Hi everyone!

As part of my photography course, I have to track my development on a blog. The posts from September 2011 until January 2012 are part of a module called Project Management, for which I was required to work in a group of eight students to create an exhibition. The blog followed every step we took in order to create a successful gallery. The blog posts starting from September 2012 follow my final year on the course. I'll be documenting my research and analysis of my final year projects, as well as include notes of my Professional Practice unit - which prepares us for a range of post graduate options. Finally it also looks at a project called New Creatives, where I'll be working alongside an artists to help college students get more involved with art.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Dubai!

On the 27th of August, I left for Dubai with my boyfriend! I packed and repacked my suitcase a million times in order to take everything with me I needed (and not just what I wanted). We had an evening flight, so we arrived in Dubai nice and early... 7 am. The flight was amazing. We were on the Airbus 830, which I believe is the largest passenger plane. It was extremely luxurious. We had a lot of leg space, we each had our own screens, there was a ridiculous amount of movies and tv shows to watch, there were games you could play, the airplane had little star lights at the top, etc etc etc! It was amazing. The airplane also had 3 cameras, one at the tail, one at the wheels, and one at the front and throughout the whole flight you could check out the cameras to see what was going on. Obviously, it being a night flight there wasn't much to see other than landing and take off, but it was still really exciting. Unfortunately I only got 2 hours of sleep on the 7 hour plane journey so when we arrived at Dubai at 7 in the morning, I was exhausted. We weren't able to check into the hotel until 2,  so we dropped off our suitcases at the hotel and went to The Dubai Mall.

When we arrived it was "only" in the 30s, which super high humidity, but during the day it got up to 44 degrees celcius, again with super high humidity. When you walk outside the air feels hot and heavy and horrible. Luckily we hardly had to walk outside as there are enclosed bridges everywhere.

The Dubai mall is HUGE. It's the largest shopping and entertainment destination in the world. It has an aquarium and an olympic sized ice rink, amongst other things. But also millions of shops. Literally. It was an endless mall, we haven't even seen everything! It's a mixture of America and England. There were shops like Bath and Body Works, Victoria's Secret, Sephora, BHS, Debenhams, Boots etc etc etc.

As soon as we could, we went back to the hotel to check into our room. We were absolutely exhausted and a bit overwhelmed.

The next day we went back to the Dubai Mall again in the morning to get tickets for the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world), but the earliest tickets we could get were at 8pm! After getting the tickets we walked back to the metro and went to visit the Mall of Emirates. The metro ride was amazing. There isn't a driver, so we sat all the way at the end of the train so we could see out the back. We saw beautiful views of the Burj Khalifa, although it was incredibly hazy.

After the mall of emirates, we went to The Gold Souq. Dubai imports 500 tonnes of gold per year, and has an annual business excess of Dhs 25 billion. That's why Dubai is known as the City of Gold. We walked through the Gold Souq and it was incredibly overwhelming. There were people everywhere trying to sell you gold. The only shops there were selling gold. It was crazy.

At the end of the day we went back to the Dubai Mall to visit the Burj Khalifa. It's 828 metres tall and almost twice the height of the empire state building in New York. The lift went up 10 metres every second. It was an amazing view at the top, the photo below is of the Dubai Mall. You can see how gigantic it is!

Although I sound super excited about Dubai, it was a bit of a disappointment. I thought it was going to super glamorous and beautiful, but in reality it was a huge construction site. It was as if it wasn't finished. It was a great experience, but I don't think I'll be returning any time soon. On the 30th, super early in the morning, we flew to Singapore where we'll be spending 5 days. And on the 3rd we leave for Melbourne.

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