Hi Dubai!

If you have seen my previous blog post, you will know that I went to Dubai over Easter and had an amazing time (the video shows it all). I have been back over a week now and I already feel the need to take a trip down memory lane and look at all my photos. Sometimes it's good to put your blog into good use and use it as an online scrapbook for everything you love. This is me doing just that...

If you are wanting to visit Dubai, these photos and my video are probably the perfect resources in persuading you to go (or in my case making me a bit depressed that I'm not there- sorry!). It may give you some ideas on what kind of stuff to see or do if you ever want to visit. Who knows?! Have a peek. 

(WARNING: excessive photo-taking and posing)

Our first night there we went on a little wooden boat in old Dubai to the souks at sunset. From what I know it was pretty cheap so it's a nice thing to do to venture out of the skyscraper jungle. Go at sunset for the best photo opportunities. Just look at that! 

The second day we went on a desert safari with Emirates Arabian Adventures. It was so fun and really good value for money (about £50-60 per person). It includes all transport, dune-bashing, drinks, camel-riding, 3-course meal in the desert, entertainment, henna tattoos, shisha, and more which I have probably forgotten. We got picked up from the Jumeirah Beach Hotel that had the best view of the Burj Al Arab so I, of course, had to take a very Instagram-able photo. 

For good measure, I thought I would throw in a picture of the Palace hotel where we picked some people up from for the desert safari. We later went for drinks there in the evening as we sat under the Burj Khalifa drinking Sangria. 

Sunset in the desert! (*tick it off the bucket list*)

Now skiing in Dubai was a pretty surreal moment. Ski Dubai is the largest indoor snow centre in the world so I had to go. The place was so big it had a chair lift in it, and penguins, a snow park AND a zipwire. I decided to stick to the skiing and it was incredible. I was so happy that I took a selfie by myself on the chair lift because I had no cares. 

These are the views from the Palace hotel which I mentioned earlier. Dubai is so pretty at night. 

Below is a picture of my crew before we went for brunch. Too. Many. Gins. 

The Atlantis waterpark, Aquaventure, was on the next day's agenda. I emphasise that the price on the website is wrong! We turned up and had to pay a bit extra and pay for a towel but we were too excited to care that much. The lazy river at Aquaventure is the king of lazy rivers, with rapids, slides, and a wave pool. I think we went round about 3 times and it is long. The staff even recognised us on our last circuit...

A really fun (scary) ride. And below: the queuing system in this waterpark was the best- a sit-down conveyer belt.

On our last evening we went to Dubai Mall to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, to see the fountains, and to go up the Burj Khalifa- the tallest building in the world. Due to Dubai laws not permitting the sale of alcohol in restaurants, the Cheesecake Factory had an amazing 'mocktail' menu that we all chose a drink from. They were huge and sooo good, I just wish were outside drinking them in the sun!

The portions at the Cheesecake Factory are absolutely massive. I will award anyone who finishes one of their portions a medal because my word, I struggled. It looked like I hadn't touched the plate when I finished. It was such good value for money considering the portion size and in hindsight, we should've shared! I decided on a Chinese Chicken Salad with orange, rice noodles and plum sauce. I mean, look at it, its the size of a small child!

(I am loving culottes at the moment- these are from Topshop). 

Up the Burj! SO TALL.

And there you go! As you can tell I had an awful time ;)

Take me back!

x

The Dubai Music Video

Give 4 girls a GoPro, a selfie stick and a catchy pop song in a hot, picturesque country then the result is this...

A couple of weeks back, my housemates and I ventured to Dubai on a much-needed holiday before all the hard work begins. My housemate lives out there so for the other 3, it was our first time to Dubai and we had such a good time. Dubai is something we have heard more about in the last two years than we have ever in our lives. Tell me two years ago that I would be going to Dubai on holiday, I would've asked you if I had won the lottery or had found a new obsession with entering TV competitions. With only a flight to pay for, the holiday was unquestionable: we are going to go to Dubai. 

Now, this video is just a fun insight to our week frolicking in the desert sunshine and I aim to do a few 'picture' blog posts on here over the next week or so. If you know me well by now, you know that these music videos are hobby of mine. So much so, that they are now expected if I go away anywhere. Suppose I have to live up to it!

