The Taste, Kayaking, & Dubai with Dad

Due to the depressing small amount of photos for these three events and since they all happened within a week, I decided to go ahead and combine them into one post.  Two nights ago I went to start the post and realized that I hadn’t downloaded the kayaking photos onto my laptop.  Not a big deal you may say.  But this was a big deal.  Because this past weekend we went camping and I ran out of room on my camera’s memory card.  So I deleted all the photos.  Including the kayaking photos.  This put me into a bit of a mood funk, but luckily I realized it and decided that the best thing to do would be to go straight to bed instead of unintentionally, but likely taking out my grumpiness on Paul.  So here we are two days later and I think I’ve recovered.

A few weekends ago we went to Dubai in the morning.  Paul played golf with three of my coworkers in a Ryder cup style match since it was two Americans vs two Britts.  They had a pretty good time.  Meanwhile, I hung out with one of their wives just bopping around Dubai and going out to lunch.  Then we went with the couple to the Taste of Dubai and met up with a few more coworkers.  We had a great time.  The weather was surprisingly cold and windy which wasn’t ideal, but not a big problem.  We had lots of delicious food including: beef brisket, ribeye, cheesecake, cha siu baau, chicken tikka masala, tortilla soup, and sushi.  The beef brisket was so tender you could eat it with a spoon!  And I would be remiss to not wholeheartedly recommend that you get the cheesecake if you ever go to Ruth’s Chris.  We got the cheesecake twice!  We also doubled up on the sushi sampler which was quite delicious.

The one photo I did get (even though it was after the fact)

Photo I found online of the Ruth's Chris Oscar Ribeye--it was good but not as good as the beef brisket or their cheesecake :)

After we our tummies were full and satisfied we headed for the Dubai airport to pick up my dad who was in town for a business trip.  It was great to get to see him.  We met up with him again on Saturday morning and headed over to the east side of the Abu Dhabi island for a kayaking trip.  We chose the mangrove tour which was really a lot of fun.  The weather was perfect, almost cold before we got paddling, but perfect once our heart rates were up.  I diligently took some wonderful photos before, during (taking the camera in and out of the dry sack), and after—but I don’t want to dwell on that too long before I get depressed again.  Our guide was pretty cool.  He said that there are fox that live out on these little mangrove islands that are one of the few (maybe only?) animals that do not need fresh water to survive.  He also had us try this succulent type plant that was growing on the shores of the little islands which was edible—it tasted like super salty green beans.

Just pretend the guy in this photo is Paul

                          Another photo I found online of the mangrove tour                                 This is actually a photo of our guide I found (hopefully that doesn't sound creepy)

We met up with Dad again the next night for dinner at the Italian restaurant in his hotel which was delicious.  He flew out to head to some other destinations, but we met back up on Thursday after work in Dubai.  We hung out at his hotel for a while and walked around the connecting mall which was huge.  It’s amazing how big and nice all of the malls out here are.  Many (like over half) would put Southpoint (Durham) or Southpark (Charlotte) to shame.  Then we headed out to the “Irish Village” for dinner.  It was a fun atmosphere where there were about 5 Irish pubs next to each other with outdoor seating.  The next morning we went for a long walk in the hotel’s neighborhood which was nice—but it is starting to get warm out here!  Then Dad had to head out to complete the last leg of his trip.  We took advantage of the late checkout and hung out by the hotel’s pool for the rest of the afternoon before heading back home.

Dhow boat & sunset with the Dubai Skyline (inclu