Dubai Week 1

 Thursday, 24 July,  2009                     11:19AM (UAE time)           Dubai Hotel Apartment

Hey everyone!

REALLY sorry about not being able to update. Internet is VERY expensive at my hotel, I found a place across the street that has wireless for 5 Dirhams/Hour, it’s 25. I didn’t want to spend that much unless I had to. I was going to look into the price for phoning, but I’m sure it’s cheaper to buy a phone card. 

So let me start off by telling you about my last few days...

The Flight: 

It was raining buckets when we left Liverpool, fortunately it stopped when we got to the Manchester airport. Direct flight which we were all happy for. Departure was 2PM London Time and we arrived at 12AM Dubai Time (Abu Dhabi, UAE) The plane was huge. Biggest one I’ve been on so far. I sat in the middle section next to Nompie, Sikhombuzo, and Gabsile (which are my bag check children). On the left section I had Phepile, Pretty, and Nomkhuleko. So I was responsible for all of them on the flight. Not easy. Let me tell you why. 

On long trips the children are allowed to watch movies. Each chair had a TV. So we set it that they were all watching the same movie, and they weren’t allowed to function them. Being children, it didn’t take long until they got bored and wanted to watch something else. So I would switch it for one, then another would ask so I’d have to do it for them as well. All the movies were started at different times, so I was starting a new one constantly, and then I realized, some of them weren’t started at the beginning, it had just started where someone else had left it, so they weren’t actually seeing the full movie. I think there was 2 hours left when I realized it was happening. I also told them they had to watch the full movie if they wanted me to change it. I can’t tell you how many times I had to get up. I was trying to watch movies myself, but I got interrupted so many times, I only got through 2. It was a bit stressful, but more funny than anything. 

About 3/4 of the flight I started to feel the heat. It was quite interesting to feel the change in the temperature. We have been warning the children for weeks that it’s going to be VERY hot when we get there. 

Landing/First Sights: Of course the airport is air conditioned, but it still felt warmer. The airport is beautiful. I took a few pictures, and didn’t realize I was at customs and got told to put it away. I felt very embarrassed. 

The male airport staff all wear white garbs (not sure on the spelling) and then a head dress with a black rope tied around their head. I will have pictures. They communicate through cell phones. I could immediately see the wealth of the country. 

They spoke English but still had quite a thick accent, so had to ask them to repeat. We all got through everything with a breeze. It was great. 

Once we picked up our baggage we met the people who were hosting us here. Then we had to go to the parking lot to get on the busses. Covered parking lots are hot to being with, the temperature was 35 and it was 1AM.

 It honestly felt like going into a sauna. That’s the best I can describe it. I just said WOAH. You sweat in the first second, and it just keeps going from there. It’s hard to breathe. My glasses got all foggy because of the temperature change. The children immediately started to complain it was hot and they wanted water. It was extremely extremely uncomfortable. We got the kids into the air conditioned bus, I was one that had to help load all the baggage in. We had SO much baggage. 31 people. It felt like it took an hour to load it in. My jeans just stuck to me. I didn’t want to wear them, but it was cold when we left, and I wanted to save the weight in my suitcase. Some of us had to take another smaller bus because it couldn’t fit all of us and the bags. The heating system doesn’t exist in the vehicles. It’s all blue: cold and colder, we laughed. I didn’t have my camera to take a picture. We got them to blast the cold air, but we were still sweating. They drive on the right side of the road here. I thought it would be weird to transition back, but after a minute it felt totally normal to me. 

Food:

We arrived to the hotel and ate. It was about 2AM. They serve food as a buffet. It wasn’t what I expected. Fries, rice, chicken, fish, vegetables. Everything we had already been eating. I went to the other side, and there was raw veggies, and some special salads. I was very excited. They were Mediterranean type. I haven’t had really anything like it in the UK. So I loaded up. Then I saw the Hummus and pita and the big smile came. It was one of the things I was looking forward to eating here. It’s a regular part of my diet at home. 

The Hotel Rooms:

After eating we sorted out who would be with who, and planned on the kids taking showers but decided last minute just to put them to bed because it was so late. 

The rooms are hotel apartments, and amazing. They really are apartments. It’s bigger than my brothers place in downtown Vancouver. I opened the door and I see a huge dining room and living room. A 1/2 bathroom to my left, I turn the corner and open the door to a kitchen that is more than twice the size of my bedroom at home. Fully equipped, no dishwasher, but we don’t need one with the buffet downstairs. There was a washer with a dryer included in it. Then I went into the bedroom to find the full bathroom and 2 queen beds, so I checked the other room to see where I would put the boys. It also had a full bathroom, but had 2 twin beds, it was the bigger room, but I needed to give the 3 boys the bigger beds. Two shared and I just told them we can switch around. They were sleeping almost immediately after their heads touching the pillows. 

