We really took advantage of vacation time this year. Here are a few highlights of places we went to and things that we did. :)
Here's a little map of the Arabian Peninsula to give you an idea of some of the places we went to. My parents live in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain isn't that far away from where they're at. In fact we took a few flights in and out of Bahrain and even spent some time sightseeing one day. We spent 12 hours or so in Qatar (post and pictures to come soon) and then after Christmas we flew to UAE to spend a few days in Dubai and we stopped in Oman for a little bit. The last post we were in Yemen before Christmas. So in technically, with the exception of Kuwait, we traveled to all of the countries in the Arabian Peninsula! Before I joined up with Matt he spent some time in Jordan too. Although that's not included in the Arabian peninsula, or this post, pictures are coming of that soon.
Dubai- UAE
I have been to Dubai but Matt has not and truth be told, Dubai isn't Matt's kind of place. Probably because it's a tourist magnet and Matt's more into the hidden beauties of the world than the places that people obviously want to visit... which may explain why we have never taken a trip to Disneyland. (I'm working on that.)
Funny story. We had arranged to rent a car in Dubai and drive to Oman because we had heard it was prettier and more of our kind of a place. The night before we left Calvin took out all of the contents of Matt's wallet. When we arrived in Dubai and went to pick up the rental we needed to provide a credit card. My dad doesn't usually carry one and because I knew Matt was carrying his I didn't take mine. We thought it better that we not take all of our cards in case something got stolen, etc. We thought to take as little as possible. In any case, when Matt opened his wallet he had nothing in there. Long story short, we couldn't rent a car at all, and as a result wewere forced decided to spend the few days we had set aside for Oman in Dubai. I didn't think it was a big deal, Dubai wasn't that bad, however the caveat is it's really expensive.
Matt racked up a bunch of hotel points from doing a lot of work in Wyoming before our trip so lucky for us we didn't really pay for a place to stay.
In one tourist/guide book I read about Dubai which said, "if you can dream it, you can have it." Which may be the reason why Dubai has a 7 star hotel that goes under water (they created the 7th star just for this particular hotel), they have "islands" that when seen above make the shape of the 7 continents, they have the largest building in the world, the "lost" city of Alantis (not really lost because, duh, it's in Dubai!), and they have the largest mall in the world, largest as in square feet. Dont forget the indoor skiing! Yup, they have one of those too.
Anyways, like I said, it's a pricy place. Probably another reason why we wanted to escape to Oman. Anyways, we decided to take advantage of what fate had thrown at us.
The tallest building in the world.
<------ Matt posing infront of the Burj Khalifa. It's the largest building in the world. Matt was pretty excited about this land mark that he got to take a trip to the very top.
Scroll down and you can see some of the shots he took at the very top of the "Burj".
**On a side note, we were told that for New Year's Eve they were going to have the world's LARGEST firework show here. Google it. I've seen a youtube video of it.
The Dubai Mall.
I like the decorations and the shops. I love candy shops, not that I adore eating candy but I really just love the colors and all the thought that goes into designing sweets. :)
The Dubai Mall has an aquarium, that if you pay 15 dollars (USD) you can walk right through it. OR you can just stand outside of it and take pictures, like we did. The aquarium was really cool. We saw sting rays and SHARKS and all types of coral and multi colored fish, it was pretty cool. The mall also had an indoor ice skating rink and they had these plastic penguins (see photo down below) that little kids could use to move around the ice to help them with their balance.
Camel Racing.
Our guide book suggested we check out the camel racing scene in Dubai, so we did.
Apparently it's now illegal to actually ride on top of the camel when racing. So they have "robots" ride on top of them instead. There's a walkie talkie and next to the race track (for the camels) there's a road where the camel owners are shouting orders to the creatures and sending signals for the "robot" to give the camel a "friendly" little "smack".
We got to see a fire show! Where the performers had hula hoops that they lit on fire. That was pretty awesome too. :)
Here's a little map of the Arabian Peninsula to give you an idea of some of the places we went to. My parents live in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain isn't that far away from where they're at. In fact we took a few flights in and out of Bahrain and even spent some time sightseeing one day. We spent 12 hours or so in Qatar (post and pictures to come soon) and then after Christmas we flew to UAE to spend a few days in Dubai and we stopped in Oman for a little bit. The last post we were in Yemen before Christmas. So in technically, with the exception of Kuwait, we traveled to all of the countries in the Arabian Peninsula! Before I joined up with Matt he spent some time in Jordan too. Although that's not included in the Arabian peninsula, or this post, pictures are coming of that soon.
