For those of you that know me, you'll know that Dubai is a city that I am just obsessed with and I always have been. Many people just think it's an artificial city as none of it is natural and it really is a concrete jungle BUT there is so much to love about it - well I think so anyway!
It all began on my first ever trip to Dubai, I was 3 years old. The reason for our trip was because my Granddad (who I call Hat) is a civil engineer, he did the testing for the famous 'Burj Al Arab' hotel so we went to go and visit it when it had finally been built. From that moment onward, I have been obsessed with everything Dubai! 3 year old's enjoy any holiday that involves a swimming pool I guess, but ever since then I knew Dubai was the city I was going to live in when I was older.
This is a picture of me on Jumeriah Beach when there wasn't a famous Dubai skyline, just a handful of hotels and restaurants!
Throughout my life, my family and I have been going to Dubai countless amounts of times. It's
almost as if we have watched it grow and develop as a city and seen more people grow to love it just like I do, but of course, nobody loves it quite as much as I do, haha!
This is going to sound bizarre, but one of the main reasons why I feel so comfortable in the UAE is because it is SO CLEAN!!!!!! The floors are constantly mopped, the streets swept, shop windows washed and they spray traditional Arabian scents in most places, which I also love. They take pride in their city and keep it extremely well maintained.
Another reason is, the safety. The United Arab Emirates is one of the safest countries in the world. You can walk freely in crowded areas in the centre of the city without a worry that someone is going to come and rob off of you! I remember, my parents, grandparents and I were in one of the many malls within the city, and a woman was just carrying around a stack of cash in her hands like they were tissues! I don't think you could ever really do that in Westfield, Shepherds Bush, right? So, safety is something I am very keen on and Dubai offers a great deal of that to me!
As I've gotten older, I have been extremely fortunate that I have been able to travel to various countries but none of them have made me want to pack up everything at home and move there in seconds. When my parents first took me to Los Angeles, my mum was 100% sure that LA would steal my heart and I would no longer have this obsession to live in Dubai! Much to her delight (as my mum wants to live in the USA) I told her that LA wasn't as good and I think I could hear my mums heart break hahaha... BUT when I went to Los Angeles more recently, I did like it a lot more than my first visit, so who knows maybe I will get to live in both cities...
Then 2016 came and there were talks of Hat having to go and live in Dubai, I was trying to not get excited as I didn't want to jinx anything. Then one day as I had finished college, I got into the car and my mum said to me, "It's confirmed, Nani and Hat are moving to Dubai!"(my grandparents) and I was literally the most excited person in the whole world at this point because this meant I could go to Dubai even more!
We took a trip just before they moved out there to go apartment hunting. Who would have known that the same beach I played on when I was 3 years old was going to be the beach that they lived on!!
During the summer of 2017, I had just finished my A-Levels and I decided to spend a month in Dubai. Before you ask, YES Dubai is very hot in July and August, it was around 48 degrees on most days so I literally think I sweated out all my body weight in that month, which I have now put back on:/
At the beginning of this trip I was able to take a very close friend of mine, Bianca, as she had never been before and I wanted to show her why I thought it was so great. Here it enabled me to be a total tourist again, we went on a Desert Safari, swam with dolphins, went to the malls, the beach (not the best idea), went up The Burj Khalifa and much more!
After Bianca left I managed to arrange Work Experience for myself in the city. I was able to spend a week in one of Dubai's biggest radio stations, Dubai 92! Imagine doing something you love in your favourite city... I was literally living MY DREAM!! Here I was able to go into the newsrooms and see how they gather news and get it to their audience, obviously different country means different laws you have to abide by when releasing stories publicly. Doing this confirmed even more (if that was possible) that Dubai is the place I am determined to get to once I finish University.
Overall, Dubai is a city that I've always loved and I always will. It honestly makes me happy when people go and ask my advice on where to stay and what to do haha...maybe that has just led me onto another idea for a new blog?
Make sure to comment or message me on social media if you would like to know! Thank you to all of you who messaged me after my previous blog post, it really meant a lot to me.
Xian xx
