03/07/2020
RDU To Washington-Dulles via United Flight UA1110 - Departed at 3:00 pm - Arrived at 4:18 pm 03/07/2020
The flight was delayed by 35 minutes because of fuel that was loaded into the wrong tank. Sat next to a cool rockabilly couple.
Washington-Dulles to Abu Dhabi Intl via Etihad Airways Flight EY130 - Departed at 21:15 pm on 03/07/2020 - Arrived at 19:05 Business Class, so we could stretch out and sleep!
Best movie of the flight, Parasite.
03/08/2020
Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, our first round of hotels was a little off…lol, we were moved down the hotel row twice on Yas Island for the first night. It was convenient to the airport since we were getting there after dinner time. So the Crowne Plaza to Staybridge Suites to finally settled at the Radisson Blu. Good view of the golf course though! Super jet lagged this first night.
03/09/2020
We jumped into the car and got going for Ruwais to see Dave’s apartment and to eat dinner with friends at the local resort. We checked out the mall, ate lunch at a 1700’s tastefully-kitsch themed restaurant/bakery called Shakespeare And Co. I got the club sandwich (turkey ham, beef bacon, emmental, tomatoes, eggs, lettuce, mayo) and it was awesome, but the frozen mint lemonade is what I’m still dreaming about. Later that night we ate with friends at Zaitoun, one of the resort’s restaurants. I had a four cheese pasta dish, after the fact I realized I just ordered a glorified mac-n-cheese, but dang it was so good!
03/10/2020
We set off for an almost three-hour car ride to Dubai. When we got there we went straight to the Dubai Miracle Garden. It is hard to describe….it’s like a theme park, roadside attraction, monumentally scaled garden, and local arts center got smashed all together. Huge 30+ ft high sculpted shrubs and flowers galore! When you check out the photos be sure to find a person for scale. We settled into the InterContinental Dubai Marina after our adventure at the garden and went up to the lounge on the 39th floor, which afforded a large terrace with stunning views of the city. It is also where I had the second best thing to eat on vacation. It was a tiny slider of sautéed carrots with garlic and avocado on crusty bread. I wish I had the recipe, there had to be a secret ingredient because it just was WOW!
03/11/2020
We went on a tour of the marina on the Marina Walk. There are a ton of places to eat, shop and great views all along the way. We got back to our rooms, washed the sweat from our faces and headed out to the world-famous Gold Souk. It is a literal labyrinth of shops, selling gold, silver, every gem you can think of and more. Entire dresses are made of gold linked rings and plates, finger rings that can only be described as Raaangs, it was just unreal!! It’s hard to fathom that much wealth in such a small place. A tea/spice merchant did offer Mom five camels for me though, even though I’m worth at least 52-56. On the way there we went by the Dubai Frame and saw the QE2, now dock permanently at Dubai’s Mina Rashid. Lunch at The Sandbar at the resort. We all had the same thing, Wagyu Beef Burger on a brioche bun, sauteed shiitake mushrooms, with tomato relish, camembert cheese, and a smoked peppercorn sauce.
Moved on to the next hotel once we got back. Mom is a Ceasars Rewards Diamond Member soooo we got great rooms at Ceasars Bluewaters Dubai. Mom and I took a pre-dinner walk around the resort and saw the Dubai Eye Ferris wheel. It’s still under construction but the wheel is there and standing at 689 feet! After our walk, we ate at Paru, a Japanese restaurant because Dave was craving sushi, so we all shared the Sashimi and Sushi platter that is served with different varieties of both. Mornings we ate at Ceasars’ Bacchanal Buffet.
03/12/2020
To the top! We went to The Lounge of Burj Khalifa for High Tea. The Lounge is located on levels 154-152. It’s three floors of seating, refreshments, and awesome floor to ceiling windows for views unlike anywhere else in the country...the world. You can even step outside to a teak wood observation deck, I swear the air was thinner, your ears even pop in the elevator! You can see the iconic Burj Al Arab as well, sitting on the coast in the distance. The whole complex is 2,716.5 feet tall, more than 160 stories. The Lounge sits at 585 meters or 1,919.29 feet.
After taking in the views we stepped into the Dubai Mall at the base of the Burj Khalifa. You could spend your whole vacation here. It’s got every brand you can think of, food from around the world, hotels galore, an aquarium, ice rink, cinemas, indoor go karts circuit, and even an adjoining opera house.
