STEPS
05-28-2013, 07:38 PM
#1 Hope you enjoy
Hi,
Our first day here we slept most of the day..after pulling an all night-er on the plane.
Yesterday, after working out we visited the Dubai Mall: it is overwhelming with hundreds of high end stores of every kind (Tiffany's, Bvlgari, Eve St. Laurent, Gucci, Armani etc) all on three levels. When we arrived at the mall there was a valet parking: it was lined up with Lamborghini's', Ferrari's, Porche's etc.
The mall even had an ice skating rink ..... it was stunning to see all of these children ice skating at the mall where they have an average temperature of 85 degrees all year long: then they have a stunning water fall as well.
The mall is extremely touristy oriented: we observed one memorable moment .... four Arabic men (dressed in their sparkly white Keffiyeh and thawb) drinking their coffee sitting ..... at the Starbuck's outside patio. What a comical scene...... to bad we didn't have our camera.
Afterwards we had a private tour of Dubai in a BMW. Come to find out our driver Sebastian Babu's wife is BFing http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif.....so we are going to have a consult upon our return visit the end of the month. http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gifhttp://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gifhttp://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif Hurrah...Thank you Jesus....http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo5.gif
We learned all about Dubai on our tour: 80% of the monies that is generated is from tourism. The vibrant city is rich in financial investment (fortune 500 companies), business banking, trading and retail. It has a high scale quality of life with a passion for service in excellence. The opportunities for new businesses is open to everyone.
The flexible infra-structure of finance is mirror image to its unique beauty in the architecture like no where else in the world. The five American and the five Russian Architects are responsible for have creating and developing the cutting edge of it's sky line. It is breath taking and the building is still going on.
We visited the Dubai Museum:The first settlers were the Arab Bedouins who cultivated this land, protected their their city, did pearl fishing/diving and brought their specialty trades to build up the vibrant city ..... before the discovery of oil. I would like to mention that petrol or fuel is only $2/gallon here. The museum certainly makes on appreciate the culture here.
The Jumeira Marina is one of the magnificent regions where most of the Americans reside who are extremely wealthy. There are a variety of river boats to cruise for the evening for dinner. It is a landmark to see.
It is known for it's wealth of sports and vacation for everyone in the family.... if one can afford it.
We have no idea what we will do today before we zip off to Perth and Steve has come down with a sore throat.
Until later. God bless.
#2
Hello Everyone,
After four days of still recuperating and just hanging out with
Christine and Ken: Steve is very gingerly returning back to his charming smiley self.
......... So slowly we are inching our way into experiencing what we came for..... we just need more patience.
http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif Even though Steve is still under-the-weather, he was able to frequent two Harley Davidson Stores ...... to purchase T-shirts and to check out their bikes and of course visit a Ford Dealership. I am so delighted that Ken & Steve get along so well....especially when it comes to Men's toy. http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif
Ken actually built a 1953 Daimler for Christine back in the day .... So Christine and I drove it when we went food shopping the other day. We surely received some raising eye brow looks. I loved it.
Perth is the sunniest Capital of Western Australia and is known for its magnificent sunshine, picnics and magnificent cultural landscapes.
We are actually staying in Trigg with Christine and Ken (Christine and I went to Jr. College together in Bryn Mawr, Pa. and have remained the best of friends for the past 46 years). Trigg is an exclusive little town NW of Perth (about 20 minutes away) full of small valleys and hills and it has the best beaches in Australia with a Mediterranean climate. It is a beautiful little town and yet the population is flourishing since they arrived here over 3 decades ago.
The USD is just about equal to the AUD (Australian Dollar)... for the first time in decades.
Since everything is imported, the prices of food and dining out (actually everything) is astronomical. They have no concept of a real pizza here...... They think that they are pulling wool over our eyes ... when they served us a pizza ... using a small thin white flour burrito tortilla topped with cheese and veggies or meat for $24.00. Can't wait to return to Napoli's for a decent pizza. It is amazing how spoiled we are in the US. They surely need to take a few Italian cooking classes to up-grade their culinary skills.
