Dubai {day 1}

We arrived in Dubai bright and early (aka: tired and jet-lagged) at 6am, and very excited to finally see Amy and her husband, John! Amy is a good friend of mine from college, and they are living in Dubai temporarily for John's job. They have been there for almost four years now, and are most likely moving back to the US later this year, so we had to jump on our chance to go visit them!

They picked us up at the airport and took us back to their home, where we stayed for the next few days. Seriously we cannot thank them enough for playing host and tour guide!! Definitely the best way to visit Dubai, if you ask me ;)

After a few hours of catching up and getting settled in, John went to work and Amy took me and Bo to the Al Qasr resort.  From there, we hopped on a private boat ride to head towards lunch.

The best description we came up with for Dubai is a mix between Disney and Vegas - everything is new, nice, clean, pretty, extravagant, and expensive.

Along the way to lunch, we had a great view of the Burj Al Arab, which is claimed to be the world's most luxurious hotel.

Our boat ride ended at the Souk Madinat Jumeirah.

Dubai seriously has the craziest things. Gold ATM, anyone?!

We went to the Belgian Beer Cafe for lunch and several beers. We spent all afternoon there just catching up and enjoying the warm weather - quite a difference from winter in Paris the day before!

As soon as we got back home, we got to watch the fountain show - right from their patio! Such a fantastic view. In hindsight, I should have taken a video since the water and lights are choreographed to music. But you get the idea. It was just sooo pretty!

Straight ahead from their patio and across the pond is the Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building. 

Behind the fountain show you can see the Dubai Mall, which is the world's largest shopping mall.

view to the left of the Burj Khalifa

To the right of the pond, is The Address - a hotel that is almost the size of the Empire State Building, but looks tiny in comparison to the Burj Khalifa. Everything is on such a large scale in Dubai, that it almost seemed distorted until you walk around the area and realize just how huge it all is.

For dinner that evening, they took us to an area of town called Deira (aka "Dirty Deira"). We went to Okryu Gwan, which is a North Korean restaurant run by their government. It was....very interesting. Prior to our meal, there was a live performance complete with singing and dancing (thankfully no crowd participation!). We all split several entrees, and everything we ate was delicious. If you are brave enough to ask for alcohol or "special juice", you get to drink warm Heinekin from a bowl. 

From there, we went to the Kitakits Kafe & Klubb at the Marco Polo hotel, which is a Filipino night club with live entertainment. The bands were great and we were in fact highly entertained.

Bo specially requested a Wang Wang - which is a drink we discovered on our cruise last summer that is supposedly a Filipino favorite, and he thoroughly enjoyed it.

At that point, we were all extremely exhausted, but at least Bo and I had successfully adjusted to the time change. We crashed pretty hard that night - well, after a few snuggles with Amy & John's sweet puppy, Harley, that is :)  Isn't he handsome?!