Dubai 2014 Travel Diary Part 1

After months of putting it off, I finally got around to fixing up my photos from my trip to Dubai last Christmas! Let me tell you guys, there were a *lot* of photos. In fact, there was just so much that I had to split it into a ton of posts to be able to fit them all in! Haha! To start off, here's the first leg of my Dubai Travel Diary! :)

After 9 hours of travelling, we arrived in Dubai at night and the first thing on the agenda was some dinner! We were brought to this place called ShangThai, and the food wasn't anything special. The cuisine is fairly authentic. I liked that they didn't compromise the flavor to fit the palate of a certain country. Below are some photos of the food!

Beef Stir-fry.

Thai Salad with Beef Tenderloin Strips.

Green Papaya Salad with Roasted Peanuts.

Afterwards, we headed to the hotel to finally get some real sleep after a painfully long plane ride.

We stayed at the Cassells Al Barsha Hotel which was quite pleasant. But this is barely the tip of the iceberg in all of the hotels we stayed in. Dubai is incredibly famous for their hotels and resorts which I'll be showing you guys in my later posts! :)

The Breakfast area of the hotel was a bit small but it all didn't matter once I saw all the pastries! Haha! Being on a plane 9 hours straight meant getting 9 hours worth of airplane meals and that's never enjoyable.

The selection was pretty good. I liked how they mixed western classics with local dishes.

Such as the vermicelli pudding and the onion salad! I've never had these before but the vermicelli pudding, though it looks like a puddle, was pretty good! Haha!

First stop on the agenda was the Zabeel Palace. We were taken there mainly to take photos of the palace from afar and wander around the vast front yard.

There were just tons of tourists which made taking a picture of the palace so difficult!

We then moved on to the Dubai Museum, which is a repurposed fort. They turned this little piece of history and turned it into a cool tourist attraction!

You're immediately lead to a huge courtyard where there are displays of prehistoric stuff like this old hut.

It was actually scary how sharp these spikes were. Hopefully, no one'll get hurt by this in the future! It adds a ton of character to the museum!

When you're inside the fort walls, it suddenly becomes a minimalistic modern exhibit area which was surprising.

And going through the door on this tower actually leads you to the main exhibit areas!

Underground, their exhibit areas expanded extensively and you could learn all about the history of Dubai and what it's like developing it through the years in the desert.

There were also a lot of wax figures displaying how life was at certain eras.

The last room is the artifact room, and you can actually buy some of the ancient pottery! These are the stuff they found on archaeological digs throughout the country.

There are also scale models of the old forts and palaces that were excavated in the desert. Only the foundation remained.

Then before leaving the museum, you can buy tons of pretty souvenirs at their shop! Unfortunately, it isn't really encouraged as most of the things they sell are overpriced and can be purchased at their local market for a good deal.

Afterwards, we left the museum and made our way to the Souks, which means: markets! I've got a whole other post for that so stay tuned! :)