Saturday, January 28, 2012

A walk around Burj Khalifa

Check out the video of our walk next to the world's tallest tower on my youtube page, here 

Plus some extra shots of the area below :)












Friday, January 20, 2012

Henna!

I thought I would give you a bit of a break from my Dubai themed posts and pictures, and share pics of the Henna I had done for my friend's wedding!  For those unfamiliar with Henna, it is the art of temporary tattooing and is made from a certain type of flowering plant.  A paste is created from the powdered form of this plant, and is used to dye the skin; it has been used since the Bronze ages,in other forms, to dye hair, fingernails, leather, wool and silk.

In the past it was more used for medicinal purposes and as an anti-fungal treatment... it used to be spread on the palms of hands, and soles of feet.  However, the increase in use of henna for body art has been developed and enjoyed in recent years.  In some middle eastern and asian cultures (such as india, pakistan, and sri lanka), henna is traditionally used by women to prepare for weddings and other important occasions.

It usually lasts from a few days to a month depending on the quality of the paste, your skin type, and how often the skin is cleaned/rubbed.
Mine stayed for around 3 weeks, since the henna was of a good and dark quality.




Some of my friend's henna, for the wedding (usually henna designs are much more elaborate, but as you can see we decided to keep it simple :) )



Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Boat tour on the Creek

This was one of my favourite outings in Dubai; we went to 'Al Boom Tourist Village' which offers banquet halls, cruises, catering and has its own restaurant.  We decided to book a private boat/dhow (a traditional arabic sailing vessel) for a one hour tour of the Dubai Creek... it was so nice and relaxing, although very windy!

Interior of Al Boom Tourist Village

Interior of Al Boom Tourist Village
















Friday, January 13, 2012

New Year's Celebrations


























For New Year's, we decided to celebrate outside the house so we made a reservation at Ember restaurant in the Address Hotel (it's close to Dubai Mall, so it took us forever to get there because of traffic - since the fireworks display from Burj Khalifa was close by!).  It was a set 5 course menu of fine-dining dishes, and each course was sooo delicious!  I'll include a snapshot of the menu, which shows different options for each course.


We were first greeted at the front desk by the manager of the restaurant, and shown to our table...




Champagne and fresh oysters upon arrival! :D  The oysters were so fresh, and the champagne was actually Prosecco (an italian white sparkling wine), which I think is my favourite type now! 




The restaurant interior:







Entertainment during dinner

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the individual dishes (I think I was too excited to start eating them lol), but this is the palette cleanser we had in between the starter and main course.  It was served in a bowl of ice(!) which was illuminated from below by a light which changed colour ever few seconds ...very cool! 

Orange, Champagne and Rosemary Sorbet



At midnight, we watched the Burj Khalifa fireworks on a big screen.... Here's a video of the 2012 fireworks from youtube below:



Thursday, January 12, 2012

I'm dreaming of a warm Christmas...

I'm back(!!) and hopefully getting back into regular posting again... as I've mentioned before, I travelled to Dubai for Christmas and I miss it so much already!  I have so many pictures and stories to share, so I'll start off with our Christmas celebrations:  

Christmas Eve:



Hot Chocolate on the balcony :)










Christmas Day: