We went over to Dubai this weekend as Nick attended the TESOL Arabia conference. While it was a quick weekend and Nick had some presentation to attend we still got a chance to meet up with a couple colleagues from Japan and hit the spice and gold souk (market). We really didn't even do that much shopping, only one mall for us and only 5...10 stores were visited :)

It's about a 1 hour 1/2 ride to Dubai and Thursday afternoon there was very little traffic which made for smooth sailing. Thankfully our friend Tara drove and she's become quite the expert driving here. Nick did get his license though...so he's up next.

Compared to Abu Dhabi there is a lot more....a ton more building going on over there and when you hit the city it is much more sprawled out then AD and over all a much larger city. Although, lacking from Dubai which is a pleasant addition in AD, is the greenery, trees and flowers. Very few were seen in Dubai. I know that both cities are trying to increase the number of green areas.

Here are a few photos from our trip to the souks, more photos from Dubai can be seen on Picasa
The gold souk was filled with tons and tons of gold and diamonds...I am sure I won't have a problem picking out something from here in the future!