Snow In Dubai (Monday)

Snorkelling in the Red Sea seems years ago today.  I am writing this post from a very hot Dubai on a hot and steamy Monday.

My hearing in my left ear from the whack with the rescue buoy has improved but very very marginally.  Fortunately I have an appointment already booked with my ENT surgeon a few days after we get back so I will get him to check it.  Trish still seems to think it is swollen from the bump thus interfering with the works. Things won’t get better till the swelling subsides.

We said our farewells to the kids and left by taxi from KAUST to the airport at Jeddah around 8:20 am on Sunday.  Jeddah airport is not the most hospitable place in the world so we were a little apprehensive.  A young chap in a suit spotted us (he was an airport employee) and walked us through the self check in process for our bags and our boarding passes.   

We were through quite quickly and after a couple hours were on our way homewards, the first stop for three nights was Dubai.

Dubai is hotter than KAUST!  And it is so busy but with shopping available everywhere.  There are two hypermarts just near our hotel as well as a small supermarket.  There are cheap eateries everywhere around the hotel.

Our hotel is not near the centre of Dubai but is out some distance.  However there is a “Metro” station close by so today (Monday) we bought an all-day train ticket for around $7 each and off we went.

First stop was the Gold Souk (souk means a kind of market place).  We are $500 poorer but Trish is a very happy lady with her new bangle.  Some of the gold available from these shops reminded us of the extravagant gold worn in India.

From there it was back on the train to continue on to the Dubai Mall.  The train or ”Metro” is another story with one carriage of the train having a section just for women.  

There is a wide pink line and men are not allowed to cross it.  So the female section is a little crowded while the male sections of the train are all heavily overcrowded.  So some men finish up being pushed onto the female side of the pink line.  Along comes a woman, all covered with the usual Muslim garb but with a clip board (she’s a railway official) telling all the men to get back over the line or she will fine them!

Ah well to each his own I suppose!

The Dubai Mall is just huge, too big actually with row after row of fancy over priced shops.  The best part was the huge aquarium in the middle of the shopping centre.  

The aquarium is several storeys high and takes up an incredible amount of space with huge numbers of all sorts of fish swimming around in it.  It is most impressive!

It is almost a 20 minute walk along heavily air conditioned walkways fitted with travelators back to the Metro Station.  Our final stop was Emirates Mall. Again lots of shops but no real good deals to be found anywhere.  Things were generally more expensive than back at home.

Its major feature is a snow playground!  The kids can go up and down a ski lift, there is a short toboggan run and other fun snow play things to do.

Eventually we make our way back to the metro and around 40minutes later are back in our hotel room cooling off.

Neither of us is really 100% health wise.  Trish still has a bit of a tummy problem, my ear isn’t working well and I am not eating a lot.  Trish has lost weight!

We are not sure exactly what we will do tomorrow, our last full day before heading home Wednesday morning Dubai time.  We have several options.

While in KAUST my mobile phone did a major system upgrade to Android 5.0. Unfortunately after the upgrade several things wouldn’t work properly.  I took the gamble to reset it back to Factory Conditions.  So when I had a few moments after the reset I would be busy putting stuff back on it.

Actually the phone did most all by itself, I got the option to restore apps as things had been the day before the reset.   Arj’s great internet access enabled it to be pretty good again the next day.

The internet we have at the hotel is nowhere as good as Arj’s but I reckon I have just about got everything back, probably well over 95% from before the upgrade.