^{Dubai, United Arab Emirates}

Hello, Everyone! Yes, this blog is still alive, and I appreciate you for still reading this after a very long hiatus. It had been a crazy and busy year and a half for me, and I am so glad that I finally have the time to update you all. Since my last post (which is almost a year ago), I have moved to a new city, changed jobs, finished my post-grad degree, and recently, traveled to the Middle East. If you have been following along my Instagram stories, you probably have seen videos and photos of my recent travel to this part of the world. In this post, let me share our first stop: Dubai.

I have always thought of visiting Dubai, but the cost of the ticket have stopped me. It was actually 2x more expensive than visiting Stockholm and Copenhagen some years back. Since Emirates allow free stopover in this city, we grabbed the chance to visit it even if we didn’t have a lot of time. Besides, we will get to see old friends we haven’t seen in years.

From the airport, we went to beach with this view of Burj Al Arab, otherwise known as the world’s most luxurious hotel, with $24,000/night pricetag for a Royal Suite. When I think of Middle East, I think of sand, dessert, and more sand. Seeing the Persian Gulf’s torquoise water against the white sand beach is definitely a treat.
Our next stop was at Madinat Jumeirah, a 5-star resort with three hotels, many apartments/houses, restaurants, and stores. After lunch, we headed over to the Dubai Mall, the largest mall in the world. It has its own underwater zoo, an ice-skating rink where you can see real-life penguins, and over 1200 stores.
To end our fast day in the city of superlatives, we went up the Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world. It was right next to the Dubai Mall so it didn’t involve a lot of travel, rather, just a lot of walking.
Our fast-paced Dubai day trip was no-doubt short, but experiencing it with girlfriends I had for over 15 years definitely made our 30 hour travel time (and additional 10 hours for me) well worth it.