MONDAY (JANUARY 28th) IN DUBAI

Today we slept in till late and had a cruisy morning with breakfast at the hotel restaurant and then we headed out to the local shops again -We were so amazed at how cheap everything was in this part of town and we gave in and bought a few things, they hate you leaving the shop so when Deane was about to buy something and said I will come back after I exchange my US$, the man said no no – I can do that too, so he picked up the phone and rang the local forex (exchange shop) and got the NZ/US$ exchange rate then and there!! It was hilarious! I guess they are scared if you walk out you will never come back – Deane did it 3 times when he was bartering over an Ipod and finally got one for NZ$300. Amazing how cheap electronics are and lucky we didn’t have too much room, one of the things we left behind at Auckland was Bri’s CD cassette player and even still we couldn’t get a cheap one in Dubai cos we didn’t have the spare room for the plane.
The kids were worn out and decided to chill out so stayed in the hotel watching movies while Deane and I walked down to the creek and went for a ride on the water taxi for an hour which took us right down to the new end of town. We headed back and got everyone then headed through the local streets and shops to get some dinner – it was really interesting a Monday night and for the first time since we had left home we had seen woman and children out and about with the men, every other time it had just been men everywhere, no woman.
We packed up our suitcases and set the wakeup call for 4.30am, our stay in Dubai was coming to an end, it was an amazing time and amazing city with so many comparisons and contrasts or old and new, traditional and modern – we would love to revisit one day.
9 hours behind NZ
Currency = NZ$1 = UAE Durham