Dubai

I have been so bad about keeping up my posts. I do want to write about our latest trip before I forget some of the things I learned. For several years we've read things on Dubai and kind of thought it was fascinating. When we found a good deal on a tour there we decided to go for it. Jared, Jacob and Janette went with us and we had a great time!!

 The five of us met at JFK and then flew together to Dubai. We have never flown on Emirates Airlines before and you could get spoiled! This was a MASSIVE plane!! It was an Airbus A-380 and had two levels. The top level was for business and first class passengers. Their seats lay totally flat into beds and there's a shower they can use and the bathrooms are very large.  I looked up to see how much it cost to fly business class from JFK to Dubai & it was $7000 a person and first class was $26,000 a person!!! Economy is very nice & we felt spoiled flying in it at a MUCH lower cost. The seats were very roomy, everyone had free internet, we had menus for our meals with 2 or 3 choices for each meal & everyone had their own TV's with large screens and 100's of movies to choose from. We left Tuesday after noon and arrived in Dubai Wednesday afternoon. They are 11 hours ahead of us.

 Notice they have 3 walkways to enter the plane.

Emirates has its own Airport in Dubai and its beautiful. 

Our first night there we had Shawarma, a traditional dish.

Our rooms in Abu Dhabi

From Dubai we drove to Abu Dhabi which is about a two hour drive. It is the capital city in the United Arab Emirates. There are 3 million people in Dubai & about 2 1/2 million in Abu Dhabi. 

Nearly 60% of Dubai are Muslim. The first thing we did Thursday morning was go to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. I have to say this was an amazing Mosque and (I thought)  more exquisite than the Taj Mahal. They were very strict about the women's dress & Janette and I both ended up having to wear the long black dress and scarf around our heads. Thank heavens everything there is air-conditioned. They said this mosque can hold up to 40,000 worshippers.

  These marble floors were so pretty and felt very cool on our bare feet.

Jacob, Janette, Jared, Kay Lynn & Russ
The carpet in here cost 3.5 million dollars!!

Fish market, a huge business there.

 Abu Dhabi has 20% more oxygen in the air because there are more trees and less sky scrapers than Dubai.  There were no trees in Dubai so they've had to plant all of them. It cost $1200 a year to water EACH tree!!

We went on a dinner cruise one night to see the lights of the skyline.

A nice "selfie" of the boys.

I felt so blessed that we were able to go to church in Abu Dhabi. Being on a tour they have most of your schedule booked with places to go. The only day we had leisure time was on Friday and that's when they hold church. The Muslim "Sabbath" is on Friday so our church does the same. We had to take a taxi that took about 45 minutes to get there. It cost us about $30 each way from our hotel. The Sheik (government) gave the church the land to build this building. One member told us it was the only official LDS church meetinghouse in the Middle East. The government pays for all of the utilities! Hard to imagine our government doing that??? 

Emirates Palace/Hotel cost $3.5 billion to build. We decided to be a little extravagant and go to their buffet luncheon one day. There is no such thing as a 7 star hotel, but 2 have been labeled that and this is one of them. The other one is in Dubai. Dubai sells LOTS of gold, probably more than anywhere else. Its 18-22 karat gold. Our guide told us you can buy coffee with gold in it??? Not sure why you would want to do that.

I have to say they had some beautiful, cool buildings there and if you were an architect it would be a great place to go.

 Check this machine out. You can buy gold to go??

 Went to a beautiful aquarium.

Went to a great Thai restaurant.

 This is the other 7 star hotel called Burj al Arab. It is more "over the top" than the Emirates Palace. You need to look it up online & see pictures of it. We didn't go there. They made an island just for this hotel.

Dates, nuts and spices are HUGE here and they are for sale everywhere. Here are some stuffed dates.

Of course, we always have to try out the local chocolate and treats:)

We had to be careful though as it would melt instantly walking outside.

Here is the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. It has 163 floors, we went to the 125th floor where the observation deck is. It was quite hazy there, but still a great view!!

 Under the Burj Khalifa is the largest mall in the world. There are 1200 stores in it! This huge aquarium is on the lower level (4 levels). Dubai has over 200 world records in the Guinness book of records & continues to try and get more. 

Of course the guys liked seeing all the cool cars!

One day we chose to do an optional tour to Oman on a Musandam Cruise. We could swim or snorkel in the Indian Ocean, dance, relax, enjoy local cuisine & explore caves.

They would dress up couples, take their picture and have them kiss. 

Go Jacob and Janette:)

Fishermen coming in with their catch for the day.

Our last evening there we went 4 wheeling in the dunes, it was really fun!

From there you could ride camels, dress up in traditional dress, hold a hawk and then had a nice dinner. We had some entertainment following dinner. One guy twirled around for 5-10 minutes, nonstop doing different tricks at the same time. We still can't figure out how he didn't get dizzy??

Next they had a belly dancer, whom I didn't get any pics of, because she was NOT dressed appropriately. 

Is Russ looking "sheik" or what??

Janette holding a hock

Time to fly home, which was VERY long!! It took us 30 some odd hours to get home, needless to say we were beat!  Notice the Burj off in the distance?

 It was a great trip & I'm grateful we went, but its always good to be back in our beautiful country. I have 3 words to describe Dubai...over-the-top!! It was nice to get back to cooler weather and some green:)