We landed at Dubai International Airport (www.dubaiairport.com/) around 9.10 am. The airport was new and huge, it took us awhile to get out of the airport. Before the trip, my boyfriend kept telling me things not to do when we were in Dubai such as holding hands, being too close to others and smile too much. The last thing, not to smile, was very hard for me, especially when I was so excited exploring new places like this. Actually, when I was there, I didn't feel that people were so strict with tourists like he said.
We exchanged $100 for Dirham, Dubai currency, at the rate $1 = 3.6 Dh. We booked a hotel room at Le Meridian Fairway which is at GGICO metro station, 2 stations away from the airport terminal (http://dubaimetro.eu/dubai-metro-map). Dubai Metro has two lines, red line and green line. A train has 5 carts. The first cart is for Gold Card holders and females and children. The transportation connect 7 zones of the city. It was new and clean. Metro card is called NOL card. We got a one-day pass which costed 14 Dh or about 3 dollars something. We planed to stop several station, so this was very reasonable. One thing I noticed when I was on the subway, male passengers didn't offer seat to female or elderly. I'm not saying it was wrong, but I am familiar with picture of guys offer seat to ladies or older people when I was in Thailand or even in USA.
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| Dubai Metro looked pretty new |
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| GGICO station |
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We took 2 metro stations from the airport terminal to Ggico station and walked a little bit to our hotel. It was about 9 - 10 am, there were not so many people on the street and roads were quiet. We didn't know about people lifestyle here so we just asked ourselves "are people still in the bed?"
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| Along the street in the moring |
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| A middle school |
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Finally, we got the hotel. I walked in carrying a very heavy carry-on luggage on my shoulder, the door man greeted me when I walked pass him. Then, my boyfriend followed me with his wheeled backpack, the door man greeted him and asked him if he needed him to help carry the backpack. "Okay...nice impression", I thought. Later, my bf told me that the door man didn't offer me help because it was probably not appropriate to approach ladies. The room was not ready yet, we had to wait for 20 minutes which was not too bad. The room was nice, big and clean. The view was just modern buildings, nothing interesting. Since it was so quiet outside, so we decided to get some rests at the hotel and go out to explore the city around 1 - 2 pm, that time we and the city should be awake.
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| Hotel lobby |
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| Our hotel room |
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| Business area, Deira City Centre station. |
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| Dubai is like city in a desert |
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Even we flew business class, I felt like to sleep a lot more. We left the hotel around 2.15 pm. Our first stop is Deira City Centre station. We got off from the station and found a shopping mall. We walked in and out in 3 minutes because we are not looking for this kind of shopping malls in this trip. Then we headed to Dubai Marina metro station aiming to see the Palm island, the artificial island of Dubai. But we didn't know that the station we wanted to go was very far from where we were. We gave up the plan and returned to Burj Khalifa Because we had a reservation at 6 pm.
We got off at Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall station From the train station, we had to walk to the Dubai Mall for about 10 - 15 minutes. The Dubai Mall (http://www.thedubaimall.com/)
is very elegant. It has all stores I've seen in US such as Coach, Gucci, Guess, Godiva etc. and lots more stores that I've never seen before. My boyfriend and I was attracted to candy stores since we love desert. Candy stores here are huge and very colorful. So I assume that people here love sweet stuff a lot. :P
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| Inside the Dubai Mall |
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| Giant candy tree |
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| This store sells traditional deserts |
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| Yummy Cookies |
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We walked pass Dubai Aquarium and Under Water Zoo where has the world's "Largest Acrylic Panel". It looks huge and amazing. Because we have very limited time, we didn't get inside, just looked and took photos from outside.
Next blog, I'm going to write about Burj Kalifa, the world's tallest building!
