Learning about Dubai!

Day 2 started off with Jeff and Jen joining us! Jeff is stationed for the Marines in Jetta, Saudi Arabia and Jen is working for the state department there as well. They flew out to spend the week exploring Dubai and Abu Dhabi and joined my family for our explorations. I haven’t seen either of them since their wedding three years ago so it was great to be able to spend time with them.

We again had a driver for the day to just drive us around the city so we could take it all in. We began our morning at the Gold Souk where there is basically store after store after store selling gold. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much gold in one place before. Some of the designs were super crazy and I couldn’t even imagine wearing some of the heavy pieces that the stores were selling. Needless to say it was very interesting to see all of the stores.

Truly the City of Gold

Just something that I'd wear to work on any given day...

 When you first walk into the museum there is a courtyard area that has some bronze canons, small wooden fishing boats, and an example of a traditional hut (barasti) that is made of mud and palm fronds. There were also various exhibits displaying the handcrafted weapons that were used by the Bedouins. What was great about the museum was that there were videos depicting Dubai’s development with various dioramas showing shopkeepers and craftsmen at work in a mock souk. Another interesting exhibit showcased Dubai’s role in the pearl-diving industry and videos showed how men would make 50 dives a day.

Entrance to the Dubai Museum

Map of Arabia in 1570

After the Dubai Museum we had a great lunch before heading out to see some of the other sites in the city. First up was the Za’abeel Palace which his home to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai who is also the Vice President of the UAE. Very surprised that there wasn’t a lot more security in the area but it was a beautiful compound. 

In fron of the Za'abeel Palace

Jeff & Jen! 

Afterwards we drove by the Burj Al Arab which has been called the world’s only 7 star hotel and stands on an artificial island from Jumeirah beach. The shape of the structure is designed to mimic the sail of a ship. Although it looks massive the hotel only houses about 202 bedroom suites (I’m guessing that these are no ordinary suites). The Burj is located close to the Palm Islands so we drove up the “trunk” of the palm all the way up to the Palm Atlantis Resort. 

totally stole the pic from google but wanted to give you an idea of what the hotel looked like

The Palm Islands are artificial islands that were constructed from sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf. The Islands were mainly created as a tourist attraction and the construction of the Islands has definitely caused a significant impact on the surrounding environment including changes to the area wildlife, coastal erosion etc… Still a site to behold and it was a cool experience to drive around the Palm. 

Across the street from the Atlantis Resort

We had tickets to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa which is situated next to the Dubai mall so that was our next destination. The entire experience visiting the Burj Khalifa was amazing! It holds a number of different records including the tallest building in the world at 2,716.5 feet and 160+ stories. It apparently is also the tallest free-standing structure, highest # of stories, highest occupied floor, and highest outdoor observation deck, elevator with the longest travel distance and the tallest service elevator in the world. The Burj Khalifa is home to 900+ residences, 37 floors of offices, the Armani Hotel and Armani Residences, a 4 story fitness/recreation park, and The Park which includes 3000 parking spaces. The set-up of the visit was great. From the time that you get your ticket stamped until you step into the elevator that takes you to the top you learn about the entire history of the Burj and see how the entire structure was formed from top to bottom.

Looking at where we were going to end up

View of the city from the observation deck on the 124th floor! 

I believe these are the World Islands (man made islands that look like the map of the world)

Looking at the Burj Al Arab from the Burj Khalifa

Guinness Book of World Records Plaque

After the Burj we explored the Dubai Mall which is one of the world’s largest shopping malls. (Seeing a trend here?) There are around 1,200 shops within the mall and it occupies over 13 million square feet which is equivalent in size to more than 50 football fields. The mall is also home to the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo, the Dubai Ice Rink, and SEGA Republic, an indoor theme park. As you can probably tell, we are very far behind when it comes to having cool shopping malls.

Outside the Dubai mall is the Dubai Fountain (the world’s largest choreographed fountain system). The fountain was designed by the same company responsible for the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas. We got to see one of the fountain performances in the evening which was spectacular. I’m sure watching one at night would be even more amazing with all of the lights that get added into the show.

Such a massive mall

I see aquariums in malls all the time. NBD.

View of the Burj from the Dubai Fountain 

The fountain was pretty much the end to our day and we headed back to Sharjah which took us over an hour due to the rush hour traffic. Jeff and Jen had a two hour drive back to Abu Dhabi so they had to head out as soon as we got back but it was great to see them and spend the day exploring with them.

Till next time!

~Aish

And the adventure begins: Exploring Sharjah and Ajman

So to start off with a little background, UAE or the United Arab Emirates is a country that is a federation of seven emirates established in 1971. The seven emirates are: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, and Umm al-Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a sheik and all of the sheiks from these seven emirates form the Ferderal Supreme Council and one of the sheiks is elected as the President of the UAE and another serves as the Vice President. The capital of UAE is Abu Dhabi which is also the richest of the seven emirates.

Interestingly enough, of the 9.2 million individuals that live in the UAE, only 1.4 million are Emirati citizens. The other 7.8 million are expatriates.

