The UAE

10th February

Our apartment gave us access to three different pool; one warm, one cool, and a lazy river and we planned to use these pools this morning. Our plans changed as our airport luggage transport wanted to double to charge therefore, we checked out and headed to the central coach station. This is where the second thing of the day went wrong – we missed our coach (he left one minute early) because the desk was cash only to buy a nol card (oyster) for 70 Duran and to top it up. The busses never seemed to be directly on time as our bus left three minutes late. Typical. But we arrived in Dubai.

Dubai

The journey to the metro took 1h30 minutes and we tried to get our own day passes for that service. Yet again something went wrong! It took our money but no tickets and the manager knew nothing of how to help us… 30 minutes later we had spoken to two managers but still ended up paying for another 2 day passes. Finally, we made it 1h late to our apartment at the gold crest views.

Rushing now as we had tickets to go up the Burj Khalifa.

We quickly changed and out we went, taking the metro to Dubai Mall followed by a horrible long walk we later tried to avoid. It took us a while to find the entrance to the Burj Khalifa tower (830m) in the Mall but, once up at the top the views were incredible. We could also see the Palm Jumeriah and The World Islands – two artifical offshore shaped islands.

The lift took us to the 124th floor in 59 seconds at 451 meters. On the way down we walked through a corridor showing the time length and scale of how long it took to build and the structure was thought of due to a spider lily flower.

Afterwards we grabbed a coffee and a very yummy chocolate mousse treat and headed out for a walk around the parks pool. We spied some good restaurants and funky light displays.

After wondering around the square we ended up watching the fountain display – every half an hour a different song would play and the fountains moved in time to the music. Our favorites were the slower songs.

We ended up in Social House for dinner and front row seats to watch the fountain shows and the two displays occurring on the Burj Khalifa. The first was a loads of lights moving to music and the second the lights formed people breakdancing on the side of the building. It was amazing to see and we had to force ourselves to go to the aquarium.

No wonder people recommended this Mall as it has a huge tank (with Tiger sand sharks in) right where shoppers can walk passed. Once inside the aquarium you walked through a tunnel running underneath this huge tank. I was in heaven – the rest of the aquarium had the same tropical animal and fish vibe from the area but, also housed owls, otters and a huge fresh water crocodile. The aquarium topped my evening entertainment.

After the aquarium we headed out through the mall passing a waterfall inside the building.

After we finally headed for home but, missed the last train so annoyingly expensive taxi for us all the way back. Hopefully, Australia will provide better luck with public transport.