Frankies Travels - Second last day in Dubai

woke up early to see the building surrounded in mist

slept late

ate breakfast in my pj's

went to the other side of town for lunch

ate all you can eat seafood with brians friends

tried a lot of new fish for the first time

red snapper is tasty

went shopping

more wandering around mall of emirates

some people are hard to shop for

you know who you are

got stuck in a traffic jam

saw three car accidents in traffic jam

went to christmas eve service

sang christmas songs

pondered the real meaning of christmas

got stuck in traffic jam again

ate late supper

picked olives out of pizza supper and salad supper

talked to brians friends

wished everyone happy christmas after midnight

went home

no traffic jam

shower

crash - sleep

HAVE A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TOMORROW!! Ill be eating waffles for breakfast! I hope Brian likes his presents.... I will be missing my family while they all having christmas lunch together. :( But then I am overseas instead for the first time in my life :D

Frankies Travels - Global Village

so to continue on tomorrow Global village is a new open air venue that has a flea market style venue for a lot of countries. a lot of the countries correlate with the nationalities of the ex-Pats living in UAE so India, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Qatar, saudi Arabia, Egypt, Philippines, China. Two quirks i noticed was that there were a lot of Middle Eastern countries Even ones i have hardly heard of and then Europe is one tiny stall as well as Southern Africa also in a single stall. I guess if it was in SA we would have tons of Southern African countries (starting with 11 different stalls just for south africa Yaay for diversity!) and then one stall for the middle east. my only complaint was that all the stalls had a very strong overpowering smell of perfume and inscense. I was getting a monsterous headache. it smells kinda like peach and meat and burning. grim and sweet.

Then part of the Global village is a huge fun fair. Imagine the fun fair you see in the movies with the candy floss and the ferris wheel and the throwing balls at skittles for soft toy prizes. Like 1950's style. THAT kind of fun fair. You can see the ferris wheel from far off along the highway so oviously we went on the first. It was a bit of a waste since we only got to go around twice. then we wandered around some more and considered a elastic slipshot style ride where you are in a cage that is attached to two elastic lines which are attached to two long poles in the ground. they pull the cage to the ground and then when you are securely strapped in... they let go! It was way expensive and it is over very fast so we turned our attention to a ride called HI SPEED . imagine a marching band leaders stick with a knobbie on each end. and the marching band leader twirls it around the middle. (forget the funky cirles around the head bit for a moment here.) so the HI SPEED ride is four seats on each end (two seats back to back each) attached at the middle of the 10m (aboutish)long "stick" to the piece tying us very nicely to the ground. (Gravity... it's the law... Centrifugal force... break the law... until it catches up with you) the seats also swing in their attachments. so the ride starts with a slow turn so you go around like a chicken rotisserie seeing the surrounding pretty lights with your feet below you and your hair sitting nicely on your head. Then it speeds up. and by the second turn you are upside down for at least half a revolution. the bit that made me scream is as you come around over the top of the spin the carriage is at a possition where you are facing the ground. So.. lets get theis straight.. you are going fast enough to make a heavy carriage turn upside down and for several seconds, at that speed, you open your eyes to see what looks like that you are moving straight towards nice hard concrete. WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!! they do slow down and reverse the ride. so again you are swnging at high speed and for quite a lot of the time I was out of my seat pressing against the harness. Way Way Way way awesome hair-streaming-in-the-wind feet-touching-the-stars cool! Did I mention I am not afraid of heights yet?

Then we ate soem candy floss and went home for a very very late dinner. and proceeded to sleep like the dead.

Today was shopping day. firstly we went to buy Brian clothes for cold winter italy and then christmas shopping. I picked up some pretty nice stuff but i am struggling to get things for a few people. wish I could ask them but I still wanna surprise them. Then we went to a place called Mudinat which is like a modernised Souk It was very fancy but I did pick up a few more pressents there. They have an entire shop dedicated to camel tourist curios! Soft toy camels, camel bags camel tshirts camel fridge magnets camel notepads. At least in SA we have the big five to work from That is like 4 extra animals at least Ha Ha Ha I made a mean joke!

Then we were flippen starving so we decided to indulge in a bit of homesickness and we got take away spaghetti bolognaise. which we gobbled down like a teenage boy with a peanut butter sandwich at lunch time. The unanimous agreement was that the spaghetti bolognaise was pretty good but our mommy's one was better ... of course!