So that's just a little background information to start you off about our adventures in the UAE. We landed in Dubai at around 7:30pm local time so we basically lost all of Saturday in our travels. The flight was pretty uneventful since I usually force myself to sleep for the entirety of the flight. Our uncle picked us up from the airport in Dubai and took us to our hotel located in Sharjah. We dropped all of our stuff off and went to grab a quick bite to eat at an Indian restaurant next to the hotel. Since our hotel is conveniently situated next to the "Mega Mall" we decided to walk around and see what they had. It was basically like walking around any given mall in the US. As soon as we walked in there was a Sephora smack dab in the middle, you look up and there's a Starbucks, and you walk around and see pretty much every store that you would see back home. After our walk around the mall we turned in for the night to adjust to the time change.

The first channa batura of the trip and a stop at Baskin Robbins for dessert! 

Day 1 of Explorations

Our uncle had booked us on a tour of Sharjah for the morning so it was just the three of us and our driver, Zulfi, who was amazing! He took us around Sharjah and Ajman and basically gave us a background on the history and culture of the UAE. Zulfi himself is an expatriate from Kerala, India but as a tour guide for the last seven years, he was very knowledgeable about the country. We basically drove around for a few hours stopping at various places along the way. 

Sharjah is the third largest emirate in the United Arab Emirates, and is the only one to have land on both the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Sharjah is renowned for it's commitment to art and culture, and was apparently named the Cultural Capital of the Arab World by UNESCO is 1998. It is also has the strictest rules of all seven emirates. Alcohol cannot be found anywhere in Sharjah.

One of the many mosques that we passed & the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization

In the middle of cultural square with the Sharjah library behind us and a statue of an open Koran

The statue of the open Koran was really cool!

We also visited Ajman another one of the Emirates this morning and is by far the smallest in area of the seven emirates. For all intents and purposes, the Emirate is essentially the city of Ajman, where some 95% of the emirate's population lives. The city thrives on commercial and tourist developments, with attractive beaches and historical, architectural attractions. 

We stopped and walked around the Ajman Musuem 

Found a lemon tree in the museum, the leaves smelled so nice!

Traditional medicine is a major component of the cultural patrimoney of the UAE. It covers the concepts and philosophy of the people regarding health, diseases, names of diseases and different methods of treatment. Taking into account the poverty of the local environment in the past, the people of the UAE tried hard to exploit all the consituents of the environment in treatment. Traditional medicine used many methods of treatment including: herbs, cauterization, cupping, massageing, treatment by the Holy Quran and other traditional methods.

Demonstrating how a "Thief Mark" was treated

A mock-up of how a public market would look like. Various stalls with different vendors: tailors, bakers, herb seller...

Dates are also very popular in the UAE so we saw many trees with dates hanging that are going to be ready to be picked in awhile.

The last stop on our Sharjah tour was the Central Souk where they sold tapestries, clothes, gold, gold, and more gold. 

Central Souk in Sharjah

There were just so many store selling gold, it was crazy! 

Our afternoon/evening consisted of a desert safari in Dubai. We weren't really sure what to expect but it was fun. The driver picked us up from our hotel and we picked up a few others groups along the way and drove out for about an hour. Then everyone got split up into 4x4's and we went "dune bashing" to get to our dinner location. Dune bashing was an interesting, and needless to say highly bumpy experience that I don't care to repeat again but the mini "campsite" that was set up was pretty cool. Everyone had the opportunity to ride a camel, quad biking, have henna applied, smoke hookah, etc... My sister and I took turns on the camels but they seemed so sad. Nothing like the camel rides that I did when I was in Gujarat a few years ago. These camels seemed so sad and tired and we felt really bad afterwards. We did a little exploring of the dunes and just walked around in the sand. The sand here is so smooth and felt so nice to walk in. It was definitely hot today but it started to cool down as we were walking around the site. We ended the evening by enjoying some cultural performances. 

So little! 

She was excited for her first camel ride. 

Playing around with the new camera and the sunset. 

The performer was so cool! 

A bellydancer to end the performances for the evening.

And that's it for today folks! On deck for tomorrow we've got a tour of Dubai and a ticket to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa. 

~Aish

The Blog is Back!

So it's time to start this blog back up again. We're on route to the motherland again but this time it's just for fun to visit family and I don't have to worry about collecting data for my thesis. My sister and I are going to take turns keeping this blog updated so if you're interested feel free to check out what we're doing in India. I'm going to be away for 4 weeks while my mother and sister are sticking around for an extra two weeks and boy is our schedule filled until the day that I leave. 

The first leg of our trip was from Pittsburgh to Boston and I'm currently sitting in the airport in Boston waiting for our direct flight to Dubai. While the flight is going to be long (13 hours) I'm glad that we don't have any layovers and we're going to spend a few days exploring Dubai. 

My mom always complains that my sister never takes a selfie with her so she was excited to be a part of this picture. #selfieswithamma

One of my dad's friends from college lives in Dubai and has set up some fun adventures for us. On the docket for right now is going to the Burj Khalifa, a desert tour of Sharjah, and some other stuff that I have no clue about. What's even more exciting is that I'm going to be able to meet up with my friend and her husband who currently live in Riyadh but are in Dubai this weekend! 

After Dubai we are headed to Sulur, a little town near the city of Coimbatore in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. We'll make a quick 2 hour layover in Madras on our way from Dubai. 

My grandma knows that my mom, sister, and I are coming to India but she thinks we're coming on June 1st but we're actually going to be get there a few days earlier and surprise her.

Until next time! 

~Aish