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 

Colonial District

I got about 2hour sleep last night, between roaring club music from next door, a guy having his bedside light on until 3am (there were 5 other people in the room all awake because of his light, looking back I'm not sure why none of us said anything instead of looking at each other in misery…) and another guy coming in at 4am clearly tipsy and climbing onto the creakiest bed.. 

After a quick breakfast (although the complimentary breakfast is very simple, as it is at most hostels, they've chosen what they offer really well!) I got ready and set off over the river into the Colonial part of town! 

This was just before I got to Esplanade Park

I really loved this part of town (hopefully you'll be able to recognise one or two of the places Frank!)

I worked my way up to the Padang, passing the Old and New Parliament houses & the New and New and Former Supreme Court.

The Arts House of the Old Parliament

The New Parliament Building

The Old Supreme Court

 The New Supreme Court

Overlooking the Padang was City Hall and St Andrew's Cathedral 

Cit Hall

St Andrews

Across from the Padang was Esplanade Park which was lovely as not only did it have great views over the financial district but it was dotted with trees giving some shade and a nice place to read a bit of my book before setting off again. 

From there it was up St Andrew's rd, past the 'chopsticks' to Raffles City Shopping centre - and into their lovely air conditioning! 

(each 'stick' represents an ethnicity living in Singapore who died in war for Singapore)

Then it was onto the thing I was most excited about seeing in this part of town - Raffle's Hotel!

Raffle's Hotel

 The Singapore Sling (it was first created here at Raffle's Hotel, so I thought what better to sip in the afternoon sunshine?

After lounging around enjoying my lovely pink cocktail I wandered up Raffles Boulevard, past the Singapore Art Museum, to the National Museum.

 The 'glass atrium' 

One of my favourite exhibitions they had on that day

It started to drizzle a little be after the museum (pretty common in Singapore) which just made the humidity even more stifling! On the way back I passed the Chinese Chamber of Commerce & the Armenian Church of St Gregory.

The roof of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce

St Gregory's

Anyway I finished off the day by stopping by a vender's cart and picking up a Sugar Cane drink - they're all the rage here with everyone sipping on them throughout the day! Anyway it was pretty cool, she grabbed a stick, washed it and then put in this machine… and somehow I ended up with this green liquid, add a splash of lemon and a handful of ice and it was done! 

 The sugar cane

It's not what I was expecting.. I think I was expecting something really refreshing but it was very sweet (I know, duh, it's made form sugar cane) but anyway it was nice after a day walking around in the heat!

Then I managed to find a quiet spot to have some dinner overlooking the Buddhist Temple