Just down the street, we went to the Mall of the Emirates, there you will find an indoor ski park! I’m not joking, they have an 85 meter high “mountain” with different slopes to ski down. You can also do sled and toboggan runs AND they have penguins that will come out and meet you!
03/13/2020
On this day we set out to our final vacation destination and where we started, Abu Dhabi. It is a short hour and a half drive but we did stop at what could only be described as the world’s most entertaining rest stop, called Last Exit. The Last Exit going into DXB is more retro, 1950’s diner, South of the Border’-ish themed but we stopped, of course, at the Last Exit going into AUH. It is a Mad Max dream world. It has a line up of vintage airstreams, RVs, shipping containers, and food trucks. Each one is separated by a drive-thru lane. Large parking lot, indoor and outdoor eating areas. Public artworks are everywhere, rusted out cars consumed by desert flora, tv’s stack four units high to advertise each food joint and more. Old construction vehicles, overturned tractor-trailers, wrecking balls, and a water tower that looks like an observation tower…for you know…scoping out the Thunderdome. Checked into the InterContinental Abu Dhabi.
Friday is a Holy Day so we had brunch that afternoon. Brunch there is like insane! We had a five hour brunch at VaKaVa, a Latin American, amazingly awesome restaurant, see the menu, eating for three and then you proceed upstairs to enjoy the live music and the bar for another two hours. It was here that I ate my favorite thing while on vacation. It was a skewer of Prawns Aguachile with lime, cucumber, mango, and coriander seasoned all over it. IT WAS AMAZING! Something so simple was the star of the brunch…no I had not been drinking too much by this point. Check out the dessert in the video too, cinematography by Vanessa Pino-Brown, featuring her husband Jeffrey Brown and the fam. This was an experience!
03/14/2020
We went to The Louvre ya’ll! You know the art major kid in me was freaking out the whole time I was there. They have an extensive collection, mostly centered around globalization, Middle Eastern history objects and art from ancient times to today. Check it out. A docent talked to me about my trip to the museum and told me that this is the last day that they will be open due to everything closing for the COVID19 outbreak.
Soooooo, we rushed to get a cab to Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, a place that we were going to go to the next day. It was beautiful! The tour was at your own pace, they have plenty of photo opportunities around the whole complex. Exquisitely manicured garden walkways with fountains, sculpted shrubs, a mini-mall underneath, and a restrain grandeur on a scale I’ve never seen before. Little alcoves of tile work, stone vines running along the walls and floor and everything else in a blinding white and gold. It’s the largest mosque in the country!
We had dinner at Cho Gao Marina Walk, delicious!
03/15/2020
The one last place we wanted to go was the Qasr Al Watan but it was closed of course so we headed across to the street to the Emirates Palace Hotel. You are probably wondering how can a hotel be a tourist attraction? Check out the stats. The dome is 197 feet tall, covered in gold leaf and don’t forget to try the 24 karat gold-flaked Palace cappuccino! This place was built to house foreign Royalty up on the penthouse level and fellow peasants like myself stay on the lower floors.
We had lunch at the Fishmarket restaurant. It a Thai-Style seafood market, you pick out what fresh fish and veggies you want and they cook it there in a glass-enclosed kitchen in the middle of the dining area. I had the seafood fried rice with a side of shrimp..yummy!!
03/16/2020
Abu Dhabi Intl to Dulles via Etihad Airways Flight EY131 - Departed at 11:00 am on 03/1/2020 - Arrived at 17:50 pm
Flew Business Class again, but I would only sleep for about 3-4 hours. Best Movie of the flight, Downton Abbey.
Washington-Dulles to RDU via United Flight UA1116 - Departed at 10:30 pm - Arrived at 11:40 pm 03/16/2020
Sat next to a LDS missionary that came from Ecuador. His mission trip was being cut short due to COVID19. He had not seen his family in over two years and Raleigh was his final destination.
Overall as a photographer I found the whole trip absolutely filled to the brim with opportunities for great shots. One thing I did not think of, especially in shots where the subject is way off in the distance, is the amount of dust and other particulates in the air. It looks like my ISO has blasted off into the high numbers because the daytime photos have a grain to them. Night time shots without a tripod (I was not going to take one to make my check bag any heavier) did however turned into a grainy hot mess because of me trying to overcome some of the lighting conditions. Lessons Learned.