DUBAI 2-5 April

Here we are in the land of desert, skyscrapers and the burka.  We arrived at 5am after a fitful but great flight with Emirates A380 - Corky was beside himself with excitement all night!  We arrived at our hotel on the Jumeriah Palm a little after 6am and being a Saturday, Dubai was still very quiet.  We couldn't check in till 8.30am so the kids played in the sand and swam in the pool until finally we could leave our luggage with reception (we couldn't check into our apartment until 3pm).  The fog and low clouds slowly disappeared as the sun rose and it was a beautiful site really with the incredible line of skyscrapers and the world famous Jumeriah Beach Hotel and also the worlds tallest building the Burj making their appearances along the skyline as well - we really knew we were in Dubai then.  It was going to be a beautiful warm day on the Arabian Sea.

Jack had his first lesson of the holiday.  He needed to go to the toilet so Corky took him to the hotel one.  When he came out he said 'Dad, you can also have a shower in there too'.  Corky had a look and told Jack that in fact that hose was really used just to wash your backside!  I think it took a little while for Jack to register the whole fact.

We decided to head into the enormous Emirates Shopping Mall for some late brekky and a look around.  After a while we found the indoor ski centre and couldn't resist taking the kids in for a play in the snow - such a contradiction to the weather outside.  We kitted up into snow outfits and snow boots and headed into the -4 degrees.  The kids had a ball toboganing, riding tire rings down snowy slopes and watching the skiiers, however the most fun they had was pelting their Dad with snowballs so much so that Corky got a brain freeze from so much ice hitting his head.  We stayed in there for about 2 hours and it was quite funny to see people looking in from outside in the mall dressed in their sundresses while we were freezing.

Today we went up the Burj tower - we went to the 127th floor.  It was a bit foggy up there but still very impressive.  We also went out to the Atlantis Resort at the end of the Palm and went to the waterworld.  It had incredible rides on tubes through pitch black tunnels ending up under water filled with sharks and stingrays.  Nothing is done by halves here. 

Dubai is an incredible place but 3 nights is definately enough for me. Tomorrow (Tuesday 5th April) we head off to Germany.  We leave just after lunchtime and are looking forward to seeing our friends Sandra & Joerg and their 2 little kids who live in Ingelheim about an hour from Frankfurt. 

Till next time ... xx