Laziness, inertia, travel and flat out lack of time have conspired to cause another break in our updates. So much so that I am writing this post from our hotel room in Singapore, only 4 and 1/2 hours away from the flight that will take us back to new lives in the U.S. Looks like the full documentation of our life on the far side of the world will wrap up in what previously was and will be again familiar territory. Such is life.
After our Sri Lankan adventures we regrouped in Singapore for a few days, did some laundry, repacked, woke up early to watch the US mens soccer team nearly beat Portugal and then took another red-eye flight, this time to Dubai. We thought the past 2 years had prepared us for any kind of heat that could be thrown at us, but the 95 degree temp at 6 AM, before the sun was even up, threw all that training right out the window. Nevertheless, we were quickly whisked into a taxi for our first stop, the JW Marriott Marquis (thanks Marriott Rewards Points) the tallest hotel in the world. They even have the Guinness World Records plaque to prove it. Of course the tallest hotel in the world couldn't even hold up to the Burj Khalifa that we could see out the window, but that was a stop for later in the day.
Shower, coffee, the first of waaaaaaaay too much hummus, pita and olives and then off to the Sheik Mohammed Centre for Cultural Learning and Understanding. Pretty intense name. We had signed up for a traditional, cultural lunch with a Q&A lead by a local Emirati. Since we knew next to nothing about the country, it seemed fitting. Over a meal of Arab coffee, dates, rice and different meat dishes we learned about traditional dress, family customs and that only 15% of the UAE was actually Emirati. And we thought Singapore had a lot of expats. Maybe we would be welcomed here next?Feeling sufficiently enlightened we took a taxi to the other side of the city. We had watched too many 'Amazing Race' episodes back home and if a city in the desert that reminded me of Phoenix with a skyline (temperature 115 degrees by now) had an indoor ski mountain in a mall, well we better at least check it out. The Mall of the Emirates was just another mall, but Ski Dubai did not disappoint. No, we did not pay $100 to play in snow that we will be seeing only too soon, but the irony and discrepancy between indoor and outdoor temperatures were crazy. Curiosity sated, we were off to the top of the world.
The Burj Khalifa is huuuuuuuuge. It dominates everything in the city skyline. I mean, its over 2700 feet tall, over half a mile! What I'm saying is superlatives mean nothing and you essentially just know that it is massive. The elevator itself is practically an attraction, its like a rocket ship to the top. Unfortunately, it was a hazy, muggy, summer day so the views from the observation deck were limited, but it was cooler and still provided great views of the city. Exhausted and wiped, we retired to our worlds tallest structure..... at about half the size of the Burj.
Our last day in the city was spent shopping in the old quarter. We hopped from the gold souk to the spice souk to the general, seems to have everything under the sun, souk (open air markets) for a few hours. No gold was procured, but after having multiple spice salesmen ask us "whats up? upon learning we were American (I think the Budweiser commercials got here late) we popped in for an introductory spice lesson. 20 minutes later we were walking out with coffee, pepper and saffron! We may not have gotten actual gold, but at least we can now make delicious, gold rice. That was enough heat for 2 days and knowing we were heading out into the true desert next, we conceded the day to the sun and holed up in the air con until the following morning.
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