Picture Perfect - The Boardwalk & Hotel Views

Last bunch of photos!

The Boardwalk is a quaint maritime-themed restaurant situated on the Dubai lagoon, where you can sit outside on the decks overlooking the water. They served various international cuisine, seeing as it also had something of a world traveller feel to it, in any event all of it was really delicious fare. The tempura here was awesome, best I've had yet.

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The picture directly below is a shot of the marina right outside our hotel, shot from the kitchen window. Below that image is a picture snapped outside on the balconey showing the front view from the hotel, where you can see more of the marina, and the man-made Jumeira Palm islands behind it. The last pic is just a generic shot of the hotel dining area, I just liked the minimalist retro look.

Picture Perfect - Emirates & Dragon Malls

The Emirates mall has a freaking ski slope built right into it! You can just make it out in the picture below.

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Left: My sister posing in front of some rather large Chinese crockery in the Dragon mall. Above: Unfortunately the children's zone was covering the Dynasty Warriors style mural hanging down from the top floor of the Dragon mall down to the bottom, but it was still awesome enough for a photo op.



A little bit of Engrish silliness spurred me on to put these two pictures together. LASTING LONG VIBRATOR COMPANY! WE SELL GOOD MASSAGER! LASTING LONG!

Picture Perfect - Jumeira Palm & Atlantis

Here are some snapshots of one of the artificial Palm islands we drove into on our trip. Mum and dad have a time-share on this particular palm, called the Jumeira Palm, and on the outer rim framing the central palm trunk and fronds are a string of hotels, one of which we got really close to called Atlantis.

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Above is the atlantis hotel and resort.

Left shows the Atlantis themepark mall's Aquarium. The image is a bit dark, but that's because the lighting in this section was dimmed to make the fish tanks 'pop'. Unfortunately it seemed like 80% of the themepark was closed the day we went, probably some dignitary visiting, so we didn't get to go in and check it out. There were some neat piratey themed things too!

The ceiling in the center of the themepark mall was painted with an aquatic theme. Really awesome looking.


Mum and dad coming up the steps just before you go into one of the Jumeira Palm time-share residences. They were showing us the location of the flat and the grounds. Really awesome views from the beach side as seen below.



Roadside snapshot, this is directly in front of the Atlantis hotel pictured above.

Picture Perfect - Left Bank

I can't for the life of me remember what this place was called, but I remember we ate on the Left Bank, so the post will be named as such.

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The mall and shopping area was really spectacular with carved wooden ceilings indoors and "old-style" arabian market alleyways and bazaars in the courtyard. Outside there was a canal you could get ferried across from one section of the mall to the other, and the cafes overlooked the water. The food here was also incredibly delicious.




Above you can see the giant croc. ALL HAIL THE GIANT CROC! To the left is a snapshot of a shisha shop in the covered souk part of the mall, and the image below is a little bit dark, but it was just a general bric-a-brac shop selling all manner of pots and deco items.

Picture Perfect - Me!

Here are two pics of me, one taken in the hotel, and the one below it was taken at the Ibn Battuta mall showcased further down.



We went in search of the girliest shop we could find to pose in front of. I dare say we succeeded in our search. So much pink.



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Picture Perfect - Ibn Battuta

Here we have some photos of the Ibn Battuta mall. There were themed quarters encompassing China, Persia, Egypt, India, and Morocco/Tunisia, there may also have been more that we didn't see. I think during the whole trip, this was probably the most fun place to walk around in.

They had history displays about all of Ibn Battuta's travels and about the early use of astronomy, among other neat things. This place was so impressive, it really made my eyes bulge outward.

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Random man walked into my shot, didn't even apologize. Asshole. Also my seestor looking very pretty at the Tunisian section of town.


Mum and dad posing in front of a very large amphora in Tunisia town. Also a very blurry photo of the archway leading in and out of one part of Tunisia town.



Below, some blurry images of architectural stuff. That chandelier is the size of eight grown men, by the by.

Picture Perfect - Mercato

As promised, photographs! With some commentary thrown in.

Let's start with the Mercato Mall, which I fondly refer to as Ezio Land! It was like being in a fake Venice. I was grinning like an idiot because everywhere I turned I could see an Ezio swinging off the sides of buildings.

Click images to enlarge.

The Channel Master

I elected to stay in the hotel today; my feet have just about seen all the Dubai they can stand. So I will just let them rest and enjoy the view from the 17th floor, which is actually quite spectacular. I might go up and spend a little time at the bar, but my laziness meter right now isn't budging.

FEETS PAIN

We walked. Everywhere.

Feet killing me.

Gonna go lie down now.

Forever.

Ow.

Bloody connection issues!

I think my ethernet driver was fucked up, so I couldn't connect to the highspeed internet in the room, so now I'm sitting in the very uncomfortable lobby posting the post I had saved on my PC and writing a fresh rant.

I'm uncomfortable and cramped, and I had no chance to unwind after today's adventure, but eh.

Also, Jub, if you're reading this, Blizzard didn't like you logging into my account, so they changed my password for me. Don't worry about it, I guess I have to wait another year for my violet proto drake *sad panda eyes*.

