Hester's Head

Our first stop after Christmas was an overnight visit to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the emirate of Abu Dhabi and the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

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It is still bigger than Dubai, but not for long. I'll get back to that.
Abu Dhabi is a beautiful place that seems a little more laid back than Dubai. I was able to get ashore for the evening. Mike and I helped Christine find a guitar and then we had some Indian food for dinner - we ate for C$5. We had to hurry with the guitar shopping because she had to get back to the ship for a cocktail party. I don't do cocktail parties, I'm not a mingler - I'd rather stand there and watch the ice sculpture melt. Mike and I walked around a bit, saw some mosques, and went to the mall for some necessities. Like shaving cream and dental floss. Then another taxi back to the ship. The taxis were surprisingly cheap here.

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Muslims pray five times a day. I'm sure you know they pray toward Mecca. The prayer times are different for each place so they are published in the paper. The prayers can be done anywhere; they don't have to be done at the mosque. Muslims are encouraged to pray together in mosques, but group prayer is only a religious obligation for the noon prayer on Friday. Women, travelers, sick Muslims, and those attending to the sick are granted license not to attend the Friday congregational prayer, although they may attend if they wish. The Friday prayer is lead by an Imam who preaches on a subject that is current and selected by the government. The Imams are all told what the subject is and they have close to a week to become familiar with the topic and come up with a speech. Most malls and some establishments have prayer rooms that you can use. The prayers only take two minutes so there really is no excuse for missing one. The guide for the mosque tour said that the prayers are a constant reminder of their faith and gives them a sense of belonging to a group. She also joked that it's hard to do bad when you are praying so often. Islam is about good deeds and bad deeds. I didn't quite hear what she said, but I think she said that you have an angel (?) on each shoulder, the one on the left keeps track of your bad deeds and the one on your right keeps track of the good ones. Every step you take toward a mosque is an example of a good deed. I don't think that missing a prayer is considered a bad deed. She gave the example of a doctor who was in the middle of surgery during the call to prayers. He would not leave his patient on the operating table to go pray - he would go pray after the surgery was complete.

The next morning we did a five-hour transit up the coast to Dubai. The January 2007 edition of National Geographic was well timed for our visit and they had Dubai on the cover and an article titled "Sudden City." Sudden huge stunning modern city.

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Our aircrew took the last two pictures during a flight to Dubai. You can see "The World" under construction in the third picture - a map of the world made up of islands. If you are an architect and think big then come here. You HAVE to be imaginative and have big ideas.

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The Burj Dubai will be the world tallest building, and I think they have plans for one even taller yet. The malls are filled with kiosks selling luxury apartments. There are bigger, better, funkier buildings planned. Spiral buildings designed like candles. It's endless. It's amazing. It's scary.

I included this picture because it was BARE desert when I was here in 2002:

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It was a 30-minute bus ride through bare desert to get to Dubai from Jebel Ali. Now there is that skyline. You can't see it (cuz I didn't take the picture) but there is an international airport to the right, a sprawling oil refinery to the left, and the even more sprawling Ibn Battuta mall directly to my right. The Ibn Battuta Mall is five different malls with different themes in one. I was there only because the Cirque Du Soleil had their tent set up in the parking lot.

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I didn't bother going in the Ibn Battuta mall. I had already checked out the Deira City Centre mall, the Bur Juman centre, and the Mall of the Emirates:

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I had no business in the Mall of the Emirates. All I did was look around and take some pictures. I did buy the new Robbie Williams CD at the Virgin Record Superstore and a coffee at Seattle's Best Coffee, but that was it. I walked though the Galleria and was really out of place there. The only shop I went into was the Emporio Armani Caffe [sic], but I didn't buy anything. I briefly considered buying some Armani honey but it was under glass and I didn't feel up to the effort of finding someone to ask the price.

Enough about Dubai, I have a blog to write. This one is turning out to be a lot of work. I'm starting with four pages of notes and nearly 500 pictures. I weeded out 328 good ones that I will keep. I had to name them all. Then I had to choose which ones I wanted to add to the blog. I'm still at 74. Those 74 had to be cropped and resized and then uploaded to Photobucket. Thankfully Photobucket is easy to use compared to the member galleries on CKA. It took close to an hour to add them only because our Internet is painfully slow. Then I had to copy the link to each one and paste all 74 into this Notepad document to write my blog. I don't know how many will end up in this blog but I suspect it will be a lot. I've deleted one so far. It was of some kids tobogganing down a luge run at Ski Dubai. I wonder if it would be easier if I figured out how to make my Photobucket public.