Gotta try for an earlier night tonight... gotta finish Christmas shopping tomorrow and start packing for Italy!! Yaay! \o/ \o/ \o/ \o\ /o/ \o\ /o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ Yaay!

Frankies Travels - Busy Little Tourist

So the story continues while I can still get away with hogging the keyboard!

last night I went for dinner with some of Brian's friends. (Hi Kristine and Jeremy! \o /o \o /o \o ) We went to a Chinese resturant. and at 1:30am the following day I can remember what I ate :( Oh yes! Broccholi and beef with jasmine rice Deliciousness!. It was pretty funny to hear about Brian from their prespective altho i think His Royal Highness was a bit embarressed hee hee hee. and then we went and at ice cream Yummy Raspberry and Chocolate ice cream mixed together with sprinkles. which is pretty and colourful and tasty until you go home and you have that waxy sprinkles flavour on the roof of your mouth uuuggghhh! ... or maybe that's just me... But all in all it was really nice to meet some new people. I like new people :)

Then today we decided to go on a road trip. so we drove all the way to Fujairah. Get out your map boys a nd girls It is on the opposite side of UAE to Dubai. So we drove for two (and a bit) hours - we took a bit of a scenic route - all the way through the desert and through some really tiny rural towns. The scenery was incredible. again i am amazed at seeing a real desert as well as camels Only a few caamels tho :C I think they are hiding (or hibernating from the cold ha ha ha) the sea was really beautiful too - it was dark blue... weird? there was red tide so I dont know what the normal colour is.... anyway we had lunch and then walked along the beach - no swimming : we dont wanna get red-tide-sick - and picked up lots of seashells and looked at the ffunny accented tourists enjoying their exclusive beach resort holiday. The sand was again super soft excellent for the walking upon!

We stayed so long that we drove most of the way home in the dark. I was pretty tired and I think brian too but we drove past this new venue called Global village. and found a second wind of energy to go explore.... but that my friends is a story for tomorrow because I am moerse tired ... I give you a sneak peek for tomorroww.... I went on a ride that swung me around in the air like a yoyo fancy trick - can you shout "wicked awesome cool my ride makes the view look like I am about to plummet into the ground!" Way way way Fun!!

Frankie's Travels - Wild wadi - the end

ok so back to wild wadi....

we also tried the surfing style ride it is a steep slope and you get a board to try not fall off of while a really really strong jet of water sprays up the slope. If you fall you really do fly back wards into the end of the ride or off to the side. I was terrible at it so we will say no more. (Needless to say, Brian in his usual style was really good at it and made it look totally easy peasy Boys psshht!)

Then we went back to the tubes to try all the possible routes. They wouldn't let us try some of them as the route is exclusive to the single tubes. so we tried the single tubes. (gotta try all the rides!!!)

WHAT A BIG DIFFERENCE!!! in a single tube my ride went from chugging along up hill and down hill to round and round in every directing some time backwards almost right over and I went really really fast! so fast that i smacked my back and my knee before I could move them out the way. so I tried the ride again with my knees in - Even Faster and Spinnier!!! wooooo Hoooo \o/ \o/ \o/ Totally awesome!!

I also tried soem sun bathing but in the upper 25 degree chilly winter sunny weather I think I didnt acheive much.

Sorry the end of my exciting story is so short but I am FINISHED from a very busy day!!! And wild wadi was yesterday! I am running a day behind! Help!!!

Frankies Travels - Tourist Traps

Dubai Dubai Dubai... what haven't we done yet.... oh ya!!! Wild Wadi!!!

Indeed, I went to Wild Wadi today. It was actually a bit chilly today. the daytime temp only in the low to mid twenties (yes that is the mid-winter freeze over for Dubai) but we decided to go anyway. it landed up being a good day to choose as it was not crowded as I think most people were at work.

Ill be honest I wasn't exactly hopping from foot to foot to get into the cold water (I am a wooes) so we started in the warm wave pool. then we went straight to the tube rides. First unique experience: the tube rides go up. There are jets of water that push your tube(and straight down the back of your shorts) right up the slopes. yes that is no typo - UP. Up of course being thrillingly followed by down and round and down and round and round and round () and then some more ups and so the ride continues. Ill skip to the punch line quick and say that this was my favourite ride and the thing that made it worth coming around the world for and not just waiting for the next trip to sun city. the ride was really really long and on corporated several possible tube rides that you bob along between like the lazy river rides. (including some nice looking lifeguards to help your little tube along :D ) So Brian and I started in a double tube (secretly so he could paddle and steer and I could tan ha ha ha) Then after two rounds we went to try other rides to see if we could find anything faster and more extreme (note: remember that I said this. i was really thinking faster and more extreme at teh time... Famous last words?)

