The Hixson Holiday Headlines: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Sunday, March 1, 2020

We arrived at 11:30 AM. Since we spent some time touring Abu Dhabi back in May 2015, we decided to wait until after 1:00 to avoid the immigration line to head into town.

Abu Dhabi...an ultra modern city. Today there were three cruise ships docked. You would never know it, they were super organized with electronic temperature monitors and no immigration lines. With big smiles on our faces, Larry and I said , “YES”! Let’s go see what going on here.

The cruise terminal was super clean, modern and well organized. A gorgeous building with really nice shops off to the side. Duty free shopping was nonexistent. This was extremely noticeable and unusual for traveling in a foreign country.

They still give much ado to the past and.....

present leaders.

They have to be brothers......they look so much alike.

We decided to take the Hop on Bus Tour to get a good view of the city. This was a great idea because Abu Dhabi has grown tremendously since 2015.

A shuttle bus took us to one of the famous Emirates Malls. These folks know how to make awesome malls. Why? Because it is so dang hot here (120-130 degrees in the summer months) that the locals come to the malls for entertainment. The malls in the EAU are incredible with winter skiing slopes, ice skating, bowling ally’s, aquariums and other fantastic entertainment as well as high end shopping. They are really a nice place to spend a hot afternoon.

While we did see some women in total black clothing......

some women’s clothing appears to be more colorful in UAE than in Omen..... and we were told that they can wear a bathing suit at the beach.....we observed other countries making their women swim fully clothed.

The men continue to dress in long white robes, but with a white or red and white head dress in a scarf format. An agal is an accessory worn usually by men. It is a black cord, doubled, used to keep a ghutrah , the scarf, in place on the head. It is traditionally made of goat hair.

Occasionally we saw some very interesting head dresses.

Mickey D’s delivery in Abu Dhabi? Now that is far out!

Newly built Abu Dhabi Louvre...just like the one in Paris with exquisite art.
What an incredible statement in architecture!

Construction is going on all over this city. We do not recognize this city from our visit five years ago. There were not this many high rises. There was lots of open space here in 2015. It is all filled in with ultra modern buildings. It is unbelievable how the skyline has changed....and is still going on.

I love the palm trees that line the roads. All areas here were extremely clean and well groomed.

Plants and flowers were in abundance. We were told on the tour that the largest desalination water system from the Persian Gulf allowed billions of gallons of water to be used to make the area green. We saw an unlimited amount of irrigation running along the roads that we traveled. Without this irrigation system, you can only imagine the huge, sandy, dry areas that would exist.

It is obvious that the leaders in the EAU are striving to make their country desirable in attracting businesses from around the world. They are smart because who knows how long the oil that is currently here will last.

Ultra- modern ten lane highways.....

and street names honoring leaders.

Isn’t the water a pretty color?

World’s Fastest Roller Coaster....240 kilometers or 150 miles an hour ....Quoting Fred Flintstone,“Yabba-Daba-doo”

The Sheikh Zayed Mosque also referred to as the Grand Mosque

When we were here in 2015, we were told this Mosque was the largest in the world. Today we read that it is the eighth largest. It is hard to stay number one.

This Mosque was an incredible work of architecture built in 1997 and expanded in 2007.

We heard the minarets call the locals to pray while on our bus tour. If you have never experienced this, you kind of ask “ what the $*%$#* is going on?”. We saw this in the reactions of our fellow tourists many times in our Middle East travels. Larry and I experienced this while living next to a Mosque when living in Dilli,Timor Leste in 2008. We grew used to hearing this call to pray five times a day, but the first few times we wondered what was going on. We grew tremendously in respecting the beliefs of other cultures.

Not long ago, this great manicured walking and biking trail called the Abu Dhabi Corniche was developed along the water front. Larry and I so wanted to grab the rental bikes or scooters and truck down this gorgeous walkway.

As we drove down the 8 kilometer Corniche, we witnessed a grand sailboat race.

As we circled to the other side of the inlet, we saw the sailboat winners.

The architecture in Abu Dhabi is so intriguing.

These two buildings, somewhat like two honeycombs, were developed to provide more privacy for the owners and prevent window glare.

Abu Dhabi has their own “Eye Ferris Wheel” like other cities around the world.

The highest bridge between two tall buildings.

Exquisite tile patterned building

How unique is this structure?

This reminded us of the famous structure in Singapore.

A “Space Needle” like the American one in Seattle, Washington

There was a contrast in architecture from the vast modern to....

the older styles. with....

the ornate lights.

The President’s Palace, an exquisite five star hotel, that the government uses for official international visitors. We visited here in 2015. It was the bees knees then! Looks a lot more secure now. I’m not sure they would let us in now.