Saturday 25 August 2012

One week down...

Image from here

Well, we have survived our first week in the Middle East and not too badly I must say.

We celebrated this milestone on Thursday by a trip to the world's largest performing fountain at the base of the Burj Kalifa, which is the tallest building in the world, next to The Dubai Mall which is the largest shopping mall in the world. Bigger is better here.

The fountain is no ordinary fountain, it's a dancing fountain. Every half hour it performs to Andrea Bocelli's crooning and leaps into the air about 500 feet. It sounds cheesy and it is a little, but it's hard not to get swept up with it. There's such a festive, joyous atmosphere here. The girls were elated. At 7pm, the sun was setting and the sky scrapers looked like they were painted on the pink hazy backdrop. The sandy sky makes the sun really glow and you truly feel like you're in the Middle East. It's just like the movies. Exotic and romantic.

Thursday is like Friday in other parts of the world. It's the end of the working week, weekends here are Friday and Saturday. So with everyone else in Dubai we wandered through the mall looking for something to eat.

The Dubai Mall has so many eateries and we wanted to celebrate, well as much as you can with three kids in tow. We chose Red Lobster, lobster for the adults, fish and chips for the kids. Seated in the restaurant you could have been anywhere in the USA. Soft drink refills, do you want fries or a baked potato with that? That's the constant strangeness about this part of the world.

We ate, chatted about the week, the waitresses goo-ed and gaa-ed at Darbs as they always do.

It was a lovely night. Touristy and cheesy and we felt excited about the fact that we now call this city home.

8 comments:

  1. Wow Corinne,

    I feel like such a tool for continuously saying 'wow' to these posts, but ... wow!

    And I just don't think I can forget that Filipino lady. Ever!

    x

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  2. SO glad to hear your first days have been good for you all. Such a change, but so amazing at the same time. Loving reading your posts from the Sandpit.
    Ex

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  3. Lovely post, hope you are all soaking up the newness and strangeness!
    Hope you all are well, thinking of you. xxx

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  4. The fountains look like the ones in front of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. They dance to Frank Sinatra. Love it!
    Glad you guys are feeling settled in. You are lucky to have this opportunity!

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  5. I'm loving this little 'education' and joining you on your new adventures.
    :-) xx

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  6. Another 'wow'er here. It's really happening! It's just such a cool adventure, Corinne. I'm enjoying being here to hear all about it. x

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  7. Oh my goodness, Angus would LOVE that fountain... he gets a excited with the shopping centre water features here and they're not a patch on that great thing!
    How exciting discovering all these 'local' bits and pieces, I guess it doesn't matter what day of the week a weekend falls, it's a weekend after all :) xo

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Thank you so much for your comments! I'm always thrilled to hear from you.

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