As you prepare for Thanksgiving travels and eating this week, I'm still playing catch up on last years stories.
It was a rough, but good year for me, however, I didn't have much margin left for blogging, and since this is sort of a scrapbook for my family, I didn't want to skip over part of our life, so let me continue.
Last January my teammate and I travelled to Dubai for a four day conference. We also ran into a friend of ours who happened to be there at the same time.
I had never been to Dubai.
Dubai is in the Middle East, right?
Glitz and Glamour
Big and Shiny
Sleek and Modern
At first, I had to remind myself that these words DO describe much of the Middle East. It just doesn't describe the Middle East I'm more familiar with.
Dubai Mall, for example, is the second largest mall in the world by land area.
In 2011, it was the most visited building on the planet! (over 54 million visitors each year).
We only spent two hours there, so I'm sure I didn't even touch a fraction of it.
(I'm not much of a "mall" person, but there was enough extra stuff there, that I was constantly entertained)
My home state was represented (along with MANY other American franchise restaurants)
This aquarium was inside the mall.
This little building was outside the mall
The Burj Kalifa is the tallest building in the world...almost TWO Empire State Buildings.
It's hard to get the entire building in one picture, but someone surely tried...
Ok. Enough about the mall complex.
How about Global Village?
We only had a couple of nights to go out, so we were squeezing things in fast.
Global Village is an entertainment complex representing all countries of the world (except the one I live in, funny enough).
These are the front gates. A little Indian flair along with the Statue of Liberty.
After walking in a little bit, you can look back and see the "Burj Kalifa," the "Colosseum," the "Eiffel Tower," part of the "Opera House" in Sydney, and one of the towers on the "Taj Mahal!"
Mini-Taj Mahal
Look at the building representing Iran? Beautiful (and LARGE), right?
I was definitely drawn inside the Africa building.
I wanted to buy some things I had been thinking about since we left Uganda that I didn't get a chance to get.
I wasn't disappointed.
It looked exactly like a market in Africa
Except that some of the African art was displayed so that Muslims would not be offended.
The Americas (North and South) were designed to show many recognizable landmarks, but the inside was filled with South American and Native American decor with a little splash of the Old West. There was even a mariachi band playing. Visitors here may assume we
still live in the Old West.
Syria had one of the most beautiful complexes, in my opinion.
Spices Galore!
There is no way we could have seen it all in one night, but we took in as much as we could. We ate food 'in' Thailand, bought treasures 'in' Africa, my friend bought a belt 'in' Pakistan, and we wondered through 6 continents.
As we left, we walked to the taxi park to head back to our hotel.
You may not be impressed by this, but it REALLY impressed me!
These taxi drivers are all lined up orderly, row by row, and not shouting at anyone. The men know who is next in line, and they pull up one-by-one for the next customer.
As you can imagine, this kind of order does not exist where I live :)
Also, every taxi is metered and has a GPS.
In the country where I live, we have to bargain for each ride depending on where we want to go (and we are often over-charged). And I don't know if I told you a story about the first year I was here, but I asked a man to take me to a soccer field for Caleb's practice, and he said he knew where it was. However, at every stoplight, he yelled out the window to cabs next to him to ask them if they knew where he was supposed to take me. Then he would call different people on the phone and ask them.
Needless to say, GPS is a nice feature!
Another thing that caught my eye was the cleanliness of everything.
There was order, beauty, rule-following, no graffiti on buildings, and no cinderblocks used as outdoor decor.
Even though I was in meetings most of my time there, I used my breaks as an opportunity to walk around and enjoy my surroundings. It was peaceful.
Don't get me wrong. I am fully aware that what can seem clean on the outside has a dirty underbelly, as is the truth with many things.
I'm pretty sure I couldn't afford to live there or visit for very long. Dubai is the 58th most expensive city to live globally. Paris, Hong Kong, and Singapore still share the number one "spot" for the most expensive, but are they as "spotless" as Dubai?
Nevertheless, I was glad to go back home and join my family in a city that has rough edges, dirty streets, and a little less glitz and glamour because that is where I am supposed to be.
January 22, 2019
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