UAE is a very conservative Muslim country. Culturally, it is not appropriate to wear shorts or expose your arms in public but with the UAE becoming one of the top tourist destinations of the world, the dress restrictions are lessening. In the tourist spots, which is where we were, you will see all the foreigners wearing culturally inappropriate clothing, and within a week, I could tell my body went into a slight shock when I would see someone in a tank top or sleeveless shirt.
The first week we were in Sharjah, the emirate next to Dubai, we stayed in a really nice hotel (off season rates, you know!) that was on the beach. It is sooooo hot during the summer months in UAE that swimming pool water has to be COOLED in order to be refreshing. Just beyond the pool you have to walk through white hot sand to the Arabian Sea. I have never, ever been in a large body of water that was HOT! It was not warm. It was HOT!
Inside our hotel room, on the ceiling was this little arrow. It points the way to Mecca for those who need to know. Isn't that interesting?
At the end of the meeting , we moved out of the hotel into the apartment of one of our member care couples, Dave and Sara, to get to know them. When they come back from one of their long trips to visit our personnel, this is the view from their living room that helps them to unwind. In the morning the view is clear, but by noon, the haze/dust has set in for the rest of the day.
We were amazed at the number of American food places, both fast food and restaurants. We couldn't possibly eat at all of them because there weren't enough meals for the number of great places to eat, but we sure tried! (Hardees was not one of them.)
One afternoon we drove into Dubai and saw the world's tallest building. It is 161 stories high. It is about 4 times taller than the average of the taller buildings! It is called the Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) and is 818 meters tall. It has businesses, apartments, stores, restaurants, and is on top of the largest mall in the world (which has 1200 stores!)
This may give you a better perspective of its' height. Also, their metro system is above ground.
For the most part, Dubai's modern development has happened in the past 10 years. These wide open spaces are becoming filled in with more concrete than you can imagine!
This city has grown so fast with commercial and residential buildings that the power supply cannot keep up with it. While we were in town, the city was having planned power outages to help conserve energy because there wasn't enough to go around.
Lots of mosques around the city.
Some are really pretty.
On a different note... What is this? The islamic women wear burka's, the black robes that cover their bodies from head to feet. So what do they wear to swim in? The burkini! The loose-fitting long sleeve top has an attached hood that covers the head completely, and then the pants go all the way down to the ankles.
I love the contrast between the conservative and the contemporary.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize you would have so much trouble reading the name on the red sign in the middle of the picture or I would have enlarged it... but it says Marrybrown. Can anyone tell me why I would think it was noteworthy??? I'm sure my kids can, and Kristin can, but probably not too many other people. Leave me a comment if you know why I took this picture. Thanks!
Glenn and I love going into grocery stores in every country we visit. We were amazed at how many American products were available!
FRITOS! I found Fritos!!! And crunchy Cheetos, and cheesey Doritos! What a selection of chips!
Thrilled to see Coke Zero there too! (By the way, I'm wearing the tank top in the privacy of Dave and Sara's apartment.
Dubai and Sharjah (and maybe the other Emirates) had lots and lots of HUGE malls that were phenomenal! Just in Dubai, there are 62 malls! Can you imagine???? Because there are so many malls, each developer has tried to include something truly unique to draw the people to their mall.
The Krispy Kreme store drew me to this mall. Each mall had large food courts with every type of food imaginable.
One mall had an ice skating rink. Another had a sports complex with several swimming pools. A third had an amusement park. One has an aquarium.
Glenn, Dave, Sara and I enjoyed a meal at a mall that advertised 1200 stores under the roof! With that many stores, there were about 50 places to eat!
One of the malls had a ski slope! A genuine ski slope! The snow area was glassed in so that you could watch the fun. If you didn't want to ski, you could pay to just go play in the snow, which would be quite an experience for these folks living in the desert!
There were also tube rides for the little ones. There were several small slopes with a large clear ball that you enter, and with you standing, the ball rolls down the slope and you roll around inside! Sounds like more fun to watch than to do!
Great ice cream at Baskin Robbins! Didn't try the Dunkin' Donuts because I prefer Krispy Kreme, and I couldn't eat it all!
Five times a day when the muslims are called to pray, they are supposed to stop what they are doing and go to pray. That includes when they are shopping in the mall. All the malls have PRAYER ROOMS for them; one for the men and one for the women. The whole time we were there in UAE, we never saw a single person saying their prayers. In Ivory Coast (when we lived there years ago) when the call to prayer came over the loud speakers in town, you would see people on the street unrolling their plastic prayer mat and kneel to pray. Not so in UAE.
One mall had this sign with its' policies of courtesy. One of the policies states, "Please wear respectful clothing. For example, shoulders and knees should be covered." Another one says, "No kissing or overt displays of affection."
Wow! This was a fun photo op! And it was soooo nice to be able to go into a bookstore and see all the books in English! I can't wait to get back to America and enjoy bookstores again!
This picture was taken near the food court in one of the malls. We thought it rather interesting that it is announced over the PA system that it is time to pray, and there are signs placed strategically around the mall letting you know when it is prayer time. We never saw anyone stop what they were doing to go pray. I thought it was kind of sad that no one paid any attention to it; in a country where Islam is so entrenched in their culture, you never saw anyone doing anything to express their faith.
It's been funny (and sometimes difficult) to be able to determine which bathrooms are for males and females, especially in countries where we don't speak the language! Sometimes we find the stick figures with a triangle for the skirt of the female and the pants for the male. In Germany, there's Herren for the men and Damen for the women. In France it's Dame (women) and Homme (men).
We liked the way they did it in UAE with the different style of headdresses!
So, that was our trip to Dubai. The pictures and descriptions don't do it justice. If you've got the time and money, I'd suggest you travel to Dubai because it is quite an experience! Very different from any country we've visited so far, and they know how to cater to tourists, that's for sure! Everything is new and clean, and English is spoken here so you won't have a language barrier. There are lots of things to do too (like snow skiing!). HOWEVER, I suggest you come in the winter when the weather is not so HOT! It was like a convection oven preheated to 175 degrees! There was always a breeze blowing, but it was hot air, and that's not particularly helpful!
As I write this, we are on the road again. Any guesses as to where we are? Non?
2 comments:
Amazing! What a cultural shift, yet you shared such great information. No disappointment in this post, you did great! But it does seem so very foreign, truly a different culture.
France?
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