Dubai Mall Aquarium - September 19, 2009

After we finished at the Mosque we headed to Dubai for the afternoon. On the way to Dubai we saw wild camels (at least we think they were wild). I got Wayne to stop so that we could get some pictures. :)

I know this sounds silly but we headed to the Dubai Mall. At the mall they have this huge aquarium. One of the largest aquariums in the world, housed in the world's largest mall right next to the world's largest building. Hmmmm- do you see a pattern here?

This aquarium was COOL. They had all kinds of fish: big, little, huge, colourful, plain, silver, etc. They had sharks, rays, eels, again in different sizes and shapes. Once you look at the outside and have paid your ticket you get to walk up closer to them and then get to go in a glass tunnel, where you can see them swimming at you, around you and over you. Way, Way cool. It is long enough but not really long in the grand scheme of things but we spent over an hour just walking through the tunnel and watching everything swim by. There were so many different fish that everytime you looked you found a new one.

We finally made it through the tunnel and headed up to the underwater zoo. Yes we are still in the mall. Here they had otters, turtles, pirhanas, jelly fish, sea horses, dragon fish, razor fish, seals, penguins, alot of different rays, small sharks, poison dart frogs, crocs, Nemo, Dory, Puffer from Finding Nemo. The kids had a blast. So did Wayne and I. The kids even got to feed the fish that were in the huge aquarium. It was an amazing day.

The kids and I have seven more days to our holiday. I don't know how we are going to even come close to today in the wow factor.

Grand Mosque - September 19, 2009

We visited the Grand Mosque today, with Stephanne (the teacher I'm TAing for). WOW!! It was breathtaking. All the pillars made of marble with inlay of different stones, was amazing. The floors were also marble with inlay of different stones making lovely floral patterns. There were pools of water with the Mosque reflecting in them. Part of the floor, if you looked closely, were tiny tiles of marble in a pattern all joined together to make larger tiles. There were painted mosaics on different tiles through out. It was all just amazing to walk around and look at the workmanship that went into making it - and this was just the outside.

To go into the actual Mosque you have to take off your shoes and make sure you are dressed properly: Men/boys in long pants, long shirts; Women in long skirts so you can't see your ancles, long sleeve shirts and then we were given our own abaya to wear when we got there. We also had to have our heads covered inside. It was very bright outside with all the white marble and the sun, so we were happy to go inside for a while.

The inside of the Mosque was absolutely beautiful. Again the workmanship of the stone work, the huge crystal chandalairs were staggering. The largest hand-woven Persian carpet in the world. The glass work on the windows, the stone work with lights shining through on the walls and floors, just made it one of those places that you are constantly gauking at everything trying to take it all in and still only seeing part of it. It is definately one of those places that anyone coming over will want to see, and we would be more than happy to go again and again, to try and take it all in.

The kids were awesome in the Mosque because they were also trying to see everything and taking pictures of everything. Take a look at our pictures, but you should also check out this site: http://www.visitabudhabi.ae/en/what.to.do/mosques.and.other.places.of.worship/sh.zayed.mosque.aspx

The first part is of information for times open and stuff, but go the bottom and it gives some stats about the Mosque. It really is impressive to see and read about. We had a wonderful time exploring it.