We had lunch at the Boardwalk today, awesome place. We also almost got stabbed to death by a seagull, but it swerved the right way eventually. Took some photos. Again, these will be released to the public at an undisclosed location and time, but I feel confident that it will involve photobucket and a lot of struggling with cell phone settings.

I paid for a full fucking hour >.< I'm fucking sitting on this fucking uncomfortable chair until it fucking kills me!

5 minutes more...

Mi Dispiace

We went to the Mercato and Ibn Battuta malls a couple of days ago... Man, I thought our malls in Kuwait were something special. YEAH RIGHT. It was all themed, and gorgeous. We had breakfast in Mercato, where everything look Venetian. I was imagining Ezio climbing the walls all over, so I was grinning like a fool while munching away on my turkey sandwich. Very nice place indeed, I took some photos which shall be forthcoming in a future post.

At Ibn Battuta we were treated to the delight of themed sections of mall, from Chinese to Moroccan. I took a bunch of photos of the Chinese section of the mall, including the incredible display of a Chinese junk ship. Yes. A ship. INSIDE THE FUCKING MALL. I was like O____O it blew me away.

I'm not sure where we're going tomorrow, but my feet are killing me right now >_<

One shower later, and here I am, typing away at Open Office Writer, since there's something wrong with the high speed cable and my computer doesn't seem to pick it up *grumpy face*, unless there's something wrong with my computer port... Though that seems a little bit unlikely. Ah well, we can go to the lobby and use the wireless I suppose.

Tomorrow is another adventure!

The Kitchen Sink

I'm all packed for the trip to Dubai tomorrow!

... At least I think I am.

You know how when you go away for a weekend, or a week, or however long a trip it is you're going on, and you realize when you get there you didn't pack the one thing that you needed, even though you're sure it was on the list?

Yeah.

I feel there will be some sort of similar consequence this time around no matter how many precautions I take, so I'm really close to just saying 'fuck it' and trusting to fate that I will somehow screw myself over in the remember-to-pack-that-one-important-thing department. Just accept it and move on. They have convenience stores in Dubai. It's not like I'm going to some destitute goat herding village in the Himalayas for six months.

On the note of remembering to pack important shit; I had better go and pack down the cell phone charger, before I forget.

"He won't play with that."

Sometimes I just love proving a parental unit wrong.

We went to Ace Hardware last night and I picked up a few things for the cat. Now, I know that pets are like kids, and like kids they will get bored with the same toys, so I decided to get a few new things to keep Stitch entertained while we're on our trip to Dubai.

So I got him a plastic tunnel with a ball trapped in it, a couple of catnip mice (he loves these, he'll rub his face all over them), a scratcher (which I will admit he hasn't used yet, nor do I think he ever will), and some ping pong balls (I don't even need to say how much he loves these). However, the item my mother took issue with was the plastic tunnel with the trapped ball, and I quote directly "he won't play with that."

What does the cat do when we come home and I unwrap his new plastic tunnel?

HE VIGOROUSLY GIVES IT A WORKOUT. VIGOROUSLY.

Gee, mom, I guess your predictions were slightly off.

Slightly.

We're busy censoring 3D breasts right now, be back later!

What. The. Fuck.

Just a simple warning for anyone thinking of trying the Arabic version of Runes of Magic: YOU WILL FIND NO CLEAVAGE IN THE GAME. Breasts exist, sure, but all the skin underneath revealing clothing is censored into this horrible gray-black set of thermal underwear... *shakes head*.

Oh well, the game itself is fun enough to play... Where's my VPN when I need it, goddamnit.

NB: I found it amusing there was still a breast size slider, I would have figured they would make that static. NO BIG BOOBS--YOU CAN'T SEE ANYWAY--FOR YOU! But thankfully you can have giant knockers, you're just not allowed to see them in the bare flesh.

Oh The Tides of Change

They washed away my sins and made me... BLEEDIN' FUCKIN' ANGREH!

Perhaps that was a less than forgiving assessment, therefore I shall amend my previous statement and simply say: I am dissatisfied. With what? You might ask. Allow me to tell you. Runes of Magic is a delightful F2P MMO. I cannot play this MMO without activating a VPN service. This in turn means, that I would need to go through extra trouble if I ever wanted to get anything off the game's item mall.

Why all this hubbub, Nata?

BECAUSE THIS SITE HAS TAKEN OVER THE MIDDLE EASTERN PUBLISHING OF RUNES OF MAGIC. Not only that, but they have renamed the game to Runes of Might, which sounds ridiculous in English, but somewhat... No, it still sounds ridiculous in Arabic. They're also behind on patches. NO ELVES FOR YOU. But, I'm still downloading it. Why? Why endorse the fuckers who are limiting where I can play? Well, I don't know, probably so I can log in and look at all the bad Engrish. I need a laugh.

In other news, I very well may have a job come December! Al-Watan Daily are hiring *wink wink*, but you didn't hear this from me. Don't ask me where their contact information is, they never thought about putting it in, then again it'll be my job to make sure it's there.

GOING TO DUBAI ON THE 21st! WOO!