Dubai Diaries Day 2: Jumeirah Beach, The Atlantis, Mercato, Shawarma, etc.
April 22, 2014
In the morning, I was too excited what to see from my
room in Sharjah. The United Arab Emirates is a country composed of seven (7)
emirates and Sharjah is one of them which incidentally is also very close to
Dubai. The place where I stayed is easy to spot just as you enter
Sharjah very close to Sahara Center, a popular shopping center in the area .
And boy oh boy, for a moment I thought I was in in India
looking at Taj Mahal. I asked someone and was told this building is a
government office patterned from Taj Mahal. I couldn’t take my eyes off and for
the past six (6) days, I kept looking at it each morning.
The temperature in the beginning of April is surprisingly
not too hot. I woke up early on that Monday morning and had coffee. After
admiring the building looking like Taj Mahal and the cars in queue because of
traffic, I went back to bed but then couldn’t sleep so I ended up taking on
some selfies (yay!).
Around 1pm, we had some home made lunch...
We started driving
to Jumeirah Beach first. I was once again in awe how clean, colorful and modern
the city is. Dubai sounds exotic at first glance but you have to be in Dubai to
know how special it is. Numerous constructions are everywhere, the roads are
too huge, beautiful and well dressed people roam the streets from different
sides of the world, ah this place must really be special, I thought.
Just like anywhere in the world, there are public beaches in Jumeirah. It reminded me of what I’ve seen in the movies… the Californian girls wearing Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top.... (thank you Katy Perry). There is a long stretch of white sands and beach you can swim and stay under the sun. We stepped out for a while and admired its beauty. I wanted to soak and swim but I remembered we allotted a day of swimming in our itinerary so this can wait.
There is also a stretch of restaurants, cafes and bars along Jumeirah. We stopped and had some fresh fruit and took some photos.
We
then drove to the The One&Only Royal Mirage Hotel in Dubai to meet someone
there. Said to be the most prestigious of all Dubai Resorts, One&Only Royal
Mirage recalls the romance of Old Arabia. It is huge acres of beautiful greens
and flowers. While waiting, I checked out the area and took some photos again.
We then went to a shopping mall that I kept on remembering but failed until now. The place had very nice shops which reminded me much like a market I’ve seen before. From there, we took photos of the seven(7) star hotel Burj Al Arab. It is prettier up close I was told but I couldn’t deny its beauty even from afar.
We then drove to another hotel called The Atlantis. The Atlantis is situated on Dubai’s reclaimed artificial island, The Palm. It does look a real palace from outside and I wonder how beautiful it looks if you are in one of its rooms. Of course I didn’t stop from taking photos.
After the Atlantis visit, we drove to a mall called Mercato and wandered for sometime. I checked out the shops and found a nice, inexpensive sweatshirt from Mango.
After paying for it, we tried the one (1) dirham McDonald’s ice cream where there was a lot of Filipino staff. I must tell you that in Dubai, mostly, if not all of the shops are manned by Pinoys so it’s easy breezy to shop, eat and have fun.
For dinner, we went to Antar to sample some mouth watering shawarma. Shawarma is chicken, lamb or beef plus veggies wrapped in a special bread. Well let’s just say I ate three sharwarma(s) that night.
And you know for sure I slept with a huge smile on my face.
Then I said to myself: "Tomorrow is another day!"
PS: Check out my Dubai Diaries Day 1 post, too!
Love,
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