Seeing, Skiing and Speaking in Dubai

Well in the morning we head for the airport. The flight to New York is 14 1/2 hours and then another 4 hour flight to good ol’ SLC!

We’ve had way too much fun!  The sun has been perfect every day.  Just a wee bit on the hot side 95-100 but it felt good to me after shoveling our way out of our house at Park City to get here!

Day before yesterday we went to the “top” (the 124th of 200 floors the…highest they let tourists go) of the magnificent Burj Kahlifa, the tallest building in the world.

This is the floors still above us from “the top” (this building is almost 3 times taller than the Empire State buildingz0.

We looked down to see the largest fountain display in the world, patterned after the fountains at the Bilagio except three times bigger (all set to music every half hour)

The biggest aquarium in the world (my pictures are in my IPhone) the biggest bookstore in the world and a lovely big ice rink are the big draws for the Dubai Mall where we are but every mall has it’s own draw.  And the malls really are the BIG draw for Dubai. It’s a material world, patiently waiting for the recession amidst hundreds of unfinished buildings and lots of rubble hidden behind the buildings.  Apparently the poor workers whose livelihood dropped out from under them live on the outskirts in desperate poverty. According to our friends last night some are living with 30 people in one room.  What a world!  

This is the famous hotel we walked into last time we were here. It is a 7 star hotel, and claims to be the most luxurious hotel in the world:

Yesterday we went to Ski Dubai at the Emirates Mall and of course, Dad just HAD to ski!  Instead of the 3000 foot vertical drop at Park City, it was about a 300 foot drop but it was pretty amazing that they’re able to keep that space at 22 degrees year round when it’s 100 degrees outside! 

We think we know exactly where Anita and Tal were sitting when they sent their picture from Dubai (this isn’t it). Fun to follow in their footsteps!

 

There were kids’ birthday parties with sleighs and toboggans as well as some excited skiers who paid $25 for two hours and then picked out boots, coats, mittens etc. in a giant entrance area and went in to have a good time.

When you run out of other fun things to do, you can rent this ball and roll down the hill!

Last night we had a lovely dinner with the board of EO Dubai and met some very interesting people.  Our host is a Sikh and he and his wife personified the peace and tranquility that the Sikhs aspire to.  About a third of the group are Muslim, almost half Indian and the rest German and New Zealanders etc.

Tonight was a fascinating evening with a lively discussion with lots of smart parents!  There were so many bright young mothers who loved getting a copy of A Mother’s Book of Secrets while the dads got Teaching Your Children Joy or Responsibility. 

Here is our gracious host and his beautiful wife who agreed to put us up for five days in a beautiful hotel

so that we could recover from jet lag before our presentation (and now we have to do it all over again). 

And here is the whole interesting group.

Enough fun for now. We leave beautiful Dubai and look forward to heading back to snow, thinking about Bear Lake and a plate full of stuff we left behind!