Desert Dreams & City Lights: My U.A.E. Winter Escape ✨🌆🏜️

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U.A.E

WINTER 2024, DECEMBER 20-29

Introduction
This entire e-journal is about my trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the winter of 2024. I left on 20th December and returned to Chennai on the 29th. ✈️🌞🌍

December 20
Chennai Int. Airport (departure), 20th morning:
My parents, Anand and Arti, had already left two days earlier, so I had to travel with the Gulati Family 👨‍👩‍👦. At the check-in counter, Rohan, the dad, Deepali, the mom, and Krishiv, the son, were all giving their baggage along with mine 🧳 when the female at the counter saw my passport and asked “who is Anand?”. Rohan said “he is Aisha’s father and had left earlier for work.” The female said “she needs a parent to travel internationally.” After a long conversation with the main person of Emirates Airlines in India 🇮🇳, along with messages going back and forth from MAA to DXB ✈️, they finally let me go. We ran for immigration 🛂 and security 🛃, and about 20 minutes before boarding, we ate Dosas at A2B 🍽️🍛.

Dubai, 20th evening:
After reaching Dubai, we had a late lunch at about 4:15 🕓. We had Maggi 🍜 and snacks 🍪. Then we went to an island named Blue Water Island by taxi 🚖, walked around visiting a few shops 🏬🛍️, and watched a cool drone show 🤖✨. After that, we walked for 30 minutes 🚶‍♂️ and went to the other side of the island for some Italian dinner 🍕🍝 at about 9:30. Krishiv and I fell asleep at the restaurant 😴🍽️. After finishing dinner, we headed toward our 3-bedroom + kitchen house 🏡 and slept 💤.

December 21
We headed to an outlet mall 🏬 30 minutes away to reach and find out that there was only one store which had literally nothing 😅. We then went to the Mall of Emirates 🛍️ where we visited a bunch of stores, tried on cool stuff 🧢👗, and had a mug of hot cocoa ☕ and popcorn 🍿 at Hamleys. After that, we went to Ski Dubai ⛷️ where we did 4 rides 🎢 which were fun! We did some more shopping 🛒 and then went to Meena Bazaar 🌇 where we ate at Saravanaa Bhavan 🍛 and looked at some nuts 🥜 and tech products 💻📱. After finishing, we reached our home 🏠 and slept 🛏️.

December 22
22nd morning and afternoon:
We had nothing planned for the day 🕒, so Krishiv and I headed to the play area 🛝 and swimming pool 🏊‍♂️ to entertain ourselves. After that, we had a shower 🚿 and left for lunch 🍽️. I ate at Subway 🥪, Krishiv and his parents ate at some Chinese restaurant 🍜, and my parents ate at an Indian place named Kamat 🍽️.

22nd evening:
We went to the Dubai Desert Safari 🏜️ about one hour away from our home 🚗. We started off chilling 😎 and then went sandboarding 🏂. After that, we rode ATV bikes 🚙, and 4 of us got selected to go longer outside the track ⏳. Luckily, my mom and I were one of them 😊. After ATVing, we went for a camel ride 🐪 and then went to the campsite for dinner 🍽️. They had 3 performances there 💃, two dances 💃 and one fire show 🔥. The fire show had a person playing with and eating fire 🔥. At 8:30, we left and reached our home 🏠.

December 23
23rd morning, afternoon, and evening:
We had nothing planned for the day 🕒, so all we did was eat 🍔🍕 and watch some TV 📺.

23rd night:
We went to Dubai Mall 🏙️ to meet my dad’s old friend 👋 and to watch a really cool fountain show ⛲. I thought it would be boring 😜, but gosh, it was so cool 🤩!

December 24
We went to the Museum of the Future 🦾 and saw so many cool robots 🤖, futuristic cars 🚗, DNAs of all species 🧬, and so much more! After that, we went to Dubai Mall again 🏬, but this time for shopping 🛒💸 and boy, everything was so expensive 😱. But, I did buy a Harry Potter bath bomb 🛁 from Miniso 🧙‍♀️. After that, for dinner 🍽️, we went to a really crowded Christmas Market 🎄, which to be honest wasn’t so great 😕.

December 25
We got ready 👗 and left for lunch 🍴 at Aroos Damascus 🥙. Then, we went to Abu Dhabi 🚗. We reached there by about 4:00 🕓. Then, we went to our hotel 🏨 and visited the Grand Mosque 🕌. It was cool and the best part was that to enter we needed to go through a mall 🛍️.

December 26
We had nothing planned 🕓, so Krishiv and I decided to head to the pool 🏊‍♂️ and play area 🛝. We ate lunch 🍴 and snacks 🍪.

December 27
We went to Ferrari World 🚗, which totally was not worth waiting in lines ⏳. But it was pretty fun 🎢, especially the ride my mom and I went on 🚀, which goes backwards and comes back super fast ⚡.
Then, we went to Yas Mall 🏬, which was also super fun 🎉 because we were actually able to buy stuff 🛍️ and visit Carrefour 🛒.

December 28
We went to Ram Mandir 🕉️, which is definitely the most modern temple there is. It was very beautiful and traditional 🏛️. The idols were super original-looking 👀. After visiting the temple, we went to Yas Mall 🏬 for lunch 🍔, and I bought two Jibbitz 🧸. Later, we went to check-in our baggage 🧳 and after roaming around 🚶‍♂️, we went to the airport 🛫 and boarded our Etihad flight ✈️, which to be completely honest, was bad 😞.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my trip! 🌍✨


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