We also found a Bagel Shop much to Christine's surprise: she had no idea it was here. The bagels were actually pretty good .... even though the Bagel Shop had never heard of pumpernickel bagels. It was $16 for a half a dozen ... just to let you know the cost of things here.
We are still going at snails pace for Steve. Yesterday we attended the Veteran's Car Club in Perth. The various vintage cars were all lined up along the Esplanade (a spectacular park along the Swan River) over looking the Southern part of Perth. What a magnificent sight. k
Ken & Steve were in their glory.Then we took a jaunt up north to the Yanchep National Park and had a wonderful picnic there. Yanchep National Park has a natural environment of walking trails, spectacular scenery, limestone cave systems, gorges, coastal wetlands and beautiful lakes: we experienced a true Aussie environment of the Aboriginals (spears, boomerangs, tent and fire) and flora/fauna including kangaroos and koalas. All of the koala's were fast asleep in the trees from ODing on the eucalyptus leaves and yet the grey Kangaroo's were most welcome to the picture taking.
Today we took a tour of the stunning beauty of St. Mary's Cathedral which is the Mother church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth. It is the largest church building and an icon of the City of Perth having architectural and artistic developments spanning for centuries from 1865.
We also visited Australia's oldest operating Mint which was founded in 1899. It has some of the most commemorative coin programs ever seen. It handles over $700,000 worth of pure gold bullion. Each of us tried to lift 400 ounce pure gold bar with one hand (since it was enclosed .... only one hand was able to reach for it in the opening) and yet we were unsuccessful. http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo16.gif We witnessed 200 ounces of pure molten gold being poured into a gleaming solid gold bar and saw the largest gold coin in the world weighing 1 ton. What a marvelous golden memory.
Oh... and everyone drives on the wrong side of the street here.....
http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif
God bless...until later.
more to come
Hi,
Our first day here we slept most of the day..after pulling an all night-er on the plane.
Yesterday, after working out we visited the Dubai Mall: it is overwhelming with hundreds of high end stores of every kind (Tiffany's, Bvlgari, Eve St. Laurent, Gucci, Armani etc) all on three levels. When we arrived at the mall there was a valet parking: it was lined up with Lamborghini's', Ferrari's, Porche's etc.
The mall even had an ice skating rink ..... it was stunning to see all of these children ice skating at the mall where they have an average temperature of 85 degrees all year long: then they have a stunning water fall as well.
The mall is extremely touristy oriented: we observed one memorable moment .... four Arabic men (dressed in their sparkly white Keffiyeh and thawb) drinking their coffee sitting ..... at the Starbuck's outside patio. What a comical scene...... to bad we didn't have our camera.
Afterwards we had a private tour of Dubai in a BMW. Come to find out our driver Sebastian Babu's wife is BFing http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif.....so we are going to have a consult upon our return visit the end of the month. http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gifhttp://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gifhttp://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif Hurrah...Thank you Jesus....http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo5.gif
We learned all about Dubai on our tour: 80% of the monies that is generated is from tourism. The vibrant city is rich in financial investment (fortune 500 companies), business banking, trading and retail. It has a high scale quality of life with a passion for service in excellence. The opportunities for new businesses is open to everyone.
The flexible infra-structure of finance is mirror image to its unique beauty in the architecture like no where else in the world. The five American and the five Russian Architects are responsible for have creating and developing the cutting edge of it's sky line. It is breath taking and the building is still going on.
We visited the Dubai Museum:The first settlers were the Arab Bedouins who cultivated this land, protected their their city, did pearl fishing/diving and brought their specialty trades to build up the vibrant city ..... before the discovery of oil. I would like to mention that petrol or fuel is only $2/gallon here. The museum certainly makes on appreciate the culture here.
