So we arrived in Dubai all safe and sound at around 7pm on Friday. The flight was actually amazing :) the girl who hated flying has been converted. This is partly because I was able to watch episodes of season 7 of DEXTER that I hadn't seen! and Jess had a huge selection of movies to watch. On top of this we also got breakfast and dinner and FREE drinks- including alcohol! Needless to say we took full advantage of all the above.... We arrived in Dubai completely sloshed, got arrested for flashing and we're currently blogging from jail.... Only joking ;) But we did have a celebratory glass of wine.
After an 8 hour flight we arrived, it was pretty dark when we got here, but muggy and rather warm. We had to get in a LADIES taxi to get to our hotel. Which meant our taxi had some pink on it and a women driver. It cost us around £8.00 and it was about a 10 minute drive.... (Witney taxis take note - it shouldn't cost £30.00 to get to our homes after a night out, no matter what time!) when we got to the eureka hotel which is where we're staying for 5 nights the concierge come and got our bags and even carried them to our room for us :) it was rather comforting as we felt like we were still at home with our parents doing things for us ;) we're not sure whether we're meant to tip out here and how much we're meant to tip. But In short we haven't been tipping, after all we are travellers now.
After checking in where they thought that we were sisters.... and now probably think we're lesbians, We ditched our stuff in our room and went straight out for a walk, where we learnt quite a few things:
1) cars are on the other side of the road - this is really confusing when your trying to cross the road.
2) it doesn't really matter about looking before you cross the road as everyone walks out into oncoming traffic
3) traffic such as motorbikes don't actually stay on the road but come up onto the pavement.
4) if your white and have blonde hair you will get stared at ALOT.
We found a shisha bar as we thought we deserved a little treat after a tiring day and made ourselves right at home due to the comfy sofas.... It was boiling in there.... It was also questionable as to whether we were allowed in as we were the only females. After a very chilled out hour and some of the best melon shisha ever! we went to pay and found out that a group of Arabic men had already paid for us!!!! Now men of the UK take note: these men didn't even try to speak to us, but as two women clearly thought they should pay for us!!! How nice is that!!!! We actually couldn't believe it, and although they probably didn't understand us we said our thank you's on the way out (no matter where you are in the world there is no need to forget you p's and q's - our mummas raised us right)
Everything stays open really late around here which is lucky, as we got temporarily lost on the way home.
We got into bed about to go to sleep and then I found a bug. A BUG ON MY BED... Well you can all imagine the scene which followed I'm sure.... "Jess, jess!!! - there's something on my pillow, omg what the hell is it" at which point we pulled on full length pyjamas and went to sleep with nightmares of cockroaches in Thailand.
we woke up FREEZING. honestly FREEZING. not cold FREEZING. Jess has a way with the air con apparently: which meant that we could practically hang coats off our... (I won't finish that sentence- my Grampy follows this, anyways you get the idea). One quick look out the window and guess what? and I swear it could only happen to us. Mist - heavy fog/mist which turned into rain!!! All the lovely, sunny, hot pictures of Dubai are lies, LIES. It Rains here! It's practically like the UK but you don't have to wear a coat. To cheer us up we decided to go shopping! We got the metro to the Dubai mall, with the metro costing around £3.00 for a full days unlimited travel. I still can't wrap my head around this and as a former Londoner I have concluded that the tube is a rip off, even with an Oyster card! This metro is much nicer and cheaper. Clearly the London tube company should compare their pricing strategy globally!!!
The metro was an experience- after a second slug on my bottle of water we saw a sign saying no eating or drinking with a fine of 100DHS and on exiting the station, in our vest tops we saw another sign saying shoulders should be covered. GREAT! we really are going to end up in jail- Therefore we HAD to get new tops, which satisfied our shopping appetite slightly.
The mall is amazing!!!! As self confessed shopaholics it was torture. If Dubai was just a holiday for us we would currently be uploading pictures of us with trillions of bags, gorgeous clothes and more bags. It's beautiful. Honestly, sod all the outstanding buildings and waterfalls in Dubai this topped it. PERFECT. I think we would be quite happy living in that mall for the rest of our lives. It also has a huge aquarium right in the middle of the shopping centre, an ice rink, waterfalls and a 500ft fountain (which was turned off due to the rain) we braved outside and took some pictures in the rain (right tourists we are!) next to the Burj Khalifa, which is the tallest building in the whole world!
My personal favourite thing about the mall was that they have these taxis inside. They're like adult versions of children's electric cars (you know what I mean) AMAZING! - it was probably nicer than my Citroen c3 and jess's KA. I really wanted to go in one just because I know for that one minute i would feel like Barbie- a lifelong dream.
We got a huge Mexican for dinner: nachos, burritos, wedges, quesadillas and unlimited iced tea in a small restaurant in the food court for about £13.00 each!!! After eating our body weight in food we became incredibly sleepy (that's what happens when you have about 8 hours sleep in 48 hours) so we decided to head back to the hotel as the weather was rubbish. We got some HUGE, PRETTY cupcakes on the way back and was in bed by half past 7 (rock and roll!!!)
Anyways I just woke up and thought I'd give you all a bit of an insight into what has been happening so far. We were going to do this tomorrow so thought I would draft an entry now and post it tomorrow. this should hopefully save us some time as we are going sand boarding :) Hope the weathers nice - cross your fingers for us.
Jess is currently grinding her teeth in her sleep which is incredibly annoying!!! So I'm going to join her before I hit her and wake her up :)
Peace and love
Kim and jess xo
PS: wifi is kinda rubbish here.
PPS; shout out from flora to my Bridget, my oldest friend. Thank you for sneaking that little gem of a card into my rucksack!!!! I love it! Cutest thing ever. Love and miss you so much! wish I could give you a big fat cuddle right now.