Dubai

Dubai

Dubai was one of the coolest cities i have been too. Yes, I admit that i was scared to death, but soon learned to adapt to the culture. A think it was more a fear of the unknown and not understanding the people or their customs. Once you be the basic understanding (and no, I do not agree with everything) you learn to adjust rather that be scared.

The Furman's
We stayed with Dave and Gloria Furman and their 3 kids, Aliza, Nora, and Judson. I knew both Dave and Gloria back in college. (dare i say 12 years ago!). Dave is now the Pastor of Redeemer Church which meets in the lobby of hotel located in one of the large malls. They have 2 sevices and a congregation of 500-700 people. Dubai is "open" to other faiths, but doesn't allow but one church building inside this city. There is one Protestant and one Catholic building inside the city and all others must rent buildings to hold services. The Holy Day is Friday, so church meets at that time. More on that later.

Arrival
After we arrived at the Furmans, we visitied for a little while and then took a nice long 4 hour nap! It felt soooo good considering the night i had just had on the airline...i learned later that Will counted...I used 5 barf bags, and made that many trips to the bathroom. Praise the Lord it was night and most people were sleeping and that we had seats to ourselves so I wasn't crawling over someone every time. I became one with the airplane bathroom that night! Inpraynnever to do that again. But the little barf bags work pretty good!

That evening Dave too us to all the "souks" or markets. There seems to be a souk for everything. We went to the fish market first and I didn't barf! Thank goodness, I knew I must have been better since I survived that. The shark fin is a speciality in Dubai, but also illegal. That doesn't stop the fishing...we saw at least 100 dead sharks just waiting to be bought. It was quite interesting to walk around this area too. Men do the shopping in Dubai, and I really didn't see many other women either...let alone any blonde, white girls! I stuck close to my guys and was fine...but did get lots of stares. I learned that it is a Muslim sin to look at a women twice, but ok to get a single long stare. If a man looks again, it is a sin. I did dress very respectfully too. I knew lots of other tourists would not be as respectful, but this was important if we were going to be with the Furman's and representing Jesus. That meant pants and covered shoulders. Every place in Dubai hasTexas-cold air conditioning...so it really was not too bad. Even the bus stop have ac! It was hot walking around the markets, but at night when the sun goes down, it does not cool off...but is do-able. We visitied then all imported fruits snd veggy market, the gold market, spice market, Little India, we crossed Dubai creek and went to dinner in the "oldest commercial building" in Dubai. We let Dave order for us (thank goodness) and had a meal of beef, chicken, and lamb kabobs, pita bread and humus, french fries (yes, they love french fries over there) and a few other things that I do not know the name of. We enjoyed a typical meal from Dubai! More on that later...

The next day, Dave turned us loose in the city! I was not nearly as nervous as before and I knew we were doing more touristy things. We started off at the Mall of the Emerates, which is the largest Mall in the world! Originally, we were going to try out the indoor snow skiing(yer, you heard me right) but Will's leg was not in the right condition for that. So we walked around the mall and found the Hop on, Hop off bus. We took this tour around the city and got to see all the crazy buildings....everything you hear about the buildings in Dubai is true! There is even an apartment building that rotates with the sun! We saw the Wind Sail building, the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world) and the Palm Jumerah. The Palm is a man made island with homes on each "frond" and the hotel Atlantis at the very end. There are even man made islands in the shape of the globe and each island is privately owned. Simply amazing and unreal! The housing crash as hit Dubai hard....for example, we saw 50 skyscrapers in the process of being built, and all looked to be abandoned. The other interesting thing I noticed is that you would expext to see concrete roads surrounding these sites, but instead it was all sand. After the bus tour, Will and I arranged to go sand dune bashing! That has probably been the funnest thing of the trip so far! We knew it was going to be good since our vehicle smelled of barf from the day before. The car had been cleaned, but day old barf roasting in a hot Dubai car does not go away easily! On a postive note, I did not get sick off the smell, so another sign I was better. Hey, when you are traveling as a guest in another country, your perspective changes a little....I could choose to be miserable or choose to enjoy the experience. We did tell the driver and he added a strawberry air freshener...but then we had strawberry scented barf! One other thing, people in this country are poor. 85% of people living in Dubai are foreign workers and most are trying to get a better life and send money back to their families. For example, taxi drivers work 12 hour shifts and sleep in cots and share with the guy on the opposite shift. Tips mean a lot to the drivers and a standard cab fare is really cheap for Americans. Oh...and you only enter to cab on the passanger side. Back to the dune bashing....our car had roll bars! We drove to a tiny stip mall where you can buy gifts and while we were doing that, the drivers were letting air out of all the tires and using air hoses to blow all the sand out of the engine..you know they mean business now! Dune bashing is compared to riding a roller coaster and I would agree with that! When you are sliding down sand dunes sideways and when sand is washing over your car like water....dude. It was a blast and I think every one should travel to Dubai to go dune bashing! After an hour of that, we stopped at a little village in the middle of the desert and got to ride camels! That was so fun too! They were so tall and make ugly noises. Thank goodness their mouths were covered, I understand why they are known for biting and spitting. It also feels like you are about to get thrown off the camel when the get up and lay down....tons of fun. After that, we had opportunities to go shoppings, get henna on our hands, make sand art, or moke a hooka. Dinner was served and we had to form two lines, one for women and one for men....for the first time in my life the womens line was shorter! We basically had the same meal that Dave had introduced to us the night before. The evening entertainment consisted of belly dancers and a guy that did a spinning dance for 5 minutes straight. He wore numerous long skirts that would twill and then he would layer them all at once while spinning. I am still confused at how belly dancing would even be acceptable in such a conservative county. We did see a Muslim man with his 4 wives there and none of them watched the show. One of the best things about this trip was meeting all the people and other tourists! Our car had people from Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Brazil. We had tons of fun sharing stories about our travels and learning about our new friends....our commonality was English. The Brazilian guy had just spent 6 months in Australia learning English and was on his way back home to get a job. How cool! We really had a great time!

Friday
Friday is the Muslim Holy Day and also the same day that the Redeemer Church meets. We got there early and had Costa Coffee in the mall while waiting for the second service to begin. Dave was not preaching that day because they had a guest speaker in town. We enjoyed a typical worship service followed by a great sermon. The church meeting in the confernece area of a hotel and is about to gp through so beg renovations, please pray that Redeemer is able to find another space adequet to house such a large crowd. Following the service, we went down to the fellowship hall (a.k.a food court) and had lunch. Will and I grabbed a quick Taco Bell Quesedilla and sat with an ex-pat American family that now works in Dubai. We learned tons about the culture and customs of the United Arab Emirates.

Our flight left at 7 pm so Dave took us to the Dubai mall. This mall is unreal...actually all the malls in Dubai are outrageous! Northpark has no comparison Dubai. I had no idea that shopping was considered a tourism activity! This mall had the largest pane of glass for the indoor aquarium. It had it own gold souk inside the mall with 220 gold stores, 1200 stores total, a theme park, retractable roof themed shopping area...and too much more to write about. At first, i was like "oh boy, we are going to a mall"....but now I understand. There are 14000 parking spaces and little green and red led lights that you seento let you know if a parking space is available. As you walk in, there are signs saying..please don't forget where you parked! The mall is attached to the tallest building in the workd so we got some great photos there. We had quesidialls for dinner at Baja Fresh inside that mall too.

Leaving the airport was easy! Time for a 6-7 hr flight to Singapore.

Fyi...i have been buying Starbucks mugs and Christmas ornaments in all the countries we have visited....Dubai didn't sell Christmas ornaments. Wonder why?