Planning for Dubai

 

Next week I’ll be in Dubai. Dubai. DUBAI!!

It still seems a little bit surreal, but my suitcase is packed and I’m all ready to go.  Our climate in Tasmania is positively chilly compared to Dubai, so I’ve bought a few maxi dresses to take and light weight summer cardigans.  As I wrote this post, it was a warm 27 degrees in Dubai – hot for Tassie, but I think I’ll be okay and not melt too much.  Mind you, I’m still wearing a winter cardigan most days down here!

Packing for this trip has been so fun!  My suitcase is deliberately light because I do plan on buying a few gifts while I’m away, especially from the local souks.  Oh, and I’ve been instructed to bring home goodies from Candylicious too – which is a 10,000 square feet store full of lollies, located in the Dubai Mall.  Do you remember my gingerbread house creating last year?  We’re doing it again in December, but this year two friends of mine are going to bake the gingerbread houses for us, just a few days before I’m back from this trip.  We’re doing a little exchange – I’m bringing them home lollies from Dubai and they’re baking our family two houses.  It’s a win/win and I think it will be really special to know that some of the sweet treats for our houses have travelled from so far abroad.

I’ve also packed my knitted camel for the trip, because you just never know when you might need a camel for a photograph, right?  I’ll keep you posted when I come home as to whether he stayed in my suitcase, or not.

These three sweet purses above are also safely packed in my case.  I’ve popped in a couple of pens and some washi tape (for journaling), but I’m hoping to have a nice long visit to Kinokuniya, which is a Japanese book store also in the Dubai mall.  I want to stock up on a few rolls of MT tape and hopefully some pen pal stationery.  I’ve decided not to include a craft project for this trip (gasp!) as our days are going to be really full and I’ll be spending my evenings blogging, journaling and emailing home.

In-between all that suitcase packing, I’ve been thinking a lot about activities that I super want to do in Dubai and I’m also guilty of spending far too much time googling all of this!  Something on the tippity top of my list is a Sundowner Desert Safari, which involves a Middle Eastern feast under the stars.  I heard a little whisper that this is something we’ll be doing on the trip and I’ve since become a bit obsessed with searching the internet for photos and information on what the evening might entail.  I’ve read whispers of belly dancers, camel rides, henna tattoos, falcon viewing and dune driving.  Can you imagine it?  I keep wondering if I’m going to wake up and find out that this is just a dream.

I’m also keeping my fingers and toes crossed that we’ll visit the Ski Dubai snow resort, because it sounds all kinds of fancy to say that you’ve skied at an indoor ski resort in the Middle East!!  Although I used to do quite a bit of snowboarding in my late teen years, I quite like the idea of a bit of hill tobogganing for this trip.  Plus, I would dearly love to meet the snow penguins at the resort.

Righty-ho, roll on December 3rd, because I can’t wait to discover everything that’s waiting for me on the other side of the Indian Ocean.