Hotel Qamardeen Dubai

Hi everyone

On Friday, we visited the amazing Burj al Arab hotel for lunch. The only way you can get in is if you are a guest (it costs $1000's a night) or if you make a booking for lunch or dinner.

This hotel is the only 7-star hotel in the world, and unless we win lotto I don't think that I'll ever be able to stay a night ...

... there, and now we are back at the Ritz Carlton - and because they messed up our booking, they are looking after us really well!!

We have been catching lots of taxis around the city and one of the many places we have visited so far was Wild Wadi Water Park. This place has lots of water slides and you can catch them and they will take you all around the park without having to walk anywhere or up any stairs - way cool. Also this place is right in ...

... that the metro is currently being build and not all station are operating. So the next station took me all the way back towards the Burj area to the Mall of the Emirates.

I had some food, had a look around and realised that Dubai Ski was situated in this mall so the good news was that I knew where to go the next day.

I got the metro to Al Rigga station which did not look to far from the hostel but when I got there people advised me to take a cab. I decided ...

... from the sand. You could feel the heat as you walk off the plane. It's 1pm and 42 degrees today. The airport looked out of this world. It was all curves and smooth lines, no corners. And it was huge! We walked 5-10 mind just to reach our gate. A Cinibon store was luckily right next to our gate. Yumm, I can feel the kilos pile on with every bite. We're definately not in Australia anymore!

... a whale shark named Sammy just to give you an idea of the tank size. Shops feature diamonds, handbags, and haute couture. Our first impressions of Dubai were quite clear: this was not a cheap place to visit. Dubai maintains its Islamic identity despite its embrace for Western business, restaurants, and goods. For example as we were exiting a mall and entering the car park, we heard the evening call to prayer over the loud speaker in the car ...

... London that I met that had crazy garlic breath, I called her out on it...heheheheh. So at about 12:30 or so we ended up leaving because Chris wasn't having a good time. So we drove forever all the way to Sharja to another party Mona knew about but by the time we got there it was pretty dead so we never actually went in. The fog was crazy though, couldn't see 10 feet ahead of you. We got back home around 4am and went to bed, looking back we should have stayed at the party.

What else is really typical to Dubai (at least to the area where we are forced to spend most of our time) - skyscrapers. Several, tens, hundreds of them! Wherever you look, your eyes get bounced back by a wall of massive concrete. Only from the higher floors of our office tower could we see a bit further - over the road ...

... The owners and trainers were keeping watch over their camels as they cooled down after their race when we arrived. We spoke to one owner who told us that some camels can be more expensive than race horses. They start to train from about 1 year old and most of them racing today were about 5 ...

... true to say that in Dubai you can buy gold at very reasonable prices, as many items are tax free. I personally find Dubai a bit artificial in character, compared to other gulf countries. But would consider coming again on a short break just for the shopping experiences if for nothing else.

... hot, Megan trying jewelry on as an excuse to stay there and cool down. Inside the proprietors give you cold drinks which is a great way to keep hydrated for free! Outside we were hassled a fair bit by guys trying to sell copy watches. This bought memories of Asia flooding back. After we had seen enough bling to sink a ship we continued on to the Spice Souq. It was here we realised that most of the city shuts down for a few hours after lunch when ...