First glimpses

We arrived on Thursday arvo, the heat almost knocking us over as we stepped off the plane.

At first glance Dubai is a strange place. It looks unfinished, dusty like a construction site and then you step inside and it's marble and glitz.

We got to our hotel/apartment and ate and crashed as we'd been awake for a long time. Despite flying business class Darbs cried and whinged the whole flight so sips of Moët were had as I paced the aisle and there were no sleeps in the lie-flat seat. The girls on the other hand lived it up ordering lemonades, watching movies, they loved it. At least someone did.

Day one: we woke early and had a brekkie that looked pretty similar to home. We hit the pool in an attempt to cool down. We then hit the Dubai Mall, the largest in the world. The girls marvelled at the aquarium and the many kids designer shops (Baby Dior, Roberto Cavalli, Fendi, it went on and on).

The website told me that the food court was open during Ramadan, which it was but despite being able to buy food you weren't allowed to eat it there. It made no sense to me, why be open if you can't eat? Oh well, we're all learning a lot! A whole new world to experience. I'm totally ignorant at the moment.

Instead we checked out the supermarket which was surprisingly good, a lot of Aussie produce and cheaper than home. Even the pork products were great, even if they're tucked behind a secret door.

Day two: After a good nights sleep it was time to brave the traffic in our hire car. We found the girls' school and checked out potential areas to live. We found Skip's twisted work tower. We saw the indoor ski ramp from the outside. We kept cool from 48 degree heat.

We tried to soak in the place and imagine ourselves living here. At the moment it all feels like a holiday. We have to keep pinching ourselves that this is our new life as we look around and realise we're not in the inner west of Sydney any more.

Eid (the celebration for the end of Ramadan) is about to start and it's going to be amazing to see what that entails. It's a long weekend here and everyone is having five days off.

So, so far so good. Bring on our Dubai life!