Dubai- UAE
I have been to Dubai but Matt has not and truth be told, Dubai isn't Matt's kind of place. Probably because it's a tourist magnet and Matt's more into the hidden beauties of the world than the places that people obviously want to visit... which may explain why we have never taken a trip to Disneyland. (I'm working on that.)
Funny story. We had arranged to rent a car in Dubai and drive to Oman because we had heard it was prettier and more of our kind of a place. The night before we left Calvin took out all of the contents of Matt's wallet. When we arrived in Dubai and went to pick up the rental we needed to provide a credit card. My dad doesn't usually carry one and because I knew Matt was carrying his I didn't take mine. We thought it better that we not take all of our cards in case something got stolen, etc. We thought to take as little as possible. In any case, when Matt opened his wallet he had nothing in there. Long story short, we couldn't rent a car at all, and as a result we
Matt racked up a bunch of hotel points from doing a lot of work in Wyoming before our trip so lucky for us we didn't really pay for a place to stay.
In one tourist/guide book I read about Dubai which said, "if you can dream it, you can have it." Which may be the reason why Dubai has a 7 star hotel that goes under water (they created the 7th star just for this particular hotel), they have "islands" that when seen above make the shape of the 7 continents, they have the largest building in the world, the "lost" city of Alantis (not really lost because, duh, it's in Dubai!), and they have the largest mall in the world, largest as in square feet. Dont forget the indoor skiing! Yup, they have one of those too.
Anyways, like I said, it's a pricy place. Probably another reason why we wanted to escape to Oman. Anyways, we decided to take advantage of what fate had thrown at us.
The tallest building in the world.
Scroll down and you can see some of the shots he took at the very top of the "Burj".
**On a side note, we were told that for New Year's Eve they were going to have the world's LARGEST firework show here. Google it. I've seen a youtube video of it.
The Dubai Mall.
I like the decorations and the shops. I love candy shops, not that I adore eating candy but I really just love the colors and all the thought that goes into designing sweets. :)
The Dubai Mall has an aquarium, that if you pay 15 dollars (USD) you can walk right through it. OR you can just stand outside of it and take pictures, like we did. The aquarium was really cool. We saw sting rays and SHARKS and all types of coral and multi colored fish, it was pretty cool. The mall also had an indoor ice skating rink and they had these plastic penguins (see photo down below) that little kids could use to move around the ice to help them with their balance.
Our guide book suggested we check out the camel racing scene in Dubai, so we did.
Apparently it's now illegal to actually ride on top of the camel when racing. So they have "robots" ride on top of them instead. There's a walkie talkie and next to the race track (for the camels) there's a road where the camel owners are shouting orders to the creatures and sending signals for the "robot" to give the camel a "friendly" little "smack".
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| This photo gives you a better perspective of what the race track looks like. The camels are running on the dirt and the "racers" are driving in their cars, riding alongside their camels. Speaking in the walkie-talkies and triggering the "robot" to lay a friendly "tap" to make the camel go faster. |
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| Of course my dad found a guy who would offer to let him ride one of this camels! :) |
The Global Village.
This was like an amusement park but without so many rides. It was more a "cultural" center where they had a few countries represented. You could stop into each little area and buy goods from that particular country and there were places to eat from all over the world.
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| We tried Turkish ice cream. It was gross. |
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| Matt's a sucker for coconut water from a coconut. Unfortunately, he said this wasn't very good. |
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| At night there were shows from different parts of the world. This one is from Egypt. |
Oman and the Fijords of Musandam
So even though we couldn't really drive to Oman we decided to pay for a quick tour. We went to the Musandam Peninsula which is the "northern" part of Oman. The UAE sits right between this peninsula and the rest of Oman.
Here's a picture below to demonstrate what I mean. Oman is colored in white. You can see the United Arab Emirates to the left of it and then on the very top of the UAE there's a small part that is in white as well. We went to that part. :)
Look how close we are to Iran! Apparently there are smugglers that go to Oman to buy things like cigarettes and TVs and take them back to Iran. It's not a problem for Oman, but it is a problem for Iran. I'm not quite sure why. We did see a few "smugglers" with their boats. The tour guide said that Iran was about 40 miles away from where we were at.
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| Matt, my dad, and me. |
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| We sat on a boat like this. |
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| Fijords |
We did some snorkeling and socializing with the other travelers on the boat. We mostly just sat and looked around. I can't say it was the most exciting thing ever, but er... we can say we have seen the Fijords of Oman! We also got our passports stamped. So not too shabby.
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