Dubi

When we got to Dubai, it was already dark outside. At least it was when we finally left the airport. I can't vouch for anything before that. The moon was so bright and big. There were skyscrapers everywhere in the touristy downtown section, which is the only section I saw. My mom described the city as bright because there's so many lights there. Overall, incredible.

Our first stop at our hotel was in the wrong building. We were supposed to be in this apartment section but we were in the ordinary hotel room section. While we were there, Piper felt nauseous. And ended up throwing up a little bit in her mask. That led to a hasty cleanup job and Mom rushing off to find a soda to help soothe her stomach.

The hotel provided a ride the few blocks to the place we were really staying. Our suite had three rooms: me and Wesley slept in the middle one which had two beds, Piper slept on the one closest to the kitchen, I was never in there, so I can't vouch how many beds there were. Mom and Dad got this suite farthest away from the kitchen and had a balcony. The kitchen was fully stocked with an oven, toaster, fridge, and dishes. I'm pretty sure there's a total of three or four bathrooms, and a living room. The apartment was bigger than some I looked at during school as part of my finance class researching a financial scenario, including rent and an apartment.

One weird thing was that the windows would not open. All five of us tried repeatedly. They seemed to need a key to unlock them.

That night, Mom and Dad walked around to a grocery store, and bought apples, peanut butter, bread, and other food staples. That meant we didn’t have to go out for every meal. Both cheaper and more convenient.

On the way, Mom noticed that the road strips had purple flowers on them. I had noticed them too on the drive but hadn’t seen them very clearly because it was so dark. So, the next morning, Mom took us on a walk to go see them. I’m pretty sure they were annuals. Do they replant it with their own flowers depending on the time of year?

We spent most of that first morning in the pool, which was very shady at first, but then got more and more sunshine. Dad, Wesley, and I had a contest to see if we could swim to the other set of pool and back without taking a breath. Dad could also make it not only from one side of the pool all the way to the other side and back, but also halfway over again. Mom and Piper spend most of their time reading, but they both did go in the pool for various amounts of times. I tried to underwater handstand and realize that the hardest part is keeping your hands on the ground, not staying upside down.

Once done swimming, Mom help me fix my camera. I wondered around looking for something cool to take photos of...

...and found a
baby bird.

For lunch, we went to a nice little pub right next to our hotel. That's where our new tradition of getting four full meals for five people really started. We all got different things, or at least we got four different things and we shared them in between each other and we were all our food, and no one was hungry afterwards. We also played cribbage while waiting, which is another tradition that we've been using thoroughly on this trip. They kept on playing music from America also, it was fun for me and Piper to try and name the song.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, and everyone ended up taking naps until right before our walking tour started. Luckily, once go to the rendezvous point, our guide was also a little late. We met right next to Baskin Robbins and all the kids were a little disappointed we couldn't get any.

The first thing we did was stop by the newer part of town, which housed all the touristy shops and a big, big mall. The biggest building in the world, Burj Khalifa, was there as well as some fountains.

There's this very impressive light show projected onto the skyscraper. It keeps on being repeated throughout the night with different designs each time. It was incredible.

Fountain show that happened on the half hour. However, it happened 15 minutes after the tower light show. This was arranged so that every 15 minutes there is some form of entertainment.

 

The shows all came with the name Emaar attached. Emaar is the king of Dubai. It seemed like a pretty good propaganda move to me, have your name connected with amazing and uncontroversial preferences. Subconsciously, we associate positive feelings with the name.

Then our walking tour progressed to a mall, at Mom's request (with ample support from the kids) the guide should us a sweet shop. The kids got baklava, while mom got a date with honey and pistachios. It turns out I love baklava.

Later on there was an aquarium. It had divers dressed as mermaids swimming around and sharks though not any that were dangerous to humans.

After that the walking tour turned into a driving tour, everything gets fuzzy, and I slept through most of it.

We left the next morning for Nairobi, Kenya. My final impression of Dubai was that it was too polished like those dystopia books that in the first chapters look like a utopia. A very nice place to visit and a very enjoyable stay.