We left South Africa and flew to Dubai, having one of those arrivals where you arrive into a busy int'l airport in the middle of the night, after an 8 hour flight plus an 45 minutes of a holding pattern, a 20 minute bus through the tarmac and then promptly turning the wrong direction in the transfer section and getting lost. After we finally arrived at our hotel after the mass taxi stampede at 1:30am we were told, "We know you asked for a king, non-smoking, but all we have is a room with two twins, smoking." Hello United Arab Emirates!
But in the morning after an amazing buffet breakfast we were collected by our friend Yolanda. We met Yolanda and her husband Darryl in our antenatal class in Dunedin and have enjoyed their hospitality both in Dunedin and Napier, where they lived before they moved to Abu Dhabi. Yolanda, Darryl and Gemma live in a residence at the Shangri-La, which I knew before we arrived was a 5 star hotel, but I don't think I was fully prepared for how amazing it is. Our day was seriously like a day at Disneyland. We went out to lunch at the hotel restaurant. We sat by the chilled swimming pool, had some refreshments. We jumped in the ocean. We surfed the internet, had a coffee drink...
Later we took a boat ride on the hotel's water canal between the residences and the souk, the traditional Arabrian market (i.e. an upscale shopping center) where Gemma had an ice cream cone.
We marveled at the views of the Abu Dhabi Grand Mosque from the hotel.
And later we went out for dinner and while sitting outside on the patio there was an amazing fireworks show. No one knew why, 8 pm on a Tuesday, but needless to say we truly felt like we were at Disneyland.
2 comments:
How fun to have friends to visit that live in such wonderful locales! (Napier is the only one I've been too- but I loved it & the views you're giving a peek of are amazing!
I love that you have friends living there. Very cool! I still can't believe you vacationed to such amazing places without the boys!
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