walking around the rest of Bur Dubai. We stumbled upon the Old Souk (Souk is the Arabic term for mall) and were harassed by the stall owners to come in and buy there items as we walked through. I don't think that the shop owners realized that we would have come in, looked around and probably bought something if they had not been so aggressive. The Abra station is close to the Old Souk, so we watched the Abras (traditional wooden boats used to transport locals across the Dubai Creek) while we had a late lunch a very local Iranian cafe. We had a very nice time exploring the historical neighborhood, but I am still confused about where all the people are because they are not out on the streets. Will and I often found ourselves the only people around besides the workers.

In front of the Dubai Museum.

A palm tree house in the Dubai Museum.

Posing with mannequins...the camel may have been real and stuffed.

The pearl diving room with the boat hanging above.

Bastakiya

Bastakiya

Textile Souk...fabric everywhere.

Me in the Dubai's Old Souk

An Abra crossing the Dubai Creek.

Jumeirah Mosque

The second that Will and I got some time off, we made Jumeirah Mosque our first stop. The Sheikh Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding who's motto is "Open Doors, Open Minds" does tours for the public everyday at 10:00am (between prayer times). It is the only mosque in Duabi and allows non Muslims to enter. Just as a Muslim would, shoes had to be removed and women had to be modestly dressed with scarfs covering their hair.

The cultural session was lead by two women who had been British Christians and then converted to Islam. They both had very interesting and different paths that lead them to Islam. The beginning of the session was a brief history of Islam and an description of their religious practices and then it was opened up to the group to ask any questions that we may have.

While I learned many things some of the most interesting thing that I learned were (but don't quote me on all of this) :

• Muslims believe that Jesus was a a prophet, Mohamed was just the most recent prophet. 
• The call for prayer is live; it is not a recording. A Muslim man is actually singing at each call for prayer.
• Islam is very close to Christianity. In fact, it is my understanding that they believe all of the stories in the bible, they have just added on to it. 
• Muslim men can marry non Muslims, but Muslim women cannot marry non Muslims because it is believed that children should take their father's religion. Thus a male Muslim's children would practice Islam, but a female Muslim's children would not unless that father was Muslim.
• The reason the women's prayer rooms are smaller than the men's in the mosque is that only men are required to go to a prayer room to pray. Women may pray wherever they are...at home, in a park, etc. Most still go into a prayer room and thus that is why women's prayer rooms are much larger than the men's at the mall!
• The black abayas (dresses) that women wear are more of a cultural thing than a Muslim thing. The two women that lead the talk said that they only wear them while they are in the UAE and when they are back in London they just wear clothing that is very covering. 

The session was very interesting and I am very happy to of learned so much about the Islam faith.

The outside of Jumeirah Mosque. It was built in the 1970s. 

Will and I inside the mosque after the cultural session.

Bare feet! No shoes inside of the Mosque.

I had my first encounter with a camel...and it was delicious?

Camels are right at the top of my bucket list of things to do/see in the UAE. On our first day here we actually saw some frolicking in a dessert pasture on along Sheikh Zaed road (an 8-10 lane highway that run from downtown Dubai to Abu Dhabi). Since than we have not seen any with the exception of the camel burgers and camel milkshakes that we ate the Local House in Dubai! Thats right...burgers made from camel meat and milkshakes made with camel milk. Burgers were good...a little gamey tasting and had about 4 pound of mayo on them, like everything else in the UAE...my goodness they like mayo here! Will said that the taste is similar to deer, but since I've never had deer, I wouldn't know. The when we asked the waitress if the camel milkshakes were good, she mentioned they were salty. While we were drinking them, we didn't notice it at all...but an hour later were were both dying of thirst...we assume from drinking the salty camel milkshakes. All in all, eating camel was a fun experience but it was nothing so great that I would run out to do every Friday night.