A love letter to Dubai

Dear Dubai

You were everything I dreamed you'd be and more. You were beautiful, funny, modern, historic, interesting, and fascinating. You were a delight for all the senses: my sense of sight loved the cutting edge architecture and the abundant and manicured plants and trees, my sense of smell loved the spice market and all the little cubbies of aromatic delicacies, my sense of taste loved the chicken kabobs we shared before our river cruise, my sense of touch loved the museum of the future and all the exhibits, and my sense of sound was delighted by the music this evening at folklorico. As a city, you are far from modest but simultaneously far from arrogant, which you could be after making marinas out of the desert and land out of the ocean. I heard that you use 300 million gallons of desalinated ocean water daily for labrynth-like drip irrigation throughout the city, which is mind boggling. All that and claim to the world's tallest building. Just amazing on so many levels 😉. I just don't know where to begin. Thank you, Dubai!!!

The approach into Dubai's new cruise port was fantastic. Smooth and uneventful. Upon closer examination of my geocaching app, we docked next to the Palm, a man-made island that has homes, hotels and businesses. We're the blue dot.

We were blessed with another GREAT weather day. In retrospect, we've only had 2 ports where rain negatively impacted the day and only 3 sea days of partial rain. So that's a huge blessing. Here's the approach at sunrise.

Disembarkation was at 7:30 and we were queued up early to avoid a potential repeat of the Singapore customs debacle. But it was nothing like Singapore. Dubai had friendly, efficient customs agents, we were through in a jiffy. We were wavering on the best way to get to downtown from the port. We heard the metro was fantastic, inexpensive and reasonably close by. But for $75 each, the hop on hop off was waiting right outside immigration and so convenience won out. Still quite a savings over the ship's $125 version of the same excursion. Kudos to Dubai....first port to have the HOHO right their ready to chauffer us around your fine city.

Immediately we were struck by the amazing architecture. Best city yet

The shuttle took us to the Dubai mall, but we stayed on as it was the beginning of the red line. After 2 short stops, we were at the Museum of the Future. (Bottom right pic above). "The Museum of the Future welcomes people of all ages to see, touch, and shape our shared future. Go on a journey through possible futures and bring hope and knowledge back to the present". What that means is they first transport us to 2071 through VR technique where we venture into space to harvest sufficient solar power from the sun to meet all the power needs of the world. We even saw a prototype of the satellite.

After that we returned to earth to experience over 22,000 genetic copies of animals and plants in their "lab"

We visited the 4 main areas of how they're approaching this futuristic challenge (aquatic, forest, desert, arctic) and a futuristic showroom of people, pets, transportation and so on.

It was fascinating to see what they're working on for the next 50 years

We reboarded the HOHO and headed to the river where we had a 1pm reservation for a river cruise. As we were early, we shopped and had lunch, which we ate al fresco. 3 hearty chicken Kabobs with bread and a drink, beautifully packed for only about $7.

The cruise was pleasant and a great way to see that part of the city, called old dubai. The boats pictured are water taxis, not the large open deck vessel we were on, that resembled a pirate ship.

We then reboarded the HOHO and headed to the spice market. It felt like something right out of an old Arabian movie. Alley ways full of vendors in white cloaks selling spices and textiles. We settled on a spice dealer and got saffron, fennel and dill. Saffron, the world's most expensive spice, was $7.50 for .1 oz. Sounds like a lot but the same quantity on Amazon ranges from $21-$100. The dill and fennel worked out to about $1.75/oz. That's a good deal too. Cooking with those spices will be a wonderful reminder of our trip. Here are some pics from the spice market.

After the market we got back on the HOHO to finish the red line and transfer to the blue line, where we would see a man-made marina, the world's large roller coaster when finished, a mall with a ski slope inside and more amazing buildings.

Toward the end of the blue route, they had a hoho waiting for us to return to the ship. Perfect timing!! Bravo Dubai.

After a light dinner, we went to the folklorico, local dancers who are invited on board to share their talent, heritage and customs with us.

Our friend, Hasida, was the one up dancing with one of the dancers who came into the audience. Such a fun night. This was one of those days when I say to myself "I can't believe this is my life I'm living"

We have another 1/2 day in Dubai before we head to Oman. My wife and I will go to the Dubai Mall, which has over 1200 stores. So odd that malls in the US are dying a slow, painful death and yet malls here are incredibly popular. Perhaps having indoor ski slopes is just what we need.

Till tomorrow.