Jumeirah Mosque
During morning hours of my last day in Dubai I visited Jumeirah Mosque where a British lady gave us a tour and explained a lot about the Mosque and Islam in general. It was a very interesting, although slightly forcefully cheery experience.
Burj Khalifa
After running around way too long in the burning sun, I returned to Dubai Mall to wait for my turn to go up the Burj Khalifa. Sadly, the visibility wasn’t all that great that day, but it’s still a cool thing being able to brag how I’ve been up the tallest building in the world.
View from the observation deck
Afterwards I waited for the waterworks of the Dubai Fountain, which was quite something and reminded me of another supremely surreal city I had been to in the past – Las Vegas. Water dancing to my “favorite” (please save me now) song of all time (… and aaaaaiaiaiaaaa will always love youuuuuuuu).
Burj Khalifa at night
Dubai compilation video:
After that, it was already time to return to the airport where I finally united with Danie and we continued our journey to Osaka together. A teary, joyful, and dramatic reunion, as was to be expected.
The flight was annoying, due to it’s length alone, but other than that, we were pleasantly surprised of how little scared we were. My vegan meal was very tasty, thank you, Emirates.
After landing at Kansai International Airport, we took the train to Namba station in the city center, and that’s when it happened. We must have looked particularly lost, because within minutes a lovely Japanese lady approached us to ask if she could assist us (in perfect English, by the way). Turns out she was an English teacher and had fond memories of a vacation in Germany a while back where German people were really helpful, so she wanted to return the favor. But that’s not where this story ended. Not only did she help us find the right subway platform (and, believe me, we would have been COMPLETELY lost without her as Namba station is probably as big and confusing as Dubai Mall), she even boarded the train with us and accompanied and led us right to the door of our hostel. Had we not been so tired and in urgent need of taking a shower, we would have loved inviting her for a glass of sake. It was quite unbelievable and the most perfect initiation for the statement I am going to make:
We love Japan.
We’ve only been here for one night (in a more than lovely little ryokan style hostel), but, so far, it has been everything we’ve been hoping for, and more. The people are more than friendly, the atmosphere is relaxed and peaceful, we felt completely safe exploring the neighbourhood last night and bought ourselves our very first bento (oishii!) that we enjoyed with a glass of sake and beer on the hostel’s rooftop. I even managed to ask the clerk something very basic in Japanese (ohashi ga arimasu ka?) and was so very proud when he understood what I wanted. It’s still a bit hard to believe we really made it and are finally here, though.
We’re quite sad that we have to leave our lovely hostel after only one night (our very first night on a futon, which was very comfy and nice).
Today we are going to explore Osaka, visit the castle and do some (window) shopping.
See you soon, or ja mata!
The only graffiti I saw in Dubai
Aus Zeitgründen war es uns leider nicht möglich, den Blog zweisprachig weiterzuführen. Von jetzt an werden alle Posts ausschließlich in englischer Sprache verfasst sein. Wir bitten um Entschuldigung.