My Trip to the Corniche~~

Today a friend and I traveled to the Corniche area of Abu Dhabi. We visited the Marina Mall, the beach, and Heritage village.





Marina Mall is HUGE!  It is quite possibly the largest Mall I have ever been to. To the right you will see a photo of the mall from a distance. This is totally deceiving. Inside there are so many wings and floors, it is easy to get turned around in there.

Inside the mall you will find "Snow World" and its very own indoor ice skating rink. I didn't attempt to try this. The last time I skated I was around 8 years old and I skated on my ankles. Something told me I wouldn't be much better at it now at almost 50 years of age!



This is also the first mall I have ever seen a Ferrari store!  Of course, the Emirates LOVE their fast cars. There is even a theme park named "Ferrari World"!  That park is supposed to have the fastest roller coaster in the world!  One day I would like to experience it.





While we in the mall, they were looking for participants for the next "Arab Idol". I decided to try out for it, but I didn't make the age cut off. lol  You can see my audition picture to the right. I do hope everyone realizes I did not actually try out. I do not think I could EVER have done that. ;-)



After our time on the Idol stage we visited the Marina Mall's "VOX" theatre. This multi-plex theatre is state of the art and is amazing. To begin with, when you approach the box office it is apparent that things are done a little differently than what I am used to. After telling the box office attendant what movie we wanted, she asked us what seats did we want. I am used to general seating  so this I thought that was interesting.

To do this she showed us a computer screen. Every individual seat was displayed.  There are two levels of seating.  The top seats were $45 dirhams per seat, and the lower seating was $35 dirhams per seat. Why the difference in price? For the extra $10 dirhams you are given plush leather seating, which reclines and allows for couples to have some distance from their neighbors. There is also a small table between the two seats allowing for placement of your concession items.

These were nice, but we decided to choose the lower priced seating. It turned out to be more than adequate, and was in fact probably 95% better than my hometown theatre's seating!  I forgot to mention, the movie was in English, but as expected there are Arabic subtitles. One thing I totally did not expect is that in addition to Arabic, there was also subtitles in French!


After the mall we walked to the Corniche. This is the name for the beach area. The water was BEAUTIFUL!  The color was a rich mix of torquoise and teal. There are three beaches on the Corniche. One is for the men, one for women, and the last one is for families. My friend and I found a small strip of beach and we decided to wade in. I must say, the water was much colder than I expected! 


Surrounding the beaches you can see many waterfront restaurants and a huge marina with many yachts bobbing in the water. One of the largest ones was for sale!  Maybe I could afford that on my teaching salary??  Yea right...

I liked this one, it reminds me of Noah's Ark

Walking around the area you will see ongoing construction everywhere!  The beautiful architecture seen everywhere is constantly being challenged by the new buildings popping up everywhere.

If you get tired, you can rent some very interesting pedaled vehicles.  There are 4 seaters and 2 seaters. They look like fun, but we didn't try them out.

After our trek around the Marina we walked down the long road towards Heritage Village. Hertitage village it an area set aside to show how the Bedouins (Arab people) lived in the past. It was a very interesting area. In it there are tents and stone houses used in the not so distant past.

The examples of homesteads was interesting, but some of the small touches didn't look historically accurate. For example, I do not believe there were kerosene lanterns used by the nomadic Bedouins. Even so, it was a unique experience.

Here's lookin at ya

 The highlight of my visit was seeing the animals. This is the first time, and I am sure not my last time, being near a camel. Frankly, it made me a little nervous. A camel has alot of weapons in it's arsenal. A camel can give you a nasty bite, spit a foul smelling phlegm ball at you, or give you a kick that can give you a wicked bruise. Thankfully, I didn't receive any of that, but I was still a little leary.




Just look at those chompers!!!  YIKES!!

I found two animals more my speed: An Arabian horse and a Donkey. Both animals were sweet and loved to have their noses rubbed. I missed having an animal to pet and I was sad to leave them behind.

