Second Day in Dubai

We arrived in Dubai yesterday around 5am in the morning. The airport was huge and we had no idea where we were going. After we had our passports stamped (the lines took for ever), customs was a breeze. No one was even there and we either walked through a door saying "Items to declare" or "Nothing to declare" and then they both led to the same place. Easy really.

Dubai is so different to New Zealand. Nothing opens pretty much until 10am, so we were stuck, unsure what to do to pass the next two hours. We ended up getting a metro ticket and going along the subway to the Dubai Mall, the largest mall in the world I hear. Some how we managed to get inside at about 9am, I think we got in the service way with all the workers. The place was huge, but everything except a few little coffee shops were shut. Transport is so different. In every train you have multiple carriages, the back being the gold ticket holders e.g very rich people and then the women's and children's cart. Men are not aloud in this cart and you should see the glares when a man enters. On one of our trips these two French tourists who were men entered the carriage, oblivious to the carriage name and the looks they got from the women were so funny and yet they still remained none the wiser.

After the mall finally opened we had a better look around all the rich shops, pretty much all label brands and then left and went out side to explore the Souk Al Bahar and the Dubai Water Fountain. The "Souk" means like a market place and it was in a  modern building built to look traditional and made out of stoney sand (I will upload pictures when I can but the hotel doesn't let me plug in my usb). In this Souk there were many shops and restaurants.

We then tried to travel on the metro to the Creek which runs through Dubai but some how we went to the wrong place, a children's amusement park called 'Creek' which looked very run down. We tried to find our way to the 'Creek' we were looking for and we found it in the end but we ended up in this back street Souk countlessley saying no to all the men trying to sell us material. Finally we found a metro and was able to return to the hotel exhausted from walking.

Later that night after returning to our hotel to have a Nana nap we returned to the mall for dinner, we read that the best place to eat was over in the Souk and as we got outside to where the bridge over the water from the Mall to the Souk was saw crowds and crowds of people, so i decided to stick around and see what was happening. Next thing we know, the water erupts and loud music is played. Water was being shot up into the sky and the famous Dubai Mall water show had begin. Later we learnt that every half an hour the fountain performs it show, each time to a different piece of music. The restaurant we ate ate had us seating right on the edge of the bank looking out to the water feature. By the time we returned to the hotel we were completely knackered and fell asleep instantly.

Today we took the 10am free hotel transport out to the SoukMadinat which was huge, there were so many little stalls all trying to sell you things but not quite as forcefully as the traditional back street Souk we found yesterday. After looking around there for a good hour we found a door which led to this flash hotel, we snuck in and had a look around and it was so expensive. No body looked at us twice and we felt like one of the guests, but when we arrived at the rooms we decided it was time to sneak ourselves back out again.

We had wanted to view the Palm islands, but we ran out of time as we had to get back to the Hotel because in about 30 mins we will be picked up to go on our dune safari. We did however get to see a Dubaian Beach (If that's what its called) The sand were pure white, the sun was shinning and not a cloud was in the sky. Paradise. The water felt warm and the beach was full of people soaking up the water, and the sun.

That's all for now, I have to get ready to leave but I will definitely update soon as tonight sounds like a great adventure. Bye