Girly fun in the sun with Krista

I do not tend to go to the same place more than once (primarily because there are too many places left to see), but I just had to make an exception for Krista, whom I came to visit in Dubai earlier in December for a perfect girly long weekend getaway in the sun! I first came to Dubai with Steve, Anna and Mark 10 months ago on a VDay trip, getting a full touristy experience of the city. This trip was rather different, experiencing Dubai from a local point of view thanks to my lovely hostess/'insider'.

Our objective for the weekend: make it as girly as possible, enjoy the sun, and soak in the culture! I came at a great time for soaking in the culture, as the United Arab Emirates were celebrating their 40th birthday, and the country was VERY patriotic about it. The whole place was decorated in the flag colours: from every car, to every building. In fact, I've never seen to much black, white, red and green in my life! It was a lot of fun to be surrounded by it, as the first time I came to Dubai I found myself thinking that it does not have very much culture, and I must admit I was wrong.

We started the weekend with the most popular local activity - going to the mall! There are a ton of malls in the UAE, and this is where majority of the population spends majority of their time. This is also the reason why you can find anything your heart desires in the mall, from ski hills to aquariums. After the mall it was time for the evening activities - a rooftop dinner surrounded by Dubai's night skyline, followed by a beach concert by Bob Sinclair and friends. The great thing about Dubai is that it's well known enough to attract top performers, but small enough to put on an intimate show experience -- I don't think it's easy to get that experience anywhere in North America or Europe.

Day two was all about the sun! I can't express how awesome it was to lounge for 5 hours on the beach. I visited in the winter, so it was a mere 28 degrees on the beach (yes, I say it sarcastically!). I didn't get to experience the Jumeirah beach the first time I came over, but it was very lovely: white sand, crystal blue water, great view of the Atlantis, and a sweet boardwalk! The boardwalk was set up to host a whole bunch of cultural activities: singing, dancing, food stalls, a flea market, so it made for a great after beach activity. Highlight of the boardwalk - Krista introducing me to z'atars - a middle eastern snack of bread with herbs and olive oil, and my fave culinary find of the trip :) Yum! Our great day trend continued into the evening. We had a de-li-cious dinner at Zuma (that I've been dying to go to since July, by the way), and a spectacular/hilarious/experience of a lifetime night at the Cavalli Room lounge.

Dubai is not that big and you can do it all in a couple of days, so we decided to take off to Abu Dhabi for my last day there. Abu Dhabi is the capital of UAE and also the second largest city. It's about 140 km drive from Dubai...140 drive through a desert highway that's lined with Tim Hortons billboard advertising every 100 m for kilometers at a time...it was freaky! Krista later enlightened me that Tim Hortons is actually one of the most popular coffee joints in Dubai. Go Canada! Come to think of it, I think the Billboards worked, because we ended up getting Timmies coffee and snacks for our movie night later in the evening...Arriving in Abu Dhabi, we parked in the Souks. The Souks traditionally would be an outdoor market for spices and anything miscellaneous, but Abu Dhabi had its own version - a luxurious air conditioned mall designed to imitate the souk look. Abu Dhabi, although bigger, is not a business and finance hub like Dubai, and hence is more residential and traditional. It does have an extensive beach, as the beach is divided into sections: one for men, one for women, one for families, and one for Westerners (not officially, but that's what we gathered, as it pretty much meant anyone can go there and you can wear a bikini). Each segment of the beach is bordered by tall black fences, so you don't get a nice long beach feel that you do in Dubai. There are a ton of malls as well (of course), and the main Marina Mall takes up a whole island. We attempted to go there for dinner to enjoy the sunset views, quickly discovering that views are not a popular thing in the UAE, and opted for a resto on the bridge instead. Along with the sunset, we also get to watch a crazy celebratory procession that took place on the bridge: painted cars with giant flags, floats, people hanging out of the windows and shooting silly string, megaphones, music and a whole bunch of other traffic blocking antics to celebrate the 40th. 

