Day 2: My 23rd Birthday
Monday 12th October 2015, Kathryn and I woke up at about 10am. Kathryn and I sat in bed and I opened my birthday cards from everyone back home (yes I took my birthday cards with me on holiday). Kathryn had sneakily put a card from her in amongst my cards in my suitcase either just after I'd arrived last night or earlier in the morning whilst I was in the bathroom, as I was opening the card from her she said "sorry that I haven't got you a present but because its your birthday today I'm going to pay for everything"! We spent about an hour getting ready and then we headed downstairs to catch the emirates bus to emirates HQ.
Once at emirates HQ we got the metro from the Emirates station to the Burj Dubai / Dubai Mall station. Dubai Mall is the biggest Mall (Shopping Centre) in the World! and right next to the mall stands the Burj Khalifa which is currently the tallest building in the World! Stupidly I under estimated just how tall the building is and whilst walking up to the mall from the metro station I was gob smacked by just how huge the building is in real life. Kathryn and I had travelled to the mall to go out for my birthday lunch, we walked to the shoe district were Kathryn took me to an amazing restaurant called the Vogue Cafe. Kathryn ordered herself the Sunset in Paris Mocktail and I ordered the Chanel No.6 Mocktail (this drink tasted Amazing!) We enjoyed a selection of breads first, these came with butter, oil with balsamic vingar and a small brucetta each. For our mains Kathryn had the Moroccan harira soup which came with crusty croutons. I had the pan seared red snapper served on a bed of creamy chorizo quinoa with a cherry tomato, paprika and coriander jam. - all I can say about this meal was that it was amazing! (the best meal that I had whilst in Dubai.)
After finishing our meal we caught a taxi to a random McDonald's at the side of a busy main road (we hadn't gone to McDonald's for more food by the way) we sat outside in the sunshine and eventually got picked up by a man in a white 4x4 and we got into the car with and man and his daughter (we think they were German) and a young couple who sat in the back of the car (we think they were Russian). The man drove us to the middle of nowhere and stopped to let the tyres down on his car. We were going on a Desert Safari!!!
The safari started with the driver asking us all to put our seatbelts on (safety first), he then sped off flowing another 4x4. We raced around the sand dunes in the desert for well over 30 minutes, before stopping to take photographs in the dunes. After taking our photographs we carried on racing around the dunes until we arrived at a little tented camp (in the middle of the dessert). The driver told us that we would be there until 8:30pm, everything at the camp was free (minus a couple of things i.e. Quad-biking and Alcohol). Whilst at the camp Kathryn and I both held an eagle (a symbol of the UAE) and we also rode a camel (also a symbol of the UAE)!!!
Later in the evening I had a henna tattoo done on my left hand, we enjoyed a traditional Arabic meal whilst we watched a show that included; A stilt walker, A weird Arabic horse act (2 men dressed as a horse), A fire show (this was amazing!), A light show and a belly dancer.
At 8:30pm we left the camp and were driven back into the city by our driver. The driver dropped Kathryn and I off at a metro station, we travelled on the metro back to Emirates HQ once there we caught the Emirates bus back to Kathryn's apartment and we headed to bed. Kathryn fell asleep whilst we were watching a film called picture perfect. Once the film had finished it was about 1am so I decided to turn the lights off and get some sleep. Sadly that was another birthday gone, but it was quite possibly the best birthday ever!!!
I'd just like to say a massive thank you to Kathryn for such an amazing 23rd birthday, I'm so lucky to have a friend like you. x.
Check back tomorrow for part 3,
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