The Jumeira Marina is one of the magnificent regions where most of the Americans reside who are extremely wealthy. There are a variety of river boats to cruise for the evening for dinner. It is a landmark to see.
It is known for it's wealth of sports and vacation for everyone in the family.... if one can afford it.
We have no idea what we will do today before we zip off to Perth and Steve has come down with a sore throat.
Until later. God bless.
#2
Hello Everyone,
After four days of still recuperating and just hanging out with
Christine and Ken: Steve is very gingerly returning back to his charming smiley self.
......... So slowly we are inching our way into experiencing what we came for..... we just need more patience.
http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif Even though Steve is still under-the-weather, he was able to frequent two Harley Davidson Stores ...... to purchase T-shirts and to check out their bikes and of course visit a Ford Dealership. I am so delighted that Ken & Steve get along so well....especially when it comes to Men's toy. http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif
Ken actually built a 1953 Daimler for Christine back in the day .... So Christine and I drove it when we went food shopping the other day. We surely received some raising eye brow looks. I loved it.
Perth is the sunniest Capital of Western Australia and is known for its magnificent sunshine, picnics and magnificent cultural landscapes.
We are actually staying in Trigg with Christine and Ken (Christine and I went to Jr. College together in Bryn Mawr, Pa. and have remained the best of friends for the past 46 years). Trigg is an exclusive little town NW of Perth (about 20 minutes away) full of small valleys and hills and it has the best beaches in Australia with a Mediterranean climate. It is a beautiful little town and yet the population is flourishing since they arrived here over 3 decades ago.
The USD is just about equal to the AUD (Australian Dollar)... for the first time in decades.
Since everything is imported, the prices of food and dining out (actually everything) is astronomical. They have no concept of a real pizza here...... They think that they are pulling wool over our eyes ... when they served us a pizza ... using a small thin white flour burrito tortilla topped with cheese and veggies or meat for $24.00. Can't wait to return to Napoli's for a decent pizza. It is amazing how spoiled we are in the US. They surely need to take a few Italian cooking classes to up-grade their culinary skills.
We also found a Bagel Shop much to Christine's surprise: she had no idea it was here. The bagels were actually pretty good .... even though the Bagel Shop had never heard of pumpernickel bagels. It was $16 for a half a dozen ... just to let you know the cost of things here.
We are still going at snails pace for Steve. Yesterday we attended the Veteran's Car Club in Perth. The various vintage cars were all lined up along the Esplanade (a spectacular park along the Swan River) over looking the Southern part of Perth. What a magnificent sight. k
Ken & Steve were in their glory.Then we took a jaunt up north to the Yanchep National Park and had a wonderful picnic there. Yanchep National Park has a natural environment of walking trails, spectacular scenery, limestone cave systems, gorges, coastal wetlands and beautiful lakes: we experienced a true Aussie environment of the Aboriginals (spears, boomerangs, tent and fire) and flora/fauna including kangaroos and koalas. All of the koala's were fast asleep in the trees from ODing on the eucalyptus leaves and yet the grey Kangaroo's were most welcome to the picture taking.
Today we took a tour of the stunning beauty of St. Mary's Cathedral which is the Mother church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth. It is the largest church building and an icon of the City of Perth having architectural and artistic developments spanning for centuries from 1865.
We also visited Australia's oldest operating Mint which was founded in 1899. It has some of the most commemorative coin programs ever seen. It handles over $700,000 worth of pure gold bullion. Each of us tried to lift 400 ounce pure gold bar with one hand (since it was enclosed .... only one hand was able to reach for it in the opening) and yet we were unsuccessful. http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo16.gif We witnessed 200 ounces of pure molten gold being poured into a gleaming solid gold bar and saw the largest gold coin in the world weighing 1 ton. What a marvelous golden memory.
Oh... and everyone drives on the wrong side of the street here.....
http://mail.yimg.com/ok/u/assets/img/emoticons/emo69.gif
God bless...until later.
more to come