My short but sweet trip was finished off with a lovely experience the following day. We ate yummy Thai food overlooking the biggest fountain with the biggest fountain show located in the biggest mall next to the tallest building in the world, and that's Dubai for ya! :D

Here's a slide show of our girly fun in the sun weekend: 

Dinner @ the Hilton and our lovely beach views

...and skyline views

Partying with Bob Sinclair

Jumeirah beach

Beach views

Celebrations

This is what I'm talking about when I say they paint their cars...their very very expensive cars

Partying in the Cavalli Room

Our romantic photo in Abu Dhabi

Lovely

The parade

Sunset sky line

...and after the sunset sky line

Burj Al Arab (I'm still amazed I captured the whole thing)

The biggest fountain/the biggest mall/the tallest building in one package

Lovely parting lunch 

East Coast Reunions

End of October marked 3 months since Steve and Anna have left London…It seemed like a pretty fair timeframe to give them time to settle in so that we can visit and crash the party (or join their Halloween party, to be more exact J )

This trip was a power 3 day weekend of jetsetting, catching up with amazing friends, discovering a new city, and re-discovering another. It all started at 9 pm Thursday night, when Mark and I arrived to Philly. By 9:45 we were at Steve’s and Anna’s new (an sweet) apartment, in our firefighter and beer boy Halloween costume, having welcome/catch-up shots at the request of the hostess.  The rest of the night was a whirlwind of meeting and partying with Wharton peeps, and our faves: fellow firefighter girl and the green crayon. I must say, the Wharton partying lived up to its reputation and Steve’s stories, and a food fight at 3 am at McDonald’s was a nice finishing touch hehe.

It was nice and early when Mark came to wake everybody up (classic Mark) for a day of exploring Philly. I have to say, that Philly pleasantly surprised me, as it is a lovely city. We made our way to the Wharton for ‘the best food truck’ Philly cheese steak sandwiches, followed by a tour of the Wharton and Penn U campuses, which I was very impressed with…plus we got some wicked cookies from one of the cafes there, which impressed me even more. The walk back took us over a bridge to a pretty river and a very cute shopping street, where Anna and I obliged to spend a couple of hours before hopping on our bus to NYC. Sadly we didn’t spend enough time in Philly to try the infamous Philly restos, but I guess we would have to save it for the next trip. I could petty much tell the food would be good by the quality of those cookies anyways!

I will skip over the painful bus ride from Philly to NYC, but I guess it’s all part of the experience :D We arrived to Manhattan just in time to get pretty and ready for our Peter Luger resos – the coveted steak place, a visit to which has been on our radar for years.  It is a classic American family resto in Brooklyn, with massive portions of steak and delicious greasy sides. I will admit that perhaps we have set our expectations unrealistically high, and didn’t walk out blown away, but nonetheless it was a tasty dinner.

The next day was the first day of snow AND the first snowstorm in NYC. Good timing there! It was also the day of our reunion with Mr Jay Shek and NYC Halloween party. Being weather conditioned Canadians, no snow could stop us at that point. Armed with an umbrella, Anna and I started our awesome day by going to the top rated raman place in NYC, Ippudo. I must admit, not being a fan of soups, I was quite skeptical about this place at first, but their pork buns quickly won me over. The place is so popular that it does not take resos, and it’s first come first serve. Anna and I have probably broke all their records by being the first ones to get seated 2 consecutive days in a row, which required getting up extra early and lining up in the cold. Now that's dedication to food. Also, Anna, we are so fat haha.

Part 2 of the day was all about shopping in Soho. Not a bad activity when slush is falling from the sky. NYC shopping was fab for me, having already gotten used to prices in pounds. ‘How can everything be the same price but in dollars?!’ I thought hehe. Our food destination #2 for the day was another Japanese place – Sushi Yasuda. The same sushi Yasuda where S&A ate next to Martha Stuart, and same Sushi Yasuda that I’ve been dying to go to ever since. Well, the sushi was delicious, and we didn’t see any celebs, but we had a funny ‘small world’ incident – we ended up running into the same group of girls who took a pic of me and Anna earlier in the day at Ippudo. They must be fellow Japanese food fans!

It was then time for Halloween party #2. More importantly, it was time for a reunion with Jay Shek, which was UBER awesome! It’s so great to see and catch up with old friends! This time around Mark and I went as a theme: German beer boy and girl (pretty much taking advantage of our unused Oktoberfest costumes that we dared not wear in Munich, on account of how everybody else was dressed in the traditional ones, and ours were from Ebay…) Steve joined the theme and Anna was ½ of the Hello Kitty crew. We spent the night Halloween partying in a local NYC scene, which was a ton of fun. The highlights included Mark/Anna battle for the glowing necklaces (Anna won), managing to take a pic with pretty much every single dressed up person there, open bar, and late night Korean (not so much for Mark).

