Ammon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had a 2 hours of sleep on the plane BUT I was able to lie down the seat!!! We landed at 8AM and had a driver take us all around Dubai because we had to wait to check in until 3PM. We went to see the Burj Khalifa, went inside Dubai Mall (largest in the world), took a nap while driving in between places. Also went to a beach and tried to make a sandcastle. Went to the traditional spice market, and finally went to our hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LaReita:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seeing the tourist sites of Dubai was interesting. It\u2019s similar to \u2026 NYC, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Ammon said, \u201cI like Alaska better. I don\u2019t like the concrete jungle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We saw\/drove by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dubai Frame, Burj Al Arab (7 star hotel), Palm Jumelrah (palm shaped island), Burj Khalifa (was the tallest building in the world), Zabeel Palace (Royal family), Jumelrah Mosque, Museum of the Future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We experienced:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jumelrah Public Beach (Persian Gulf), Dubai Mall (world’s largest mall), Old Souk spice market, and gold market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interesting population stats our Pakistani driver told us:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1.35 million Emirati<\/p>\n\n\n\n
10 million immigrants, majority of their population sizes listed highest to lowest:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He pointed out on the other side of the major highway, \u201cSee that skyline\u201d? That all began in 2000. Well, with 10 million immigrants (and trafficked persons), of course you can build up a New York style skyline in 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ammon and I waded into the warm waters of the Persian (Arabian) Gulf. We had to run across the HOT SAND! I hadn\u2019t realized how humid Dubai would be, but duh, it\u2019s surrounded by water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we drove between locations (it was a 6 hour tour) all 3 of us would close our eyes and snooze. I did ask our Pakistani driver to get us some Vegetarian Pakistani food before he dropped us off at the hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the long day I logged into my travel group\u2019s website to give a report to my fellow travelers. Someone posted just 15 minutes prior that Qatar and their airspace was just closed due to bombings. When I was booking flights a month ago from Washington to the other side of the world, one option was flying direct to Qatar in their Q-suites to arrive TODAY, Sept 9th. I almost booked it, but there were some other factors that weren\u2019t lining up. Thankfully my travel angels redirected me to book with Emirates. Every time I travel, I KNOW there are angels surrounding me and my family. It is a palpable feeling of comfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pictures from Sept 9th<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ammon: I had a 2 hours of sleep on the plane BUT I was able to lie down the seat!!! We landed at 8AM and had a driver take us all around Dubai because we had to wait to check in until 3PM. We went to see the Burj Khalifa, went inside Dubai Mall (largest … Continue reading “September 9, 2025 (Tuesday) – Day 1 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ammon","category-david_berky","category-lareita_berky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10681,"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10680\/revisions\/10681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berky.org\/family\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}