Dubai

So we decided to break the trip back to the UK with a three day stopover in Dubai. We had a BRILLIANT time!
We arrived early in the morning after an uneventful overnight flight and went straight to our hotel - The Golden Sands apartments. What a great place! We had a 2 bedroom studio apartment and it had everything you could think of in it including a washing machine. There were two rooms - one master bedroom and en suite and then a lounge area and open kitchen with two single beds around the corner and the main bathroom. There is a swimming pool and gym and 24 hour cafe and right around the corner are three supermarkets so it's a great place for a self-catering holiday for a family. We were only there for three days, but will definitely stay there again. The first day we just spent lazing around, going for a walk, getting in a stock of Arabic bread and hummous and tabouleh (YUM!), having sleeps and then we went out to Rydges Plaza to the Cactus Cantina for dinner. Dinner was pretty average and the girls were overtired and grumpy which is always fun!

Things have changed rather a lot since I was growing up, and many eateries that I remember going to as a kid now have a no child rule. We rang around a few places, and many wouldn't let the girls in, or as it was the World Cup, fully booked. Rydges Plaza is in Satwa - my local haunt as a teenager. I remember we used to go on a Thursday night, walk the streets, browsing through the shops, go to Hardees for dinner and then onto Rydges Plaza for the 13 - 18 disco. Memories! Satwa is also home to Ravi's and all the cheap material and tailoring shops of olde.

The next day started off a trifle yucky as we were in a car crash in the taxi...no one hurt, thankfully, especially as literally 2 minutes beforehand, I decided to strap the very unwilling girls into their seat belts in the back seat of the taxi as I thought the roads were a little crazy. Someone was looking out for us, I think - maybe Mummy whispered something in my ear as a warning, and made me seat belt us all in - we are so unused to using them as in Jakarta it was rare to find backseats with them in. Whatever the reason being, how wonderful I did it!We smashed bang smack into another taxi,s behind - our taxi came off worse, even though we were in a bigger vehicle. Not a great experience for the girls but at least no one was hurt. Felt very sorry for the Bangladeshi driver though. We hailed another taxi and moved on....not sure what will happen to him...
We continued onto our plan of visiting our old houses - the first of which is now an Art gallery and shop (how strange?! - first photo), finished with Mummy and Daddy's last house by Jumeirah beach. We then took the taxi to Ski Dubai so the girls could have their first time in snow - they LOVED it! Lots of snowball throwing and sliding and toboggoning! It is a great place - a little expensive, but so worth it to see the girls having a great time in a completely different environment. They did get rather cold though - both had two little bright red noses and freezing hands! We went straight from there to see the Burg Al Khalifa, which the girls though looked like a sharpened pencil - and they still refer to it as 'the pencil building', followed by a paddle/swim at Jumeirah Beach. I had forgotten how beautiful the beaches are there - the sand is golden powder under your feet and the sea is so warm and clean! We stayed until sundown - so incredibly beautiful. Much of our youth was spent on this beach.

The above photos are also of the girls playing funny (very odd in my opinion!) dress ups with the gloves from Ski Dubai! And Burj Al Khalifa - it is very impressive, although surrounded by building sites so not so pretty at ground level. We went on Dubai Metro - now that is amazing and probably responsible for the better traffic on the roads.

It was so nice being in Dubai in Summer, as it had a little quieter and less manic feel about it.

We spent our last morning taking the girls to St Mary's church to show them where we got married - we even managed to introduce them to the last remaining nun that we grew up knowing - Sister Josephine.

The girls both knelt down, said a prayer each, looked around all the icons;

"Who's that?"
"That's Jesus"

"Who's that?"
"That's Mary"

"Who's that?"
"That's Jesus on the cross"
Yadayadayada - I must start taking these girls to church on a regular basis - they do love it.