Before making it to Yemen I had two different layovers. One of these layovers was in China while the
other one was in Dubai. Layover in China
was only about one hour so simply enough time to make it to the next gate, but
the layover in Dubai was about thirteen hours.
I landed in Dubai about midnight and after making it through customs and
out of the airport it was close to one-thirty in the morning. I made it to a hotel and then slept for a few
hours. After sleeping I had about six
hours before my plane left.
I knew I would not have much time so I wanted to mainly see
the Burj Khalifa and the gold souk. The
Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world currently. You need to be extremely rich in order to
live in the tower and even restaurants are pretty expensive. So I simply went by it and saw it from a
distance. It was pretty tall but there
were other tall building close by and so it took away from the grandeur of the
building.
Next I ended up out at these man made islands that are where
a lot of the resorts are in Dubai. The
hotel that I stayed at the night before offered a ride into town and so that is
why I ended up seeing Burj Khalifa simply driving by and then the shuttle went
out to these islands. The man made
islands were an interesting thing to see but I wanted to get to the gold souk
area and so I didn’t see much of them.
‘Souk’ is the Arabic word for market. After catching a ride over to the souk I
walked around and saw a lot of gold and silver jewelry. That particular day the price of gold was
pretty high compared to the previous days according to the taxi driver.
Before heading to the airport I spent the last hour looking
for an internet café or somewhere to print a colored paper. My visa for Yemen was sent to me via e-mail and
so I needed a color copy in order to present immigration when landing. Coming from Korea there are pc cafes all over
the place where they usually are playing computer games. I didn’t think it would be that hard to find
a place to print but I was mistaken and in fact there aren’t that many in
Dubai. A taxi driver said it was because
wi-fi is available almost all over and so there isn’t really a need for
them.
It was a very short trip to Dubai but I am really glad that
was not my first introduction to the Middle East. Everyone spoke English and every single sign
has both Arabic and English. I know that
Dubai is a famous tourist destination and so that is how they make a lot of
their money but it didn’t seem like I was in the Middle East.
Tomorrow is the first day of work here in Yemen. May 1st was a holiday and Friday
and Saturday are the weekends here in Yemen.
So simply have been resting up and doing a little bit of exploring. I will write later.
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