And another adventure begins
True to the name of this blog, another adventure has begun. I’ve handed in my
final paper requirements for my Masters (pending approval), transferred my savings to my checking account and got on a plane to Australia. Well actually, its going to take 5 weeks to get there. And the first stop is the Middle East.
I arrived in the DBX at precisely 6 31 pm Saturday. It’s now 1 47 am on Monday morning and I am writing this blog entry. Ahhh jetlag, it’s a wonderful thing.
With the exception of mistaking a ladies prayer room with a bathroom at the airport and pretending that 40 degree heat is nice, Dubai has been pretty cool. But is not at all what I expected. It’s a city with 80% expats predominately hailing from India and Pakistan, but there are plenty of ‘white westerners’ walking around. Some areas is like walking through little India in Toronto, only with Arabic. In fact, there is a second cup here that has both English and Arabic signs everywhere!
Our hotel is in the middle of a thousand other apartment hotels in the city centre. When we arrive last night we decided to discover the city centre and it was pretty amazing.
From the colourful tailor shops filled with Indian Saris, to the smells of pita bread baking in stone ovens, to the thousands of people, honking SUVs and constructions sites, the city is definitely a bustling metropolis.
Its interesting because the building and actually city was no where to be found in the 1950, with the surge of Dubai happening in the late 1990s. Before it was just a small port town that relied on the pearl trade, and now its quite the site to see.
Today we ventured to the Jumeriah Mosque, the only mosque in town that is open to non-Muslims. I had to wear a scarf over my head, which at first I felt a little bit weird about, but soon got used to it. The Mosque was built in the late 1970s and was styled like a typical Egyptian mosque. It was so bright and aerie and large and open it was really neat.
Part of the tour is actually a introduction to Islam as well so the two leaders also talked about the five pillars of Islam as well as some of the other aspects of being Muslim (like how the prayer schedule works, Mecca, the head dress, etc).
They also told us a little bit about the gulf styles of Islam (regarding the traditional black dresses for women and white for men), and some of the traditional head pieces warn by some women in the dessert (that serves both as a measure of modesty and a shield from the blistering heat and sand storms).
After the Mosque we went for a stroll on the Indian Ocean and the water was crystal clear and the sand was sooo white. There were tons of little rocks and stone with some of them covered in dried up oil! I couldn’t take any pictures because it’s forbidden on the beach. The sign also said ‘punishable’ by law. I didn’t really want to risk it!
After the beach we headed into the Dubai Creek and the old souqs....HUGE market places filled with spices, clothes,pots and pans, and...hmmm...gold!!
