Touchdown

My trip to Dubai sucked! Entirely to the max!! Perhaps it was because I had expectations of the great sightsee's, beautiful climate, modern city and rich skylines. The infamous Burj Al Arab, the Palm development, the far stretching desert and camels, a string of fancy cars.. but I was met with nothing more than rude cabbies, excruciatingly painful traffic jams, nauseous BO's and painstaking expensiveness.

My days were spent mainly in the hotel and at the office. But my room in the Hyatt Regency is beautiful! Plush carpeting, heavy bed with fluffy pillows, state-of-the-art lamps lighting up the room, and a very solid business executive style desk. The view is nothing to shout about though, I can peek above parts of the building to catch a glimpse of the seafront but no sight of the Burj. Considering it was UAE Dirs 900 a night (and an increase to UAE Dirs 1200 on my last night!), it wouldn't have fell short of that.

We made a trip to the Deria City Centre one night, which is nothing more than Midvalley Megamall really, and to the Souq Madinat the other. Now, the trip to the Souq at least comforted me a little. It's a beautiful man-made castle with an indoor bazaar of over-priced souvenirs and an alfresco opening overlooking a river (man-made?) and a perfect view of the Burj. There were several restaurants and bars lined beside the river and many many comfy couches and throw pillows with shisha to boot of course.

But alas, our trips did not include lounging time as it already takes us close to an hour to get there in the first place. Throw in another hour for the ride back to the hotel, that leaves very little time to rest proper before the 6:30am alarm rings.

I know I've been unfair to say Dubai sucked as I did not even get to see Dubai for what she has made herself out to be today, but in any event, it still sucked. I have never been more glad to rush to the airport for my flight back to KL but only to be welcomed by long luggage scanning queues, late check-in counters opening and express customs line for Preferred Class passengers which weren't very express at all.

But I wasn't surprised to say the least.