I made it to the City Centre Mall on our first day in Dubai. I can't remember what I needed to buy at the Carrefour but I gave up on it. The Carrefour was like the grand opening of a Superstore added to the grand opening of a Wal-Mart multiplied by Christmas Eve. It was BUSY. A friend of mine asked me to find some perfume "Lisa" for a friend of his named Lisa. I read the mall map, shortly discovered that I must've misread the mall map, was sent to the third floor, found a place that sent me back to the second floor, read the mall map again, discovered my error, finally found the place, was told the Lisa was discontinued, decided to find something to eat. Le Gaufrette was right there so I checked it out. I had a spicy chicken sandwich - fresh from the Foreman grill - and a mozzarella cheese and honey crepe. At first I thought there was only a bit of shredded cheese on top of the whipped cream, it took me a few bites to realize that the scalding hot gooey stuff in the middle was cheese. Even the restaurant was a zoo. A Russian couple asked if they could sit at my table. I had no problem with that but the waitress sent them packing. I guess you have to wait your turn.
I can't remember why I brought my laptop along (it's all a blur - I need better notes or a better memory) but I asked where I could get Internet access. I was told to go to Starbucks. I went to Starbucks and was told I needed to go to Customer Services and buy a card. I bought the card and went to find a spot to use it. I decided not to go far, so I sat on the floor outside the Baskin Robbins. I was asked for my mobile number to log in but I couldn't get in. I went back to Customer Services and they told me that a code would be sent to my mobile. I didn't have my phone there so I was able to use one of theirs. The code was sent very quickly and then I was online. The signal was very weak and even disappeared a couple times. I stood there with my laptop on the Customer Services kiosk counter - in case I had other issues. The two guys didn't seem to mind. I wasn't online long before I gave up. Not that anything was blocked, it was just painfully slow. CKA was brutally slow and I gave up on that. I was online long enough to check Future Shop's site and determine that Ipods are considerably cheaper in Canada. Time was short, it was getting late, and I wanted to get to the Gold Souk. I went around this amazingly long line-up to go find a taxi. I assumed that the line-up was for a movie or something. I thought it was strange that people had shopping carts in the line-up, but whatever. The next day I found out that they were lined up for taxis. I didn't know that at the time and went outside. The taxis were dropping off people and heading away. A guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted a taxi. I said yes and asked to go to the Gold Souk. He said to follow him. I looked inside the car as I was about to get in and saw that there wasn't a metre. I asked him, "How much to the gold souk?" He said it was 50 dirham. That was crazy, I offered him 30, he said 40, I said 35, he said 40 - 10 dirham off was a good price. I put 35 dirham in a pocket as we left. When we got to the souk I told him I only had 35 dirham and he was happy with that. It was probably still at least four times the price of a legal taxi, but I got to where I had to go and didn't have to find a taxi or wait in that line-up.
Another friend of mine had asked me to buy her daughter a size 6 gold puzzle ring. The first place didn't have any; the second place had a few. The man told me to go around the corner to his other shop - they would have lots of rings there. They had a very nice puzzle ring in yellow and white gold that was the right size. I offered 400 dirham when they said 450. They got their calculator out, did some math, came up with 405 and said ok to my offer of 400. They boxed the ring, gave me a certificate and I was out of the gold souk in less than 15 minutes. I was very pleased about that. I was also pleased that the ring had cost me about C$133 for 6.5 grams of gold.
The next time I was able to get ashore was New Year's Eve. I went ashore with Mike and we ended up walking ALL day. Finding a taxi was often an unbearable chore.

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There are almost 600 mosques in Dubai. Close to four hundred are government run and fewer than 200 are privately run. There are a few beautiful ones like this:

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I came to the conclusion that they might be Iranian mosques. Partly because there were so few of them, but mainly because there was one in between an Iranian Hospital and an Iranian Polyclinic and they were both decorated the same way.

Mike asked me to take a picture of him in front of the mosque.

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After the mosque we went through the Dubai Museum. This is a dhow in front of ('on top of' is more accurate) the museum.

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The museum is the original fort from 1790 - it might be the original building in Dubai. It is only 3 dirham and you could spend a few hours there. I bought a souvenir shisha pipe and a camel cane. The camel cane was very handy for pointing things out. There were so many things to see. Look at that building, look at that mosque, is that the crosswalk? What's that?
Mike got very tired of the cane.
You can see how oil has helped the Middle East expand so rapidly. But Dubai has moved beyond that as only 6% of their GDP comes from oil now. Since the 50's Dubai seems to have evolved into a different city each decade. It is stunning.
We made our way through the old souk and the textile souk before crossing Dubai creek on an abra - one of these small boats.

