Heat Wall, Snowboarding and Architectural Paradise
Trip Start
May 08, 2010
1
27
33
Trip End
Jun 05, 2010
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Sunday, May 30, 2010
We arrived in Dubai with zero hours of sleep at 10:00 AM. We had to go through customs, which wasn't very hard, but we had to get a temporary 30-day visa right there. They also asked where we were staying, and when I said with a friend, they gave me a hard time about having his phone number. Everyone that was visiting looked loaded. There were some people that were staying at the 7 star hotel, Burj Al Arab. There were personal assistants waiting for them the second they got off the plane. They took care of everything and couldn’t have made their stay any easier. I never saw anything like it. They are 7 stars for a reason.
We got our bags and met up with Ali out by his car. It was cool to see him in his home country. As we walked out into the sun, we walked right into a wall of heat. The whole feeling of my body just changed in an instant. It was just so hot. In the car, we talked for a while, and drove out to his house, which is like 15 minutes from the city. We pretty much bombarded him with questions about the United Arab Emirates and Dubai. Pretty much, Dubai was nothing 20 years ago. It is now the newest fully developed city in the world. The buildings are all incredible. Every single building was new and the majority were skyscrapers. It was so cool to see. The architecture is like nowhere else in the world. It is an architectural paradise.
We got to his house and he showed us where we were going to sleep. He led us into this really cool guesthouse with really nice couches and furniture. There were two beds and some tables. We had a traditional Arab breakfast. It was so good. It was eggs, bread, and a bunch of condiments, but it tasted awesome together.
Rick and I took a nap and wanted to get up at 3 o’clock to start seeing the city. At 6 o’clock, we woke up and headed out. We drove into Dubai and went to a mall. The mall wasn’t the main Dubai mall, but it was still really big. We ate, then tried to find the indoor ski mountain called Ski Dubai. We walked passed it and it look so cool. The sight didn’t look real the way it was right in the mall. We went to the ticket booth and decided to do it. We rented snowboards for 2 hours and put on the snow cloths that they gave us. We wanted to teach Ali how, but the people wouldn’t let us. He went tubing and zorbing inside instead. It was so cool. It was a legit hill with really cool scenery at the bottom. When we got half way up, you could either get off the lift, or keep going up to the summit. There was a 60-degree turn of the chairlift, and it took us to the top. There were some rails and boxes, but mostly obstacle-free because they don’t want people to crash into things and sue them. It was cool to snowboard in a cold building in Dubai. A kid from Buffalo was actually cold in Dubai.
We left Ski Dubai and drove through the city. On the way, we passed the tallest building in the world. It is well over 2000 feet. It was soooo big. The second tallest building in the world isn’t even close. It is straight up enormous. It got narrower as it went up and every 25 floors or so, there was a huge porch with either a restaurant or bar on it. It was so cool looking, especially when it was lit up at night.
We drove around for a little and got to see a lot of the city. Everything was so new. It just blew my mind. I have never seen a city so innovative and new in my life. We drove on a street, where on both sides, there were huge skyscrapers lining the street for miles. Every skyscraper had its own look and design, but they all still looked awesome right next to each other.
We met up with Ali’s brother and friend at an outdoor bar. The bar was at a hotel that was right on the water. The scene was cool. We were chilling at a table with the 5 of us, with drinks, with a pool and the water on one side and huge skyscrapers all lit up on the other. I really soaked it in. We left at like 1:30 or so and headed back home. We stopped at McDonald’s on the way home, then hug out in the guesthouse for a little. Tomorrow is the water park at Atlantis.
