Dubai - Day 4

Day 4 in Dubai was probably my favorite day of the trip, primarily because of our afternoon tea at the Burj Al Arab (the hotel shaped like a sailboat). But overall, it was a fun day, as Kristin and I were all over the city and meeting interesting people.

We got up in the morning and headed out to find the good souks (markets). We asked the guy at the front desk at our hotel and got directions to go outside, take 2 lefts, then a right, then go around a circle, spit over our shoulders, then say "Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin" and we'd find the souk (ok, so it was a little less odd than that). We started on our way, then realized we had no idea what the guy was talking about, so we popped into a different hotel along our route.

We finally found the souk, and luckily recognized some of the areas from our bus tour on Monday. The first souk we found was the textile souk. It was amazing how many stores there were and the vast amounts of fabric. It was also partially covered and made me think of a Swiss village:




We took our first abra ride across the creek that day as well (one of many; we loved it!). We were originally looking for the spice souk, and wandered randomly through the streets. Just as we were about to give up and head to find a cab to go to tea, we smelled the spices. We ended up going into a store with a very friendly store owner. He got us to eat something without either of us understanding what it was. Turns out they were dried Iranian strawberries. So good! Kristin got some saffron for her mom and herself, and we left the store with some dates and the dried strawberries. Here's a pic of our new friend measuring the saffron:




After we left the store, we hopped in a cab to head to the Burj al Arab for our tea that afternoon. It is an absolutely amazing hotel, and we had to show our confirmation of our reservation to even get in the front gate. We were not disappointed. Our menu consisted of: champagne, beef wellington (which I had never had but always hear Gordon Ramsay yelling about on Hell's Kitchen; it was really good!), a tower of all kinds of goodies and unlimited tea. We saw some interesting characters there as well and the views were absolutely amazing. Here are some pics (tons more in the flickr gallery):







After tea, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner at Jambase with Christa and some of the other MBA students and their guests. Excellent food!