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The abra cost 33 cents for both of us. Dubai creek really isn't a creek - it's just an inlet of the Arabian Gulf. The father of the current Sheikh had big plans for Dubai and borrowed money to dredge and enlarge the creek.
After getting off the abra we toured around the spice souk for a bit. Saffron is still expensive here, but far cheaper than Canada. A little bit goes a long way unless you use it quite often.

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There is more saffron off to the left in the boxes. Various grades of it for various prices. When I shopped for it in 2002 it was all "#1" - but some seemed to be more #1 than others. You can buy the powder or the threads. I came to understand that when buying the threads you want to see less yellow and more dark red. There are lots of spices in the souk. I don't recognize most when I look at them, but I do know a lot, and they are familiar when I'm told what they are. In this picture you should be able to recognize the sticks of cinnamon.

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Of the five white bags, one of the two on the left holds frankincense. The bag of white stuff is alum. I think you rub it on your skin after shaving. I had a small rock of it in my hand and I asked him how much. He said 9 dirham, I said 1, and he said "Take it as a gift." Other than that, I don't know what's what.
There are alleys of this stuff. It's quite the maze.

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Mike and I wanted to try shwarmas and the shisha pipe. We seemed to walk forever. Past the end of the spice souk the city seemed to be rolling up the carpets and then we were suddenly in Hong Kong. Blazing neon signs and the streets were packed with people. After asking for directions a few times we finally found a shisha place. Seems that shishas and shwarmas go together. Shwarmas were good, but I think that east coast donairs are better. They are small - so order two. The shishas were cool, though I struggled with it. The waiter had to get mine going a few times. I think he also just really enjoyed smoking.

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Mike had grape and I had orange flavoured tobacco. I didn't smoke mine for long as I only wanted to try it. If you sucked hard enough the orange would taste more like orange peel. The grape was good. This picture shows a bit more of the shisha pipes.

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I included this picture because you can see my camel cane that annoyed Mike so much. Cost me 10 dirham - I kept thinking I should've bought two as Mike threatened this one a few times.

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We walked back and took another abra across the creek. It was very hard to find a taxi that didn't have people in it. So we kept walking. And walking. We ended up walking all the way to the Seaman's club where the ship's New Year's Eve festivities were taking place. It probably wasn't very far, but our feet were tired and it seemed like a long way. There were a few coalition ships involved and some singers from at least Canada and Australia. There were four from Canada followed by "4 Brownies and a Spliff" from Australia. The countdown to midnight was informal. The band asked if it was time, someone in the crowd said yes, we counted down from 10 and it was 2007. If you ask me their watch was almost two minutes fast.
The next morning Gary came along with Mike and I and we went shopping for gold. Gary wanted to buy a bracelet/bangle thing for himself. It had to have balls on it. What's up with that? He bought a very nice one - kind of like the bands for seasickness or equilibrium - that kind of thing. He had also planned to buy new wedding bands for himself and his wife and then something for his wife. He got the wedding bands, had his old band polished, and then bought his wife a bracelet with matching earrings and necklace. A lot of gold that came with a lot of haggling. I think he did very well.

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After the gold we briefly went to the spice souk and then went to the City Centre for some lunch. Again it was impossible to get a taxi. After about 15 minutes of trying we gave up and hired an abra to take us up the creek to the mall. It turned out to be worth the ride as it was very nice and relaxing and the sights from the creek were amazing.

