Arriving in Dubai
One of the cities that I have been interested in visiting over the past decade is Dubai. I’m not sure if it’s the skyline or the amazing cars or the man made island that was built in the ocean. Either way, I just wanted to go. When we booked our Around-the-World ticket on Star Alliance I priced tickets with no stop in Dubai and one with and the price was the same, so we decided to add 3 nights in Dubai to our trip. It was an excellent decision.
First of all, a friend of Noah’s parents have friends that live in Dubai so we connected with them to inquire about where to stay and how to spend our time. Their first response was “your staying with us!” I told them that wasn’t necessary, but I soon learned that they really enjoy hosting people, even though there were 5 of us invading their 3 bedroom apartment. We landed in Dubai around 8 PM local time, went through customs (which was a breeze), got our bags and jumped in a taxi heading to Motor City. We came to understand why the area was called Motor City the next day when Ilise and I went for a walk along the cart track that was built about a decade ago.
We arrived at the apartment around 10 PM, which was 2 AM in Perth, so everyone was pretty tired. I stayed up with Dave and Kara, our hosts, talking about the city, what to do with our time, how to get a taxi should we need one and directions for our Monday evening adventure with Arabian Nights. Of all the things we were told to do in Dubai, a classic desert meal with a desert 4 Wheel Drive experience was at the top of the list. We called first thing Monday morning and booked our dinner event with a pickup at 3:45 PM. This gave the kids plenty of time to do their schoolwork while Ilise and I had time to relax and catch up on some rest and some blogging.
We went for a walk in the neighborhood for about 90 minutes while visiting Spinney’s, the local supermarket chain right behind Dave and Kara’s apartment. Now, I’ve been to a few thousand super markets in my time but this had to be one of the top stores I have ever been in. Everything looked amazingly fresh, the floors were immaculate, the prices were extremely low and in addition to the food they also had a pharmacy/drug store, kitchen appliances and so much more. I believe if we lived in Motor City Ilise would be at Spinney’s every day, even more time than she spends at Costco back in San Diego!
The day flew by and around 3:30 we started getting ready for our evening in the desert. We were in for a really fun and exciting evening for most of us J
To be continued ……
Larry Kesslin 