The closet space is excessive. Much more than necessary, but I’m not complaining, the kitchen is also full of cupboards and drawers. There are 3 flat screen TV’s. All at least 30” screens. Need I go on? I was very excited. 

We had a quick meeting and went to bed. It was about 3:30 or 4AM when I climbed into bed. I don’t even know if I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I was quite out of it, even though my body wasn’t on the time zone. The flight drained us all. 

We had to be up for 9:30AM which we were not happy about. They had planned on taking us to the Dubai Mall Aquarium and Wild Wadi Water Park. We were excited to go, but really wanted to sleep instead. 

I then got a call from Angee saying we needed to be downstairs at 12 for lunch, they decided the children (and adults) needed the extra sleep. I was so grateful.

I forgot to mention that they had their prayer at sometime around 5AM, which is quite loud and woke me. I just put on my ipod and fell asleep a little while after. 

Monday 20 July was Day 1: 

It felt like I didn’t sleep. The kids were mad and confused because they said the night was too short. I felt really bad, I’m glad we didn’t have to be up for breakfast. 

Lunch food was quite similar to dinner, they changed the style of things, cooked it a different way, changed things around a bit. It was enough to not make it feel like the same thing which I appreciated. I think there was some pasta, don’t quite remember. 

Then we took a very nice tour bus to the Dubai Mall which is supposed to now be the largest mall in the world, only beating West Ed by a very small amount. It’s quite nice inside, I couldn’t really see how big it is, we just went to the Aquarium and walked through part of it. 

We also got to see all the tall buildings on our way to the mall, I don’t know the names of them, but it’s all the ones in the pictures. It was really hard to see them with all the dust. I took the best pictures I could. There’s a lot of construction here, but I knew that because a friend had just visited here and told me. 

The aquarium was fun, the kids got to go on a boat ride on top of the tank. I can’t remember what the measurement was for it, but it’s really really large. Many of them were scared to go in, but we all convinced them they wouldn’t get eaten by the sharks or fish. The bottom of the boat was glass so we could see into the water, it was really cool. To me it was a lot other Aquariums I have been to, I’m glad I didn’t pay. They also had a tube and you could walk through the tank, I took a lot of video and pictures, but they have 31 sharks, so I got to see them very close up.

The mall has a lot of North American stores. They just put the Arabic name next to it. Some of them look quite funny translated. They have Chili’s, which just looks weird. I am planning on going there before I leave. Many of the stores are still being put in the mall. They are building a Rainforest Cafe next to the Aquarium. I guess it’s the one they took out of Metrotown, hopefully it does better business here. 

Then we went through the Jewelry village. There were at least 50 shops. I didn’t see anyone shopping in them. The store owners looked so bored :( 

Wild Wadi is an outdoor water park it’s right next to the famous cool looking hotel, which I don’t know the name of. We were all expecting it to be indoor. So we decided to eat before getting in the water. The shade really did nothing for us. We all put our bathing suits on to eat, but we were sweating so so so much. It was a really hot day.   We first went into the lazy river with all the kids, some of us got separated, as it’s quite a long one, but we all caught up in the end. Then we went to the kids area, it had some smaller slides, and then headed to the wave pool. A lot of the kids were afraid of the deep water, it was a very large pool so I think that’s what it was. We ended going on almost everything, it was really fun, once you are in the water you don’t really notice the heat at all. I think the day cooled down quite a bit because it was hazy, you really couldn’t see the sun the whole day. It’s never a clear day here, or it’s rare. I don’t like that. I didn’t burn which was good because I didn’t have sunscreen on. 

We ate when we got back to the hotel, and then all went straight to bed. I don’t think anyone recovered from the lack of sleep. 

Tuesday 21 July Day 2: 

Early morning, 8AM wake up. Not fun. We had rehearsals, school, nap time which I totally took advantage of (I actually slept longer because I set my alarm to 2AM not 2PM wake up) It went into the kids play time, but I asked if they wanted to sleep or play and 2 said sleep. The other didn’t even answer me.

We have 3 concerts a night each 30 minutes. So we headed to Dubai Festival Mall. It’s quite nice. Because Michelle has been working so hard being the head teacher and doing product we have given her a break from product and I have taken over while we are here, and then Jenny (another Chaperone joining our team) will take it over when we get back to the UK. 

The crowds were quite good for all the shows, and people really like buying shirts. We realized quickly that we didn’t bring as much product as we could have, but we were really worried about the weight limit, so there wasn’t really an option. 

I really enjoy talking to the people, and just sitting there and watch all the people walk by. There are so many different cultures here. I’ve learned so much just through my eyes. It’s interesting to see all the different types of clothing and the styles of garbs, and the women dress different as well. Some have all their face covered except for their eyes, while others cover just their hair. I haven’t had extra time to research about it. 

Wednesday 22 July Day 3:

This day was pretty much the same schedule as Tuesday. 

We performed at the same mall. It changes every 2 days. We sold more CD’s than t shirts, which was interesting.