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We ate a Lebanese restaurant at the mall. These places always give you a huge pile of vegetables that you have to make into a salad yourself and a plate of olives as starters. The salad plate comes with a knife so that you can chop up the cabbage, whole tomatoes, whole cucumbers, whole lemon and whole green peppers. All our meals came with fries. Doesn't seem to matter what you order in Dubai, it will come with fries. Fries are big. Chicken tikka with fries. Grilled hammour with fries. Lamb with fries.
After lunch I headed to the Ibis World Trade Centre where I had booked a room. It was very nice, very modern and very small with no frills - they didn't have mini-bars and there was no room service. The queen-size bed filled the room and the TV/dresser/desk/night stand ran the length of the room in front of the window. The bathroom was L-shaped – I could reach the opposite walls with outstretched arms. You had to be careful when drying off.
I paid an atrocious amount of money for the Internet in my room so I tried to check out CKA. That's when I found that so little is available on the site. At first it was no forums, no PM’s and I wasn’t able to look at blog comments. When I went back I had been kicked out and wasn’t allowed to log back in. I watched the BBC News before I found the coverage of the Hajj. I know you have to be a Muslim to even enter Mecca, but I would like to participate. It is one of the most amazing things I've seen. One of the last things the pilgrims do is stone three walls symbolizing Satan. They have almost completed building a bridge for the pilgrims to cross to throw their stones after 362 pilgrims were killed in a crush last year.
This year the traffic was also one-way only and they were permitted start earlier in the day.
The next morning my plan was to tour the Jumeira mosque. I was up early so that I could walk there as I had a good idea of where it was. The concierge said it was walkable, but that it would be a long walk. It took me almost an hour because I kept getting distracted by other things to stop and look at and take pictures of.

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I saw another of the blue tiled mosques, this one much bigger than the previous ones and very impressive. There was an elevated walkway to cross the street from an Iranian hospital to an Iranian polyclinic and the mosque - from the walkway I could see the Jumeira Mosque about a block away. I might be mistaken, but I thought the mosque was almost on the beach. Now there is a mall across the street between the mosque and the beach. I was able to get a Starbucks and take some pictures of the mosque while I waited for the tour.

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Our tour guide was Latifa. I paid my 10 dirham, got a pamphlet and a thing of water - kind of like a yoghurt container - sealed with the tinfoil top but no plastic lid. Latifa was from the UK - she met her husband when he came there to study. She talked and answered questions for over an hour. I should have brought my notebook with me. I had meant to go back for another tour. For those of you still reading you will have to suffer with what I can remember and rejoice that this blog isn't longer. We don't have any Internet access tonight so I can't even double check what I do recall. She started off with demonstrating the washing before prayers. You wash your face three times, your arms up to the elbows three times and the feet up to the knees three times. She indicated it was done three times just to be thorough. The men do it outside at a special place near the entrance while the women do it inside in a private spot reserved for them. What the women wear is up to them. It doesn't have to cover their face and it doesn't have to be black. She joked that the men say it's black because they want the women to suffer and the women say that it's because black is slimming. Whether or not they cover their face is their own personal choice. Latifa demonstrated how they cover their face but she didn't wear it for long as she didn't like it. Her original name was ‘Tracy’; she said she changed it because it sounded like 'Crazy' when her Arabic mother-in-law pronounced it. You do not have to change your name when you accept Islam, again it is your choice. A few asked questions about Islam and violence. She said that most Muslims were as confused as the rest of us and referred to these extremists as 'psychos'. According to Islam everyone goes to heaven, but your good deeds and bad deeds determine how much time you spend in hell. One of the worst crimes is to commit suicide, another is to kill women and children. Therefore she can't understand the thinking behind the suicide bombings - these people will spend a lot of time in hell.

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The lines in the carpet are to help people line up and have enough room for their prayers. Men stand shoulder to shoulder with other men, women stand shoulder to shoulder with other women. If a man and woman are standing side-by-side they will leave a gap of a couple inches. That gap is merely for comfort - standing in contact like that might make it difficult to concentrate and would probably make you uncomfortable. I'm not a fan of physical contact; I would like that inch of personal space.
The Burj Dubai wasn't too far out of my way on my way back to the hotel. It is well on its way to being the world's tallest building - it will be considerably taller than the CN Tower.

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I went back to the spice souk right around lunchtime. Most shops and malls stay open now, but a lot of places close from about one in the afternoon until 4. This poor guy decided to stay at work.

