Monday, June 25, 2007

Weekend Tourist

One of the upsides of residing in Dubai is that I have been blessed by numerous visits from my friends and family. So far it is averaging one visit a month since I got here a year ago. I enjoy having visitors and have managed to establish a "must do list" that comfortably fills a week. This week I had my young cousin with his friend visit me in the first leg on a three month around the world trip.

As young lads their lists of wants was a little different from folk my age - they wanted to do all the normal things (Wild Wadi, Desert Safari, Souks etc) but with liberal sprinklings of pubs, clubs and general nightlife.

Wednesday night I took them for some quiet drinks in the Medinat and they were really impressed by the resident jazz band at JamBase. This was followed by some late night people spotting at Bar 44 and Buddah Bar.

The smooth crooning and relaxing tunes was really memorable for them - I find it one of my favorite Dubai night spots. It reminds me of a little piece of New York here in Dubai:



The following night, the start of the weekend, they joined me and my colleagues for some lively post-work drinks. Later that night, I made my way and home and they made it to the Peppermint Lounge, but were looking suitably strung out by then:



Then on the Friday night to make it a hat trick of nights out on the tiles - I was dragged along to "deep" at the aptly named Trilogy to witness Benny Banassi play to a very excited crowd. This was my first ever visit and I was impressed by the energy in the club but slightly less impressed at how packed it was:



On the Saturday, to relax, I took them to the Al Jazira beach club to do some water sports and take in some 45c sunshine. I have really grown to like the Al Jazira - despite not arriving till 1pm we easily found sun beds and the whole place is laid back and easy going.

There are now some fun water inflatables including an iceberg to climb, trampolines to bounce on and even a huge water based see-saw. This provided some hilarious moments:



Later in the day Duncan, took my cousin and his friend wake-boarding for their first time. They found it tough and both vowed to give it another try. Duncan made it look easy doing it one handed and impressing us by getting some nice "air" and generally looking like a pro:



I have had to cut the weekend short and head down to South Africa for the relative sedate life of back to back customer meetings all week.

My cousin and his friend will spend the rest of the week going on a desert safari, going to wild wadi and taking a trip to Dubai's various souks and the creek. I am sure it will be interspersed with visits to Zinc, Rock Bottoms and Barasti before they leave Dubai for Thailand. Who ever said youth was wasted on the young?

1 comment:

i*maginate said...

LOL. Youth is never wasted on the young, as long as one never ages. ;)