Wacky Dubai photos and stories

Bell and I just spent 3 days in crazy Dubai, UAE on our way from Dublin to Melbourne, Australia. It was a pretty incredible experience, with a few great stories and tips to share. As we’re busy traveling and catching up with friends, we just wanted to post a few Dubai photos of some things we’ll be writing on in more depth later.

The Miracle Gardens just recently opened and are being touted as the “largest natural flower garden in the world,” despite being in the middle of the desert.

The Grand Souq Market in the Deira section of Dubai is where you’ll find loads of  clothing and trinkets. Vendors are happy to throw a head dress on you for a photo- a good sales ploy to make you feel obligated to buy something.

Sheikh Mohammed is Prime Minister, Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, and constitutional monarch of Dubai. So what do you get for the man who has everything? A massive billboard to his highness, of course.

There is no shortage of western chains in Dubai, even including chains we’d never previously heard of.

Almost all chain names in Dubai are also written in Arabic, and the above is even censored. N_k_d Pizza! Makes perfect sense.

Stories to come from Dubai: Spending the first night in a cheap, disturbing and horrible hotel that still managed to have “concierge service,” which became a running joke that eventually quite annoyed Bell (we got into Dubai very late but went far too cheap with that booking, even for a place just to lie our heads). The next night, when we arrived at our friends’ house, many drinks were involved and the girls went to bed earlier, unfortunately they also accidentally locked their husbands out in the backyard and were completely passed out. Over the next hour and a half, my friend and I made many drunken, desperate attempts to get back into his house, which involved several things getting broken. The next day he declared “Jesus, it looks like Oscar Pistorius was here.”