7th Febuary 2010

The view from our hotel room told us that today wouldn’t be the hottest on record. Dressed modestly, we headed in a taxi to the souks in Deira City. Hit with the smell of spices on opening the taxi door, we knew which souk we were at. I’d say that no more than 10 minutes into our first day in Dubai, Adam had been totally converted to Sheik Al Bin Newton, Arabian Prince and potential buyer of Sheffield United football club (had he also been give the money of a prince)…

It was too easy to get lost in the souks, every ally looking the same. Piled with 9ct diamonds, the goldest gold, textiles, spices and watches (both fake and genuine).

We escaped along the river, where the pirate-style boats docked and piles upon piles of who-knows-what filled every possible gap.

Crossing onto the other side of the river, the souks had started to shut down and so had we. Feeling exhausted, we retired to a courtyard hideaway where we hid from the Middle Eastern bustle of the markets and busy roads.

Winding down for the day, we knew we needed a power nap to get through the evening plans, arranged by Adam.

Ok, so the evening didn’t go quite to plan (we got totally lost, not sure where the restaurant even was and never found out) but ended up seeing an amazing view of New Dubai by night and stumbled onto Fashion Avenue where the manager of a flag-ship Chanel store gave Adam his business card in case he ever wanted to come back and work in Dubai. The mall was filled with shops selling the most ‘bling’ that you could imagine; yet the polite staff were extremely welcoming…we felt at home here!! Rolex, Armani, Gucci, D & G. What we didn’t realise at the time is that we had only touched on a tiny part of Dubai Mall.

We swiftly ate some, urm, interesting Chinese cuisine and tiredly made our way back to the hotel… in style! A blacked out Lexus… it was Dubai after all! Oh, and to end the night we popped open a bottle of Moet. (Should we admit that we sipped the champagne out of plastic cups whilst watching Benidorm Series One on DVD?! You can take Adam and Kate out of England, but you cant…)