QIANRAN DAI

The 10-day tour is over. Sadly, I already begin to miss it.

I would say with no doubt that this is my best tourism experience ever. People here are warmhearted and thoughtful to every one. The skyscrapers are special and beautiful. The desert is gorgeous. Everything is just so perfect that I can’t believe they are real. But they are.

The most remarkable experiences that I had were L’altelier des Chefs of Dubai and the Desert Safari.

 

 

L’altelier des Chefs of Dubai is a cooking school that discovers a range of cooking classes. It hires professional chefs to teach you knife skills and other culinary tips. We had a good time cooking our dinner with the guidance of Derin Aribas and his assistant. He taught us how to cut herbs, as we took off the hard stems and gently rub the leaves into a ball to let more liquid stay in the leaves. And speak of mushrooms, we removed the stems to make the cutting process safer. In addition, we learned the basic method to cook a steak. We put butter in a hot pan, then put the seasoned raw steak inside. To avoid the hot oil splashing to ourselves, we should lay the meat down away from us, towards the back of the stove instead of the front. At last, in the plating session, Derin told us always try to make the dish look high to draw people’s attention.

We had a wonderful meal eating the food created from our own hands, and it actually was very tasty. The spicy taste of little potatoes were just right, steak was with great quality, the mushroom slides mixed with cream sauce were very chewy and full of flavor as well. I enjoyed this activity a lot because Derin showed us not only the epitome of the restaurant kitchen, but also the quality of a chef you need to make sure everything is in the right amount and being cooked in the correct amount of time, you need to control them to arrange the food. If something went wrong, you must keep following the next procedure and try to fix it afterwords, don’t hesitate on the work, it only will make the result worse, so you need to always feel relaxed and calm down. I think that’s a good personality for even all the hospitality industry people, because when different things are popping up all the time, it’s really difficult to focus on one issue, people may easily get stressed and even lost.

The other one is Desert Safari. This was my first time to go deep in a desert, and it is truly amazing. Our whole group went by several SUV’s.  When we dived deep inside the desert, the ground was all silver sand and they form small hills. The special geography made our ride like a roller coaster. We went up and down through the desert, it was so much fun and I will never forget that moment.

After that we touched the sands and saw sun set in the desert. I felt peace when I saw the boundless desert stretched to the horizon, just like an ocean without waves. They are motionless, like eternity. Finally we rode camels, they have only one hump. Besides we ate some traditional food and laid on the ground to see the beautiful stars. It was a enjoyable day. I thought it would be very hot in the desert, but in fact we came in afternoon, the temperature had gone down and was very comfortable. This experience helps me widen my eyes, and makes me more clear about life condition at desert countries.

Dubai, I will come back some day!

P.S. Special thanks to our nice tour guide Mozhgan.

The Dubai tour has passed 5 days out of 10, we’ve seen lots of things and experienced the Arabic culture.

We arrived Dubai on December 14th night. The Double Tree by Hilton Hotel & Residences Dubai Al Barsha is where we reside. The hotel room is super comfortable with excellent housekeeping service.

On December 15th, we visited Dubai museum in Bastakiya area, the old town area of Dubai, and learnt the Dubai history. The city’s major industry was pearl diving. After 1930, it collapsed due to the growing population. In 1966, Dubai started the oil era. In 1971, United Arab Emirates established by Abu Dhabi president Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Now Dubai city has become a modern metropolis with 2,250,000 population (2015 census). We acknowledged the brief concept of Muslim culture.

I also saw how the religion influences Dubai’s living condition, for instance, their official weekends are Friday and Saturday, because Friday is the day that Muslims go to the Mosque. I feel that culture is essential to hospitality industry, a cultural difference can cause a lot more adjustments to almost every dimensions of a hospitality related property. So the industry companies should hire the scrupulous employees and listen to the guests’ feedback carefully to avoid the misunderstanding of the different cultures.

 

We visited the hotel Burj Al Arab and Palm Island on December 16th. They are just amazing. Then we looked around in hotel Atlantis on December 17th. This hotel is dramatically large; it contains almost everything a tourist needs. On December 18th, we climbed up to the top of the Burj Khalifa and went shopping at the world’s largest mall-Dubai Mall.

Besides those attractions, we also listened a presentation from Nakheel (Arabic: نخيل‎ palms or palm trees), a government owned real estate developer in Dubai founded in 2000. It is also the creator of several land reclamation projects, including the Palm Islands, the Dubai Waterfront, The World and The Universe Islands.

We saw a big future that Dubai holds through their presentation. The islands are gorgeous, and the villas on the islands are super-popular through international purchasers. Most of the purchasers buy the houses only for holiday vacations. In addition, I noticed the islands are soaking into the ocean inch by inch every year, and they have special management department deal with the issue. I have never heard any program like this – creative, adventurous and grandiose – and it reminded me to keep an open eye to the world’s current changes. Think boldly, and you never know!

P.S. We also saw how Arabians love gold. They can simply purchase gold through an ATM!