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I walked around a bit before finding some lunch. I decided to try one of the more local places - the place I walked into only had men in it and felt a bit like a lunchroom or dorm cafeteria. It turns out they had a family room upstairs. I sat with a guy eating some hammour. The waiter asked me I wanted chicken biryani. Anyone keeping track of how many times I've had that this trip? I know it and like it so I said yes please and asked for a bottle of water too. They showed me the sink so that I could wash before I ate.
It seemed that most of the people there were eating the biryani. They must have made a huge pot of it. Mine came with a plate of sliced tomatoes and red onions that no one else had as well as a bowl of white liquid with small bits of green onion floating in it. I didn't know if I was to drink it, pour it on my rice and eat it with the spoon. I asked the guy sitting beside me and I found out I was to eat it like soup. It tasted very much like a watery tsaziki sauce. I was eating the biryani when I looked around the place. A LOT of the men were looking at me. I figured they were gawking at the tourist. I noticed that I was the only person using a fork as everyone else was eating with their hands. Eating with my hands sounded like something I could do no problem so I tried it. Everyone was still looking at me. What the heck? Donna and Peter (more about them a bit later) might be able to correct me, but after a minute of wonderment I figured it must be because the left-handed tourist was eating with his left hand. Actually I was eating with both hands. I put my left hand away and only used my right. It was a bit of a chore as it wasn't used to that. Neither was I. My index finger was uncooperative. It didn't seem to want to bend - not like the Queen's pinkie finger when she's drinking tea, but halfway there. Weird. I couldn't get it to stop. But the looks did stop, most of the men went back to eating and a couple of them smiled at me. The dish was chicken with the biryani on top and the rice on top of that which meant you had to mix it together with your hands. I liked it (you knew I would) and I wasn't the only person leaving rice all over the table. I even had seconds! The waiter came back and asked if I wanted more rice. I said yes please. He came back with a small plate, tipped it to the side, tapped it on my plate and the rice slid off. Oh joy! I had more rice and biryani to mix together. It was awesome! After I ate I washed my hands again and paid. It was 12 dirham (C$3) including the bottle of water.

I wandered around, mostly aimlessly, for an hour or two. Most places were closed and I had nothing to do. There are public washrooms located in small square white buildings. The first was the squat toilet and the second had no toilet paper. I didn't want to deal with either, especially having to use a hose instead of toilet paper. I finally used the bathroom at the St George Hotel. Thanks to the hose many bathrooms had lots of water on the floor, which horrified me as well. The men much prefer to use the bathroom stalls. I was in one washroom at the Mall of the Emirates where there were 10 stalls and two men were in line to use them. There were nine urinals and only one person was using them. Which reminds me of 2002... I was at Wild Wadi's, a water park near the Burj Hotel, getting dressed, when a man came in with his two children. He was absolutely apoplectic when he saw me and started swearing and screaming at me. The 'F' word was a favourite. There were many little change rooms around, but I didn't know I HAD to use one. But what is worse - your children seeing a guy getting dressed or their father swearing and screaming like he was? I wasn't loitering, I was getting dressed and getting out of there.
Back to walking around - I saw billboard advertising "Wellness Health and Vitality Drink for Men." I had to check that out. I went into the pharmacy below the sign and bought two. I drank one and kept one for a souvenir. I talked to the guy in the place for a bit and then he asked me where I'd had lunch. It took me a second to think about it, then I realized that the place was right across the street. He said "Yes, yes! I sat beside you, I'm the guy who showed you to eat!" Awesome He was the guy who told me the stuff was to be eaten like a soup.
A couple days later I went for a walk to the Bur Juman centre. And found more construction. I had stayed in a hotel across the street four years earlier and used to run across the street to the mall instead of waiting at the crosswalk in the heat. Running across the street is no longer an option as a rapid transit is being built and a few lanes of the road seem to be heading underground. The train will run from Jebel Ali to Sharjah (I think). It will be great, but it's already annoying a lot of taxi drivers.

Now I get into the pictures. Mike and I went for a daylong tour of Hatta near the Oman border. Assam, from Pakistan, was our guide and driver.

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Our tour included Peter and Donna - a very nice young couple from Ireland who teach in Dubai.

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We drove through the desert and past it.

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And up into the same mountains we saw in Muscat. Hatta is a small village about 10km from the Omani border.

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We bumped along a road above Hatta and stopped on a dam that was holding in a small lake. There were a few 4X4's out here, including a Hummer, and even a few taxis.

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The crisp clear air, with minimal humidity, in small rugged hills with almost no vegetation reminded me of the high Arctic summer. In 1998 I had spent three months at Eureka right on the 80th parallel. The depth of the Middle East winter reminded me of the height of the Arctic summer. Go figure.
There is lots of litter in the desert. I suppose with nothing but sand to catch on the wind will blow things around for years. We went for a short hike to see some crevasses, rock formations and some water before we went for lunch.

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In the centre of this picture you can see hoodoo like rock that I leapt onto. And promptly got stuck on. I sat on my butt and put my feet on a lip before making the leap. Without an apparent thought of how I would leap back onto the lip. Peter came along, climbed up, looked around, climbed back down. I thought about leaping back but couldn't do it. I was stuck. I thought about climbing down but had left my camera behind me. Peter climbed up and rescued my camera as Assam came over to help me down. Mike was taking pictures and Donna showed me that she had also taken enough pictures to almost make a movie. Thanks you two. Assam told me to jump. I didn't have faith that he would catch me, I could only imagine me crashing into him and both of us tumbling onto the rocks and then into the water. Assam gave me a hand and a shoulder to help me scramble down. I envy the people who learn from their mistakes.

