Dubai: The City of Gold

Hi Y'all!

I hope you're doing well.

I got logged out of my account and couldn't log back in for a while. I thought I was gonna lose my blog but thankfully I got it back and I'm so happy hehe. Anyway, here's a travel post I've been wanting to post for a while. This was long overdue:(

I wanted to start posting again from today because it's a special day for me. It's my grandfather's birthday and I miss him so much♥️ He was so happy when I told him about wanting to do Creative Writing in uni because I wanted to write. I'm sure he would've been super happy looking at my blog if he was still here, even though it isn't that great yet hehe. He's the only person who believed in me and was proud of my stupid ass🤭

Anyway, if you've read my introduction post then you probably know how much I love traveling but unfortunately I haven't been able to travel since 2020. Instead of waiting to travel, I decided to make some posts about the places I have already been to and share some tips, experiences and pictures from those places. The posts might be super long or I might end up putting them in two parts, depending on how much I feel like ranting lol.

I went to Dubai in December 2014. A lot of things might have changed now but I will try to double check everything before I post this on my blog. Please let me know if you find something wrong.

Dubai is a city in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is located in the middle east. It is known for luxury shopping, its amazing nightlife and architecture. Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, is located in downtown Dubai and is one of the most famous tourist spots. Dubai's culture and the city itself is beautiful. 

If you've seen Sex and the City 2, you know that the girls go on a trip to Abu Dhabi, which is the capital of UAE. The first time I watched the movie, I fell in love with it and I was like Abu Dhabi is gorgeous. I really wanna go there, but then the reality sunk in and I realized that there was no rich man sponsoring my trip and there won't be any private butlers and cars waiting for me and I felt like crying lol. I don't wanna be broke no more 😭

In a way they did show some stuff that was right but I think most of it was too stereotypical. Like the part where they were like, 'oh you gotta cover up, it's not allowed.' It is allowed but since it's not a part of their culture, it is recommended that you dress up properly to give respect to the culture. But, I have seen people in shorts and dresses. Even I took shorts but they were the longer ones that reached my knees and took long dresses. But if you're in the hotel or resorts, you can wear anything because most of the people there are tourists. Just avoid wearing revealing clothes at the holy places.

Though, they did their best to show the most stereotypical things that are true, there's much more to the place than that. 

Anyway, I will be giving y'all a few tips from my side but it's up to you to follow them or not:P

TIPS BEFORE YOU TRAVEL TO DUBAI

 1. AVOID BOOKING TOURS

 If you are traveling to Dubai, avoid booking tours. We did and they are a complete waste of time. You get so bound to them and their schedule that it feels like you're in school again lol. It ends up taking all of your time and you end up not being able to do anything of your choice. They are always rushing you from one place to another and you don't even get time to breathe. 

We regretted booking them. We were much more happy on the days we were free and had the choice to do whatever we wanted. After Dubai, we went to Singapore and my dad was like we ain't booking anything lol. We googled some stuff before hand and then asked the locals and had so much more fun. So instead of booking tours, try to google about the place you're traveling to, ask your hotel front desk or the locals and trust me, you'll explore so many unique places that you probably don't see online and you definitely won't regret it. There are a shit ton of blogs on every city and country in this world, so you can check out some blogs about the place you're traveling to. Blogs have good suggestions too and you get to read about the personal experiences of people as well!

2. RESEARCH ABOUT THE PLACE YOU ARE TRAVELING TO

Always do a little research about the place you're going to so you don't make mistakes and are able to travel comfortably. 

First thing's first, always find out what the weather will be like so you can pack your clothes accordingly. I took all my summer clothes and just one jacket but the evenings in December were a lil chilly for me so I definitely recommend checking the weather beforehand.

Search a little about the culture, language and food of the place. Try to learn a few common words and phrases from their language. The locals love it when you can talk to them in their language and will make you feel even more welcomed.

These are only tips I could think of that I followed for this trip but if you want to read some more travel tips, check my post out to make sure you ain't forgetting anything.

I think I will talk about Dubai a little more in this post and then will post a separate blog post for the places I went to, what I did, how it was, my experience and what I missed out on and wish could do. Yes, I'm hoping to go to Dubai again but without my family or relatives this time. I want to go with my friends and experience the nightlife. I've heard the Dubai nightlife is great. I also want to visit places that I couldn't visit last time because my relatives didn't want to go. I definitely don't recommend going on trips with your relatives😢

My dad and I really wanted to go to Burj Khalifa but our relative was like, 'oh no it's expensive af. We saw it from outside, why do you want to waste money by going inside?' Sir, kindly stfu. Now, you would ask me why my dad listened to him? It's because he's older than dad and dad listened to him out of respect. But he regrets listening to him too😩

The second place was the Ferrari world. I really wanted to ride the roller coaster but since it was in Abu Dhabi, someone told us it would take us a 3 hour drive to reach there from our hotel in Dubai and everyone said no for it😭.

And, the third place was the Atlantis waterpark. We went to Atlantis and everyone wanted to go to the waterpark. Oh my god, this one is so embarrassing. Since the tickets were expensive, it was decided that everyone would go to the waterpark except my mum and I because we were on our period and there was no point in wasting money on us when we couldn't do anything. As soon as heard that, I started crying. Mind you, I was only 14 and didn't know anything about tampons and stuff. Everyone felt bad and canceled the plan. Now that I think back to it, I feel so guilty lol. To this day my dad keeps on teasing me about how I didn't let anybody go hehe. But when we were riding the Dubai Metro, we crossed the waterpark and the water rides looked so fun. I really wanna go there too.

Anyway, I am confused about posting my day by day experience in Dubai or just making a post about the places I would suggest people should visit. Please help me out and let me know what you would like to see in the comments below!

Until next time x

See y'all soon with a new post!💖