Dubai Day Three - Part Two

We headed back into The Dubai Mall...

They had fancy-shmancy cars that I'll never remember the name of on display in the middle of the mall...

My mother-in-law and I feeling right at home at Cartier...

...this is obviously where we belong. 

Well, either there, or Tiffany & Co...

...because we're clearly elegant.

Sister wanted to join in on the voguing...

(yes, I'm turning "vogue" into a verb. Because it's my blog and I can)

( I believe we've now gifted Wikipedia with pictures for their definition of the word "posers" )


After we had our time pretending to be fancy, we made our way to a different entrance/exit and purchased tickets for the Hop-On Hop-Off Double Decker Bus Tour...

Hanging out while David and his dad sorted out the tour bus info.
You'll note Brother has King Kong balanced on his head =).

I've always wanted to ride on the top of a double-decker bus! 
I'm pretty sure I've wanted to ever since I was a kid, but I also believe the desire was heavily influenced by the episodes of "Friends" when they went to London. 

My cute Mother-in-law and I...

...love her so much!

Stairs! On a bus!! Heading up to the open-air top floor!!!

Yes I am easily excited!

When the six of us first climbed up to the top of the bus, we found two couples sitting in the very front of the bus. We took some seats behind them.

Then, before the bus took off, they got up and moved to seats downstairs.

We're not sure what made them move - they smiled as they did - but we sure loved getting to sit in the very front!

The bus tour was really interesting, and such a relaxing way to drive all around Dubai and see the sites...

There's a streetcar that goes through the downtown square...

 I've learned how much this kid loves history during our travels over the last two years.
 Here he is, intently listening to the tour guide speak into the earbuds as he takes in the view of what he's learning about...

The Burj Khalifa is just so stunning, I couldn't stop taking pictures of it...

Dubai is very beautiful. It seemed so clean, so organized, so well-thought out.

Even the freeway underpasses are ornate...

Throughout the tour, we heard about many different buildings and how proud Dubai is of it's state of the architecture...

It was such a lovely day to be on an open-air bus ride! Nice sunshine and a refreshing breeze...

We took "Happiness Street" for a few miles...

It was right about this point in the tour that I pulled a Classic Kendra accidentally dropped the lens cap to our camera down to the street. 
I felt all panicky, and we were at a red light, so I thought maybe I had time to run downstairs, to the front of the bus, and hop outside to grab it real fast?
I mean, this is the nicest camera we've ever owned, and I hated the idea of leaving the lens unprotected until we could purchase a replacement...but David was super chill about the whole thing, and all "don't worry about it, it'll be fine, we can just get another lens cap when we get back to Kuwait."
Right as he was calming me down and explaining this, we hear "do you need this?" come from the street. 
I look down and there is a woman holding up the lens cap!
"YES! I DO!" I yell way too loudly and way too excitedly.
She proceeds to give it a toss, and it lands up in a seat next to us.
I probably yelled "Thank you!! You're SO KIND!" fifty times before the light turned green and we drove away =).



As much as everything in Dubai seems new, the tour took us to some older areas with more history, which was full of cool things...like this old fort...

We toured the seaside area where the spice boats come in and lots of importing is done...

The Boy and KingKong were loving the tour...

The Girl and Forest enjoyed it as well...

We were on the bus for about an hour and a half, and still only did about 50% of the hop-on hop-off tour. It was intriguing to learn so much about Dubai's history and how it currently operates as well, and a great way to cover so much area.

It was fairly expensive, and we didn't take full advantage of the options that came with our ticket (there was a boat tour included as well!), but we felt like it was a good experience, and we were all pleasantly surprised with how much we enjoyed it.

We might have continued further on the tour, but it had been a long day already and we were more than ready to head back to the hotel. 

When we got back there, I was KICKED.
 I thought everyone was, but David (aka SuperDad) somehow had the energy to take the kids swimming...

...which left me with a hotel room all to myself...oh what to do?

Pineapple hard cider, new slippers my inlaws delivered from Zulily for me, and a People magazine that my mother-in-law brought me...

...these are a few of my favorite things =)

A perfect ending to Day Three in Dubai.