Dubai

Dubai

Dubai is very cool; I dig it, yet somehow I seem to like Abu Dhabi more. Dubai is of course spectacular, and we were only there for about a day in a half so we only scratched the surface. The thing about Dubai is that its not really a city; or at least it doesn't feel like a city. It looks more like what a city in the future would look like, but in a kinda' spooky way. When you enter the city there's tons of buildings and roads/bridges everywhere but it almost feels like you are in the set of a Sci Fi movie of the 70's.


Our fist stop of course was the Dubai Mall, which is the largest mall in the world, and its amazing. Needless to say they got all the big stores, and they added an aquarium, a souk, ice rink, etc, etc, I mean its huge.
They also have the biggest fish-tank I've ever seen, maybe the largest in the world, its like 3 stories high! Huge !


That first night we met some friends at a very cool outdoor bar near the beach and that was a lot of fun. I didn't take any pictures 'cause I guess we were having too much fun.
Next day we went to the Gold Souk and that was very cool.



We were seeing gold pieces worth thousands of dollars, pretty crazy how there's not that much security around. Maybe they are undercover??



We also tried to get to the top of the Burj Kalifa.


This is the tallest tower in the world and Made's company built it, but it was all sold out; so we had to appreciate it from the outside. Maybe next time.


Drive back was cool, by the way its about an hour drive. Our cab driver was this really nice man from Pakistan who apologized numerous times to us because it was almost time for his prayer (you know, 5 times a day?) and he had to stop at the gas station to pray.
(That's him on the left, prayer room on the right)

We stopped and he went and came back running. I always wondered how long the prayer takes but its only about 5 minutes.

There are prayer rooms everywhere here, even malls ! But when you hear the call to prayer is not like everybody rushes in; I guess its more like a suggested time to pray? not really sure. It seems like you can pick on your own 5 times of the day you're going to pray. I do like the call to prayer. As a "Western musician" I love hearing the Arabic melodies that they sing when they call to prayer.

Dubai - Abu Dhabi Road

Arriving to Abu Dhabi


My teaching job is going well. The kids can be a bit much, but over all its a pretty cool job, and I am enjoying myself. You're NEVER bored at this job. I've heard from the School Principal that they are enjoying the music class, so maybe they're also learning something.
The kids are funny. One little girl always hugs me when she comes to class, she's REALLY excited about class, can barely sit still.
The Six graders are funny as well, they keep asking me if I speak Arabic. The other day they asked again and I said "I'm sorry I don't speak Arabic" and this girl replied, "well, we ask because you look Arabic, but that's a good thing ! We don't mean it in a bad way!".

Last night we went to the Emirates Palace to see the Berlin Philarmonic Conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Man, that was AMAZING !!



They have these great concerts here as part of their "culturization" of the UAE, so you get to see all these amazing bands, and orchestras for practically half the price you would pay in the States or Europe and there's tons of free concerts !

By the way next week is a holiday here, we get 3 days off for the Hajj Pilgrimage. Thankfully the Education Department of the UAE decided to just give the kids the entire week off, needless to say us teachers are pretty excited as well.
Oh by the way last night we experienced our first (thankfully mild) sandstorm.
Its kinda scary, and again this was mild, but the sky gets kinda cloudy and the wind is blowing this very fine grain sand all over.
A student of mine told me that last night his older brother left the one of the windows in their car open, and well, this morning they found tons of sand in it ! That's gotta suck !
This pic actually makes look worst than it was:


Here's a quick video I did. You can tell it wasn't that bad, but at times it really blew, and it went on all night.


anyway, talk to you guys soon

p.s.
Some more Dubai pics