Dubai

The final leg of our summer of grand adventure and celebration was a few days in Dubai.  We were flying Emirates home from Africa and had a stop over in Dubai, so we decided to extend it a few days.  If you plan a trip to Dubai, I don't recommend August as it was really hot (think temps of 113 that felt like 120), but it was certainly worth extending our stay to explore.

We stayed at the Jumeirah Dar Al Masya and the compound was giant.  The giant compound in combination with the heat made these golf carts our primary mode of transport all around.

One afternoon we braved the heat and did a desert safari and bedouin dinner experience.  Part of that meant preparing with appropriate headwear.

After the safari portion we watched a falcon show.  Falcons are migratory birds in Dubai that the bedouins used to help hunt.

 Julia danced her way across the world, but was never so inspired as when she watched someone else dance.  At our bedouin dinner they had traditional dancing.  Apparently this was a way for girls to show their talents to the community (and specifically the mothers) to find a husband.  For Julia, she just can't help but move to the music.

 The kids rode camels.  Julia was the bravest of all and rode a camel all by herself without any convincing and she loved it.

 The heat perhaps got to Anna, and the night of our bedouin experience she got sick in the bed that she and Noah were sharing.  Noah was so tired that he jumped out of bed and curled into this little bit of couch and fell right back asleep.

All of the Jumeirah property is apparently inspired by the royal palaces in the UAE.  Our hotel architecture was stunning, so I can only imagine the real deal.

 One of the lobbies with incredible tile work and flowers.

 We went to the Burj Khalifa to see the views.  Because of the sea haze we didn't get impressive vistas, but the closeness of the desert was clear and the growth of Dubai in the last 20-30 becomes all the more remarkable.

Our very nice hotel wasn't too far from the 7 star Burj Al Arab.  The architecture in all of Dubai is pretty cool with some very interesting looking buildings.

 Getting desert safari headwear started

Our desert safari vehicle - an old open Land Rover.  To be fair, we did the safari in a closed car with A/C and then after sunset we went into the open car.

This is the Arabian Orxy, the national animal of the UAE and basically the only animal we saw on our desert safari

 We did get to see some impressive dunes.  The dunes are red because there's lots of low quality iron in it.

 Julia couldn't manage her traditional head covering and quickly defaulted to her bucket hat.

Jonah got to hold a Peregrin Falcon, which is the national bird of the UAE

Henna tattoos at the bedouin dinner

More camel riders

Anna had to be talked into the camel ride but ended up loving it.  Who wouldn't trust a camel lead by Julia?

 In the Dubai mall we went to Candylicious, which is one of the world's largest candy stores.  We laughed that they were offering free samples of Garretts popcorn and had fun with some of the random items for sale.

Apparently to work at Candylicious, you have to be prepared to dance for the mall crowd to pop songs lead by a giant piece of candy.  Some workers were more into it than others, but we were thoroughly entertained.

 At the Dubai Aquarium, because what mall doesn't need an aquarium?  It seemed only fitting that our trip started with aquariums in Alaska and ended with them in Dubai.

One morning we went out and did dune bashing and sand surfing.  If you want to hear the sound of pure joy, ask to see the video Simon took and you can just hear the delight in the kids.

 The hard part of sand surfing is walking back up the dune.  Jonah really loved sand surfing because someone else always carried him back up the dune.

Julia hasn't master sand surfing yet, but had fun.

Jonah on the way down - he loved it!

Even the grown ups got in on the action and actually didn't do too bad.  Noah ended with the most successful run, but my camera temporarily overheated so we don't have any pictures to prove it, but he did great.

Anna said that she still prefers water surfing in Hawaii to sand surfing in Dubai.

All around our hotel there were random decorate camels

At dinner our last night there was a belly dancer that came to perform at dinner.  As per my pervious comments on Julia and dancing, she was smitten.  She and the dancer talked about passes and arabesques and showed each other some of their best moves.

A cool lighting display at dinner

Our final hours of vacation.  We also spent some time in the pool and in the Persian Gulf.  The pool they could cool, the Persian Gulf, not so much, so it was about 88 degrees.  My dad served in the Persian Gulf Conflict in the mid-90s and there was something neat about being in that same region to help relate just a small bit to his experience.