National Day at Abu Dhabi

Dear Readers

Get ready for a long one!! Cause this post is covering everything from the Abu Dhabi trip!

National Day horses delay our return to the hotel

Let's start off with: be sure to not injure yourself before you go on a trip!! Dippy did just that! Of course it was an accident. But she was so blown away by our driver's new ultra-patriotic decals that she fell in a hole and sprained her ankle before even getting into the car! This meant no time for ice and rest. Her ankle swelled up real good! So we tried to keep her off the ankle for most of the trip.

My next warning is: Careful which hotel you book if you're going to Abu Dhabi on National Day. I'm not saying that it was a bad stay or that it was busy. On the contrary! It was wonderful! ... once the military lifted the lock-down in and around the hotel. We had trouble getting to the hotel because the military shut down the entire area around it. So after some talking, we were escorted by armed guards to the hotel and then told not to leave it for five hours. The whole area was closed down from 12pm to 5 pm due to special National Day events at the Expo Centre adjacent to the hotel. This put a bit of a damper on our plans for the day. But after waiting for two hours, we snuck out.

We had made it out and now were off to Yas Island for Yas Mall!
and here is were warning number three comes in:

Don't go to Yas Mall (yet).
Go sometime after April 2015.








The mall is big and it boasts over 300 stores... if the mall were finished. Much of the mall is unfinished and the stores haven't opened. The building is nice, but we had planned to shop a a few stores that you could only get back home. The store I wanted to go to most was the Under Armour store.
But as you can see from my grumpy expression, it was one of the many stores not yet open. The only store that was open that we particularly wanted to go to was Pie Face.

The store is all about pies, as you can tell from the name. both sweet and savory. The meat pies were very good! Next time I go, I'll be getting a bigger pie though! I could eat through all the small pies without any trouble.

While in Yas Mall we thought we would check out Ferrari World. Which is a huge indoor amusement park based solely on Ferrari cars. However, the tickets were really expensive, so we decided that could wait for another time.

This store is called On Time... alas, like many stores at Yas, it was not.

After Yas Mall, we came back to the hotel and decided to have sushi at their roof top lounge. Dippy enjoyed the sushi because in one roll (the "aloft maki") she got every single one of her favourite sushi ingredients. But unfortunately for La Chat. they messed up her order and the communication between servers seemed rather off. So we all went to bed and chalked that night up as a failure and would start a fresh the next day.

The next day we went to a few of their other well-known malls. Al Wahda was a much better experience than Yas had been. We went there to have Red Lobster for breakfast/lunch. For a moment, I felt like I was back in Canada. Looking around that mall, we found a cute little Christmas tree for our apartment, and new shoes for poor Dippy's injured feet! Dippy's favourite brand of dress shoes had a whole shop there as well, so we all went and tried on new shoes. When we were done with Al Wahda Mall we took a taxi to the Gold Souq (also known as the

Madinat Zayed Shopping Centre & Gold Centre).

I have never seen so much jewelry in once place. Sooo much Gooooooold, and for really good prices, too! Bangles, earrings, necklaces, watches... every form of jewelry and gold that you can imagine!

The Marina Mall was the last stop of the day because they boast some of the best views of the coast in the area. I wish we had gone up their tower; it probably would have been a really great view. But we were tired and so we stopped at an ice cream shop that makes ice cream according to your specifications by hand with liquid nitrogen. You choose the milk base, the mix of flavours and add toppings or mix ins! It was called Sub Zero Ice Cream Shop and it was a lot of fun to watch. I remember being told to wear protective gear when dealing with liquid nitrogen, but these guys didn't!! They do it day in and day out, so I suppose that they know how to handle the stuff better then I could. The ice cream they made was very tasty too! We don't know if it tasted any better for being made so fresh; but it tasted exactly like we hoped it would!

To wind the night down we took a scenic drive past the Emirates Palace and went back to our hotel. We ate dinner at their poolside restaurant/bar/shisha lounge/night club, took a dip in the pool and spent the night watching "The Terminal" while having our own little spa night.

Once we woke up and packed up for our final day, we went to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

The Mosque was absolutely amazing! What a perfect way to end our trip! Ohh the marble flooring, ohh the delicate design! If you ever get a chance to come to Abu Dhabi, the Grand Mosque is a must see!

There is really no worlds to describe the place! the photos here do not do it justice, and that is saying something cause Dippy is great at taking pictures!!

What an amazing trip. Bumpy and slightly scary at the beginning. But it smoothed out in the end!