My overall impressions of Dubai after spending 10 days here was that it’s a lot bigger and more spread out than I expected. I thing I was expecting a city congregated around a central hub, but it’s actually more sprawling than that. It has designated areas for international business and media. The old town of Dubai sits on both sides of a creek and the larger hotels spread out from there down the coast. Like the one of many four star hotels Dubai offers where I’m staying. The amount of construction, even though it’s almost come to a dead stop, is immense. I couldn’t go 10 yards without seeing a road of building under construction.
Anyways, a lot of my time was spent relaxing by the pool, then being taken around various sights, like the Burj Dubai, which when it gets finished will be the tallest building in the world. The structure is massive, very cool looking too. I also got good mileage out of using ‘The Entertainer’, which is a book that cost me $100 and gave me several hundred dollars worth of discount vouchers. I think I save over $200!
I went on a few excursions including a Desert Safari where I got driven around the desert dunes in a 4×4 jeep. I was screaming through most of it, it was way too fun. Then I was taken to a campsite where I had dinner while watching belly dancers dance all around me, and I got to ride a camel. Another highlight was visiting the old town, which I did twice. First time was on the open top bus tour, which was somewhat disappointing, only because it took forever to get to the old town! 3 hours! The second time I went down, I took the metro that just opened recently. I walked around the old souks and visited the Dubai museum, which is in an old fort built in 1787. It houses the whole history of Dubai.
The weirdest thing about my whole trip was going to the ski slope in the Mall of the Emirates. It was freezing in there! It was so bizarre to walk in from scorching 40 degree heat into the minutes! But, I’m finally figuring out Dubai, it is a place of extremes.
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four star hotels Dubai · metro
