Surprise 24hr Dubai

So, long story short, I'm writing this from a hotel room in Dubai. After travelling for over 30hours I landed in Dubai 45minutes late and got told I wasn't going to be able to make my connection. Luckily Emirates were pretty good and put me on the next flight to Newcastle - downside was the next flight wasn't for 24hours...

My lovely room!

 Emirates put me up in a lovely hotel for the night and paid for my meals there and transport to and from the airport. The only real downside was I certainly hadn't packed for Dubai's early summer heatwave, oh and I didn't have any suncream!

 Little shot of the hotel grounds - this was where I sat to have my breakfast after arriving in Dubai

 After letting Victoria know I wasn't going to be landing in Newcastle that day (sorry Paul for making you go to the airport for no reason!) I decided to make the most of having a surprise stop in Dubai, put on the most Dubai-appropriate outfit I could muster, and headed out to the Biggest Mall in the World so I could go up the TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD!

Not before going to dawdle at the massive indoor aquarium again!

 Burj Khalifa

 I went for a short walk around before going up, the day was so beautiful I was constantly at war on whether to enjoy the sun, without suncream, or stay inside

 Love this part of Dubai

 Getting up the Burj Khalifa is a bit of a pain, as if you don't book weeks in advance it's expensive but I figured I wasn't expecting to be here and I don't know when I'll next get to Dubai so I just thought - why not!

 There's a bit of a walk from the reception to the lift but it's filled with lots of inspirational quotes and beautiful photos and slideshows

 The lift itself was actually kinda incredible! It zoomed up 124 floors in less than a minute and the weirdest thing was that it didn't even feel like you were moving! My ears popped four times but I still couldn't tell we were moving - so strange

 From the observation deck the view was pretty incredible!

 I love how you actually get to see Dubai, it's hard to explain the city's unique layout in worlds but I think from above it's quite clear.

 From the inside deck you can just see Dubai Marina in the distance - one of the prettiest areas of Dubai

 Of course I made sure to get a photo of me up the top. My favourite was with a handful of skyscrapers in the forefront and then the vast desert as the backdrop

After spending quite a bit of time at the top and pottering around the mall I headed out through the 'village' to the taxi rank.

All in all it's been so lovely to have this little stop off in Dubai, and I think in hindsight it's going to help with the jet lag. Although I wasn't very happy in the airport, I was just tired and wanting to get back, now I've been in Dubai I think it's pretty cool I got a 'free' holiday in Dubai out of my flights!

For now I can't wait to get back to England to see everyone, celebrate Lydia's first birthday with her and see my mum's face when I surprise her by turning up!!

Orchard Road

I opted to take the MRT(underground train service) today rather than walking to orchard road, mainly because i knew id do lots of walking once i got there and the humidity was crazy today (over 80%) so i just couldn't be bothered walking for an hour to get to some shopping centres :p

The MRT was pretty simple to use, so much simpler than Sydney's train service (by that I mean it didn't take 3 of us taking 5 wrong trains to get where i wanted)

Singapore is going a little valentine's day crazy at the moment, the first indication being the bright pink horses which line the entire road

Some models.. casually posing outside the ion shopping centre. This is the third professional photoshoot I've stumbled across in Singapore - I guess there's just a lot of beautiful backgrounds

Had a very weird moment where there was a george...

more valentine's decorations - every shopping centre was decked out in pink!

Plaza Singapura, Dubai might have the biggest shopping centres but Singapore seems to be right behind them challenging them with the sheer amount of malls! On this one road there's about 8 massive shopping centres all of which stretch over at least 5 floors

I only noticed today that the lion image is dotted all around the city

And I finally got around to trying this Singapore… peculiarity! There are lots of little ice cream carts dotted around the city and most sell ice cream the traditional way for Singapore - sliced and in a piece of bread! Apparently the dying of the bread fun colours is a recent addition. Anyway it was weirdly nice - and no where near as strange as I expected it to be!

I finally made my way to Instana Park - I think I turned around about 5 times, as the maps I had (all 3) showed the park to be significantly bigger than it actually was. It wasn't until I walked around the entire walk twice that I saw this sign hidden behind some bushes I realised! 

The park was lovely, and it was the perfect place to relax in the afternoon sun. I also went on a bit of a butterfly walk and managed to spot 5 different types - all completely beautiful 

Getting to Singapore

Today went much smoother than I originally thought. 

Checking out of the hotel was a breeze, I got my deposit back, caught a taxi and made my way to airport. I had to wait about 2hours at Dubai airport, as I had to be checked out my room by 12 and my flight wasn’t until 4, but I managed to get a seat plus it gave me a chance to sit and read some of my book. At passport control the guy stamping my passport told me I had beautiful eyes… damn I’m going to miss getting random compliments everyday –I don’t think there’s been a single day in Dubai someone hasn’t come up and complimented me!

 (Euros, Dirhams, NZ Dollars, Pounds, Singapore Dollars and Rupees! - oh and a Dubai keyring)

I had another hour to kill in duty free so I bought myself a lipstick and a drink before catching my flight to Mumbai. . The flight was pretty standard for a budget airline, the food though… where to start with the food.  We got fed at 6 and I hadn’t eaten anything since 9 so it’d fair to say I was pretty hungry, but I only managed a mouthful or so before I gave up. It was curry, with some potato thing which was weirdly seasoned. The weirdest thing was this yellow ball! I’m going to call it a cake as that’s the only thing I can think to call it, but it had the strangest consistency, it was paper dry until you bit into it and then a watery syrup seemed to come from the cake… This was my first real experience with bad airline food as so far I’ve been pretty lucky that the meals have been quite nice

