After another stopover at Beijing airport (this time without missing our connecting flight) we got to Dubai. As always we didn't make any plans, reserve any hotels, so this time at the airport itself we decided to book with one of the better hotels. The Taj Palace 5-star hotel. Originally we planned to stay there for 3 nights but when we found out that it was not really possible to do desert-tours for more then 1 day we just decided to stay all 12 days in this hotel.


It was another shock to go from the mountains and cold Japan to the burning heat of Dubai. On average it was about 35-40 (95-104F) degrees while we were there. So we ended up chilling alot at our roofpool.
The main reason we went to dubai was to check on the worlds Tallest tower..




One day we took an airplane ride over dubai and also got a great view of the Burj Khalifa.


Next to the Burj Kalifa was the biggest Mall in the world with over 1200 stores, a small soccercourt for kids, a full olympic ice-skating range, and a HUGE aquarium with lots of exotic fish..


In front of the mall/Khalifa was also a waterfountainshow every hour with the fountains shooting up to 150m (500 feet).



Because there was a pretty big 'line' to go to the top the first time we went up it was dark before we were able to go up the first time. Even though the building is 828m high, the observation deck is at 450m and that is also the highest point you can get to unless you are a resident in the building.


It was also pretty impressive to see the watershow from up high and at night it looked even better then during the day because of the lighting.


Here is the view during the day:


But since a couple days later we took the waterplane ride (we wanted to do a hot air balloon ride but for some reason that was no longer possible) across the city you got a good idea of how much dubai is still under construction and that it is actually a city that isn't even half finished yet.


While on the plane we also got a great view of one of the famous palmtrees of dubai:


And also the islandgroup that they call 'the world' that is still under construction.



Because this was to the end of our trip and while being in Thailand and especially in Japan we did activities/site-seeing every single day we decided to just relax in dubai most of the time and we spend a couple of days just sitting at the pool reading/relaxing/eating icecream.

This was the first time I stayed in a 5star hotel and it had some weird things.. for example, when you wanted icecubs you couldn't go to an icecube machine but you would use one of the four phones located in your room to call roomservice and they would then bring you a bucket of ice-cubes.

Also when you got to the pool and wanted to lay down on one of the most comfortable loungechairs I've ever relaxed on at a pool someone would first put a towel down for you... then bring you some cold water and lots of free icecream...

Here is one of the guys responsible for that..


It was really weird for us to have someone do all those things for you because we are used to do all those things ourself and you feel kindof guilty for letting someone do things for you that are no trouble to do at all yourself... But sometimes it's better to just let them do their jobs then be persistent in wanting to do those things yourself because let's be honest it is pretty ridiculous to have someone put down a towel for you when you want to lay down...


One day we went to the Wild water park where they had something I had never seen before:
Slides that go up instead of down. You would sit on a tube and were being shot upwards with pretty high speed that you really had to hold on to the tube or it would be blown out underneath your ass..
It was actually lots of fun and it was all around the entire water park..

You could also practice surfing a little bit but the line for it was somewhat long.


There was also a great view of the Burj Al Arab, another one of the famous Dubai buildings with a tenniscourt at the top.


(view from the airplane)

Here was the plane we took.


I was in the co-pilot position but they took away my steeringwheel :x



One day we decided to do a day-trip to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the country (and about 2 hours away from Dubai), we went to a famous palace which looked alot like the Taj Mahal..


Again it was not really allowed to take pictures everywhere but being silly tourists we didn't really obey all the rules..


Before you were allowed to enter you had to dress in white (man) or black (woman)..


We weren't allowed to keep the new clothes unfortunately because they were pretty comfortable... The reminded me of all the japanese Kimono's we had worn...

Even though it wasn't really possible to do a long desert tour we did end up going to a desert safari but it was kindof a let down because it turned out that we were going in a convoy of about 40 trucks and that it was at least 100 people doing the tour. It was extremely touristy and that was kindof what we were hoping to avoid with the long desert tour we wanted.. but what can you do... At least the desert was nice..




I will end this blogpost and trip report with the pool at nighttime where we spend so many hours..



All in all it was an amazing trip around the world and I am really happy by our choice of countries. I have some more thoughts on this (especially dubai) and will elaborate more in a future blogpost but I don't think it was really part of the Trip report.

Thanks for reading.
For those going to vegas this summer, I will be there the entire month of July and make sure to hit me up if you are also there during this time.

Robin out.