Enjoy! 

Sun, Sea, Sand (and a Small Budget)

When you're a student and your purse seems to have holes in it, a holiday becomes less of a plan and more of a fantasy. Desperate to make a holiday happen, I worked solidly throughout summer- motivated that at the end of it all, I WILL get that holiday. 

My friend, Ruby and I decided we will have a small budget and make wherever we go a relaxing and blissful break away from all that hard work. So, two weeks before we planned to go, we booked a holiday for a mere £160- including our accommodation, flights, luggage and transfers through Olympic holidays to (judge if you may), Kavos. Notoriously famous for being a wasteland of drunken Brits falling out of Irish pubs (in Greece may I add), our desire for a holiday was clearly off the scale of desperation. So determined to avoid the endless armies of 'lads on tour', we boarded a plane to Corfu for a wishful week of sun, sea, sand, and lots of Greek food. 

I suppose the point of this post is to say that a cheap last minute holiday to a party resort is possible to do nicely. Our accommodation was very basic but huge (plenty of room for dancing), it had a balcony, and a nice pool area with a cheap bar. Not that we drank a lot like the rest of the resort (we had as much as wine at dinner), but the soft drinks were reasonably priced too. We stayed at the Oula Maisonettes- just on the outskirts of Kavos but within walking distance to amenities like restaurants, the beach, and a supermarket.

After a day round the pool on the first day, we ventured to the beach on day two in a bid to find a nice area of beach that didn't look grimy. By luck, we found a bar which had an area of beach and a pool that looked more Marbella than Kavos from it's white and seemingly upmarket design. To be honest, I think we went there most days just because it didn't fit in with its surroundings, tricking us into thinking we paid more for this holiday than we actually did. 

Next door to this pool/beach area, was undeniably our favourite restaurant. Called the Falconera, it was a beautifully traditional Greek restaurant run by a girl we described as a cross between Leah Jenner and Whitney Port. The Greek salad was the best, and in our time there we got free bread and houmous (the best I've ever had) and free coconut and orange cake on our last night. It is one of the oldest restaurants in resort, but the interior and menu has a contemporary twist that distinguished itself highly in comparison to others. It was like a little bit of luxury on our cheap trip! Plus, the food was incredible. 

Despite being on a budget, we managed to scrape back a few euros for something other than food. In the middle of our holiday, we went on a boat trip to the Blue Lagoon- described as turquoise, crystal clear waters that has been featured in many films. On our way, the weather wasn't particularly promising as it resembled more England than Greece. With our towels round our heads sheltering us from the shower of choppy waves and rain, we hopped on the boat on the way to Sivota on mainland Greece. If you ignored the weather, Sivota was a lovely little village with cute outdoor restaurants, cafes, and gelato shops. We decided to do an ice cream stop and take lots of photos of the picturesque landscape which displays a more calm version of the sea we previously experienced. 

With the sunshine peaking through the clouds, we headed to the Blue Lagoon for a swim with the fishes. As soon as we arrived the sun came out and it was absolutely amazing. I don't think we ever got out the water apart from jumping off the boat! There was so many fish! Due to the crystal clear water, it was a perfect moment to try out my new GoPro and here are the results…

Another one of our adventures on our budget holiday was renting out a quad bike for the day to explore the rest of Corfu's beaches. Not one for the faint-hearted, it was quite scary at times and it is pretty dangerous, but hey, we survived! We found a quiet beach on the other side of the island which had a beautiful sandy shore and lots of elderly people (haha). Even though we were the youngest there, it was a nice break from being round a pool bar listening to music so the silence was actually super relaxing.

I made a video for this holiday from all the footage we took on my GoPro which was so fun! I'll make another post for it soon. I think we proved to ourselves and everyone we know how easy and cheap it is to do a decent, relaxing beach holiday on a very cheap budget. There was obviously some things that you would expect on a holiday this price such as, rubbish flight times and very British resorts, but you can definitely ignore this if you try (and indeed we did). 

I'm definitely going to do a last minute holiday more often!

x