So we went looking for the super tall tower slide and on the way tried out the family ride - like riding in a tubboat (little )And eventually found the end of the tall tower slide ride. so we followed it to the source and came upon a stairwell to the top. Think of the stairwell at a school square tower style. THAT is way way intimidating for a water park ride. There was a stunning view of teh Burj Al Arab along the way up through the clouds. To cut the story short I found the first (yes only the first of several) extreme and faster rides. It was one of the shorter of the rides being straight down. Actaully I lie. a bit straight down then a bit flat then a longer straight down then a bit flat and then a huge straight down and a lengthly flat full of nice deep friction purposed water. So after I removed my shorts from my armpits to my waist again I watched brian come down witha similar demise ha ha ha!! Again the three slopes is better than sun city as when you launch you dont free fall for a few seconds before hitting the steep slope. *ouchies*

Anyway lights out soon... gotta go sleepies I promise ill continue tomorrow all about my wild water park experience... and the extremely fast (surprisingly) awesome ride!! stay tuned folks!

PS It is really great to hear from ya'll reading this. You miss me after all :')

Frankie's Travels - The Desert continued

So where were we... aaaah the wild desert drive! so we drove up and down and left and right and over and around and almost under and in loops! the wheels were kicking up a ton of soft sand and the ride was pretty bumpy. the only thing to mar the scenery was the random piles of trash under some of the trees. finally we stopped to take pictures of the sunset. which was very very beautiful. when the yellow sun set behind the dark sand dunes we set off again to a bedouin camp site for the evening festivities. First we shotgunned a table making sure to be far from the belly dancer's stage Rumour had it that she likes to include the audience. then we went for a camel ride. the camel ride was sadly short but still another new thing experienced. They have super fluffy little ears So I patted my camel's ears and he stood up!! Camels standing up and sitting down process is so complicated it would be the subject of another post all together! then we had tarditional food for dinner (traditional food - finally! Tick!) and then the aformentioned belly dance(nuff said - you didn't miss much...) I also had a pattern painted on my hand in henna (photos on request) it looks pretty cool now (yes another tourist thungy) but when the lady put it on it looked like cocoa paste or umm... erm poop... erm... anyway I had to be careful not to smudge it until it dried out and was crusty enough to take off. and I am very pleased with the result! All in all the dune ride and the camel ride was the best part of the evening :) and totally worth being a tourist for!! I am only sad I didnt have anything to steal some of the really pretty red sand in to take home. like my own tiny piece of dubai. bet all the tourist feel like taht and 30 years down the line half the desert will be missing. horrible scheming tourists.

Frankie's Travels - The Desert

I really enjoyed my visit to the desert. And, like the rest of the group of people I went with, I have a new-found respect for the toyota 4x4 land cruiser.

Since I not really been to the desert before (does oordshoorn count?) and we went driving over the sanddunes and it was around sunset, It was triple awesome! :D

The desert was pretty different to how I always imagine the desert No giant sized sand dunes in great towering pyramyd shapes. Rather more like smaller dunes like a walk to the beach just less roaring waves and sea shells and more sand dunes in every direction. The other misconception is that it is only towers of sand... or flat with cacti - mexican style. I saw trees and wiry grass and bushes - lots of em dried out but still, no cacti (or succulents - before my grandmother mentions the broader term)

The 4x4 ride was pretty wild Like a really long roller coaster ride. Nothing like the car facing forwards and moving sidewards. We went in every direction and some times two at one like (down and left - that doesn't quite capture the moment... Maybe it is like one of those "You had to be there" moments - make sure to ask me to see the video)

The sand was in fact not blinding white (misconception 3) but a cool brown-red. and close up the heavier dark sand highlights the ripples in the sand Say "pree-eety".

and then... TO BE CONTINUED (mid story soap opera style ha ha ha)what can I say All the dune riding excitement is tiring I must sleep.... promise promise I will continue.