This time a day trip to Dubai

I don't mean to give you whiplash, going from the UAE to the USA and then back again to the UAE ... yet I should warn you that I'll probably do that at least once more, as I have some Orlando photos coming. 

I have been writing and saving drafts of posts from Tim's visit in February, and am finally returning to them, to complete and share.

So now about our day-trip to Dubai.

On the Saturday before Tim flew back to California, he and I drove to Dubai.  That's about a 1.5 hour drive north on the E-11, for those of you checking out maps.

I had never driven on my own to Dubai before; always have been a passenger in the back seat, soaking in the sights.  And really, the only place I had ventured so far in Dubai are the Mall of the Emirates (which has Ski Dubai) and Dubai Mall.  Between paying attention while my brother drove, I had the two malls and the Burj Khalifa to navigate by.

Part of the day was to have lunch with Ahmed, one of the Al Rowdah Academy managers. He lives in Dubai, and had met Tim earlier in the week.  Tim and I had stopped at the Dubai Mall, mostly to see if a bookstore by the name of Kinokuniya had a particular book in stock.  It's quite the store!  (If you haven't ever read them, a couple of very good books on education and thinking outside of the box are: "The Learning Paradigm College" by John Tagg and "Out of Our Minds -- Learning to Be Creative" by Ken Robinson.)

There are some interesting videos about the mall on their website: http://www.thedubaimall.com/en
(lower right hand corner of the webpage)
Found the videos by accident when I went to look up the name of the bookstore, because I had no idea how to spell it!  (Am sure there are many other videos and photos of the area.)

I had not ventured outside of the mall before, but after lunch this day we did ... had I known how beautiful the area was outside, I would have made sure we ate at a restaurant with outdoor seating.  Next time!

In this shot, to the right is the mall, and to the left are restaurants and cafes. Behind us is a hotel, and walkways all around.  The fountain is quite famous; and at night the fountain is also lit up.  Will have to check that out some time.  

Hard to tell the scale of this building from these photos.

And looking up ...

There you have the tallest man-made structure in the world.  It's worth Googling it, to get different photos and perspectives of it.  Not sure what floor the observation deck is on; am encouraging Tim to give it a go next time he visits ... the 28-floor glass elevator at the  Orlando Marriott World Center was enough to make me gasp, so cannot imagine I'll make a trip up in this building! But am sure it's spectacular.

I mentioned landmarks to navigate by.  You can imagine that the Burj Khalifa is one of them!  When we first came into Dubai that morning, I was determined to get closer to the Burj Arab.  We found some side streets (don't know if I'd find them easily a second time!), in an area that reminded both Tim and I of the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, CA.  (Okay, I know grammatically -- as I read this through for typos -- that I should write "Tim and me" ... but as correct as that might be it just sounds wrong!) 

The area has a very similar feel to Balboa Peninsula, with similar houses and tiny beach streets.  Came upon a bustling beach, that even had a five-foot-high (approximately) platform that you could stand on to have the Burj Arab in the background of your photo.  Didn't opt for that, but did take a couple of photos. 

Have to say, it's fun to see such iconic buildings in person.  Maybe we'll visit the inside some day.  (It's said to be very posh, so I'd rather be dressed nicely if visiting.)

And there was a jet ski competition going on, so snapped a photo of that, to share a view of the Arabian Gulf.

Apologies if this post doesn't have flow to it ... got in late Friday night and was back to work today (Sunday), after waking up around 2:30 a.m. and never quite got back to sleep last night / this morning.  Let's hear it for jet lag!