The End of Mom's Visit

Mom left a week ago... time to stop procrastinating and blog about the rest of her visit!

Having someone visit is a great excuse to do all the touristy things you've been putting off. Sure, there are tons of things to see in the UAE, but had it not been for Mom coming here, we probably wouldn't have managed, for example, to see the Burj Khalifa in its first month, and before it was closed to the public!

We've always been curious about the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, but just haven't managed to get there. It was a grey, rainy day when we went, and the place was already crawling with tourists. Every female visitor must wear an abaya and sheyla. I think my Mom looks cute like that:

Anyway, it's a huge mosque, bigger than the Taj Mahal, and containing the biggest chandeliers, the biggest prayer rug, and incredible inlayed decorations on just about every surface.

After a few days in Al Ain, visiting my step-sister (during which time, Ty and I were being good and studious), Mom was back with us for the final few days of her visit. As a special treat, I'd booked us in for a few days at the Jebel Dhanna beach resort.


To get there, we took the long way round, stopping at a few old forts and admiring the oases and general desert scenery...

Not the main road... don't worry!

... including a herd of mommy and baby camels.

If you click on the photo for a bigger version, you will see that some of the camels are wearing "bras" to keep the calves from nursing

Once at the resort, we took in the beauty of the beach, the grass and the water: What a big difference from the sandy expanses of the Empty Quarter!

Low tide - perfect for collecting shells and rocks

View from the hotelBeing beach bums

After enjoying the beach and the buffets for 2 days (and after thwarting my mother's attempts to rob hermit crabs of their homes - every time she collected shells, I had to rescue the ones that were crawling away from the pile and return them to the ocean!!!), Mom headed back to Canada.

Relaxing on the beach before her 2am airport transfer, and 30+ hours of international flights and airports!

Mom's visit ... continued

In actual fact, Mom is already back in Canada. Busy times and computer issues kept us from further blogging...

The Official "First Day of School" Photo, actually taken on the second day of school

Ty's CELTA course brings him to Abu Dhabi 3 or 4 times a week. It's pretty intense! At least for his first week, though, he had some company on the drive to AD, as my Mom and I were eager to play tourist in Abu Dhabi.

Our first Abu Dhabi adventure was the Guggenheim exhibit at the Emirates Palace Hotel. A few of you know that my Mom is an artist, so it seemed like a good idea to bring her to see one of the art exhibits in town. The Guggenheim specializes, of course, in contemporary art, which is not her cup of tea, but which grew on her as we wandered around, looking at Pollocks and Kandinskys and the like.

Not the Guggenheim exhibit, but a different one about proposed developments on Saadiyat Island

Not a Jackson Pollock, but Ty in the kitchen....

Not a Kandinsky, but a vibrant display of colour and form nonetheless...

She was so inspired that a few days later, as we were stuck inside due to a sandstorm, she painted her own little abstract art piece.

My Mommy's artwork

From the Emirates Palace, we headed to the Marina Mall which, unfortunately, was a little bit on fire. No worries, nothing can stop shoppers in Abu Dhabi, so we continued wandering through the mall with the rest of the shoppers.

Our next trip to Abu Dhabi took us for a quiet evening along the Corniche, including supper at a neat little cafe that is in the middle of a spiral fountain, with a view of the Abu Dhabi skyline. Our walk along the beach was thwarted by extensive repair work along the Corniche as they rebuild and expand the waterfront. Yes, well, at any moment of the year, I think there are about 17 million construction projects on the go in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

This is not a picture of repair work along the Corniche, but some buildings that are going up across from the Emirates Palace

A few days later, we went to the Camel Festival again. This time, it was for shopping!

Let me know how many weavings of tanks you might need....

We wandered around the pretty kiosks, full of Bedouin handicrafts and took in the traditional dancers.

It's a bit hard to describe... two lines of men face each other. They are holding long sticks that they wave up and down while they chant.

If you were Harry Potter, this photo would move, and you would be able to fully experience the camel dance

Between them is a whole crowd of men and boys, dancing with sticks or twirling fake guns. Every so often, they go into the "camel dance", where they move their heads and sway down to kneeling positions as if they were camels. It's actually rather hypnotic (and I'm hoping we have a video of it too!).

Liwa and the Camel Festival

With Ty starting his CELTA and now unable to join in our fun, we booked our friend Nawaf for a day of visiting the area around MZ. My work colleague Karen joined in on the fun too.

We started off by poking around one of the Liwa forts before heading off to the desert.

Tal Moreeb (Moreeb Dune) is the largest dune in this area -- I mean, big enough to have its own name!).

This photo shows my Mom standing at the bottom of a part of the dune,
and it isn't even the highest part!

We ran around in the dunes, then went to check out the Liwa hotel (which was, of course, my first "house" here).

From there, it was on to the Al Dhafra Camel Festival. We were immediately invited into a tent, where we were fed sweets and tea - the full-on Bedouin hospitality experience!

It was really nice! We couldn't stay long, though -- just enough time to get a taste and check out the souk really quickly, before heading back home. We'll definitely be going back later in the week!

Dubai Weekend

And so, we kicked off my spring vacation with a weekend in Dubai. My Mom has been to Dubai several times, including almost 30 years ago, when it was nothing but a road in the desert, so we knew we had to make it special.

We started off with an evening around the Creek and good food and great shopping. We had booked a "hotel apartment" so we had a big condo to return to each night.... 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room... and all for just over $150 a night! Unbelievable in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Our plans to ride the new Dubai Metro were thwarted on Friday morning as... well, everything is closed on Friday mornings. We took a taxi instead, first heading to the big Palm island and the Atlantis hotel to look at the big aquarium, and to dance around in the huge hallways.

After that, we went to the Mall of the Emirates for lunch at a South African restaurant overlooking the famous indoor skihill.

On then, to the Burj Khalifa - riding the Metro (which was awesome!).

First, though, we went to the Dubai Mall (the largest something something mall in something... with the largest indoor aquarium or something again) to meet up with Grant and Dianne, who had lived with us in the Liwa hotel and worked in MZ. Now, they live in Sharjah and Grant had reserved our tickets for the Burj a week earlier to make sure that we could watch the sun set from the top (funny fact: The sun sets 30 minutes later when you are so high up!). As you can imagine, the whole Dubai skyline looked tiny from the top of the Burj!



Supper was a real treat (and here's a hint if you are ever in Dubai) at TGIFriday's, which has a patio overlooking the big musical fountain at the base of the Burj. Every 15-20 minutes, we were treated to a wee musical number, with lights and water coordinating along. Another great find by Grant and Dianne!

Exhausted from our long day (I mean, if Ty and I were tired, you can imagine my poor Mom!), we returned to our lovely little apartment to put our throbbing feet up.

The next day, we headed back to the Creek for more shopping and a wander through the Gold Souk and the spice market.

Our Dubai weekend was finished up with a nice visit to the Ibn Battuta Mall, a huge shopping complex based on the historical journey of a 14th C explorer who went from Morocco to China, and all the way up to northern Turkey and Timbuktu!

Really spectacular: Each part of the mall is themed to one of the places he visited.