Then I arrived at Mumbai. This was the bit I was actually most worried about as there are some awful reviews for Mumbai’s Bombay airport. I was lucky though, my arrival and departure terminal were the same, most people have to swap terminals and then you have to catch a bus which doesn’t run regularly… anyway the only problem I had was none of the signs were English and the stores didn’t take card or coins or pounds or nz dollars. I ended up finding one stall that would take dirhams (Dubai’s currency) and bought myself a croissant  (which was surprisingly delicious – I’m not sure if that’s simply due to how hungry I was though)

Anyway, the flight to Singapore was pretty uncomfortable, it was only 6hrs (I love how I now consider a 6hr flight to be nothing) but the seats were just simply impossible to sleep in. They did have a huge range of films though… so I obviously chose to watch some gripping and artistic film… Rio. It’s about a cartoon bird who goes to Rio and gets kidnapped… We got fed again on this flight but to be honest it wasn’t much better… it had the same yellow ball and potato thingy but there was some sort of bread which I ate.

It was really strange heading to passport control in Singapore airport as I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve had transfers here that I’m so used to following the transfer signs. Once I got my passport stamped I exchanged my money, and I now have 5 different currencies floating around in my coin purse!

Catching a taxi was really simple, getting him to understand where I wanted to go wasn’t. He couldn’t understand me, I couldn’t understand him… luckily I had where we were going… I got here in the end though! It seems like a nice hostel so far, I haven’t done much since I got to the hostel as honestly I’m exhausted and I don’t trust myself wandering around a new city when I’m this tired! Instead I’ve just been planning what I want to do while I’m here and catching up and emails etc.

P.S I needn’t have worried about my luggage being overweight, I thought I must have read it wrong online but no, I got a 35kg allowance for checked luggage and another 10kg for carry on! A lot more than the standard 20kgs! (although my suitcase has gained an extra 3kg in Dubai which I don’t quite understand…

P.P.S it makes me stupidly happy that I haven’t needed adapter plugs for Dubai or Singapore! 3 prongs all the way!

Umm Suqueim

On my last day in Dubai I really wasn't feeling too well so I didn't plan on doing too much, the morning was spent sunbathing on the roof for the last time before wandering the neighbourhood down to the creek again and I explored an indoor Souq where I managed to find a Banteel Shop! 

I'm so glad I popped in, their dates were recommended multiple times and the lady helped me pick out what I wanted from the dizzying array of different types of dates, fillings, preserves and date truffles. It was really fun, and an experience to try the 7 different types of dates they offer as well as some of their other gourmet treats! I picked up some Kholas and Khidri dates with caramelised pecans!

After a brief respite from the blazing midday sun in my room packing, I caught a taxi to Umm Suqueim Beach near the Al Arab Burj. The sky had started to cloud over and the wind pick up but it was still beautiful on the beach - Dubai has the most amazing sand!

The Al Arab Burh

After walking along the beach I waded into the warm crystal clear waters of the Arabian Gulf

I had planned to catch a taxi back to the hotel once I'd finished on the beach as when I fist got to the beach there were loads parked up waiting but when I went to catch one they were all gone, every single one of them.. Cue a 4hr long walk along Jumeirah rd. 

I stumbled across kite beach along the way, a largely deserted space but which was lovely and tranquil

The view looking back at the Al Arab Burj

After this photo I ended up having to walk through the 'Fisherman District' which wasn't particularly fun.. lets just say it looked pretty run down with lots of fishermen lounging on the broken driftwood and ripped sheets staring at me as I walked past. Uncomfortable doesn't quite cover it. 

The only piece of graffiti that I saw in the whole of Dubai!

I began to get a little worried once the sun began to set as it was at least another 3-4hrs walk back to the hotel (that's if I was lucky and I could cross the roads) the bus service didn't seem to run anywhere near my hotel, and my attempts to hail a taxi had well and truly failed. 

Long story short, I took my hair down from it's bun and when I went to try and get a taxi the first one that drove past stopped... Not quite sure what to make of that, when my hair was up at least 10 empty taxis drove past refusing to stop... 

Anyway I got back to my hotel safe and sound and decided to treat myself by ordered room service (I just couldn't be bothered walking to the supermarket half an hour way). I'm pretty much all packed and ready to go - tomorrow Singapore!

(Actually I'll get to Singapore the day after tomorrow as my flight takes so long, so today dubai, tomorrow travelling, and then singapore!)

Ibn Battuta Mall

Ibn Battuta was a relatively famous 14^th century Arab scholar who travelled 120,000km, today I visited a mall created in his honor. It was described as having pretty average shopping with the real draw being the décor. The massive mall is split into 6 different regions representative of Battuta’s travels, China, India, Egypt, Persia, Andalusia and Tunisia. Every one was beautifully decorated in such detail!

China’s main attraction was meant to be it’s full size Chinese junk (the ship) but for me it was the ceiling that captured my attention

The full sized Chinese Ship

Next up was the beautiful India providing a contrast from the bright hues of the Chinese section to the creams of the towering dome.

The 8ft high elephant was, again, supposed to be main feature but I was more interested in the tiny detail put into the walls and how elegant the whole room looked together

From there I wandered over to Egypt.

I really liked how in most of the big domes there were signs and features giving information on Ibn Battuta's adventures and the tools he used to navigate his way

Persia was probably my favourite and I say down with a coffee in the middle of the hand painted dome and just enjoyed the craftsmanship 

The smallest was Andalusia, set in a quiet corner of the mall it's only real attraction was it's lion fountain although I really loved the detail on the wooden ceilings!

And finally I found Tunisia were I tried some delicious turkish delight (which I normally don't like)

Another amazing ceiling decoration

most of the mall was designed to look like the streets of the particular region, Tunisia's attempt was one of the best for me

 Some 'turkish delight' above, and the sort of turkish delight I'm used to see ing below in so many different flavours!

Kites!