All in all, it was a busy day. I had a wonderful day and after a quick cab ride back to the Hotel, I was ready for bed. However, upon walking into the lobby it was apparent that something exciting had happened. All the new EMTs were milling around the lobby talking to each other excitedly. It turns out, tomorrow will be moving day for the new teachers who will be moving out into Al Gharbia and Al Ain. Tomorrow will be a sad day seeing my new found friends leaving on a bus bound for the unknown.

More paperwork!

WOW, I must say the Unitd Arab Emirants LOVES their paper trail!  Before I was able to be given the teaching position in th U.A.E. I had to gather my Teaching certification certificate, my college Degree, and my Marriage license and send them off to become "Authenticated".

The steps in completing this task can be a bit daunting. I outlined the steps in doing this on my December 15th post. However, that is not the end of the paperwork. Today, I had to take my marriage license that had been through the U.S. autentication process, and travel down town to locate a translation service.

Translation??  Yes, you heard me correctly. I had to take my U.S. government stamped documents to the Foreign Ministry office located in the Basement of the Marina Mall. When there, I was required to pay $150 Dirhams for the attendent to place yet another stamp on my papers.

After that was completed, I traveled to another area of the city, Hamden center, to locate a translation service. When the taxi dropped me off, I had to dodge the racing cars to cross the street. There were many translation Services to be found. I walked into one store, and spoke to an older Emirate gentlemen. He was quite nice and translated my documents fairly quickly.

I also had him translate my Maryland Driver's license so I would be able to eventually acquire my UAE driver's license.

As you can see, each document must go
 through many steps and many stamps!

Here is a picture of my documents translated:

I know you are probably wondering why I need these documents thoroughly authenticated and translated. The main purpose is to acquire my Resident Card. Without it, I would not be able to stay in the country.

On the bus awaiting our finger printing!

Another item on thngs needed for my resident card is having my fingerprints cleared. Yesterday morning, we were loaded onto a bus and taken to a place to be fingerprinted. Of course, they wanted to do this at 6:30 am!  The bus was packed and whirled through the streets. Once there, we again were placed in a holding pattern awaiting our turn to be fingerprinted. The fingerprinting office uses a computer scanner to acquire our prints. At least, we were not having to clean off messy fingerprinting ink! 

Hopefully soon, we will be obtaining our Resident I.D. card. Without it, we will not be able to use banking services, get our apartment, secure electricity and cable television services!  

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Today a group of us when to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. This place was totally awesome! The Mosque is not only Beautiful but very meaningful to the muslim faith here in the United Arab Emirates. I took many photos and I will try to adequately describe the wonderous things I have seen today.

Sign at beginning of path

Approaching the Mosque

One of the intricate columns found
 throughout the main courtyard

Another view of the courtyard

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Women must wear an Abaya while entering the

 Mosque. If you do not haveone they will give

 you a freshly laundered one to borrow.

Abayas waiting for new wearers

One of the many flowers in the\
 marble courtyard walkway

The inside of each dome has Islamic
 writing relating holy scripture

The top of each minaret is covered
in Gold Leaf
 and encapulated in glass for protection

Our tour guide

One of the beutiful chandeliers-they are made
 of Austrian Swarovsky Crystal

Close up of the column detail

There are many flowers in the Mosque. It is made
 to represent a garden, which is what heaven will be like

Inside the main prayer chamber, visitors will walk on a HUGE persian rug.
 In fact, this is the world's largest one piece rug found!

The columns within the main prayer hall are
inlayed with mother of pearl and abalone.

Close up view of the beautiful chandelier!

One of the many reflecting pools
 found around the Mosque

Many columns have palm tree references. The guide said
  that the UAE loves their palm trees. There are more than
400,000 found in the area!

Just to put it into perspective...
See how large the main courtyard is?

There are 100 flowers circling a main one. 99 of these flowers has one charicteristic of God written in Arabic. The remaining empty flower represents the unknown aspects of God, humans with thier finite brains could not understand. The center larger flower has "Allah" the Islamic name for God.

 I hope you enjoyed your look at my day's adventure, I know I did :-)