I was secretly hoping that the bad weather would persist allowing us to stay in NYC for a couple of days longer, but the skies cleared up completely on Sunday to give us a sunny, cloudless day. Boo.  But I guess I can’t be greedy, as we had an amazing 3 days with S&A, which gave us our fix until we see them next in Hawaii (3 days from now!)

Here’s a photo album to capture our reunion:

The firefighter squad

Best costumes ever

Manna <3 !!!

Mark and Maria <3

Mark and Steve <3

Feasting at Peter Luger's

Feasting at Ippudo

The pork bun that won me over

Feasting at Sushi Yasuda

Halloweening: part 2

New York, New York

Oktoberfest!

It wouldn’t be a proper October in Europe without partaking in some sort of Oktoberfest activities. We decided to go all out and go into the center of all the action – Munich, Germany! The crew: 14 individuals with no regard for their livers: me, Mark, Vi, Van, Rachel, Andy, Nat, Cuong, Chi, Bela, Tori, Abby, Ceira and John. The setting: 2.5 days at the Munich beer tents. The outcome: one great party!

Mark and I were latecomers to the party, arriving on a Friday evening. Since everybody was spent from 10 hours of non-stop drinking, we decided to find our own party, and didn’t have to go far.  All the Oktoberfest action in Munich is concentrated around an area of (massive) drinking tents, surrounded by seasonal fair grounds. We were very pleasantly surprised to discover that all the glorified Oktoberfest stereotypes you see on TV are true: sea of people all dressed in traditional lederhosen and beer maid costumes, German drinking songs, 1 liter steins, pretzels, bratwurst and gingerbread hearts…the only stereotype that was not true is the das boot stein…it does not exist in Oktoberfest, or maybe we just weren’t cool enough to see it.

We managed to sneak into one tent (the name of which I would never be able to remember in a million years as German is just not my forte) and were instantly blown away by the atmosphere! These Germans have clearly been drinking for the last 10-12 hours, and half the tent was already dancing on the tables to a German band set up in the middle of the tent to play classic German and American songs, and of course, German drinking songs. We downed a couple of steins and took it to the streets to enjoy the fair…which was pretty much like The Ex, minus the children, as nobody was in a state to look after anyone there hehe. We enjoyed a couple of tipsy rides (best way to do rides, really), and some delicious German snacks before calling it a night, as the next day was the big day.

It’s a good thing that our friends have done Oktoberfest before, as they were able to teach us some good rules that kept us out of trouble. Rule number one: have a big breakfast, as you need a good base for a day of drinking beer. Rule number two: get up early to get in. Just because everybody was drunk the night before, doesn’t mean that the tents won’t be full by 9 am. We didn’t have wristbands that gave us admission into the tent, so we had to rely on a bit of luck and street smarts to get in. We managed to make our way into the Augusteiner tent after being selected by our server and lead in (the servers are occasionally known to pop outside and grab groups of people to place in their sections…I guess they are banking on big drinkers). That server was wicked – she even had some beers with us. Still don’t know how she can do that and manage to carry 8 liters of beer at a time all day long. What a talent!

Day 2 went something like this: start drinking at 9:30, make friends with people at your table, lose new friends because they had to leave due to being too drunk, make new friends with new people at your table, get joined by late comer friends: Tori, Abby, Ceira and John, get latecomers drunk quickly, have some pork knuckle, cheese and pretzel for lunch, walk around and get gingerbread hearts, drink some more, dance on the tables, watch people have chugging contests, have your last stein at 4 and exit the tent to join the fair, get more tasty German food, go on rides (not a good idea for some people, as some lost their lunch while others their phone…), aaaaand go home to get your beauty rest J All in all, a pretty amazing time!

Day 3 was pretty well a replication of day 2, but in a different tent, and we had to leave at 3 to catch our plane back to London. It’s also when I learned rule number 3: don’t fly intoxicated, it’s not fun. See you next year, Oktoberfest! Here’s a recap of our Oktoberfesting in pix:

Tipsy rides

Day 1: The tent. 9:30 am

First toast of the day

First stein of the day (still before 10 am)

Pork knuckle lunch...uber yum!

 After lunch steins

Our awesome server

Day 2: The Augustiner Brau tent

10:30 am...

The crew at work