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Mike's favourite animal is the camel. This is a good-looking one, though the way he way sitting there looked extremely uncomfortable.

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This is the view from the Hatta Fort Hotel where we had lunch.

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It was a great way to spend a day. The company was fine too. Assam was very nice, very helpful and a wealth of information. And Donna and Peter had travelled more than I had. They indicated that they considered coming to Canada to teach. Mike and I tried to tell them what they should go see, but you really can't see much of Canada unless you take a few months or years to do it. Bring a tent and some freeze-dried food and hike the West Coast Trail. I gave them the link to my blog, I hope their ISP is more forgiving than the one I was hooked up to. Hi Peter! Hi Donna! Now go finish marking that homework. Donna teaches kindergarten (which is four-year-olds in Dubai) and Peter teaches Grades 3, 4, and 5. Maybe they don't have a lot of homework to grade. Their next trip was planned for Jordan. How was it? Did you get there yet?
On our way back into Dubai Assam pointed out the Royal Airwing with its private entrance. The Royal family has their own airport which appears to be very similar in size to Victoria's. How sweet that must be.
After Assam dropped us off Mike and I went for a walk because I wanted some pictures of a couple of Dubai's landmarks.

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The clocktower is one of Dubai's oldest landmarks - it's one year older than me. The second building is the clubhouse for the Dubai Creek Golf and Country Club. See what I mean about the architecture? We walked around the clubhouse and down the creekside before attempting to cut through the Hyatt back to the street. The Hyatt is made up of hotels, villas, and bungalows and built into the hillside. We walked in and promptly had to ask directions on how to get out. Because of the hillside, if you walk in the back door you have to take the elevator to the third floor to walk out the main entrance. We walked through a Beverly Hills style neighbourhood back to the City Centre mall. I took a picture of a garage with two Bentleys in it and we also saw a Lamborghini and a Ferrari. Bentleys are one of the more popular cars here. We saw two open garages, with nothing in them at all other than the vehicles. No power tools, no hand tools, no bicycles, no storage, no shelving, no garbage - nothing. Not even a screwdriver.

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Back at the mall we ate at an Iranian restaurant. I had yoghurt kababs - an Southern Iranian dish of marinated lamb pieces in yoghurt and black pepper AND FRIES.

The last day in Dubai I had planned to go back to the Jumeira Mosque, mail a package and go to the Mall of the Emirates to check out Ski Dubai. I didn't get up as early as I should have, but it worked out even better as I ran into the CO and he asked me if I wanted to go see Cirque Du Soleil. I pondered it for a moment. I had seen them on TV and thought they were ok. I had seen the IMAX movie and wasn't impressed. But it's hard to say no to free tickets - so I didn't.
I needed to get a package ready for mailing so I went to the nearest mall to see what I could get. I ended up getting directions to the garbage room where I found a box and some wrapping paper. More water on the floor was a nice touch. I just needed some tape and a marker. I found some and then took a taxi to the main Post Office. A mother and daughter were wrapping a package too and took some pity on me and my lousy scotch tape. They came over and lent me their masking tape and then their packing tape. I got the parcel wrapped nicely, but I was worried about the paper. It was meant for packaging fragile items and not for wrapping boxes. Turns out the post office was concerned to. They got me a nice Emirates Post box and sealed it up with nice Emirates Post tape. I wish I had known about that before going to the mall and rummaging through their garbage room. The post office only took cash so I had to go looking for a bank machine. I got it mailed off and then went to the Mall of the Emirates as I was now an hour too late to go to the mosque. I only wandered around there for a bit before heading back to the ship to catch the bus to go see Cirque Du Soleil. You only need one word to describe it: "WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW!" Sorry for using it so many times. It was far better than I could have imagined. The show was awesome. If you EVER get the chance to see it - DO IT! Take your kids. Their mouths will be wide open for the duration of the show and they will remember it forever. It was incredible. The Canadian and Quebec flags flying from the top of the tent were nice to see too.
After the show the bus brought us back to the ship. I've been working on the blog ever since. I think my guys are wondering when I'm going to do some real work. I'm wondering who's still reading this